painted by numbers

i had an interesting dream last night. maybe it's not that interesting, but i want to remember it.

*****

a girl needed help with something. she showed me a piece of paper with x.x.8.0 written on it. she wanted to know how to split that into two subnets. i wanted to explain to her that she could split it into x.x.8.0 and x.x.9.0 by using a /23 (or 255.255.254.0). before i could, she started telling me how she thought she figured it out but was unsure of her answer. she begins to write out a long, complex math equation using simple addition and binary.

i had never seen her method before. it had the right elements involved, but used in a way that would surely not find a solid answer. however, because i had never seen this method i didn't know the logic behind it. in situations like this, rather than tell the person they are wrong i side with a small part of me that thinks i may learn something. i watched her quickly scribble across the paper.

i sense that the follow up question will be about what to use for a specific amount of hosts. i envision how i will explain it to her. she's still writing out her math from the previous question.

*****

waking up and trying to find a word to describe how i feel about that dream. lots of little adjectives, but i cant find anything to sum it all up. i dont usually - or ever - dream about subnetting so it's a bit weird.

after i woke up, i had the afterthoughts stuck in my head and couldnt sleep. so i worked them out to make sure i still had it. i do. yay.

***PART TWO***

a few days after this i had dream somewhat along the same topic. i was at roberts house and got caught up in a conversation about data aggregation with kelly and anthony. how and why these things keep falling into my dreams is still a bit of a mystery and im still not sure how i feel about it.