As my office door is only a few steps down the hall from the labs being renovated, I get a ring-side seat to the construction. Luckily, so far I've been able to ignore most of the noise and chaos. Though, our faculty are finding out that having me so close to the action is very handy - as I can let them know in an instant when issues come up. I feel like a spy, under the guise of a paleontologist... there's two movie genres that if they ever came together could be an instant blockbuster regardless of plot. Think about it... high tech gadgets, subterfuge, fight scenes, and dinosaurs. How could it not make money?
But before I start planning my next alternate career, perhaps I should get back to the blog post at hand.
So we are under renovation. Why? Well, there are a few reasons why now is a good time to restructure (physically). First, we're in the process of hiring a new faculty member, who will be needing some swanky new lab space - granted the final renovation of the new hire's lab space is in freeze mode until we actually hire someone. But in anticipation of our new addition, one of our existing faculty members is taking the opportunity to move lab spaces, and most of our construction so far has had to do with this relocation.
So far, the best part of this relocation has directly effected my own office. Previously, my office door was off the main lab wing hallway, only sandwiched in an 8 foot strip of hallway closed off by two sets of doors (that lead along the same, single hallway). It was beyond ridiculous - good thing I'm not claustrophobic. But now the second door has been removed! Hooray, I am part of the rest of the wing! The second door is going to be switched out for the old door to the lab under remodel. Why? Because it swings into the lab and not into the hallway - which has access to the fire exit, and fire safety requires the door to swing toward the fire exit.
We've also had cabinets and doors torn out and moved into the new room. The room was an old classroom, set up similar to a college chemistry lab. The old gas lines for burners were taken out and one of the three sinks removed. There's a very nice fume hood in the lab, but we are still trying to get it to work. If physical plant can't fix it, then we will ditch it for more grad student or volunteer space. Dr. Weil has a working fume hood in her lab, so we won't be totally bereft without this one. This week, they've been mostly working on re-routing the electrical for the new layout and finishing up moving the doors.
We are also kicking around ideas for some new communal vert paleo lab equipment and space. But all of that is still in idea mode, and I will post about it when it becomes a reality. Right now the fore-runner in the list of ideas is a 'dirty' prep lab, but more on that later.
~ JB McHugh
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