Life · A retrospective

Fort Worth to Dallas28 Miles, 43 Years, One Computer

By Will Mason Written the week of Presidio Exchange, September 2026

On Tuesday I drove 28 miles west of the Exchange hotel to a house on a quiet circle in Fort Worth. On Friday I stood on a stage in Dallas. Those two points are 28 miles and about 43 years apart, and this is the post that connects them.

I've always treated Presidio Exchange as more than a conference. It's the one week a year I stop and take stock — how the year went, where we're going, and, this year especially, how I got here at all. So this isn't a recap of Exchange. This is the Will Mason introspective. Where I came from, and where the journey with computers has taken me.

A hand holding an old instant photo labeled Picture Day: a woman on a porch bench with two young children

From 1983 to 1989, ages four to ten, I lived in that house. Son of a stay-at-home mom and a military father, it was the third place I'd lived, and it's the first one I really remember. I'd move four more times before high school.

A faded 1980s print of a two-story brick and siding house with two cars in the driveway

The same house photographed this week, with a mature tree in the front yard

Everyone from those years has long since moved on. But standing on that street this week, I could still feel the "home" in it. It's still that tranquil, idyllic block. I find some comfort in that.

At ten I had no thought of the future. None of us do. I didn't know what I'd be good at, where I'd succeed, or how much failure would be on the way. (A lot, it turns out.) But I knew one thing: I loved computers. And that love of compute took me from that street —

To war.

2003. Deployed, running a battalion help desk. The first time a computer was the thing between me and a very hot day.

A young soldier working at a laptop on a plywood desk inside a tent

A soldier in desert camouflage standing between rows of tents on sand

To a desk.

The cubicle years. Circuit debugger. Help desk admin, promoted to telecom specialist in six months. Then a senior analyst keeping VMware running across a hospital system. I finished my degree from this chair.

An office cubicle with a laptop, an external monitor, a desk phone and a can of soda

To family.

A studio family portrait: a mother, a father, a daughter and a young son in glasses, seated together on a white floor

A laptop in a hotel room showing a video call with a smiling baby

Two small children on a couch, one playing a game on a tablet

Out of the country.

Costa Rica. Nassau.

Palm trees and red-roofed buildings on a green hillside under low cloud

A large pink resort across a harbor under a stormy sky

And all over my own.

A laptop on a restaurant table beside floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a city

A dirt road running along coastal hills in morning haze

A flat-topped rock butte above a small town under a clear blue sky

A city skyline and lakefront seen from a high floor

A port and downtown skyline under overcast skies

Reunion Tower and a glass hotel in Dallas seen from the highway

And this week, to a stage.

On Thursday my name went up as part of the Presidio Distinguished Professional Class of 2026. On Friday, the Modern Platforms award for Professional Services. Either one is a singular honor. Both in the same week is a high I'm going to ride into every engagement for a long time.

A conference screen reading PDP Class of 2026, listing six names beginning with Will Mason, Principal Architect, Modern Platforms Virtualization

A conference stage with a screen reading Modern Platforms, listing award recipients including Will Mason under Professional Services

November marks fourteen years at Presidio. The journey with compute isn't done. It's taken me somewhere every time I've let it, and I still don't know where it goes next — like life itself. I'll enjoy the ride.

There's no grand thesis here. No take on AI, no framework, no lesson. Just a short drive from Fort Worth to Dallas that happened to cover forty-three years and a few thousand miles of a life lived alongside a computer.

Words and photographs by Will Mason. One house number was blurred before publishing.