Steve and the Indian Booth Babe

Some men have a breast obsession, and I will admit I enjoy looking at women with generous breasts. However, I am more of a leg and ass man. I had never seen Bela dressed in anything other than baggy jeans. I knew she and Himnish were avid joggers, but I never suspected that she had such a delightful ass and stunning legs. Like everything about her, her full rounded ass was petite, but her tiny form was gorgeous. Reluctantly, I pulled the sheet over her. Himnish was a lucky guy to be engaged to an intelligent and beautiful woman.

I checked outside of our room and found two plastic bags hanging from the knob. Our clothes had been washed and pressed as promised. The day was already starting off well. I set Bela's clothes on the desk chair and carried mine into the bathroom. I stared at myself for a moment in the mirror. I looked tired despite eight hours of sleep, and I needed a shave. Otherwise, I looked like an average guy at 5' 11" and 165 pounds. My appearance was also average. There are only two areas where I excel. I exercise regularly, so I'm fitter than most men in their early thirties. I also earned a Ph.D. in physics that would suggest I am above average intelligence. However, I know how much harder I had to study than my fellow graduate students to earn my degree. I'm smart, but I'm not any kind of genius.

As I stared in the mirror, I absentmindedly touched the wet spot on my thigh. I brought my fingers up to my nose and smelled Bela's essence. I felt like slapping myself when I tasted my fingers. I took a deep breath as I looked at the pervert in the mirror. I was definitely going to hell.

I had taken a shower before bed, but I was sweaty again. I took another shower and did what any other average white male would do after seeing a woman's gorgeous and very naked ass. I jacked off. I tried not to think of Bela's pussy as I stroked my cock but couldn't keep her delicious body out of my mind.

After I shaved and dressed, I quietly opened the door to the bedroom. Bela was awake and staring at me with her dark brown eyes. The expression on her face showed a mixture of apprehension and fear.

"Bela, I'm going down to the lobby to get a cup of coffee and read the paper. The hotel delivered our clean clothes. You can join me for breakfast when you're ready."

Bela just nodded, and I headed downstairs. The day just seemed to get better. The front desk clerk informed me that the airlines had dropped off our luggage. I tried calling our room to inform Bela, but she didn't answer. I wasn't worried since she had clean clothes available. I asked about the possibility of getting an additional room, and the clerk laughed. We were stuck.

Bela joined me for breakfast a half hour later. She had also taken a shower. The hotel had a large Sunday buffet. I had started with a large plate of fruit and a glass of grapefruit juice. I laughed when Bela sat across from me after making a similar selection. Both of us even asked for made to order omelets. Of course, Bela ordered hers with the hottest peppers available and complained it was still too bland.

I tried some light conversation, but Bela seemed distracted. I was used to her not looking me in the eye at work and this morning was no different. She seemed intent on her food.

We were finishing our coffee when Bela said, "Did you sleep OK?"

I laughed, "I was so exhausted, I slept like a log. I hope I didn't snore. I've been told that when I'm tired and have had too much to drink, I snore heavily."

"No, you didn't snore. I just had a strange dream and was afraid I might have disturbed you."

Bela's brown eyes darted up to my face when she mentioned the strange dream. I hoped my expression didn't give me away.

"You don't need to worry on my account. You were quiet as a mouse. I could barely hear you breathing."

After breakfast, we brought our luggage up to our room before heading over to the conference hall. The loading doors were all closed, and the temperature was bearable. While Bela installed the software, I loaded 16 oz. bottles of spaghetti sauce onto the conveyor belt that looped around in a circle. I turned on the motor and watched the bottles move in an endless loop through our inspection system. I made a few adjustments to the track to smooth out the movement of the bottles. When Bela was finished with the software installation, I turned on the system. I had some test bottles that were seeded with various sizes of glass shards. Each of the test bottles was identified with yellow paint on the lid. The system kicked out the test bottles every time and let the good bottles pass.

I remember laughing when the CEO's daughter had brought a tour group to our laboratory at work. She said, "The product goes in here. The good bottles go out here, and the bad bottles go out there." As an engineer, I wanted to jump in and explain all the mathematics and physics involved. After a minute of quietly fuming, I realized she had precisely summarized what the inspection system did. So, I won't bore you with the mathematics and physics except to say they are beautiful.

In fact, I was extremely proud of what I had accomplished in developing the second-generation system. A year and a half ago, I had been recruited by Paradox to upgrade the company's food inspection system. The InspeX 100 had been revolutionary when it was introduced six years ago, and Paradox had generated a new market in the food safety business. However, six years is a long time in the electronics industry, and competitors had leapfrogged our system.

Paradox is a small Upstate New York company. Its main line of business involves point-of-sale terminals for the restaurant industry. The idea of inspecting sealed food containers on the production line was the CEO's brainchild. My first day at Paradox, the CEO summoned me to his office for a two-hour discussion of his hopes for the future system.

The CEO leaned over the conference desk and said, "No one needs a point of sale terminal. The world ran fine without them. A restaurant can function with an old-fashioned cash register."

I knew Paradox would still be a small company without their point of sale terminal business. I laughed, "Anything that can get me a chalupa faster is significant to me."

The CEO considered me for a moment as if perhaps he had made a mistake hiring me. I resolved not to interrupt him again.

"Let me continue. Food safety is important to me, and it is important to everyone. Food bottling plants operate their production lines at the highest speed practical. Occasionally, a weak bottle will explode and spray glass shards around the production line. Some of these shards land inside of an empty jar. Severe injury can result if a baby tries to swallow a chunk of sharp glass. Companies get sued, and if there is any publicity, they can lose market share. When I learned about the problem of broken glass in baby food jars, I resolved to do my best to protect helpless infants. Our system was the first on the market, but now it is no longer state-of-the-art. I want to improve our inspection system significantly. The old system was designed for tiny four oz. jars of baby food. It provides some consumer protection for eight oz. jars. I want to be able to inspect bottles as large as a 32-oz. jar of spaghetti sauce. Maybe we can even inspect bottles of beer. Who wants to choke on a chunk of glass in the middle of the Super Bowl?"

I stared at the CEO for a moment. "I like your goal, but it won't come cheap or easy."

"I understand. Just make it happen."

I was promised all the resources I needed to create a product that would recapture and expand the market we had originally created. My first six months were devoted to hardware upgrades, and I made some significant but rather expensive improvements. I was aided by two technicians who integrated the components I selected. Unfortunately, these technicians were also responsible for maintaining the old InspeX 100 systems in the field. The unreliability of the units we had already sold meant that my technicians were often unavailable. My schedule kept slipping.

While I was waiting for progress on the hardware, I used MATLAB to develop new algorithms with the power to exploit the improvements in image quality provided by my new hardware. MATLAB allows you to quickly try out new ideas, but it is not fast enough for a production line system. My advanced concepts needed to be converted to C++. I was six months into the project when I went to my boss to get a competent programmer. His response was my first inkling that my project was in trouble.

Thanks to the CEO's backing, I was used to getting pretty much everything I requested. I expected my boss would assign an experienced programmer to the project. Instead, he gave me Bela, who was a computer scientist fresh out of graduate school. I hadn't been involved in interviewing her and had never heard her speak in a meeting. All I knew was that she had an MS degree in Computer Science.

"But she doesn't have any experience in the commercial world. Hell, she's still wet behind the ears. Let me have Himnish. At least he has some confidence in his work. I'm afraid if I sneeze, she'll hide under the desk."

My boss refused to consider my objections. I complained to the CEO. Instead of supporting me, he informed me that the Board of Directors was concerned about the project's runaway cost. Paradox's main business line was in a slump, and the Board was concerned about stockholder value. The CEO said they would pull funding for my project if I didn't have it ready for the Las Vegas Trade Show in six months. I said my schedule called for at least a year for software development and system testing. He said the Board was generous giving me six months.

In my first meeting with the tiny Indian girl, she barely spoke. I tried making a joke to break the ice, but she just stared at me. I awkwardly plunged ahead and described the current system before telling her the CEO's grand vision.

I said, "Food production lines run at speeds up to 1000 bottles a minute. That means the software had only 60 milliseconds to decide if a bottle is contaminated with a chunk of glass before the next bottle needs to be processed. The old system managed the time constraint by using simple algorithms and an expensive special purpose processor. I want to do the processing on a high-end PC. My innovative approach provides significantly better results, but the algorithms are far more complex. Success will depend on you implementing my techniques in code that takes less than 60 milliseconds. Every millisecond we save will be critical."

I gave her the password to the software repository containing my documentation and MATLAB code. I asked her to start by converting a simple module. I hoped she would finish it in a couple of weeks. I went back to putting the finishing touches on the hardware.

Three days later, I looked up to see Bela standing in my office doorway. "I'm finished. What do you want me to do next?"

I feared the worst as I got up from my desk and said, "Ok, let's do a code review. We can use your computer."

I sat next to Bela in her cubical. I was surprised when I saw Himnish staring at us from the break room. I tried to ignore him as I listened to Bela describe her work. He watched us the whole time I spent talking to his fiancée.

I found out that Bela could talk if the subject were software. We went through her neat code line by line. The first thing I noticed was her extensive and precise comments. She showed me the results of the test cases I supplied. I was impressed with everything she showed me. I was particularly impressed with how rapidly she had written quality code. I gave her a more challenging module to convert. I expected she would have to write around two hundred lines of intricate code. I estimated that she would need a couple of weeks or more.

Two days later she was back again. I looked at her in surprise. There was no way she could have finished, and she wasn't.

"Dr. Williams, I think there is a way to fulfill the requirements of this module and achieve faster execution."

I stared at Bela for a moment before I said, "Bela, trust me. I put a lot effort into selecting the fastest techniques. Just implement the module as given. The CEO has us on a tight schedule, and we don't have time to waste trying approaches that I've already rejected."

Bela stared at me with an expression I couldn't read. It was one I would get familiar with. After a moment, she nodded and left.

Five days later Bela showed up at my office door. I was surprised when she said the code was ready for review. I detected the smallest hint of a smile on her face. She began by running the test case. The code ran flawlessly. Bela clicked on another icon and ran the test case again. Again, the code ran flawlessly, but this time it ran twice as fast. The second run was over 5 milliseconds faster.

I said, "I don't understand."

"Dr. Williams, I implemented your algorithm as well as the one I suggested. Your approach is slower."

I glared at Bela for a moment, before slamming my fist on her desk, "Damn it, Bela. Next time, please just do what I asked. We don't have time for games. I had good reasons for my design."

I stormed out of her cubical and went outside. I walked around the building a couple of times to cool off. It took that long to realize I was acting like a macho asshole. Damn it, she had just saved us 5 fucking milliseconds. She had taken my statement about speed being critical to heart. She was doing what I had asked. I felt like an asshole.

I walked back to her cubicle with my head down. I found Himnish standing over her yelling, "Stupid women, what were you thinking? You challenged your manager. Do you want to be fired? You will be sent back to India, and I will not follow you."

She was sitting at her desk with her head resting on her folded arms. Her body was shaking, and I heard her cry, "I can't go back. I would rather die."

I asked Himnish to leave so I could talk to Bela in private. I spoke her name softly, and she slowly sat up and looked down at my feet. Her eyes were red, and her cheeks were wet. I think she expected to be fired.

"I'm sorry, Bela. That was spectacular work. I expected it would take a couple of weeks to convert my code. You only took a week to save us 5 milliseconds. Thank you."

Bela stared at the desk, and I saw her body shudder as she slowly regained her composure. I heard her whisper, "Dr. Williams, I'll try to do better. I want you to be pleased. I'll do whatever it takes to make your project a success. Just tell me what you want to be done, and I will do what you ask. Please, I can't go back to India."

I shook my head. I had terrorized the poor woman for doing an excellent job. I'm not good at admitting when I'm wrong, but I knew I was the one who needed to apologize.

"I'm sorry for being a jerk. I told you success depended on the code executing fast, and you followed my guidance perfectly. I'm very impressed with your work. I hope you will continue to follow your instincts."

Bela looked up and gave me the first smile I'd ever seen from her. It was a tiny smile, but it was definitely a smile. As usual, I noticed Himnish glaring at me from the hallway.

After that incident, I came to trust Bela's abilities as she proved herself over and over. It wasn't the last time she suggested an alternative approach. Sometimes, I was right, but at least as often she had a better solution.

#

Four months later, Bela and I were both excited when she finished converting all my MATLAB code and integrated it into the system. I was devastated when we ran it for the first time. It took 92 milliseconds for each bottle. It wouldn't be able to keep up with the production line.

"Bela, we're 32 milliseconds over. Do you have any ideas?"

"I can shave off four or five more milliseconds, but the only way to get it under 60 milliseconds would be to convert the core modules to assembly language."

I groaned, "Any idea how long that will take?"

Bela didn't bat an eyelash. "five or six months."

"We're dead. We have to be ready for the trade show in two months."

Bela stared at her monitor for a moment before she said, "Can you show me the hardware?"

I was surprised. Somehow, I had never given her a tour of the laboratory where we operated the prototype. I led her into the lab where one of the technicians had a circular conveyor belt running bottles of baby food through the InspeX 200 prototype. The din was barely tolerable.

The food handling components were unchanged from the first-generation system and were housed in a large stainless-steel cabinet. Bottles entered on the conveyor belt, and a star wheel grabbed each bottle. A star wheel is a large wheel with half circle indents around the circumference. It is designed to grab the bottles and hold them precisely as they pass under the X-ray unit. The X-ray system flashes and an image of the inside of each bottle is collected for processing.

I had to get a ladder for Bela so she could see inside the cabinet. I unlatched the stainless-steel door and released the wheel so I could rotate it by hand. I pressed a bottle against the star wheel. A pneumatic suction cup pulled the jar into the indent. I rotated the bottle under the X-ray head that was deactivated by the safety locks on the doors.

I said, "A sensor triggers the X-ray unit for each bottle. If the production line is running at top speed, we can have as little as 60 milliseconds to decide if the bottle is contaminated with a glass shard before we X-ray the next bottle."

I rotated the wheel until the bottle was next to the reject channel. I hit a button, and a blast of air was directed through the suction cup. The rejected bottle slid out onto a tray.

I said, "The computer decides if the bottle is good or bad. It shoots the bad bottles out when it reaches the reject channel. Good bottles are held a little longer and proceed down the production line conveyor belt."

Bela looked at the system for a moment. "How much time does it take the bottle to move from the X-ray unit to the reject channel?"

I looked at the system and counted indents. I said, "For this product, it's about four bottles or 240 milliseconds. All of the other products we inspect will take longer."

Bela laughed and clapped her hands. I looked at her in surprise.

"Dr. Williams, we have all the time in the world."

"I don't understand. We only have 60 milliseconds, and our software takes 92."

Bela said, "That's why I'm a computer scientist, and you are an engineer. Have you ever heard of threads and multitasking? Our CPU has far more computing power than we are using, and we have 240 milliseconds to make our decision. Give me a week, and you can start final testing."

I was surprised when it took her almost ten days. It turns out she also switched to a real-time Linux kernel and added an online display of production statistics during that week. She just continued to amaze me.

I tried to hide my annoyance as I said, "Do you realize that the CEO signed the company up as a Microsoft partner? He'll never sign off on Linux."

"Dr. Williams, He'll never know. When the system boots up, it starts with Microsoft Windows. It even shows their logo. The only task Windows has is to spawn the Linux kernel on start-up. It disappears until shutdown. Linux uses less overhead and provides a reliable real-time operation which Microsoft was never designed to do. I also improved the user interface. We generate a lot of diagnostic graphs, but the old system can only display them when the production line halts. Don't you think the production line managers would like to see how many contaminated bottles he is producing while the production line is running?"