I'm back from Portland, and I must say that I had a pretty fun and interesting time there. After arriving at the airport, I spend a few hours driving around to antique shops downtown, looking for tiki schwag. As you can see from the photo, I hit paydirt when I found 3 vintage mugs: a Westwood, an Orchids of Hawaii R-1 Headhunter, and a miniature mug/toothpick holder with no maker's mark, but I'm pretty sure it's also a Westwood. I also grabbed a fistful of tiki swizzle sticks. Click on the photo if you want a closer look.

I dropped by Alan Scott's house briefly on Monday evening and introduced myself to his lovely wife, Roberta and their exceedingly well-behaved children. I also met their pet rat. Alan and I then headed out to The Alibi for a cocktail and some food. While driving, we listened to a CD of his old band that they'd recorded in an Unitarian discussion hall, It was very good.

At The Alibi, we were awestruck by the gorgeous interior: beautiful carvings, tropical shell lamps, even a blacklight hula mural. Unfortunately, the Mai Tais we ordered we not up to my standards, however, the plate of fried clam strips I ordered for dinner was pretty good. We chatted for a while but then some nerfwad decided that he was going to climb up on the karaoke stage and massacre Elvises "Burnin' Love". My ears! The wadded-up napkins do nothing! We split.

I spent Tuesday having my brain crammed full of marketing fluff trying to pass itself off as technical training, then my whole class was wined and dined by the local marketing fluffer at an excellent steakhouse called the Stanford.

After our training ended on Wednesday evening, I headed out to meet a group of local engineers who wanted to consult with me on a VOD system concept they were putting together. It was the geekiest conversation I've had in the past 6 years, and I enjoyed it throrougly. They also bought me dinner. I had a plate of DEE-LICIOUS Alaskan razor clams.

While sitting in the airport today, I enjoyed FREE wireless internet access.

Portland rules*

*-except for that bullshit about not being able to pump your own gas...WTF?