Chapter 5: Expanding Horizons

Cathy came to me as I was working and asked me if I could show her something about what I was doing. I told her that I would be happy to show her. I started explaining about how you program a computer to perform the tasks you wanted. Most of the programming I was doing was in visual basic and C++. Giving her an overview of how it's done meant that I had to show her the main parts that make up a computer system. Using my desktop unit as an example I covered the basics including input, output, processor and memory. I explained the difference between temporary memory and permanent memory.

She was a very bright girl at the top of her classes in school so she picked it up rather quickly. She knew the difference between RAM and ROM. When we got to hard drives she was amazed that you could put so much information in a little package. She had a little difficulty understanding what a terabyte was until I told her about the bits, bytes, words, double words and so on. A couple of hours later she had a very good grasp on a lot of the buzzwords that computer geeks, like me, toss around. It is a language that we call Geek Speak. I think for Christmas I will get her a pair of thick glasses and a pocket protector. Wouldn't that look cute?

Monday I got a call from the company I was doing some data handling software for asking if I could come in to meet some IT people from their parent company. We set the time for 1:00 that afternoon. I told them that I would be bringing my assistant along to start getting up to speed on the programs. They said it would be a good idea so we got there right at one on the dot. When I introduced my assistant to them they were taken aback that I had a teenager working with me and a girl at that. She managed to rattle off some buzzwords impressing them and me both.

What they wanted us to do was travel to Great Britain to work out some bugs in the software for them. I fielded some questions about the software and said that I had a suspicion where the bugs were. It was set up that we would go there next week and get right to the debugging process. Part of the problem was that the English system used units in the metric system while ours did not. Also their currency system differed from ours considering the conversion from pounds and pence to euros and USD was a bit complex.

When we got back home it finally sunk in to Cathy that I was going to take her half way around the world. She had only traveled a few miles from home before and she was about to become a world traveler. She was so excited she almost had to change her panties. I took it all in stride having been around myself quite a bit.

First thing we had to do was to get her a passport. She was so proud as she posed for the picture and filled out the forms. Fortunately I had gotten her birth certificate from her old house during one of our trips to retrieve legal papers and other stuff. We zipped by my doctor's office to get all the necessary shots and then went to the mall to get her some luggage.

In one of our conversations she brought up the subject of what she was expected to call me. I really didn't care but, in the interests of propriety, we decided that Greg would do just fine. If she were to call me sweetheart or honey I was afraid some eyebrows would be raised and pointed questions asked considering her age. Our relationship was our business and nobody else's. We both agreed that calling me Mister Thomas was by far too formal.

Passports secured and ready and necessary documents showing me as her legal guardian had us all ready to go. The parent company was picking up the tab for travel and accommodations so I made the round trip reservations with a week stay in London to finish the work and do some sight seeing. We would be flying over there on an SST so the trip wasn't outrageously long. Plus the parent company had us fly first class so the trip was pleasant. They were in bad need of my services so they pulled out all the stops.

Our arrival at Heathrow airport meant the first time that Cathy had set foot on British soil, or for that mater any foreign country, so for her it was a big deal. Through her eyes I was thrilled also. We were chauffeured to out hotel where we moved in and got some rest while acclimating to the 5 hour time difference. It seemed strange to look at my watch and see that it was five in the afternoon and we were getting into bed. After a few hours of confusion I set my watch to GMT.

We had two beds in our room but slept in only one. I had to remember to muss up the other bed for appearances sake. One thing Cathy found amusing was that everybody had a British accent. They didn't think so and said that we had an American accent. Some of their slang terms continued to throw me for a curve. Take, for instance, if you are rooting around in the dark you ask for a torch and not a flashlight.

The next morning I got to work on their software and found a whole nest of bugs due to the differences from the American version of the program. Mostly it was a mater of perception of data. I was afraid that Cathy would get bored but she had gotten enough of a foundation in programming that she followed the progress with rapt attention. She even picked up on a couple of boo-boo's that I made that would have taken me an hour to find. Like I said previously, that girl was sharp.

We had dinner in the hotel dining room and retired afterwards to our room. We watched a couple of British humor shows and laughed ourselves silly. They certainly do have a handle on humor. We quit about nine and settled down with each other for a nice evening of love making. It was a couple of firsts for her; making love in a hotel bed and in a foreign country. Those two things sure added some spice to our frolicking and magnified our responses to each other many fold. It crossed my mind wondering if we could join the mile high club on the trip home.

After two days of fixing the problems in the software I was able to say that the program was up and running fine. I told the IT guys that I would be around for a few days and would check in with them before I headed back across the pond. They had my cell phone number in case something went wrong.

Cathy and I decided to see the sights here. We visited the tower of London, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and an assortment of locations where we could get the flavor of English life. Speaking of flavor; if you order a meal with chips you had better be ready for French fries. One place I had heard of was on my list of must see. The white cliffs of Dover were very impressive. We got to see many of the places Cathy had studied in her social studies classes.