Walking the Line

I commute 45 minutes every day each way, from my little BFE town to Round Rock, home of Dell Computers and the little Internet retailer where I work. It gives me time to make the mental transition from Bubba to Geek, but the other day I noticed that the transition had become more than a figurative one.

Looking back from the front door of the office, I saw a trail of white footprints leading from my truck to the sidewalk. See, out in the country you usually don't have a nice paved road leading to your house. And your house usually isn't right up against the road, it's generally pretty far back on your property. That means you have to get from the street to your house in a car, which means you need a little personal road of your own. Driveways are for city wimps, out in the country we need our own roads, but that costs money. Lots of money. In fact we moved the location of our homesite from the back of the property to the front because a road to the front door was going to be $20,000. I can think of a lot of things I'd like to do with twenty g's and a road ain't on the list.

Even a shorter road/driveway (oh heck, let's coin a term and call it a "driveroad") is pricey, and if you want it paved it's ten times as much. So you usually use crushed stone as a cheaper, but still durable, alternative. Here in Texas, that means crushed white limestone. Limestone's great, but it powders easily. So when I walk to my truck, drive to the gate and undo it, then drive through the gate, get back out, relatch it, get back in the truck and drive to town, I pick up tons of the white dust on my shoes.

Arriving in the Paved World, then, I leave a nice trail of white footprints from my truck to my office. They fade out the more I walk, as I lose more and more dust. By the time I step off the blacktop and onto the sidewalk, the footprints are pretty much gone. But it reminds me of the larger journey I take every day, from 100 acres of donkeys and horses and home, to paved roads, Internet web design, and work.

Kind of a fitting metaphor as I start this blog, also a trail of footprints in my transition from one world to the other, although in digits and pixels instead of shoes and limestone. I hope you enjoy the trip as much as I do.