Getting to Portland on Saturday was uneventful. I caught a late afternoon flight from BWI through Chicago, and arrived in Portland around 10pm PDT. Travelling with an iPod makes long flights a breeze. I didn't mind the cramped middle seats, the new pay-for-your-complimentary-meal airline policy or being unable to move for hours at a time. I was actually quite mellow after the transcontinental flight, thanks to whatever I was listening to. (I do remember playing Eno's Music For Airports while waiting in O'Hare, which was quite nice.)
I've got the last 30GB iPod Apple sold, and it's old enough that I didn't trust it to last a cross country flight. So I brought a battery backup just in case. What I didn't expect that I'd turn it off while napping, and that would save enough power for the whole (late-night) journey. So I didn't need the backup after all. Oh well.
At the airport, I bumped into dha, and we took the TriMet down to our hotel. We're staying at the Sheraton, about a quarter mile away from the conference hotel, since the conference hotel is booked solid. While on the light rail from the airport to the hotel, we stopped about half way for the police to get on board and make sure everyone paid their fare. It was a little strange for the police to do fare collection (and issue fines for anyone who wasn't paid up), doubly so because it looked like the police were from two jurisdictions. I would have expected to see transit police or conductors, but whatever.
