2008 November 22

My biggest single day effort so far this year, it was still short of what I needed for quota now I'm so far behind. Now my problem is trying to bridge between what I have been writing and what I'd intended from the beginning, if I don't go that way I have no idea where else to go but it is annoying to "have" to go somewhere.

Words today: 3117
Total for the month so far: 22,228

That didn't actually turn out to be a lot, I wasn't there early enough to see the initial tests or setup. I did get to see them connecting the last of the wiring and 'shielding' which I hadn't seen before so that was interesting. I also got ushered out before the last of the components was connected so I immediately began to wonder what was so important that I still wasn't getting to see it. Looking at the room on the surveillance screens made it kind of obvious though, the secondary power source was apparently a dangerous one, almost certainly not radioactive or anything but the guys taking it in had haz-chem suits on.

The look upon my face must have been very indicative of the worry those suits brought up in me as Kevin told me that it was precautionary only. None of the government regulations required or even strongly suggested their use. It was something that Dan had suggested when the initial group realised the benefit the chemicals would have in power creation/usage. I got a quick explanation at that point, after the very first run through there had been a lot of people doing calculations to see how much power was going to be needed to actually get the wormhole created.
While there had been a lot of discrepancy in what figures people came up with, largely because of the completely new math that was needed and the unknowns of multi-dimensional spaces, everyone had agreed that the power usage was going to be huge. Back in the early time of Rosen's work he'd postulated a means to get more power from the electrical circuits that were around at that time. His notes had let Dan come up with something more advanced, and less dangerous, keeping the chemicals contained.

I figured that with it having taken me nearly two months to even begin to understand the interactions of the math that was involved there wasn't any point in me trying to understand how chemicals could improve power efficiency. I accepted it and moved on, hoping to remember to stay away from them wherever they ended up being kept most of the time.

Once the last connections had been made and everyone had cleared out of the room Kevin told me to come closer to the screen to see what I had made possible. I did as I was asked, all the while wondering what possible effect noticing changed readings could have achieved. It took all of about fifteen seconds for me to figure it out though. The wormhole began to form as it had in the previous test I'd seen, and those I'd seen records of, but it didn't stop where it had in the last test. I think it was at least twice the previous size when Kevin shut down the experiment and turned to me with a big grin on his face.

What I'd noticed the previous day led to the four of them (that is Kevin, Dan, Kris and Ben) realising that clearing out other rooms nearby reduced interference. Each time the reading had increased in the records had been the result of another research experiment being shut down (and thus taken away) or relocated. During the rest of the afternoon after I was sent home most of the rooms within fifty feet of this lab had been cleared, and the rest would have been as soon as it was practical apart from the fact they'd decided to just shift this experiment to the empty end of the factory, away from all the offices and everything else apart from empty fields. They also hoped to get a purpose built room over the next month or two that would have far less metallic reinforcing and wiring in the walls.

I was then given the chance to just go home or stay and watch the second test for that day, but before I made the chance I was informed that there had been a lot of questions about what would happen if the wormhole was allowed to grow much past the point it already had. After the first test they'd looked at the readings and after the initial spike to start it, keeping it going hadn't required much power at all.
By that stage it had been postulated that there may be some self-sustaining property to the wormhole that would provide most of the power but the first test that day had been the only time they'd had any reason to truly think it possible. Because it was now probable a quick conference between the four head guys had led them to the conclusion it could be dangerous to just let it build as far as it would, and so they wanted to clear the room of non-essential people. I was non-essential but because I'd been the one to initiate the breakthrough they were going to let me stay if I wanted to.
The conflict I felt then was intense, the possibility of danger was anathema to me and I wanted out so I could go home and be with Veronika, the possibility of not being there when history was made also not one I wanted to deal with. Imagine it, telling your children that you went home before the biggest discovery of your lifetime was made.
The way the first test had gone though there weren't any obvious problems and I decided that I wanted to stay and watch the second test. Once everyone besides Kevin and the other three had left, he turned on the machine and we watched the green sparkle into being and then grow. It continued to grow past the initial point at a quick rate of growth but all of us noticed, now we weren't so surprised, that the growth past that point decreased in speed. When it got as big as it had the first time it was still growing but slower than it had been and after reaching the point he had shut it down earlier that day it was only just getting bigger at an appreciably rate. After three minutes of no further growth Kevin decided that about five times the first limit was the largest it would get inside that part of the factory.

When he turned off the power we all had a moment of panic, previously the wormholes had collapsed almost instantaneously, this time it just hung in the air for a little while before starting to shrink, in a completely unhurried manner. Kevin called in everyone that had been sent away at that point and played the recording of the just finished experiment. A cheer went up from some of them, most just watched in awe.

Obviously it had been explained to them (most of them anyway) who I was, once the recording was finished I had a lot of people come up to me and shake my hand, and there was even a couple of the female researchers hug me. When I managed to get Kevin alone for a moment I asked him if I needed to stick around at all as I wanted to go celebrate, as best I could, with my girlfriend. He told me that was fine, they weren't really going to be celebrating for a whole lot longer anyway, they intended to have everything that could be easily shifted at the other end of the factory before they left for the day.


Getting home seemed to take no time, I remember making my way out the doors of the offices and putting my key in the lock of my door but I don't remember the walk home at all. Veronika was just walking back towards the lounge from her room when I walked in so I sort of rushed her, picked her up and spun her around. Of course she had no idea what was up, I don't think I'd ever been that happy when I arrived home from work before. Carrying her through the rest of the way to the good seat was a little harder than I'd expected, obviously the extra time reading had cut into the time I had previously spent exercising.

But when I explained that what had let me come home earlier the day before led to a breakthrough in the research she was understandably impressed. Curious about what I (the guy that had nearly flunked science at least once) could possibly have noticed that would lead to a breakthrough in the realm of research she started to try and find out what I was working on. I felt really bad at that point in time, I wanted to share everything with her and knew I couldn't really tell her anything.

My face fell a little when she started asking the questions and she must have noticed it because she stopped fairly quickly. She hugged me then and asked what I could tell her. I figured there wasn't much to it so I told her that I'd noticed an anomaly in the readings from experiments and it had helped the head guys find a problem. The problem, and the solution my anomaly had presented, had been what they wanted to test today and the result had been very different to previous results. I also let her know that I'd been told anything like that would lead to a bonus so we could probably afford quite nice furniture if she was wanting something in particular.

Being unable to really talk about it any more the two of us both worked together to make our meal for the evening and then talked about other things, mainly what sort of things she was wanting to do with the house. Trying to picture the way things would look if the changes she was suggesting took place did my head in a little, I'd never been particularly good at picturing that sort of thing in my head. I'd always been good at working out whether things would fit in spaces when holding them or standing by them or whatever but how things would "look" together was beyond me.

I explained that issue, so Veronika would understand why I didn't really seem to understand what she was suggesting a lot of the time. After we finished eating (and had cleaned up) I went an loaded up my computer so I could use a program I'd had for a while but not really used much at that point. It was designed to allow people easy means of creating floor plans and while I realised that it wouldn't really help with the issue of how things would look together it would at least allow us both to be consistent in what we were talking about as far as the where and how big and such forth that I thought could otherwise be a problem.

Getting into the program proved the easy part, using it was difficult. That is until Veronika took over and started drawing floor plans that may have been slightly off scale but I'd have needed a tape measure at the very least to improve on them. After she'd created plans for the three rooms she was wanting to change initially (the lounge, kitchen/dining area and her bedroom) she started adding in furniture, from where I still don't know, and quickly had all three diagrams looking much like the rooms currently would if one was taking pictures from the centre of the ceiling.

Even taking into account the time she'd spent in school doing similar stuff the speed at which she found what she needed to in the program and then actually used it was incredible. She made sure to avoid saying any of it was easy but I did notice a couple of occasions that she changed what she'd been about to say mid-sentence. I told her not to worry about it, it was good that one of us could actually use the program.

The first room she actually started making changes for was her room, mainly where the bed was and the introduction of a chair. She also tried to explain the effect that different curtains would have and her desire for a large mirror somewhere in the room. The mirror I understood, the curtains I didn't but I didn't see anything in what she'd done that I could object to for any reason, and I didn't feel any need to either.

The kitchen itself she didn't want to change, or at least wasn't going to go into what she thought should change as it would involve a lot more than just new curtains. The dining area by the kitchen on the other hand would, she told me, look a lot better if the table was moved away from the wall with the lid in half (it was one of the fold out ones that doubled in size, I just always kept it unfolded) and a couple of stools near the bar/bench that divided the two rooms. A bookcase or cabinet or something be the other wall would also help and again I would be well advised to get new curtains.

The lounge was where she thought the most needed to change though. Apart from the one good chair and the actual TV she thought pretty much everything would be better off replaced. A cabinet for the TV and other electronics would be better than having it all balanced on the really old TV I'd used for the first month or so after getting my own place. The couch I had no arguments about getting rid of as it was only any good as an emergency bed at that point in time, even when I had first got it there weren't many people keen on sitting on it. The table I had was too low and small to be useful for anything besides a temporary hold-all for letters, magazines and the like and she thought that a bigger table would also allow us to play games in front of the TV instead of needing to use the dining room table.

As she went through all of the things she thought needed changing I began to think she was probably right about most of it, I still didn't get the need for new curtains but I wasn't attached to the ones that were already there so I figured it wouldn't hurt to change them. I did suggest that we get new stuff for her room first so that we could both see how things would change, and, it would be the area with the most impact for her and least for me. It would also be less important to match other things in the house, even I could see that we would be better off matching, to some extent at least, the furniture and other things in the lounge, dining room and kitchen.

That Sunday morning we both got up a little late, we'd both been considering the changes she wanted to make. Her with regards to how much she could change and what she actually wanted to change, me with regards to how much it would cost and how hard it would be to do any of the physical stuff, like painting or wallpapering if she decided to go that far. Me mentioning that put a look in her eyes that made me think she hadn't been considering that possibility at all, up until that point.

I sighed heavily and then passed her my wallet to see what she'd do, I got slapped on the arm with it. We both laughed a little at that point and she told me that painting or wallpapering would be a lot more work than she was interested in putting in to change things around the house, so far at least. She just wanted it to feel a little less like she was living in my house and more that we were living in our home.

Getting in the car was a little weird, it had been weeks since I drove anywhere and not much more recent that I'd been driven. That was after all one of the benefits to living so close to work and no longer needing to travel far to see my girlfriend. The recent relocation of my parents had also served to reduce my driving, I was on the way for my elder sister and she was more than willing to stop at my place on the way to our parents new place every month or so to eat there.

Getting to the right shops proved interesting, I wasn't used to taking directions, or needing them (because I didn't go new places, not the male thing), and Veronika wasn't used to giving them. We eventually found a car park near a few furniture places that we could walk around without difficulty so we parked and started walking. Veronika had also been thinking about getting a bigger bed at the same time she was getting a new chair and dresser, it had been odd for her to sleep in a single bed again after a couple of years in a double.

I was pleased to see her find a dresser that she liked in the first store and then a chair in the third, I was thinking we could be done before lunchtime. What I didn't count on was the fact Veronika was going to want to check all the stores and then go back to a couple to compare things once more. I had expected to spend a fair amount of time walking though so it wasn't really a problem for me. I just figured that after finding things she liked that would be it, obviously I hadn't been shopping with her enough in the past to realise how she tended to go about it. After about three hours though she had come to a decision about what she wanted, even with regard to new curtains so we arranged to have the dresser, the new chair and the bed she had found in the last store delivered the following Saturday.

Getting lunch in the nearby mall seemed like a good idea to both of us so instead of heading home we went there instead and ate while watching the people go by and her asking me if I'd seen anything that I particularly liked. Having been as focused on the task of finding her things as I was I don't think I'd paid much attention to the other things that had been in the stores we'd walked through. There was also the simple fact that it wasn't me that was wanting to change things so I wasn't picking things out anyway. I had vetoed a couple of things she pointed out as possibilities for the lounge as we'd walked past but for the most part I thought Veronika had good taste, and was probably much more likely to realise what would go together well than I was.