Suddenly and unexpectedly one Thursday afternoon, in the throes of a hectic and draining week, Nick's RTTY decoder modem started sending pleasantly readable text to the PC monitor screen.
After coding up a rudimentary conversion program to read the serial port and convert the 5-bit Baudot characters to ASCII, he had originally just gotten random characters when the phase-locked loop circuit was engaged. And then recently found a better TTL to RS232 converter that just uses a Darlington pair (in a loose sense) of transistors which yielded about 80 percent correct decode, it was generally intelligible, but with a lot of new lines appearing abruptly where the letter R or D should be, and such.
To leave things at this level of progress would have been acceptable in many ways, since he had stipulated a 90% capture success for the project, plus, in real-world conditions there would be signal fade, interference and other causes for the character stream to falter at times.
But in taking a closer look at a manufacturer spec sheet he noticed a capacitor value he'd muffed, in the small print there was a decimal point that called for a 2.2 rather than a 22. After a quick trip to the stock trays he made the switch, reset the tape and there it was, plain as day, perfectly legible copy.
With a loud clap, "I'm goin' to Disney World!" he blurts out to a near-empty lab.
"Can I go too?" retorts a peer as he heads over to check it out.
Now it's time to show it to Goody, finish up his paper, and sign that appointment sheet.
He needed a lunch before afternoon class, and so did everyone else, and who does he end up behind, chatting away with a colleague, Deb Duntz, who had taught his mandatory Problems in Human Relations course. Deb was a bit different but it was an interesting affair, he remembers her commenting she'd heard that something or other was 'better than orgasm.'
Nick just lags behind and listens, till Noreen gets to "...oh one time I tried debate with a bunch of eighth graders and it sounded like a farting contest, I swore NEVER AGAIN -"
"You should hear our lab sometimes," he interjects.
Noreen slowly turns around and throws a look over her shoulder, looks back at Deb and points a thumb toward Nick, "Are we really going to graduate some of these types?"
Deb steps back and talks to him through the rest of the line, Noreen slips ahead.
*****
Anyone who concentrates intensely needs a diversion here and there. Over the years his escape centered around fiddlefarting with circuits or components or shortwave or audio. But now that electronics has taken center stage, well, the phenomenon of and around this bombshell of a life force has become more than some ethereal cloud of euphoria, it's establishing itself, could even start to resequence his DNA, and so this season of change concerns that which is far beyond mere vocation.
Nick even found the need to seek counsel, covertly of course. He never really talked to Vance about these kinds of things, and his brother was a non-starter. It took nearly a week to get a hold of Danni, calling the college switchboard over somewhere in Missouri, leaving a message on her machine, tried back in a couple days but left no message, she had to be at least as busy as he was. But on Saturday he got the call back, she was home for the weekend and they met up.
After telling her just enough context to set the scene, he'd met a gal a few years ago that recently became a fixture, the connection is almost painfully obvious and they can joke about almost anything.
"I'm happy for you Nick."
"I knew you would be, but is it crazy, she's established, part of the faculty and here I am...yet..."
"What really matters? I was always struck at how brilliant you are with technical things, I can't even program my VCR to save my life."
"I was always struck by your natural confidence."
"It's a matter of prospective. Nicky, if this is making you both more than you would be apart, then embrace it, it doesn't come along every day."
Danni was now like an old war buddy. She's leaning toward major in Phys Ed, no surprise, but might lean toward Sports Med without having to rip out the sink.
And so, the only thing that makes sense is a tape full of musical selections. He's done this in the past a couple times, to polite reactions, but then, before it was just an excuse to do some dubbing. There are some songs that come to mind, as a defacto canon that has formed in recent weeks, and only a couple are not already in his library, and he has borrowed a disk and a tape to bring it together.
Medium of choice is a fresh TDK 60, with only the title written on the side labels, "Just Listen". The hardest part was making a box liner, this took about an hour in the computer lab trying to line everything up in Word Perfect then getting it right with a dot-matrix printer, with the "Just Listen" on the spine and just "From Nick" on the face. Traditionally he would have included a track listing but that tends to set things up, this needs to be stream-of-conscience, more radio, less MTV.
Then, find time on the laser printer that was available for resumes and finalize it. Then he would find some plain white paper to wrap it in, with just a dedication "For Noreen" on the wrapping, just to keep things discreet.
And then, he would keep it handy for one of these chance meetings, preferably after the session where they review his paper. So far he'd gotten the tape made and the label file was ready to go on a floppy in his bag.
As for the song selections...there's a temptation to play it safe, but then, nothing about this is safe. He can't say this is entirely destiny but there's a need to handle this with critical care, and so, well, this calls for total honesty, even if it's a tad out of his comfort zone, even if he can kinda hide in what's become a brand of tongue in cheek, in-joke innuendo that has been with them all along.
He feels she's been completely earnest with him, how can he do any less?
1. Something To Talk About (Bonnie Raitt)
2. First Night (Survivor)
3. One Of These Nights (Eagles)
4. Magic (Cars)
5. Tumbling Dice (Stones)
6. Come Again (Damn Yankees)
7. Hysteria (Def Leppard)
8. Mystified (Damn Yankees)
9. Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey)
10. Just Between You And Me (April Wine)
11. Love Bites (Def Leppard)
12. Strung Out (Steve Perry)
To note, barely missing the cut,
• Have You Ever Wanted Someone So Bad (Def Leppard from a dub of a recently borrowed tape)
• You Wear It Well or You're In My Heart (Rod Stewart)
• Love Will Find A Way (Yes)
• A number of Queen tracks, like It's Late, too many great ones that almost fit, but..
• He resists the temptation to include Plaster Caster, thankfully.
Since nothing can ever be cut and dry, the laser printer is a bit of a sore spot since he's thinking he needs to be sending out resumes. With so much buzz about openings there at the school and supposedly at his dad's plant, it has seemed moot thus far.
Just as his junior year of HS wrapped up, good ol' Emmett Bain had gotten Nick's number from a sales receipt after realizing he knew the catalog better than anyone who'd ever worked there. Bain finally closed the deal and brought him in part time, and had managed to keep in touch ever since. Lately Bain was seeming to imply he'd soon need a new store manager within a half hour drive of Jameson. Nick would respond positively if nothing more than to be polite, but who knows.