A Slightly Belated Look at My Trip to Portland
Over on I had a few posts related to my trip to OSCON this year that mainly focused on the OSCON conference as a whole or some details within it. But apart from the baseball episode, I wanted to write a more thorough post on my travels.
The trip started out a little rough when I arrived at the hotel and the manager had no record of my reservation. Somehow my reservation was cancelled at Marriott HQ and was never communicated back to the travel agency. Working for JDA, I had been spoiled by the spectacular service of AMEX Travel. It seemed any reservation made by AMEX travel was a little extra special. Using a more obscure travel agency seems to have cost me. This was just the latest example. Calling the 24 hour emergency travel service number only resulted in being told that I should use my Marriott Elite status to straighten it out in the morning. Luckily they had a room for me for the night and by the morning, the manager had figured out how to rearrange things enough to provide a room for me for the rest of the conference.
If you are from the South or just about anywhere else in the US, Portland will strike you as a very bicycle-oriented place. There are bike paths as part of nearly every road. There are bikeable methods for crossing bridges. There are bike racks in front of nearly every place of business. Portland probably has a ton of bike shops, but it seems like it would still be a safe place to try to open another one if that was always your dream. But thanks to the bike nature of the city, bike theft is also fairly prevalent as you see folks taking extra special care about locking up their bikes. It also seemed like the kind of deal where you might not want to actually use a nice bike since it would make it even more likely to be stolen. That definitely makes it lose some of its appeal right there. But nevertheless, Portland is certainly one of the more foreign feeling places in the US thanks in part to the bikes. All nose-wrinkling aside, I think it’s pretty great. I wish more cities would think a little harder about bikes and non-automobile traffic.
Speaking of commuting and traffic, I found the rail system to be adequate to get me from the airport to my hotel, to the convention center, to Powell’s Bookstore, to the PGE Ballpark, etc… I never took a bus. I did find the honor system method of ticketing to be a bit odd. I wonder how much higher the ticket prices are because of the number of non-paying customers on the train. After the first day, I decided to just buy an unlimited one-week pass and I was done with it. And not having formal stations with ticket windows certainly held costs down for construction as well as just operating cost. Plus, it keeps the train stops neat and tidy with just small signs and benches. The one down side to their streetcar-like system is the speed. Trips can take quite a while to complete because the train can’t go barrelling through streets at high speed.
While in Portland, Brandon and I took a break from the busy OSCON schedule and hooked up with my old friend Bob Cargill. Bob is one the folks most responsible for getting me into computers in the first place. On one hand, he made programming seem a bit hard since he started doing assembly code while he was still in elementary school, but he did give me some of my earliest programming lessons to get me started. Of course my parents were even bigger contributors to my computer background (another story) but Bob and Matthew Broderick (WarGames) were the ones who got me interested.
Bob took us on a hike around the Rose Garden area so we could get out in the woods a bit and also catch some great sights of Portland and the mountains. After the hike, I went with Bob, his wife and son out to eat at a local place. It was first time to get to see his son, Aaron and also to meet his wife, Daniela. We had a great time talking about growing up, Portland, photography, politics, parenting, and a few other odds and ends. It was an absolutely great day of seeing some amazing stuff, catching up with an old friend, and meeting new folks.
Two other things stand out to me about the culture of Portland and really they typically go hand and hand. Portland (being part of the whole Northwest thing) is like Seattle in that many folks are really into the whole alternative and/or grunge deal. It’s not quite as stereotypical as it was when I visited briefly in 1998, but it’s definitely there. So when some sweaty crazy skateboard-toting teenagers run through a commuter train or yell at people in parkinglots at night, just know that it’s pretty normal there. Or also, don’t be surprised if the girl ringing up your sale in the mall has so many piercings that you can’t believe she hasn’t sprung a leak. Again, it’s part of the deal there. It’s not like that’s not a little bit everywhere, but just seems to be more common there. Sort of along with that, not that I want to lump all those previously mentioned people into this group, but drugs also seem to be a pretty common thing. I’ve been to Portland twice and both times I’ve seen drugs changing hands. This is not surprising from a state that has legalized marijuana. But for some reason, I don’t think that’s the drug I’ve seen there. I’m not sure how different the drug situation is in Portland versus other cities. I’m just reporting on what I saw.
For the last day there, Brandon and I were going to go on the walking bridge tour setup as part of the conference. But due to at least three different times being posted for the tour, we ended up missing it. So, with our trusty Powell’s free Portland map, we did our own tour and really ended up having a good time. While walking among the bridges and river front park area we saw a truly eclectic display of Portland. On just that walk alone, you see all the bikers riding to and from work, the commitment to parks and green spaces, drugs, trains and public transportation, amazing ship yards and industry, nicely engineered bridges all in a city in the shadows of some awesome mountains.
Our last stop that day was a quick dinner at a Subway. The employees were playing Christian music and as a commercial advertised a Third Day concert, I truly felt a bit of home. And it reminded I was ready to go back home.
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