Chapter 10: The Home Stretch

While we worked hard on our project, we skied, we made love, and we spent time just enjoying each other’s company. It was the best six months I can ever recall. As the time for my graduation approached, I could already feel the sense of loss that was just around the corner. We had completed the scheduling program for Crook College and we made our presentation to the administration, demonstrating the features and capabilities of the software. It could be located on conventional desktop or laptop computers, as required. It wasn’t a huge space gobbler, so that was an attractive feature as well.

We freely admitted that we had mostly copied what Geary Polytechnic had allowed Crook to lease, adapting several features that Crook said they wanted. It was a lot less work than starting from scratch, but we didn’t tell the admin people that. We must have hit all the hot buttons they had because within twenty-four hours they had approved the software just as it was presented, subject to performance as promised. Two advanced students in the computer science class were designated to assist me with the implementation during June and July for which we would be paid. I would be available to help them with any problems that might arise. I was reasonably confident that the problems would be few and minor. I was also guaranteed a seat in the computer science class that fall.

My main reward for this was a formal note from the Crook Community College, addressed to Ms. Naomi Schaefer and Mr. Joel Timmins, expressing their thanks for the timely and economical solution we had provided. A copy of the note was forwarded to Geary Polytechnic thanking them as well for their willingness to lease the rights to the software. That was two wins in a row for me, but I still had one more project to accomplish.

“I don’t what I’m going to do without you,” I told Naomi as we lay together after an extended session of lovemaking in her apartment.

“You’ll find someone, Joel. You’re too nice a guy not to have a good looking young lady beside you. We’ll stay in touch by Skype, too. I want some contact with home, even if it isn’t my home,” she smiled.

“Mom and Dad use Skype to talk to my sister and her husband and kids. I think Mom would really like to hear from you. You know ... girl talk. She doesn’t really have that kind of relationship with my sister any more.”

“We’ve already discussed that,” she assured me. “I think I’ve adopted your mom as mine. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I’m just glad you’ve got someone you can talk to; someone other than me. I think Mom is thrilled that you feel that way about her. You know she’ll be with me when you leave tomorrow.”

“Yes. There will probably be a few tears, so don’t get too upset. Just two women who’ve found someone they can trust.”

“I’m not sure I won’t shed a tear or two as well,” I admitted.

She rolled over and kissed me, holding me tightly in her arms. I wondered if I’d ever find another Naomi ... or would I just have to wait until we both finished school and then I could go looking for her. I had no idea what might happen in the future.

I couldn’t get over how empty I felt. It was mid-summer now and the weather was warm and sunny, but I just couldn’t quite get the feeling that I was okay. Of course, missing Naomi was the cause. I hadn’t really understood how dependent I was on her presence. Yes, the sex was incredible and she was far and away the most beautiful woman I’d ever known, but there was another intangible that I couldn’t put my finger on.

It took all my concentration and willpower to continue to work on Dad’s plant scheduling project. I’d done the preliminary work of selecting three possible candidates for the job, but now it was the detail and asking all the right questions to make sure it would do what East Cascades needed it to do. I worried over that much longer than I should have, but since there was no specific deadline, I was determined to pick the right system.

By August, I had decided that the best candidate was an Excel based program that would fit with the inventory program I had installed. In fact, I was wondering if perhaps the scheduling could be integrated with the costing and purchasing software. I was getting in deeper and I really wanted someone else to look this project over and see if they could find any flaws. I had one option, and that was to contact Mr. Conradi at the high school and see if he could help.

“I’m sorry, Sir, Mr. Conradi is no longer on the teaching staff here,” the polite female voice informed me.

“Oh ... uhhm ... do you know where he went? I need to contact him about a problem I have.”

“Mr. Conradi was offered a position at Crook Community College. I’m sure you can contact him there,” she said, again with a soft, polite voice.

“Thank you, I’ll contact him there,” I said, hanging up. So Marcus Conradi traded up? Sounds like it. I’d already loaded the college’s phone number on my phone when I advised them I would be enrolling for the fall semester.

“Hello, I’m trying to contact Mr. Marcus Conradi. I understand he is now on the faculty of Crook College,” I opened when an operator took my call.

“Mr. Conradi is in class right now. I will connect you to his phone and you can leave a voice message.”

“Thank you.” Well, that was quick and efficient. No twenty questions about why I wanted to talk to him. If he was in class, it meant there were summer sessions.

I left a simple message requesting he call me to discuss another project I was on. I was reasonably confident he’d return my call and I wanted to find out if he’d be my instructor for my first semester computer science course.

“Hello, Joel, great to hear from you,” came the enthusiastic voice later than afternoon.

“Hi, Mr. Conradi. Thanks for calling me back. I was wondering if I’d be in your class for first semester computer science.”

“Yes, I saw your name on the list and I made sure I slipped you into my class.”

“Oh, that’s great, Sir. And congratulations on you new position.”

“I’m very happy with it, Joel, and I’m sure both you and Naomi had something to do with my being drawn to the attention of the college. I’m overseeing the new scheduling system you two created and so far, no problems have cropped up. It’s early yet, but you and Naomi can be very proud of what you accomplished. The extra credits didn’t hurt either, I assume.”

“Yes, Sir. It’s always good to have extra in the bank for the future.”

“Have you heard from Naomi since she moved?” he asked.

“I talk to her at least once a week. She’s a little homesick, even though she isn’t close to her guardians.”

“You seem to know a lot about her personal life, Joel,” he noted with a slight smile in his voice.

“Yeah ... I do. We were ... pretty close before she left. I miss her, so, we talk.”

“I’m still living off the accomplishments of you two,” he chuckled. “I’m certain that fast-tracked my application for the opening here.”

“Hey, without your encouragement and advice, none of this might have happened. I’m just happy we’re still in touch. Your classes were always a pleasure,” I said sincerely.

“Thank you. I’ll try hard to keep you entertained,” he said with an upbeat tone.

“Sir, I’m working on another project for my Dad’s company. It’s a scheduling program too and I’ve been searching the internet for OTS (Off the Shelf) vendors. I’ve narrowed it down to three and I would really appreciate your input on them. I’ve conditionally picked one I think will work, but again, your opinion would help me make up my mind.”

“Oh ... back at it again, are you,” he chuckled. “Well, why don’t you bring it around and we can discuss what you want to accomplish and see which of the programs fits best.”

“Thanks, Mr. Conradi. I really appreciate it. I’ll give you a call and see when you can find some time.”

“Thursday afternoon is open right now, Joel. That would be the best time,” he said.

“Oh, great. Thanks, Sir. I’ll see you after lunch on Thursday if that’s not too soon.”

“No, that will be fine ... and by the way, you can call me Marcus except in class.”

“Yes, Sir, thank you ... Marcus.”

“I think I agree with your choice, Joel. You know, it’s hard to predict what problems you might run into, but the platform on Excel looks pretty straightforward, so it’s common enough that you should be able to work with it. I thought maybe the Geary platform might be an option, but I can see that it’s too complex for this project. You have a finite number of product labels and sizes and a finite manufacturing capacity, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to shape a program around that,” Marcus said after we reviewed the three options. It was satisfying that he thought my choice was the better of the three, so that gave me some extra confidence.

“Well, I’d better get to work,” I sighed in relief. “The summer is getting shorter by the minute and pretty soon I’ll be here. I won’t have much time to work on this what with schoolwork as well.”

“You’ll be fine, Joel. If you have any problems, come and see me. I’m always happy to help a self-motivated student.”

I left the college with a good feeling about the project and about Crook College.

My summer job this year was getting the scheduling program finished, up and running. I barely finished it in early August, then sat with the admin staff at East Cascades to demonstrate how it worked. I was working for free, knowing that there would be some kind of reward at the completion of the job.

I knew almost right away that this was going to be a more difficult start-up than the inventory system. First, it was more complicated, with much more frequent data entry. Second, Dana Milner, the young, attractive woman in charge of plant scheduling, was not particularly computer literate. She was fine on the manual system, or playing with her cell phone, but teaching her how the system worked and why it was better than the old manual system was painful.

I think Dad and Mr. Voight knew how frustrating it was but there was nothing to do other than assigning someone else to the job and starting all over again. In my mind, that was not an option, short of a total melt-down with Dana. With extended patience and my encouragement when she began to tame the system, we dragged her through the learning curve with no time to spare. At least now I was reasonably confident she could handle the job on her own. At the same time her relief, Sheila Fowler from Customer Service, caught on almost immediately and that meant there was back-up for Dana. When I finally signed off on the project and told Mr. Voight that the system had been handed over to Dana, I realized I had been holding my breath for some time.