| General Fiction posted April 9, 2024 | Chapters: |
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Big decisions on several fronts
A chapter in the book What We See
What We See - Chapter 30
by Jim Wile
| Background A high school teacher wrongly accused of sexual assault reinvents his life. |
Recap of Chapter 29: Over the next five months, Warren does good work without incident. Alan communicates frequently with Abby about his invention, and his prototype is taking shape. He also gives another computer programming class to his four students.
He begins planning a romantic trip to Saugatuck, Michigan, just for Ginnie and him and makes arrangements with Miss Ida to care for Tommy while they are gone, since he has become good friends with her grandson, Leroy.
Ginnie is thrilled with the idea of a trip together, and when they get there, Alan presents her with a ring and asks her to marry him. She says yes.
Chapter 30
Christmas time, 1986
Ginnie and I got married in a small ceremony in early November. My parents and her mother were both gone, and she was estranged from her father, so we didn’t feel the need for a big, fancy wedding. We both invited a few close friends, and we exchanged wedding rings.
We had a family discussion at dinner one night shortly after that, where we discussed my adopting Tommy. He was thrilled with the idea, and the next day I sent for the legal forms to petition for adoption. There was no length of marriage provision before adoptions were allowed in Indiana, but there were a few other requirements. Since there was no natural parent who would oppose the adoption, that made the process much easier. After a home visit by a social worker, we felt confident this would progress rapidly, and any day now, we expected word that it had been approved. Tommy was already calling me “Dad.”
Between Christmas and New Year, Abby St. Claire came for another visit with her relatives, and we agreed to get together one evening. I wanted the others to meet this young woman whom I’d been communicating with, so we invited her and Callie over for dinner one night.
She and Ginnie hit it off right away. I had explained to Ginnie beforehand that my relationship with Abby was strictly on a professional level. Yes, she was an attractive young woman, but she was almost ten years younger than me, and I had already found my ideal mate in life, and Ginnie had nothing to worry about. Besides, I told her, I could never go for a woman who wasn’t a baseball fan, and Abby had no interest in the game.
The five of us had a lovely dinner together. After dinner, we all went over to my store next door. I wanted to discuss a few things with Abby and show her my early prototype of the glasses. Ginnie has seen this demo several times and instead spent time with the kids while they demonstrated some of their programs to her on the computers at the front desk.
I said to Abby, “As you can see, it’s not nearly as small and compact as I’d eventually like it to be. I wanted to see if you had any ideas about further miniaturization of the camera. It’s kind of clunky.”
“This is a CCD camera, isn’t it? Did you give any consideration to using a CMOS camera? There may be greater potential for miniaturization with that technology, although I’m not certain if it’s available in the marketplace yet.”
“Well, I chose the CCD because of its supposed better image quality, but perhaps it doesn’t need to be the greatest, just as long as the written characters are recognizable to OCR software. I imagine the CCD’s ability to perform well in low light also may not be that important. Usually there’s quite enough light to read by.”
“Let me ask you this too. The text you are reading—there might be quite a lot of it on a large page. Can your camera take in the entire page at once, being a single-shot camera? I know that with CMOS, its sensors employ a rolling shutter mechanism where the pixels are exposed at slightly different times. Perhaps that’s what’s needed to be able to scan across a whole page of text by rolling the camera across it? I’m sure you could still do it with a CCD camera, but the programming would have to be quite complicated, I bet.”
“That’s an excellent point. I really hadn’t gotten that far yet to consider large pages. You’ve convinced me it would be worthwhile to take another look at CMOS. Whether or not it’s commercially available yet, I should still be able to fashion my own camera with it as long as I understand it.”
“Worth a try anyway. Alan, I’m very impressed with the small size of your speaker. The sound is actually quite good for something this small. How did you manage it?”
“I read that just three or four years ago, they began experimenting with a neodymium permanent magnet inside the speaker. Because neodymium is such a powerful magnet, less of it is required to be used in a speaker, and it can be much smaller. I couldn’t get my hands on any miniature speakers because they aren’t commercially available yet that I could find, so I created my own, like I may have to do with the CMOS camera. The neodymium wasn’t so easy to get, but I was able to obtain a small amount. I’m sure I’ll eventually be able to miniaturize it even more when I’ve had a little more time to experiment with it, but for now, it seems good enough to prove the concept of the glasses.
“I just haven’t managed yet to have a chip built that is small enough for my 'computer' to manage everything. For now, at least, that has to remain a pocket device. And I also haven’t figured out the short-range wireless communication aspect.”
“Yeah, I believe that’s being worked on too, but it’s still a ways off. At any rate, this is a marvelous invention. A little more work, and you should patent it and beat whatever competition there might be for it.”
“Yep, I plan to.”
Ginnie wandered back and joined us then.
Abby said to her, “Your husband has something quite special here. I was just encouraging him to get a patent before long in case someone else might happen to be working on it.”
“Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” said Ginnie. “I don’t know that I fully trust his assistant, Warren. Tommy’s told me a few things about him that make him sound like a phony. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if he attempted somehow to get his hands on the design.”
“You know, Alan, I have a little experience being the victim of sabotage. Actual theft is not that different.”
She told us then about her junior project demonstration that turned into a fiasco.
“I think your fears about theft are valid ones, Abby,” said Ginnie. “I think you should definitely think about it, honey.”
Abby added, “If only you had a spy camera to use when he’s here by himself.”
“I’ve got a few of these miniature cameras, but even if I could rig one to take photos at, say, a five-minute interval, there is no way to store them for viewing later. That technology hasn’t been invented yet. Hmm... you know what? I've got something even better. When I managed the high school baseball team, I bought my own camcorder to film the kids hitting. We would look at the videotapes later and dissect their swings. I’ve still got that camcorder, and I’m sure I can figure out a way to hide it and turn it on when I’m going to be out. Abby, you’re brilliant!”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I was just thinking out loud.”
“Hey, girl, take credit where credit is due,” said Ginnie as she put her arm around Abby’s shoulders.
I said, “With two such persuasive women on my case, I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t do this, and something happened.”
“I’ll tell you the truth,” said Abby. “That guy kinda creeped me out when I met him last May.”
“That seems to be the general impression around here. But aside from that, he’s just never done anything to arouse any suspicion. The till has never been short, and he’s an excellent repairman. He’s also a pretty nice guy.”
“He’s nice when you’re around,” said Tommy, who must have overheard us talking about Warren, “but he’s not that nice when it’s just him and me. Most of the time, if I ask him something, he tells me not to bother him, but he sure seems to kiss up to you, Alan… I mean, Dad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You’re right, though. He does seem to be a bit of a brown-noser with me, always telling me what a great boss I am. Hey, Callie? You got anything else to pile on him?” Everyone chuckled.
“No, not really. Just that he pretty much ignores me.”
“Okay, you’ve all made a good case that I’d better take some steps to keep an eye on him. I know what it’s like, though, to be accused of something wrongly, so I’ve got to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t protect myself just in case.”
Abby thanked us for an entertaining evening then but said she and Callie had to get back. She had just one more day to spend with the family before heading back home again for a brief stay before the final semester of her senior year began.
We wished her well, and both Ginnie and I hugged her goodbye. She gathered up Callie, who also thanked us for a wonderful evening, and we told them we were very happy they came.
“I really liked her, Alan,” said Ginnie. “You can tell she’s very intelligent, but she’s modest about it—kinda like you in that regard. I think Callie is the same way.”
“Well, you’re right. She gave me a great idea about a new line of research too. And I guess I’d better start looking into what it takes to get a patent and setting up that spy camera. Busy times ahead.
 Recognized |
I promise no more tech-speak after this. I thought we just needed to see the two nerds discussing things together to establish their bona fides for a bit of realism.
CHARACTERS
Alan Phelps: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old high school physics and natural science teacher in Grantham, Indiana in 1985.
Archie: David's orange tabby cat
Tommy Boardman: Alan's 12-year-old next door neighbor. He is dyslexic like Alan.
Ginnie Boardman: Tommy's mother. She is 30 years old and is an ICU nurse.
Artie Intintoli: Tommy's friend who also lives on Loser St.
Ida Beeman: Alan's first customer. She is a nice old lady who lives on Loser Street.
Leroy Beeman: Miss Ida's grandson and Tommy's friend.
Mrs. Dunbar: Tommy's 7th grade English teacher.
Callie Lyons: A nice girl in Tommy's class at school.
Warren Meyers: Alan's assistant in the repair shop.
Abby St. Claire: Callie's cousin who is a math major with an engineering minor at Penn State University.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. CHARACTERS
Alan Phelps: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old high school physics and natural science teacher in Grantham, Indiana in 1985.
Archie: David's orange tabby cat
Tommy Boardman: Alan's 12-year-old next door neighbor. He is dyslexic like Alan.
Ginnie Boardman: Tommy's mother. She is 30 years old and is an ICU nurse.
Artie Intintoli: Tommy's friend who also lives on Loser St.
Ida Beeman: Alan's first customer. She is a nice old lady who lives on Loser Street.
Leroy Beeman: Miss Ida's grandson and Tommy's friend.
Mrs. Dunbar: Tommy's 7th grade English teacher.
Callie Lyons: A nice girl in Tommy's class at school.
Warren Meyers: Alan's assistant in the repair shop.
Abby St. Claire: Callie's cousin who is a math major with an engineering minor at Penn State University.
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