Hmm. I cannot believe how quickly time seems to pass! It turns out that I am doing quite a lot of walking, which is fine, but my new Birkenstocks are not entirely broken in. We are currently staying at Gothic Point in the middle of the Gothic Quarter. Ashley and I wandered down towards the waterfront, eventually found a small supermarket, bought some food (meat is very expensive here, at least compared with other items), and sat by the water to eat it. Afterwards, we wandered back to our hotel, no longer needing a map, and then over to the Picasso Museum. Wow! I need to email my parents soon and teasingly ask why they never took me to all these countries. As I wrote in an email earlier today, it was a …

We will soon land in Barcelona after a generally pleasant flight on one of easyJet’s large orange planes. I am very hungry, however. One of the shops in London would not accept Visa, so apparently the card was not accepted everywhere after all. While Ashley slept on the couch beside me, I woke from a short rest feeling almost dizzy from having slept so little over the previous five days. I began talking with two women nearby, Nikki and Alysia, who also went by Maggie. I did not understand the two names, but we joked about it together. When I took a drink from my CamelBak, they both looked surprised and asked what it was. I showed them, and they found it amusing. Without expecting anything, I gave one of …

Remembering quotes from Camus, I realize a couple of things. First, I am about one hour outside London, and second, I really don’t have any idea what date it is. I think it is the 15th, but we are about 24 hours into our 34-hour journey to Barcelona. The flight has been relatively uneventful: Ashley slept for much of it, while I read more than 200 pages from various books. My sleep has been anything but regular; I have had no more than three hours a night for the past five days or so. I had to leave Portland with a “bang”!

The idea of going to Europe was circulating in the back of my mind for a few weeks. Financially, I was secure, at least for the summer, and I had a few jobs when I came back. Why not go to Europe? Routinely, I check for inexpensive airfare, but from Portland, Oregon, airfare across the Atlantic is always going to be quite expensive. My decision to go was hastened by two friends, Sybil and Ashley, who were also considering the trip. Sybil was planning on studying in Barcelona for a few weeks, and Ashley just wanted to visit. The three of us all worked together and consequently booked our tickets at the same time. Through STA Travel, which had the cheapest tickets we could find, we acquired tickets for about …

I live in Sydney, Australia, and work across software delivery, systems thinking, and technology-enabled operations. My background spans project management, software delivery, systems engineering, and network engineering. Over the last two decades I have delivered work across transport, manufacturing, logistics, education, lending, government, and banking. I am especially interested in practical systems: the kind where people, data, infrastructure, process, and constraints all have to meet in the real world.