Chapter 7: Setting Up the Ark Foundation

After breakfast the next day, I decided to check on the ladies that were working on the three tasks that I had assigned. The two ladies working on the seminar for the remaining 23 ladies planned to invite the ladies to a seminar on Saturday, two weeks from now. I agreed and told them to send out the invitations and to make the catering arrangements through Belinda’s catering service. Bob and Sharna agreed to arrange for the invitees to have a dream similar to the one my first group of ladies experienced and to install the necessary compulsions to preserve our secrets.

While thinking about Belinda, I called her to let her know the ladies would be in contact and to see if she had given any further thought to joining the Foundation. She let me know that she wanted to talk with Clara and I some more before reaching a decision, she was busy tonight, so we arranged to have dinner next week at her place.

The four ladies working with Sam were doing fine, and evidently, Sam was able to keep them very busy. I was getting ready to call my other group when the phone rang. It was Bill calling to let me know that the building had passed its inspections with flying colors and that the escrow company would be ready to close on Tuesday of the coming week. I told him to do it and to let me know where and at what time we would meet for the signing. I then called Harry to tell him about the closing and to find out if he had heard anything from the bullion buyer, since we would need a certified check at signing. He hadn’t heard from them, but would call and find out the status of the bullion sale.

He also told me that the Ark Foundation’s incorporation paperwork was ready for filing except for the names of the Foundation’s officers. Once he got the names, we would review the paperwork and he would be able to file the paperwork with the state, so we could officially become a company. I told him to list himself, Sam, Clara, and me as the Foundation’s officers and to get the paperwork to us for review as soon as possible. I asked if Sam was around and was told that he had gone to the Forest Service office to work on getting us leases on the silo sites. I would need to get status from Sam later.

I finally got around to calling my group of ladies who were making plans for moving into the Headquarters building and defining the Ark Foundation corporate structure. They reported that they were close to being finished, and I told them that that was good for we would own the building this coming Tuesday and would need to start setting it up for business Wednesday. I asked them to bring their work over at 2:00 PM so we could review it, and if necessary, make any changes or additions.

While I was talking, Clara and Mary had been listening in. After hanging up, I briefed them on what I had been told so the three of us would all be aware of the current status. When we started talking about what we needed to do, Clara opened her Action Item Log and started creating new action items. Our first action item was to have Harry arrange for the necessary insurance coverage on the new building we would own; I would have to tell him the next time I spoke with him. Better yet, I would have Clara tell him so she can establish herself as a Co-President.

Harry called to let me know that he had just learned that the bullion buyer had expedited the bullion assay and had made an offer of $78,281,564.23, and if we accepted the offer, the money would be wired to our account tomorrow. I asked Harry why the offer was over five million less than what we estimated. He told me the major reason was that the price of gold had dropped over the past few days. He also reminded me that the official weight was also slightly less than the weight that we used in our calculations. I told Harry to accept the offer if he felt it was fair and he told me he would let the bullion buyer know that we accepted the offer.

Harry told me that Sam had returned to the office and asked if I wanted to talk with Sam. I did, so he gave Sam the phone. I asked Sam for status on leasing the silo’s sites and finding construction companies. Sam informed me that he had contacted the manager of the Forest Service Division that controlled the leases. He explained to the manager what we wanted. The manager had agreed in principle, but they would have to consult with their lawyers. He had my two Advisory Council members, Carol Bailor and Ashley Manfried, inputting the major construction tasks into Project and working on a list of prime contractors who were large enough to handle the project.

I think the key to streamlining the Ark’s construction lay in the order in which the tasks were done, so I asked Sam to give me a copy of the Project file so I could get a handle on the tasks to be performed and sequence in which they would be done. To be truthful, the main reason I asked for the schedule was Clara and I had no background in construction, and I wanted us to use Sam’s schedule as a tutorial to familiarize ourselves with the process.

I briefed Clara on the status of Sam’s task and had her add an action item for hiring a psychologist experienced in the effects of environment on human moods. We weren’t going to provide our inhabitants with luxury apartments, but we also didn’t want them becoming severely depressed by the silo’s environment. The key tasks seemed to be on schedule so I decided to take Clara and Mary to an early lunch and to stop off at a jeweler to get our necklaces designed and made. We were on our way to lunch in Auburn when Bob contacted Clara and me.

“Jon, Clara, Sharna and I have considered your request to modify the protective force field. We can’t change it to what was requested because that would require that the field be a living thing and we can’t create life. However, we were able to modify your force fields to give them two operational states and you can consciously switch between the two states. The prior force field capabilities are what we now consider to be the reactive state and the new state is called the passive state. The passive state will be the default state and it operates by absorbing the force a projectile exerts on the field and storing the force as energy, but the stored energy is not reapplied to the projectile. The excess stored energy will be bled off until the normal maximum stored energy level of the field is reached. The field is linked to your conscious thoughts, so if you want the field to change states, just think of the force field and the word reactive or passive and the shield will automatically change to the proper state. If you do not consciously change the reactive state back to the passive state, the field will remain in the reactive state for 15 minutes then automatically return to the passive state.”

Clara and I discussed the reasons for the change and decided that it would meet our needs, so we thanked Bob and Sharna for their prompt response and then told Mary about the changes to her protective field and about what she had to do to change its state. I had also asked Bob to let me know whom he and Sharna believed should be equipped with protective fields and made a note to myself to explain the fields to those individuals.

Clara and I introduced Mary to the bistro and over lunch, we discussed the number of necklaces we needed to buy.

Clara said, “We need to get one for you Jon and 24 for your Bond Mates.”

There were just the three of us, so I said, “Why would I need 24 necklaces for my Bond Mates when all I have is just the two of you?”

Clara replied, “Jon, you know that Bob and Sharna told you that you would need to have multiple wives. I think it is better to have too many necklaces than too few. Besides, we are talking about the average Bond Group being seven or more people. As the leader of the Ark, you need to set an example, so Sharna, Mary, and I think you should have at least twice the number of Bond Mates as the men of the other Bond Groups. We think that the high normal size of a Bond Group will include close to 12 women. Therefore, you should have at least 24 women, and more if necessary.”

“Clara, I don’t need more Bond Mates. I am happy with you and I will be even happier when Mary joins us. If Sharna and you keep pushing, I’m going to be hip deep in Bond Mates. I am just an average man. I am going to be pushed to satisfy you and Mary sexually. I don’t think that I could sexually satisfy 12 women, much less 24, unless of course Bob and Sharna can boost my libido and endurance.

We settled on 18 Bond Mate necklaces, and yes, I am suspicious for Clara was too agreeable when I agreed to 18 necklaces; that was way too many necklaces.

Note to self: When negotiating with Clara and Sharna, be prepared to surrender more than you get.

I was thinking about what Clara had said. In my mind, I sort of agreed that it might be possible for us to have eight women in our Bond Group. As soon as I came to an acceptance of eight Bond Mates, I asked myself, when did I agree to more than two women and why am I thinking of up to eight. Furthermore, why does the thought of 18 necklaces not bother me? The thought of being influenced by Sharna immediately popped up in my thoughts, and just as quickly faded away.

After a thoroughly delightful meal, we drove over to a jewelry design firm that Belinda had recommended. We spoke with the owner telling him we wanted to design a choker style of necklace using my last name, Reppa, cast in gold script that was about a quarter inch thick with a gold rope style of chain. We had decided to start with just the name, and if the design needed it, we would add a backing plate later.

He typed my name into his computer, made multiple copies of it, and displayed each copy using a different type of script font. We settled on ‘Reppa’ in 24 point, Script MT Bold font for the ladies and 36 point, Script MT Bold font for me. Clara thought something was missing from our design for it didn’t stand out the way she felt it should. She decided to try mounting the gold ‘Reppa’ on a platinum backing plate and suspending the plate on a platinum chain. She felt that the matching color of the chain and backing plate would make the necklace more noticeable.

Even though I was the one to suggest the combination originally, I couldn’t visualize it. The jeweler had something similar in his safe so he showed it to us. Clara and Mary really liked it and I thought it was okay. Clara and Mary felt the backing plate added class to the necklace and I wasn’t going to argue it with them.

My dad once told me that men who argued with their women always lost, especially when they won the argument. I didn’t get the concept back then, but luckily, I now understood my relationship with my women was more important than the necklace that symbolized that relationship.

The rope style chain didn’t fit our new design, so Clara and Mary looked over the different styles of chain, and we eventually all agreed on one style. I liked our new design better than the design with a rope chain.

We placed an order for one male necklace and 18 female necklaces. The male and one female necklace were to be ready for pickup by Friday of next week. We agreed to provide a 10-pound ingot of gold and a 10-pound ingot of platinum for the names and backing plates and the jeweler would give us credit for any excess bullion to cover the cost of the chains, clasps, labor, and a five percent profit.

“Bob, can you make me a 10-pound ingot of gold and one of platinum by this evening.”

“No problem Jon, I will let you know when the ingots are ready. Sharna and I have finished refining the bullion and casting it as ingots. We currently have 7,752 ingots of gold, 282 ingots of platinum, and 2,621 ingots of silver stored in the Angels Camp silo.”

“That sounds like a lot of bullion; I’ll let Harry know so he can start selling it. I also mentioned to Harry that we should look into supplying rare earths, isotopes, etc., as part of our cover story for the bullion being supplied by an anonymous benefactor. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

It was only 1:00 PM and we were close to the office of Belinda’s catering service, so we decided to stop in and say hello and introduce Mary to Belinda. Clara had mentioned Mary to Belinda during the past week, but had not explained our relationship with her. I was interested in how Belinda would react when she learned that Mary would become my second Bond Mate in the near future.

After introducing Mary to Belinda, Clara told her mother that she wanted to hold the Joining Ceremony on Sunday, the day after we conducted the second seminar for the remaining 23 ladies that Sharna had selected. Clara then told her mom that we would probably have a second Joining Ceremony a week after that when we added Mary to our relationship. Belinda knew we were going to have a polygamous relationship, but I think we surprised her with how soon we were going to add a second Bond Mate. Belinda started to comment on my eagerness to create a harem. Clara interrupted her to make it clear that she and I discussed expanding our relationship, but she was the one to make the final decisions on who we would add and when we would bring them into the relationship. I decided to remain silent and let Clara and Belinda work out the details for I did not want to get in the middle of that conversation. It would definitely be a lose-lose situation for me.

Eventually Clara got around to clarifying that I didn’t want a harem; she was the one pushing to add more Bond Mates to our relationship. That revelation really dumbfounded Belinda, so when she looked toward me, I just shrugged my shoulders and shook my head to let her know that I didn’t understand it either.

We asked if Belinda wanted to join us for dinner that evening, but she reminded us that she had an event to cater that evening. Realizing that she was going to be very busy shortly, we said our goodbyes and left. We would have to hurry to make our 2:00 PM meeting. We got home a few minutes late and the ladies of our Advisory Council were waiting for us.

Julie Anders, Samantha Anders, and Jane Danvers were the committee members working on preparing the Headquarters building for occupancy. They had gotten a floor plan of the building and located the areas dedicated to utilities and obtained a count of the number of offices available for use. They had Bill give them a guided tour of the building to ensure the offices were wired for telephone and internet.

From their inspection all we needed to add were telephones, computers, printers, and office furniture to the offices. In the utilities area, we needed a server, a tape backup system, and a full range of networking equipment. They had a list of office equipment to include pricing data that needed to be purchased that was based on an estimated initial staffing level of 50 people.

Jean Phillips, Sandy Hall, and Karen Taylor were defining the organizational structure of the foundation. So, Clara and I decided to enlist them as part of the move-in team, and we had invited them to the meeting. They presented their initial structure for the Ark Foundation listing key positions and staffing levels. They said that they weren’t familiar enough with the Ark to define its organizational structure, but suspected that much of the Ark Foundation’s structure and personnel would transition over to similar positions in the Ark.

The two groups had worked together to generate the initial staffing levels and where in the building each department would be located. We did a detailed review of their information and told the two groups to order the office furniture for delivery no earlier than Wednesday of next week. We had Julie, Samantha, and Jane handle the ordering and delivery of the furniture. The 23 ladies that we would be making a presentation to next weekend would fill the key positions in each department, and then as soon as they were on-board, they could advertise for additional staff, review resumes, and hire a staff. We had immediate openings for receptionists, secretaries, accounting staff, building maintenance staff, etc.

Jean, Sandy, and Karen would make arrangements with employment agencies to obtain resumes for the various staff positions and hire an IT staff with a temp-to-perm hire option. The IT staff was critical because we needed an operational computer network on-line as soon as possible. I made another note to myself to discuss the hiring of key people with our HR staff, and then I realized that Harry and Sam had been functioning as our HR staff. I needed to hire an HR person immediately to offload Harry and Sam. We would have the remaining full-time employees hired on as ‘At Will’ employees, and would identify those who were suitable as Ark Society members.

We had to make a detailed plan that specified who would be doing what during the next month. I told Mary and our six Advisory Council members to return tomorrow at 8:00 AM to finalize the plan. I then called Harry, Sam, and the remaining Advisory Council members and arranged for them to be there also. Our six ladies went home, while Clara and Mary sat down with Project and started entering the tasks that needed to be done, breaking each task down into a series of subtasks to include durations for each subtask and who would perform the steps.

While they were doing that, I took the two ingots of bullion to the jeweler and started helping my ladies when I returned. As the hours passed, we ordered out for pizza to be delivered and kept working. As the man-loading projections added up in Project, it was evident that Clara and I would be severely overloaded during the coming weeks. We needed to delegate more of our tasks to our Advisory Council. We knocked off a little bit before midnight and went to bed to sleep.

We were up early and while Mary fixed breakfast, Clara set up her laptop for our meeting and printed off 15 copies of the schedule we had created last night. By 8:00 AM, everyone had arrived and they were settled in for a long day of work.

We started off by reviewing the major tasks that had to be done and added a few that we had missed. We then reviewed the subtasks, durations, order of completion, and task assignments. Then we fleshed out the tasks we added. Clara and I transferred responsibility for as many of the subtasks to others as we could. Toward the end of the day, our workload was down to a manageable level. By the end of the day, we had finished reviewing about 75% of the tasks, so everyone except Harry and Sam left for the day.

Harry had the incorporation papers for our review, so we looked everything over and signed in the appropriate places. The following day we finished our review of the schedule. Clara printed out new copies for everyone and we looked at the overall schedule to ensure there were no conflicts and no one would be overloaded.

Monday morning we started the tasks that did not require access to the building. Clara and I focused on hiring people for the key positions that had to be filled as soon as we took occupancy of the building. We hired two senior and two junior IT people from an agency and briefed them as to the company’s needs and its eventual size; that afternoon and the next day we would have them working at my house defining the servers, computers, printers, and networking equipment necessary to setup our network and obtaining pricing data from suppliers. We also had them order the software necessary for establishing, monitoring, and maintaining our computer system. Clara and I made it clear that we wanted top of the line equipment that would have a service life of at least 15 years. We had discussed replacing all of our equipment with the current technology just before the meteoroids arrived.

While I was thinking of it, I had Clara make an action item for having the Ark Computer Department start downloading as much information as possible on survival techniques, existing in the wild without technology, information about how different products were currently manufactured, and how-to information for making your own clothes, soap, tools, steel, etc. My instructions were that once they had grabbed that type of data, they should download any information that seemed as if it might be useful in the future, to include novels, medical data, scientific papers, schoolbooks on all subjects, cookbooks, manufacturing processes, etc. I knew that after the meteoroids arrived the internet would eventually go offline, so we needed to get the information while it was available.

Author’s Note: It was this action item that led to my having to write this story. I’m not sorry for generating the action item, but I certainly wish that our IT techs had never downloaded the story that I would have to write.

An idea had been running around in my head regarding our accounting department. I contacted Harry and got a reference for a local accounting firm. I contacted them, explained our needs, and hired them on a one-year consulting basis with options for renewal. They would setup our accounting system, provide personnel, and do all of our accounting. All we had to provide was the office, office equipment, and storage space. It seemed like a good idea to me at the time for after the meteoroids arrived we wouldn’t need an accounting function.

That just goes to show how little I understood human nature and the accounting function. It was eventually pointed out to me that everyone wants to be paid for services rendered, and without currency we would have to setup a barter system, someone had to control the relative value of the items bartered. Once that was explained to me, it wasn’t difficult to figure out who would be doing that function.

I looked at the other positions we needed to fill and found several that could be filled by contracting out the function. I called a local security firm and a janitorial service, and made appointments with them for providing their services starting tomorrow. I thought of one thing we had overlooked in making our schedule, so I called the utility companies and made arrangements with them to switch the building’s utility service over to the Ark Foundation.

Tuesday morning Clara, Mary, and I finalized some of the tasks left over from Monday, and then Mary started on the activities she needed to complete. Clara and I headed for the Title Company’s office where we met Harry, Sam, and Bill. Bill introduced us to the gentleman who would be in charge of the signing, and he escorted us to a conference room. All of the paperwork we needed to review and sign was on the table and the Title Company’s notary public was waiting for us.

Since the Ark Foundation was not yet a legal entity, the building was being sold to me personally. I provided the notary public with my identification and she recorded me and imprinted my thumbprint in her log. We then went through the paperwork, signing and initialing in the proper places and I gave them a bank check for the balance I owed on the property. For a small fee, the Title Company had agreed to walk the paperwork through the County Offices that day to get the sale recorded; then we would legally own the building. We would be able to pick up the building’s keys tomorrow morning and begin moving in.

After lunch, Clara and I went to our appointment with the security firm. We discussed our needs for security with them and ended up with a one-year agreement for a fulltime, on-site guard during working hours and a roving patrol during non-working hours. Our next appointment was with the janitorial service and we contracted with them for one year of their services. Both the security and janitorial services were to start tomorrow. Clara and I then went our separate ways to work on our other tasks. In the evening, Clara and I contacted everyone for status on their assigned tasks and updated the ‘Move-In’ schedule accordingly. Yeah, MS Project was a lifesaver for us.

My one fervent wish was that if Microsoft decided to update the program before the meteoroids arrived, they wouldn’t update the program the way they had other programs in the past. Microsoft’s Operating System 8.0 was a prime example of what I meant. I was a teenager back then, but I remember some of the problems I had with it. I imagine that most users were happy with the prior version of the operating system, but some software engineer came up with a brilliant idea of how to change the operating system’s interface with the user. By the time he and his team were finished redesigning the interface program, they may have been able to use it, but for most of the world, there was no logical rhyme or reason for how the program worked. From my perspective, it was a nightmare. Especially the help function that you turn to when you can’t figure out how to do something. If you didn’t understand one of their new terms, you could find the help topic and when you went to the help page, it would tell you that the help content had been deleted for that term. Now that I have recalled that fact, maybe the people who designed it didn’t know how to use it either. If they did, why didn’t they provide the necessary help data to the rest of the world?

Wednesday, we woke up early and got ready to move into the building. Mary and I went to the Title Company to pick up the keys and then went to our new Headquarters building. Clara would join us there later. We were met by Julie Anders, Samantha Anders, and Jane Danvers, who would be helping Clara and Mary with the deliveries and with the service people who would be coming and going for various tasks.

Our security guard and IT people showed up about 15 minutes later, so I took the IT guys on a familiarization tour while the security guard got setup in the lobby. In the networking room, they looked over the network racks and had the junior IT guys cleanup the area and start inventorying the patch cords the prior owner had left behind. I left them to their work and returned to the lobby. Clara had arrived, and she and Mary had everything under control. I called Harry to find out if the Ark Foundation was now a legal entity so we could open a corporate bank account. It was, so I arranged to meet Harry at my bank in an hour.

When I arrived, Harry was in Steve’s office. Harry had been briefing Steve on what we needed from the bank, so I joined them and let Harry handle matters. We transferred the monies from my temporary account to the new corporate account, and then closed the temporary account. When Steve stepped out of the office, Harry mentioned that we needed to shift some monies around and he would talk with me about it later. Steve congratulated us on our new Foundation.

We left the bank, after saying goodbye to Steve, with the account paperwork and some temporary checks. In the parking lot, Harry told me that we should leave enough monies in the corporate account to cover setup costs and about one year of operating capital, and we should invest the remaining monies in short-term investments that would earn us a good return. I agreed with him and asked if he had anything in mind. Harry said he was checking out several things, but had nothing solid in mind. Before we parted, I reminded him that we would need employee packages for Saturday’s presentation and that we should meet with Jean, Sandy, Karen, Rose and Mary to discuss who should be in each department.

When I got back to the building, there were two delivery trucks at the loading dock and one waiting for dock space to start unloading. I saw Clara, so I said, “How are things going with the move-in?”

“I’m handling the loading dock deliveries and everything is proceeding smoothly. I currently have three trucks of office furniture to be unloaded. One truck is offloading office furniture to the second floor, while the second truck is offloading to the first floor. I expect the second truck to finish first and once it is finished, the third truck will start unloading.

“Jane is working with the telephone installer to get the phones installed in all of the offices we expect to be using during the coming year. Julie, Samantha, and Mary are handling small deliveries at the lobby entrance.”

I went to find our IT guys to see how they were doing. I located Jim Taylor, one of the senior guys, and he told me that the others would be back soon. Since they hadn’t arranged for any deliveries until that afternoon, the other three guys had gone to the local electronics store to check the price of the tools and equipment that they would need for doing installations and future repair activities.

“Jim, why didn’t they just order tool kits?”

“That would be an easy way to do it Jon, but a quarter of the tools we need aren’t in the standard kits and we don’t need half the tools that are in those kits. You also need to understand that the quality of the tools in the tool kits is generally poor and the price is high. Our plan is to get several roll-around tool boxes and stock them with a selection of decent hand tools for use in the shop and to buy a couple of portable tool boxes and stock them with the tools we typically use when we go to someone’s office on a trouble call.”

They had already put in orders for the multi-meters, digital network analyzers, and other test equipment that they would need for testing the computer network and equipment. The networking equipment would not arrive until tomorrow at the earliest and until then they would install computers in the offices and configure them with any special software that had been specified. I asked if they needed anything for use today and he said they had anticipated the initial lack of tools and brought a selection of their personal tools with them. I told Jim that if he or the other guys needed my help with anything to let me know.