Chương 31: Book 2 - Chapter 6 B

Grandpa wanted a conference as soon as possible, so he dragged me to his temporary office after dinner. He had commandeered one of the completely empty and unused rooms on level four.

"Nice space Grandpa," I complimented, as I looked around. It now sported bookshelves, a desk, and a recliner for comfortably reading important papers and afternoon naps.

"Your Dad has one like this too, next door," he told me.

"What do you need to talk to me about?" I asked him.

"I need to discuss the expenses for your lab."

"The electric oven can come from the old kitchen downstairs, but the list of stuff says where to find it."

"What is it all for?" he asked.

"Can I swear you to secrecy?" I asked him, with a little grin.

"Absolutely, won't share a word with anyone," he declared quickly.

"Too bad," I said, with a big smile.

"It's a surprise." He sighed, and rubbed his balding head.

"How long do I have to get everything together, and how much do I have to sneak it in?"

"No need to sneak anything in, no one will ask. I do need all the equipment on that list before December 14th. That's when the semester ends and winter break begins. I'll be working on my secret project all winter long. Expect the big unveiling in time for Mom and Dad's anniversary."

"February 1st?" he asked.

"Yes, spring semester begins January 7th, so don't expect me to be anywhere but my lab until the 7th. I'll come out for Christmas with the family. But otherwise, total mad science hermit."

"That mad science label worries me," he said, with a smile.

"Any clue as to what you be working on?"

"It's a beginning," I shared.

"A progression of tools that will build on each other. It's all chemical engineering at this point."

"Anything dangerous?" he asked worriedly.

"Nothing explosive or flammable. Some moderately high pressures, but nothing dangerous. Not even anything super high temperature," I assured him.

"How high a temperature," he asked with concern.

"If it's not super high?"

"Only as hot as the oven gets," I told him honestly.

"Okay I have a question," he said, as he dug through his desk pulling out his stock information.

"These three stocks haven't moved much. We've sold the others and reinvested, but not these three."

"Those are keepers," I explained.

"We won't ever sell them, they'll never stop growing in value. They will all double by the end of the year."

"Okay," he said, and drew circles around them. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Remember that these long term stocks can be used as collateral for loans."

"Yeah, I remember."

"How is it going with the management company?" I asked.

"Good, we should close the deal in the next week or two, but then we'll need some hotels for them to run."

"I'm ready for you," I said, pulling a list of properties out of my pocket.

"Locations, amounts to offer and dates to make offers on."

"How many are there?" he asked looking at the list.

"Forty properties. Most of them old, like The Mayo."

"This has been much more work than I expected," he said, looking tired.

"Will they all be like this?"

"Everything on that list will need work. Dad will know what to do, just leave it to him," I told him.

"He has done great in the two weeks he's been here. I think the work speed has more than doubled."

"It's a perfect fit for his talents and skills," I agreed.

"He'll take the crew here and move them on to the next locations. Those teams will have the experience to bring those buildings up to our standards."

"We need a catchy name for the group of hotels," he said.

"Of course," I agreed.

"Something that says classic luxury. We are building a premium boutique brand."

"I'll work on it," he said, and went back to studying the list.

"Are we really going to offer this little for those two hotels on the lake?"

"Yes," I said.

"It's a great buy. They will try to dicker but in the end accept that offer."

"Will we borrow against the stock fund for that?"

"No, we are going to throw the cash fund into these six stocks," I told him handing him a different piece of paper.

"All but 500 thousand. We will close our position two days before the government accepts the offer. That will massively grow our current cash, paying for the hotels and their renovation. That means no big purchases between August 22nd and January 25th."

"Is 500 thousand enough for operations underway?"

"Just enough to keep going," I told him.

"How is 900 thousand going to become 6 million in five months, and why aren't we doing that with our stock portfolio, it's at 9 million now."

"Our 900 thousand is going into options, one dollar will buy a hundred dollars of stock. We won't do that with the stock portfolio because we are using it as collateral. The banks won't like us risking it on options."

"Complicated," he sighed.

"But I trust you. By the way, those business cards were great. Everyone wanted to exchange cards, and I've been using them ever since I got back."

"I'm glad, what did you think of Mike Waring?"

"He seemed like a level headed guy," he said.

"With good business sense. He hasn't called me yet." I pointed at the phone on his desk, and it rang.

"Jesus H Christ!" he swore.

"That wigs me out when you do stuff like that."

"Have a good talk with Mike," I told him, getting up to walk out the door.

"Welcome him as head of hotel management for the Grand Lux Hotel group." Mom had left her piano behind at the farmhouse. I found her in an empty room playing on an electric keyboard set up on two TV trays. I sat next to her, but she kept playing.

"Tell me about this company in Texas. I enjoyed playing the typing game with Mattie while you were gone."

"I'm investing in the company. Grandpa is loaning me the money. That and the software I wrote over the summer will make them wildly successful."

"You play the piano and guitar so well," she said as she played, "but you say you don't want a career in music. Now you're writing software, but your College courses are Math and Chemistry. Is writing software a career choice now?"

"Mom, it was just a project to do over the summer. Most of the summer I kept hitting limitations—things I wanted to do, that the computer was capable of, but no one had software to do those things." I sighed at the bottleneck I was facing.

"Computers have huge capabilities, but until someone writes a program to do something the computer doesn't know how. You have to teach them to do new things, that's what software engineers do.

"The games were things I thought Mattie might enjoy playing, and if they worked they would have a market. I also kept thinking about my Grade School and High School. I wanted to write something that would benefit them." She paused her playing and looked at me proudly.

"My son, College student, speaker of languages and teacher of computers!"