Chapter 58: Beach Trip

Evening was approaching and Tamara, Emma, and the others were eagerly waiting for the local TV evening news program to see how the press treated the energy cube’s introduction. But when the news program started, they were amazed that the event was actually covered as the day’s lead news story.

It opened with a quick shot of a robed Tamara appearing and waving her wand while the announcer, in a voice-over, intoned, “We had a bit of magic happen at a major energy company in Cambridge today. The company, EEC Energy Solutions, introduced a new device which, they claim, promises to revolutionize energy storage and distribution.” A photo of the device itself was displayed as the commentator briefly explained that units like these would soon be installed around the country to provide energy at a lower cost. Then there was a sound bite from Emma, who had been interviewed after the event.

Reporter: “Dame Dr Emma Clarke is the chairperson of EEC Energy Solutions and its chief scientist as well. Dr Clarke, in a nutshell, what does this device do that’s different to electric power distribution now?”

Emma: “Currently, energy is produced at sites very remote from most users and needs to be transmitted distances to the user. And usage typically is highest when most people are at their jobs, meaning that the producing facilities need to be able to provide enough power to accommodate those peak times. Our devices will be located close to the points of usage and will even out the times of peak and low demand. The ElectroPowerCube provides a reliable way of storing excess energy from the distribution grid; it will allow the generating facilities to operate more efficiently; and the device can collect and store energy, at a very high efficiency, for later peak-time use.”

Then the announcer came on again as the video of Tamara shaking her wand and the drape lifting off the unit was played as the announcer spoke, “This bit of magic was performed by Miss Tamara Alexandre, a physicist and engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland in the U.S. Miss Alexandre was the inventor of the energy storage system used in these devices and she gave the group at the event an entertaining description of the magic of science and engineering. Here’s what she told the group in concluding her remarks.”

The video showed Tamara, still robed and holding the wand up, and saying, “... ‘Magic is just science that we don’t understand yet.’ So we definitely can say that EEC Energy Solutions is in the magic business.” Tamara waved the wand and laughter could be heard. “The magic of finding solutions to the world’s energy problems.”

The screen switched back to the announcer. “So there you have it; this was a unique and entertaining introduction to a new power storage device which the company says promises to revolutionize how energy is generated, stored, and distributed.”

“Wow. Just wow,” Andrew said as the program switched to other news. “I was there and saw it, but the news program made it so much more compelling.”

“Better than any advertising could possibly do for us...” Emma started but her mobile rang and she answered it, then listened for a bit.

“It most certainly was,” she said.

“...”

“I’ll tell her. ‘Bye.”

Emma looked at the others. “That was Henry Stafford. He saw the news and he’s delighted with the coverage. He...”

Her phone rang again.

“Emma Clarke...”

“...”

“Thanks. I agree.”

“...”

“Oops, gotta go. Another call waiting. ‘Bye, Greg ... Emma Clarke.”

“...”

“Okay, possibly, we’ll see. Call the EEC Energy Public Relations Department on Monday with your details to see if we can get that organized.”

“...”

“ ... Right. ‘Bye.”

Emma put her mobile down. “I think I’ll let any others go to voice mail; the congrats are coming in now. Okay, Henry’s very happy about the piece. Tamara, he wants you to know that your little part was a publicity goldmine for us.”

Tamara blushed and nodded.

“The next call was Sir Gregory Hodges; he’s the vice chair of EEC Energy and takes the reins when I’m in the U.S. He wanted to say that he’s delighted with the coverage. But the last one? Tamara, you’re probably not going to be happy, but that was a producer from the ‘Conan McLoughlin Show’; Mr McLoughlin wants you and me to appear on his show.”

“What!” Tamara exclaimed. “What show is that?”

“A very popular evening talk show, with a format more or less similar to ‘The Tonight Show’ that’s still running in the States, if you know about that one. They get people in the news to talk with the show’s host.”

“I know the format. But who’s ... um, McLoughlin?”

“He’s an Irish comedian turned talk show host who does an informal chat with celebrities and other public figures that they invite to appear,” Emma told her. “When I was here on sabbatical, I saw the show a few times. The bloke’s pretty funny and he’s very good at making the guests feel comfortable. He gets four people on, he asks them a bit about their current activities, and then they just chat about whatever comes up.”

Tamara made a face. “Mmm, well, I don’t really like the idea ... But when would this be? You know that I’m returning to the States on Monday. Then Peter and I are going to California with his sister and some of their cousins.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Emma said. “You did tell me about that. Okay, I’ll have our PR people see what the show producer wants to do.”

“Where in California?” Denise asked. “I’ve never been.”

“LA area down to San Diego. One of the cousins is considering studying oceanography so she wants to visit UCSD and Scripps Institute. Plus we’ll do the touristy stuff there,” Tamara said. “Also remember what I said about my visiting Caltech, Emma—I’ve got that invite to visit that group in physics there who’re doing work on correlated electron systems and their recent publications suggest a possible collaboration. And Peter’s interested in what they’re doing in their research on nanomechanical and nanoelectronic systems. We planned two days at Caltech while the cousins play.”

The group continued to discuss their summer plans; Denise taking her class and writing her thesis and Kevin being involved with the Coris Foundation’s getting settled in London. In August, Jeremy’s family would be going to the States to visit relatives in Colorado while Amelia would be on a business-pleasure trip to several southern Europe countries with her father and step-mother; as Coris Foundation representatives, they planned to talk to officials about the region’s African and Asian migrant problems and do some vacationing as well.

Kevin and his group left for London in the morning after an emotional farewell and many promises to stay closely in touch. Emma and Tamara spent a working weekend with Tamara planning her doctoral research project activities for the fall. She had been keeping track of the cloud-storage site where a large amount of data on the coil force was being added virtually daily by Emma’s engineers at the APL, and Tamara and Emma had started to try to fit the experimental findings into mathematics which could describe the observed physical behavior.

While they worked, Peter and Andrew played. Andrew’s day job as a consulting econometrician allowed him to work from anywhere he could get an internet connection, but this weekend he took Peter around Cambridge and the local countryside and they visited many of the sights. Many of the buildings in central Cambridge were four hundred years old; some were even older.

Baltimore, Maryland: end of June

Back at home, Tamara had just enough time to catch her breath before she had to pack for her California trip. She and Peter would be going with Barbara and Terence, and they were chaperoning Eddie and Audrey Winsberg, Mike Gibson, and JoAnne and Frank Winsberg. They would be flying out from Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Thursday morning.

On Tuesday afternoon, Tamara got a call from Emma; it was evening in Cambridge.

“So the show’s producer called our PR people yesterday,” Emma told her. “She was quite unhappy that you ‘fled the country,’ as she put it. They really wanted you on and, get this, they wanted you to appear in that Harry Potter cloak.”

“Oh really? Well, they could just stuff that idea,” Tamara huffed. “I’m a scientist, not an entertainer. That would be undignified. At the device rollout, that was like a celebration and I was using a visual cue to emphasize an important idea.”

“Funny, that’s about what I told her.”

Tamara giggled, “See, I told you we spend too much time together. We’re starting to think alike.”

“Indeed we are. So the show’s format has the host doing a brief monologue leading up to the first guest’s introduction,” Emma told her. “Then the guest makes an entrance and the two go to a seating area and chat for maybe five minutes. Then he goes to center stage and monologues again, and has the second guest do the grand entrance routine. Rinse and repeat for a third and fourth guest.

“The show’s main dynamic is the interaction of the guests sitting together and all talking together with the host. So I asked the producer if they ever had a scientist or engineer on the show; ‘No we haven’t,’ she said, ‘we’ve had actors, musicians, politicians, sports figures, society people, restauranteurs, and a few business people... ‘“

“In short, mostly all entertainers,” Tamara interrupted.

“Just so. Then I asked who they were considering pairing us with, and there was silence for a few seconds. Then she said that they’d probably have an actor or two. I asked her then, ‘So what would we all talk about? I can talk knowledgeably about classical and quantum mechanics but not about which celebrity was seen with someone else’s girlfriend.’ Then I said, ‘Picture the scene where a scientist and an engineer-scientist are trying to have an entertaining conversation with a couple of actors, sports figures, or whomever. Is that the scene you’re looking for?’”

“Emma, you do keep up with current events, you know,” Tamara objected.

“Ah, you haven’t seen where the guests’ conversation gets to, have you. Plenty of inside stories get revealed to the audience, and they just eat up that stuff. Don’t get me wrong; it’s actually very funny, innit. But I don’t do that kind of banter. Back to her comments then; she responded with ‘That’s the reason we want Tamara to wear the magic cloak,’ and she went on about how you’d talk about magic and possibly about how the magic in Harry Potter could be done with technology.”

“It’s good that she spoke to you, then. If she had told me that’s what they wanted, I would have tore her a new asshole,” Tamara growled.

“Blimey, girl, what’s that from?” Emma asked.

“Ha, my dad. Marine. I picked up some bad habits and worse language.”

“The worse language I know. What bad habits?”

“Go for the kill. Give no quarter. Don’t let them get a second chance. Make the first shot count. All his aggressive comments; I grew up hearing them and the philosophy behind those comments rules how I do stuff.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Emma said, “I can see it in how you approach problems. You confront the issue head-on and with single-minded intensity, don’t you. All right then; appearing on that show’s not a good fit for you and as well it’s not for me—I agree. I told the woman that I would be open to an informal interview but the topics that I’d discuss would be limited to my company, its technology, and to the science, engineering, and economics of power generation and distribution. If Mr McLoughlin wanted to have a little chat which includes me, like he does with the typical group of four guests he features, then the other three would all have to be knowledgeable about those topics. I also told her that I would be returning to the States on Monday next and wouldn’t be able to appear live after that. She said that she’d discuss the matter with Mr McLoughlin and the show’s writers and let me know.”

“Okay; good,” Tamara said. “I’ll be back from the trip in the middle of July. I’ve got some preliminary calcs done on the coil force problem, so I hope to have a lot to show you when we get together.”

“Excellent, Tamara. Enjoy yourself and don’t work too hard at Caltech—I should say, don’t work them too hard,” she laughed. “Good-bye; till a few weeks, then.”

“‘Bye, Emma.”

The group of cousins met Tamara and her friends at the airport to travel to Los Angeles; while they were waiting for their flight to board, Peter told Eddie and Audrey about meeting some of the original developers of the Avery Program in England.

“What were they doing in England?” Audrey wondered.

“The queen knighted them for bringing it to England; it replaced their own Naked in School Program and apparently by their adopting it instead, it saved the Brits a ton of money,” Peter said. “We met them at the ceremony where Emma and Tamara were knighted too.”

“Oooo, yeah; I forgot,” Audrey said, looking at Tamara with wonder. “So you’re a knight? Do we call you ‘sir’ or something, now?”

Tamara chuckled. “You still get to call me Tamara. No, only if you’re a Brit citizen, or I think in the commonwealth countries too, do the knighted guys get called ‘sir.’ The ladies are called ‘dame.’”

Peter continued, “So one of the people we met, Denise is her name and she goes to Avery University; she and her fiancé did some more work on developing the Avery Program in England and we told them that your school was starting to run it. They said that they’re gonna send the updated curriculum to your school.”

“Wow, a custom version,” Ernie laughed. “That’s cool.”

Los Angeles and San Diego, California: end of June

When the group got to Los Angeles, they spent the first three days visiting tourist sites. The ones they chose to see were the famed “Hollywood” sign, and they took the four-mile hiking tour to get a close-up look. Ripley’s Believe It or Not and Universal Studios Hollywood were also on their schedule.

Then they traveled to La Jolla to visit UCSD and Scripps Institute. Audrey was thinking of studying oceanography and the program UCSD ran at Scripps was highly regarded.

The next day, they had planned to visit the San Diego Zoo Safari Park but Mike thought he had a better idea.

“Hey guys, today’s gonna be hot and it’s a long ride out to that zoo place. Black’s Beach is right here, right down the cliffs. Let’s go there today.”

“That’s the famous nude beach? It’s here?” JoAnne asked.

“Yeah. Maybe a half-mile walk, then down the trail on the cliff there,” Mike said.

“Do we have stuff for a beach trip?” Barbara asked. “We don’t have any blankets and I doubt the hotel would appreciate our using the ones from the beds.”

“Maybe the gift shop has something,” Audrey suggested. “I like Mike’s idea.”