Dear Log,
I'm in Portland! I got in late Sunday night, and headed over to the apartment of my old friend Sam from Albuquerque. He has a place near the conference hotel, with two cats monitoring his every move.
Monday, yesterday, we both overslept, and then went by the conf hotel and said hi to Ingy and Autrijus and other folks; but then we decided to skitter over to Uwajimaya and get food glorious food.
It turns out that there's a Japanese bookstore in the back of Uwajimaya, with Japanese editions of a lot of tech books. I forgot my camera, or I'd have pictures of the Japanese edition of the ORA smileys book, and kookoo cover art on an SQL book in Japanese.
I thought I'd be clever and kick my caffeine habit this week. But this and the excitement and fatigue of travel, apparently makes for an especially bad combination; so I ended up having to crash in the late afternoon, even tho I had slept plenty the night before.
I thought I would just tough it out and go cold turkey, but this (as with most neurochemical adventures involving "cold turkey") turns out to be a bad idea. So I caved in and had a cup of tea. My brain is now in a state of partial repair. Sam's normally stand-offish cats seem actually sympathetic to my condition.
In a flourish of climatic mercy, it is not too hot in Portland, even though it was an aching 102F just three days ago. This break in the heatwave has made me very very glad.
