My house is not messy. It’s just full of environmental story telling.

I quit Twitter over a year ago and I didn’t really miss it. So what I’m saying is I’m not sure why I’m doing this to myself again.

Eventually we made it the roughly 15 minutes of travel time to the next station. Giving us one last chance at the perfect tagline:

“Amtrak: it seemed like a good idea at the time”

At this point I was pretty sure I’d just get off the train at Oregon City and find another way to my destination. More Sloan writing ensued:

“Amtrack: We'll take you....somewhere”

“Amtrak: Every train journey is a story waiting to be told”

“Amtrak: Amtrak: You should always have a back-up plan”

He had been delayed — and I swear to god I am not making this up — because *he had been rear ended* on the way to the crash site.

At this point we had been stuck for 3 hours when the conductor told us they had just gotten confirmation that the rail inspector we’d been waiting for to give us the all clear to cross the wreckage site was now *on his way*.

(My family later joined in)

“Amtrak: We'll get you halfway”

“Amtrak: why drive when you can get there in twice the time?”

“Amtrak: Book now with our
‘flexible destination’ ticket options!”

“Amtrak: At least you can drink!”

“Amtrak: still better than driving through Tacoma!”

"Amtrak: you'll get there eventually (probably)"

“Amtrak! It's anyone's guess when you'll actually arrive!”

A few weeks ago I was on an Amtrak train heading south from Seattle and a freight train in front of us hit a semi truck, stranding us for four hours just outside of Portland. This gave me an opportunity to workshops some new branding proposals for them. Some of my personal favorites…

My nearly 5-year-old started each morning this week by saying “this is going to be the best day of my life.” At first I laughed, because there wasn’t anything special about this week. I asked her why and she told me, “because I get to spend it with you.” And, wow, has that changed my perspective.