Telescopes and Time Travel

Telescopes
I had found a place out on a hilltop that had a wide open pergola of white columns with green vines growing on them. It was open to the sky, like a Victorian Hedge Henge. I had brought my telescope and it's broken parts with me. S arrived with A and his broken telescope. We managed to set A's telescope up without much trouble, and when we decided what we were going to observe, I managed to rotate the damaged part far enough back to give us the 40 seconds or so required for a good exposure. S and I looked at my broken telescope, as we were discussing strategy to repair the thing my former Astronomy professor from Palomar arrived. She was still looking quite the babe. I managed to pull out my PDA with its programmable nanites and with some inspiration I managed to program them to act on the subjective mount and reform the mechanism and lense to be a large light gathering area. Using software to decode the compressed image we were suddenly able to double the ability of the telescope.
Time Travel
Myself and the Nanite PDA are the only things that remained constant as I next found myself in an alternate time line. I had to make my way down to town from the Hedge Henge on foot. My home was not even built, there was a long tree filled valley where the development was in my home timeline. I made my way into town, reading as much as I could on the society I found myself in. There was Unregistered Alien paperwork to be filled out for the Hotel. I found that it was easier to let them think San Diego was a Mexican city as the paperwork was thereafter very light, I even got a greencard and a driver's license from the hotel printer. What I didn't get was a very nice room. The room was 12 inches wider than the sleeping cot. There was a flatscreen TV built into the wall at the foot of the bed. The foot of the bed opened up to reveal a toilet and popup vanity with a 6 inch mirror. The door to the room was a pocket type door that sounded like iron when it latched. I didn't sleep very well, so watched a lot of the government channels to figure out what was going on in this society. It seems that nearly every move a citizen made was monitored, licensed or fined. The list of activity fees was enormous. The list of fines was even larger. Undocumented workers had it much easier. I found that I would be eligible for better housing if I just went and registered in the city center.
Going through registration to stay a few more nights I ran into a long brunette haired Sex Permit gal, played by SP. She is very horny and needs to get a permit. "Lucky boyfriend," I observe, as she is quite cute.
"No boyfriend, yet," then, on a whim, she asks me to be her cosigner, solving her requirement for a partner, and mine for a place to stay. Turns out she likes older men, "they are so grateful," and I "had a really huge PDA."
While we are in her small rooms, she plays the state approved sexual dating guidelines. Apparently in this world EVERYTHING is monitored. There were even sensors on the condoms. At least she had a sitting room and a bathroom. After Our date, early in the morning, the city is locked down. "This happens periodically," SP explains, "while the government goes and rounds up illegal aliens and terrorists. You're not either, are you?"
"No, I have a green card, see," I showed her my documents.
"But San Diego is a North American City, how can you be an alien?"
"I'm a time traveler from another dimension." I was waiting for her to call the cops on me.
She picked up my PDA and looked at it. The desktop was as generic as anything, and the icons were all custom designed by myself, so it didn't look like anything. The English program names and such were very familiar to her. She clicked around a little bit and looked at my email programs, etc. The photos I had on the PDA were of a very different world than her own. There were almost no automobiles in this world, for example. Only government workers and transport companies could afford cars. That convinced her more than anything.
The lockdown lasts for three days. All permits for location and activity are automatically extended if not on the restricted list. "Please Comply" is the way that announcement ended.
Fortunately I had condoms. She only had the original 3 state approved devices, the ones with the tracking technology that indicated that they were indeed used properly in only the state approved positions for sex. I had the nanites locate and loop the video of our previous day's activities through the monitoring devices.
During the next three days we might have varied a bit from the state approved list of positions and probably topics of conversations. The fact that I was an alien terrorist made things all the more interesting for SP.
After our lockdown was up she hired me as a live in housekeeper. That way I wouldn't need to find other lodging, or real work. While she was at work I dismantled one of her PDAs and discovered, with the help of the nanites, several interesting tracking devices and software.

I had been in this dimension quite a while before I was able to access the sort of information I needed to figure out when the next time portal was going to be stable. I told SP about it. She was sad, but understood why I would want to get back. She thought my world sounded very exciting, but a little too lawless and wild west. For some reason my impending departure caused her to invite me out to meet her parents.
They threw a lavish reception for us, "Did you tell them we were getting married or something?" I asked her.
"No, they just never figured I'd ever have a boyfriend. Just go along with it I'll deal with them when you've gone."
So I played along with them. I had the opportunity to show them the simple OS I had found lurking in the background of their electronic notepads, amusing them with the on/off, 80 character display with greenscreen graphics mode and the virtual joystick controlling the VRML style browser. SP's Dad was very impressed with that one, not knowing that it had even existed. Of course they wanted to know why I wouldn't go look for work on computers and just wanted to be a poolboy.
"Butler," SP corrected them.
"Whatever," SP's mom said.
So I told them I was a time travellor, and would have to be going away soon. I didn't want to start working, and then leave my employer high and dry. SP looked at me on that one. Even the freckles across her nose and cheeks managed to look sad.
I got to give them the slide show from my world. I must say, it was certainly easier to convince these folks than I would have expected. They were gullible beyond anything I had ever seen. I think it had something to do with being part of a society where the rules changed on an almost daily basis. We spent the night in their home. SP sneaking into my room and sneaking out again just before daylight.
We took the bus out to where the portal was to appear, and there was much hugging. The portal opened. I was able to send and receive Email. S was home and said he'd drive out to get me.
SP launched herself at me as I stepped through. She didn't land with me, and I wasn't in my home dimension, either. The extra mass and motion had altered the portal somehow. The nanites had recorded everything. SP had gone to my world, at least I knew she would meet my friend S. I couldn't get a wireless signal on the PDA. The nanites were spinning about in a tizzy, they didn't like being dataless they seemed to have an insatiable curiosity and were massive stimulation addicts. They immediately set about making themselves into flying recon units, I had to set the PDA on the ground to let the heat leech out of it, and they were using the silicon and Iron to make more of themselves. The world looked pristine. There were no signs of vapor trails, and not a noise of non-insect or wind in the trees production. I saw no sign of a trail and none of civilization at all. I then noticed there were no old-world oaks, or eucalyptus trees. Only the native oaks, manzanita and creosote. No tumble weeds or castor beans, either. There were large deer prints in the soft ground at the edge of the forest. I shouted "Hello" at the top of my lungs. There was a muffled echo, and even the birds and creatures in the forest only looked over at me. They didn't even flap away in surprise. I suddenly had a lonely like never before feeling. Finding water and then shelter for the night became my immediate priority. I had the nanites alter their software with that in mind, the little buzzing fliers took off in every direction sending grainy scans back for me to use to direct the search further. Still no signs of radio noise.