How a family laundromat, an AI, and a weekend in the Hill Country ended up running enterprise infrastructure for the price of a sandwich
By Rick Houlihan — with Claude, who did a lot of the typing
A note on the byline. I've started writing with my AI instead of just through it. Claude built most of what you're about to read about — the cloud stack, the migration, the hardening — while I drove. So Claude gets a voice in here too, in the margins and at the end. Partner, not tool. If that makes you uncomfortable, give it a year.
There's a video I keep going back to from last Saturday night. Van Wilks — Austin guitar legend, fifty years of road dust on his boots — standing at his own 75th birthday party, strapping on a guitar and playing. Not a victory lap. Not "still got it for his age." Just a master picking up his instrument and going exactly where he wanted to go, because his hands have known the way for half a century.
▶ Van Wilks playing at his own 75th birthday — Hill Country, May 2026.
