In February 2023, Laura and I had a very busy long weekend trip, where we flew into Miami on Wednesday night, and drove to Key West and back before flying back to Baltimore on Monday. On Sunday, we rode the Yankee Freedom to the Dry Tortugas National Park, and it was a revelatory experience. Kindled my love for our national parks and I bought a book about the railroad to Key West, called “Last Railroad to Paraise”

The story is really about Henry Flagler, and how he used his insane fortune from Standard Oil to, essentially, build Florida. He started in St. Augustine (a place he had never visited until he was 55 years old) and worked his way down to Key West, essentially building the entirety of the Eastern coast of Florida. Miami was a rural trading post before the railroad came through. What a wild situation.

I’m heading to Texas right now, to meet up with a dear friend. I have known her for a decade, and we finally met in 2021. It was crazy to me, then, that I could meet someone, randomly, on World of Warcraft, and now our kids are playing together. I am excited to go to Buc-ees, and I have spent no time on the gulf coast of Texas, so this will be an interesting trip. I have eyed up Galveston and Mobile for years as off-beat long-weekend destinations, so I guess we can do a sort of trial run on this. I’m going to get some brisket when the plane lands.

My director asked us to read (and paid for a copy of) The Phoenix Project. Apparently, it is meant to teach me about the transformative nature of rescuing an IT organization. I started reading it, and its making me anxious with just the first chapter.