The flight from Boston to Chicago to Portland went without excessive turmoil, although I would have been happier if the excitable Dutch 20 month-old next me had been far sleepier through the three hour and forty-five minute leg of the trip. In any case, I sat next to Chris Judd on the flight into Portland. We had a very nice conversation about the challenges of pairing the proprietary Java with open source application development. I should have given him my card, but my brain was still foggy with travel. At the airport, we met up with MJD and I volunteered to lug his mighty gong from the MAX light rail to the hotel. I found that my wheeled suitcase made for an adequate hand truck.
The city of Portland lies in the shadow of Mt. Hood and along the banks of the Willamette River. The low humidity and mildy temperature are a welcomed change from the devilish climate of summertime Boston. From the airport, the trip on the light rail, MAX (or as native Oregoner called it "the yuppy mover"), took about 20-30 minutes. There was a lot of interesting woodsy scenery visible during the trip.
The Marriot seems like an affiable enough venue for OSCON. At check-in, I saw Gnat's back along with his son William, whose growing improbably quickly. Since this is Gnat's most stressful time, I didn't want to bother him. Yet. There was a Blues festival happening on the waterfront directly adjacent to the Hotel. I quickly ran into Dave Adler and Ziggy, whereupon beer was consumed. After that, I directly ran into Tom Andresen of CareerSearch, so more beer was consumed. After that, I ran into a gaggle of my former O'Reilly co-workers, including CJ Rayhill, Tim Allwine and Pascal Honscher, so yet more alcohol was consumed.
Are you beginning to understand why I come to these conferences?
Sadly, my jetlag got the better of me by 9pm PDT and I had to crash. As a nestled into to bed, I turned on the TV to find Adult Swim on. Space Ghost, will you ever learn that Tansit just isn't cut out for television?
It is a 20 minutes past 7 PDT as I finish this entry and registration has just opened. I didn't sign up for any tutorials, but I hope to sneak into see Damian's talk.
Ta-Ta For Now.
