It’s an exciting time for me recently.  This time of year is always fun.  The trees dumped a ton of blooms all over the front lawn and the pool. As a result, the pool vaguely resembles a swamp since I’m not home during the week to keep it up.  That will soon be remedied and I hope to open it up in the next few weeks.  It’ll be cold swimming, but fun none the less.  I can hang up my hoodie and jackets for the year and transition back into my ugly Hawaiian shirts. I even picked up a few especially ugly ones over the winter I’m eager to sport.

It must be really exciting for you, Lucia.  You’re about to graduate from high school!!!  I’m sure with your grades, you have your pick of colleges to choose from.  Hopefully, a scholarship or two should help with that.  I’m glad you’ll have Joseph’s guidance to help you through the awkward transition.  After all, your big brother is about to become an upper-classman next year.  I wonder if you are going to go to the same college as him.  I hope so.  You won’t be a stranger starting out and that will be a big help.

Life at work is full of exciting things.  My job at SpaceX is never a dull moment.  We are on the verge of our first Falcon Heavy commercial flight.  Our flight last year was just a proof of concept demonstration using some of our older rocket designs.  This time, we have a paying customer and our latest designs for rockets and engines.  There are a lot of eyes on this mission.  If successful it opens the door to a lot of business.  We’re also getting near launching real live astronauts into space.  We’ll be the first commercial company to ever do that.  We are in a race with Boeing, but right now we are slightly in the lead.  We still have one more test flight (in-flight abort) before we get the green light from NASA to send two astronauts up to the International Space Station.  And did I mention we’re building a brand new rocket down on the beach in Boca Chica?  It’ll be the biggest rocket ever made.  We’ve already tested with a small version we call the Hopper.  Last week we fired the engines and lifted it off the ground a bit.  We’re going to keep doing that getting progressively higher.  All the while, I’m sitting at my cubicle desk pumping out code, learning new techniques, and watching engines test fire right outside my window every day.  I think about you guys frequently and really wish I could show you what I do for a living.

I’m trying to come up with ideas for a summer vacation.  It will likely only be me and Michele.  I was liking the idea of going to New Orleans.  Maybe take the scenic route and stay in New Iberia for a few nights.  You guys have family from that area and your mother and I went there several times.  I would like to see it again. Or we might go to Big Bend National Park.  If we do that, I’d want to make it an “Analog Week”.  Nothing digital.  No phone. No computer. No internet.  Just a handful of books and lots of scenery and fresh air.  That would be really nice.  As you can probably guess, I spend almost all my waking hours looking at a screen of one size or another.  It would be nice to turn them off for a while.

Lastly, here are some interesting numbers… In the years I’ve been writing to you, this will be the 240^thletter.  Those letters have been read by 4,506 people for a total of over 16,000 views.  Ironically, I’m only interested in two of those views.  I hope and pray that you guys will eventually find these and reach out to me.  I’m not the big bad monster you’ve been raised to believe.  You have family that cares for you and wants to be part of your lives.  You have sisters that love you without having ever met you. You have a step-mom that is eager to meet you (and hug you and dote over you given the chance).  You guys aren’t alone.  We’re all here, waiting.

Love,
Dad