A hectic week of travel. On Monday I came back from Austria where I’d spent a long weekend in the skiing town of Kitzbühel with colleagues. On Tuesday I worked from home, with my day packed full of meetings and messages to catch up with. That evening my wife and I checked in on her parents, who had that day moved into their new house five minutes up the road from us. Then on Wednesday I was up early for a taxi to the airport to begin my journey to Kingsville, Texas, to visit my eldest son. Getting to Kingsville involved flying to Atlanta and getting a connection to San Antonio. My first flight, with Virgin Atlantic, had over 100 empty seats, which was so unusual that even the staff commented on it.1 By the time I arrived, it was around 3am in the UK, so I spent the night in a nearby airport hotel.
On Thursday morning, looking out of my hotel window, it was pretty clear I was in Texas. I jumped in a rental car for the 2.5-hour drive south to Kingsville.
It was so lovely to catch up with my son, to see how he’s living, watch him compete at a track meet and get to know some of his friends. We did the usual parent/student stuff of heading to the supermarket to stock him up with groceries, as well as treating him to dinner a couple of nights that I was there.
On Friday he competed at his home track in a ‘local’ competition against Angelo State University, a college that is about five hours away by road. He ran in the 1500m and 3000m races, with the goal of winning both of the events to contribute to the team’s points tally, but not necessarily setting record times. It was great to see him come through in the final laps in each race to take first.
It was the first outdoor track meet of the season. I was grateful that the day was overcast, as it was still so hot and humid. With no shade in the stands, I covered every inch of myself in sunscreen. Both the men’s and women’s teams from Texas A&M-Kingsville beat Angelo State, “avenging” their losses from a year ago.
Kingsville is an interesting place in that it feels as though it’s in the middle of nowhere, a sense that is added to by the sparseness of the South Texas landscape. It is super flat to the horizon on all sides, with massive open spaces surrounding the town. The population is down 15% from its peak in the 1980 census, and it shows through the number of shuttered buildings that are dotted about. Aside from the clusters of gigantic stores and drive-thrus, Kleberg Avenue seemed to be the main ‘old’ street in the town, with an abandoned cinema, a barbershop, and various other stores dotted along it. There was a sign saying that parking on the avenue is limited to two hours, but the local coffee shop owner assured me that it hadn’t been enforced in a decade or so. It made sense, as there were plenty of spaces, and the avenue was almost empty.
The King Ranch Saddle Shop seemed out of place on the street, with its high-end clothing, silverware and leather goods, with prices to match. The 825,000-acre King Ranch — over twice the size of Greater London — is what gives Kingsville its name. On my drive from San Antonio to Kingsville I had seen a small truck with ‘King Ranch’ embossed on the back and assumed that it was a staff vehicle. But one of the assistants in the shop told me that Ford actually produces a series of luxury trucks and SUVs under the King Ranch brand.
Further down the street I came across Mr Bruce’s Coffee House, owned by the eponymous Mr Bruce, who was very happy to have a long, fun chat. The coffee and locally produced small-batch cakes were great.
The avenue is also the home of Harrel’s Pharmacy, a store that contains a small diner, with prices that date back decades. After hearing about the place from my wife who visited last August and seeing it profiled on YouTube, I had to check it out. I had a tray of french fries and a soda for the princely sum of $5.
Visiting somewhere where I am unlikely to come across another tourist is my kind of trip, as I love meeting and talking to locals. I was staying at the Holiday Inn, just off Highway 77 in the south-east corner of town. On my first night there, I asked the staff whether there was somewhere to get a glass of wine, and they pointed me to Chili’s, which was “just across the street”. Getting across the street was a small mission, as the entire area is built for cars only. I had all my wits about me as I wandered through the underpass, making sure that the cars could see me, and doubling back when I found that I had walked the wrong way and was headed towards a ditch.
I’d never been to a Chili’s before. It was a typical meaty diner, with a small bar and more televisions than a local electronics store. I sat at the bar, watching the local sports broadcast of bareback horse-riding and steer roping. I have no idea how anybody who competes in a bareback horse-riding event is ever able to walk again.
Blake, the barman at Chili’s, told me that on the first Friday of every month, the nearby town of Corpus Christi holds an ‘ArtWalk’, where streets are closed for live music and street vendors. I told my son about it and we decided to go.
Somehow we found a parking spot right by a couple of streets with food vendors and market stalls. We grabbed some food and wandered about. It didn’t seem that big of a deal; there were plenty of people enjoying themselves but it seemed quite small. After exploring all of the streets, we got back in the car. On the way out of Corpus Christi we discovered that we had completely missed most of where the action was, including live bands that had set up on some of the closed roads. We drove around looking for somewhere to park but couldn’t spot any spaces, so decided to head for home, via Sonic Drive-In for dessert.
One of my son’s friends has a holiday beach house in Rockport, a further 30 minutes’ drive north-east from Corpus Christi. He and a few friends planned to go there for the weekend, and asked me to join them for dinner. I spent the day mooching around Corpus Christi, visiting Hybrid Records and Disc Go Round, its two vinyl and CD stores.
We had a lovely seafood meal at the Moondog Seaside Eatery. We had to wait 45 minutes for a table, but this wasn’t so bad as it showed that the restaurant was popular. It gave us the opportunity to wander along to the funfair at nearby Fulton Beach Park.
When I’m away from home I try and get some runs in, which this week was particularly important in order to offset the high-octane Texan food. Running close to my hotel was impractical as the car park was too small and the roads too dangerous. So I hopped in the car for a short drive to Dick Kleberg Park, the main open public space in the town. Running loops around the park was hard work, and after 10km I was done. On my second visit, I remembered to bring a couple of towels from the hotel gym so that I didn’t end up with a soggy, sweaty seat and seatbelt on the drive home.
The main other thing that struck me from my trip was that sustainable materials and recycling don’t seem to have reached this part of Texas. Food and drink were served with styrofoam plates and cups like it was 1985, and everything was always gathered together into a single trash can.
It was lovely to see my son, and I am so glad I went.
Aside from mooching around southern Texas, this was a week in which I:
- Celebrated my wife’s birthday, her most un-birthday-like birthday ever as she waited around all day for the call to say that her parents’ house purchase had completed. We’ll have a belated celebration next week.
- Attended an early morning Technology Architecture Board meeting, my first invite to a long-standing series.
- Met with colleagues to review the list of installed software across our estate, making decisions on what we think should be part of the standard build, what should be available on-demand and what should be by request only.
- Had an introductory meeting with an AI software development startup. They are looking to simplify an intensive manual process in a specific area that is highly relevant to us.
- Joined the steering committee for our sister company’s office refit project. Given that the work in our own office and our shared spaces is nearly complete, we agreed that we will no longer routinely attend the meetings.
- Met with the team working on our document management project, who gave an overview to colleagues in a couple of different functions that have an interest in the project’s success.
Media
Articles
- David Sparks makes the case for using Cowork for AI automation. I haven’t tried it yet, but am going to investigate.
This model is consistent with the way we humans historically handle high-risk situations. You don’t trust your accountant completely. You verify the numbers. You don’t trust automated backups. You test them. Supervised AI is just the same principle applied to autonomous agents.
If you’re thinking about AI automation, start with Cowork.
Video
- On my plane journey over to the US I caught up with some music-related downloads from BBC iPlayer.
- Rick Astley’s chat with Dermot O’Leary on Reel Stories is excellent. Astley comes across as a talented, lovely, self-aware man who is at peace with the career he’s had and his place in the world.
- I realised that I was rewatching Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne and ELO as soon as it started. The documentary is from 2012, which feels like yesterday but is almost a decade and a half ago. It’s strange seeing Tom Petty as a talking head and a remarkably young-looking Paul McCartney; young, that is, compared to his ‘interview’ at the end of the recent Man on the Run movie. McCartney references Lynne’s work on Free As A Bird and Real Love for The Beatles Anthology, and alludes to another track that he plans to finish one day. We now know that this is the song Now And Then, and McCartney was as good as his word. The documentary doesn’t really get much into the background story of Lynne, other than referencing his love of Del Shannon, Roy Orbison and The Beatles, all of whom he came to work with.
- I enjoyed the Piano Room sessions with Squeeze, Tori Amos and Labi Siffre. Siffre’s session is particularly great; I love his music and could listen to him talk for hours. His new song, Far Away, is beautiful and deeply affecting, given the knowledge that he lost both of his partners in quick succession a few years ago. It’s an incredible piece of work, particularly given that he’s the ripe old age of 80.
- Elliot Roberts posted a really interesting and thoughtful video for his Patreon subscribers on his experience of psychedelic drugs. I have no desire whatsoever to try them myself, but it was interesting to hear first hand from someone whose work I enjoy on what the effects can be.
Web
- Once again, Sharon O’Dea’s comments on LinkedIn for International Women’s Day were brilliantly brave. She says that “…every year on International Women’s Day I clear my diary and spend the entire day replying to companies’ posts about how much they support women — with awkward questions about their actual record on pay, leadership, flexible working, and more.” It’s an annual joy.
Books
- Finished reading Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. I’m not fully committed to my choice of what I’ll read next, and want to give it some thought.
Next week: Travelling home, and a three-day work week.
- Congratulations to crew member Rachel, who was taking her first flight after her training. ↩
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