I guess this starts out to be a quest, but turns into an adventure I had never thought would happen to me in million years. You see, something like this experience doesn't normally happen to a man who will be 40 years old in a few months.
Leonids. A once a year event, if seen in clear skies, is a rare and unique experience. The streaks across the sky are more than the combined viewings of a lifetime of stargazing and happening to view the random meteors that enter the earth's atmosphere.
The trek was on, I was encased in a light polluted urban sprawl, and absolutely had to try to find some dark skies in which to view something that won't come again in such intensity, until the year 2099. Just before dark, I escaped my cocoon of an apartment in search of remote airspace. The air was quite chilly and I brought some extra clothes and a warm jacket on the off-chance I were to get cold, and I included a small bottle of my favorite single-malt for some enhanced warmth perception, as well as my .45 and two loaded magazines. Since I was going out by myself I just wanted to be prepared for almost any situation.
I stopped at the gas station/convenience store near the apartment complex to fill the tank on the rental car and went inside for some liquid refreshment of my own. As I was choosing and perusing the bottled refreshment selection, I overheard these two people talking about a viewing area, and that several large wide angle telescopes would be setup there for close-up observation. From their description of the area, it was north west of the city and was about 35 miles away from where I was, so I begged my pardon for eavesdropping, and asked directions to this site. The man and woman were very friendly and told me I could follow them, as they were to meet a few other people and were going to caravan to the site. The couple was approximately my age, obviously attached, and seemed to want me to join them. And damn it, it sounded like a good time to me; breaking out of my self imposed hermitage tonight was a must-do on my agenda. I just didn't realize at this time how much of a break-out I was about to experience over the next 24 hours.
By the time we reached the destination, it was already dark, but as we came over the last rise, I got my first view of this small bowl-shaped valley the "festivities" would be held in and around. We had made a spectacular climb through this wilderness area on some barely paved roads in order to get here and the skies were nearly as dark as what I am accustomed to in New Mexico in this cozy, small valley, no more than a mile across at it's widest point. In the center of this valley was an old farm house, a cheerful candle-lit glow emanating from all of its windows, and an open field with a firefly effect of infared flashlights moving among the six large telescopes setup in the center of this, approximately one acre, field. As we pulled up into a side field crudely marked off as a parking area, I noticed the abundance of vehicles that were parked all around the valley. This was no small party!
As we walked up to the crowd around the telescopes, my new friends and I dispersed rapidly and I was left standing in front of the largest wide field telescope I had ever seen. I walked up to the viewing platform and watched an older man and a gorgeous young woman making some small adjustments to the motor control on this automated monster.
"That is some telescope ya'll have, I can't say that I have ever seen such a cool setup in all my life." I drawled.
The man ignored me, but the girl, turned towards me and asked,
"Thanks, do you know anything about electronics? The X-axis motor drive isn't working, and there is no one here that knows anything about it." She looked to be about 25 years old, mid-length brunette hair, and a pair of striking blue eyes. She was dressed in tight jeans and a fuzzy, dark colored sweater that was curved in a very pleasing way.
"Err, sure, I know a little about control circuits and motor drives..." I replied. I ought to, with 18 years of semiconductor equipment experience, I had better know something. " I will take a look if you would like."
The look she gave me was so inviting how could I not say no? The multitude of emotions on her face, a stunningly beautiful face by the way, caught me off-guard. Her cheeks were red from either the cool temperatures or from possibly crying, the sparkle in her eye from doing something she obviously liked, and the anxiousness of things not going as planned. I stepped up on this smallish platform as the older man stomped away grumbling expletives and throwing, what appeared to be a wrench, into the back of the truck adjacent to the scope, and stomped off in a huff.
"Don't mind him, he is really frustrated right now because Marty the asshole, isn't here to help him set the scope up. Oh by the way, my name is Jennifer."
I extended my hand to her and said, " Mike, a pleasure to meet you." She shook my hand like a man would, although her slim and smallish hands seemed to disappear in my huge mitts. She gave me an unreadable smile, as her hand lingered in mine.
"So, you say you know something about axis drives. Have a look at ours if you would, sir, we can't figure out why the X drive is not working." And then she showed me the control cabinet. I looked at it for a minute; it was all off-the-shelf parts from a good electronics supplier. Good, I did know this equipment.
I turned to Jennifer and said, " Piece of cake, do you have any spare electronic parts and some tools around in case something inside here is toasted?" She glanced into my eyes for a moment and, like breaking a short trance, said, "Sure, I will bring the cases from the truck...and yeah," she hesitated for a second, deep in thought about something, "I will go get the cases." She stood up quickly and walked away from me, disappearing around the side of the truck. I couldn't help but look as she walked away. She had the most beautiful ass I had ever seen. She is one gorgeous, young woman! As she went out of sight, it was my turn to break a short trance, and I turned to the electronics cabinet open in from of me and turned the power off to the unit. The cards were amply labeled and I found the X-axis card cage within seconds. I pulled the small flashlight out of my pocket, and I pulled the driver card out to look for hot spots anywhere on its surface. When a electronic component dies, sometimes it burns up and leaves a charred place on the board. Sure enough, I found a big burn spot on the Darlington driver pack, no wonder the drive wasn't working. I pulled the driver pack out of its removable socket, and checked the board for damage. There was no major carnage, and the socket was intact. I picked up the old burned pack, and I was standing up and turning around towards the truck when, I come in full frontal body contact with Jennifer, who had just walked up with two plastic hard case tool boxes. I caught her to keep from falling back down the short flight of stairs to the ground. But in the process, had pulled her to my 6' 3" frame in order to use my mass to balance us and the two large toolboxes.
"Are you OK?" I ask her as I take one of the boxes from her. " I am sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going." I look at her I see her looking at me with this distant grin on her face.
"That's OK, Tex, no harm done." she replies, and hands me the other case.
"Tex? How did you know I was from Texas? I don't live there now though. I live in New Mexico, please call me Mike." She looked me up and down and said,
"You sound like you are from Texas, and you are definitely built like you are from Texas... OK, Michael." and walked away from me slowly, looking over her shoulder at me.
