Portland intermission

This week I was in Portland, Ore., at a conference. As a general rule, conferences are safe havens for nerds. You can talk in jargon that no one else knows; in my case, lybunts, sybunts, non-dons and sometimes LAGs were discussed at length. You don't have to explain yourself. You meet people just like you. You gripe. You dream. You get taken care of. Conferences are basically 60-hour dream worlds. And when they're in places like Portland, you are treated to some of the most wonderful things of the universe, like Voodoo Donuts and some local Pinot during the session breaks.

The conference was at a fancy-schmancy hotel called The Nines. This is where I got to unwind after every grueling day.

One evening I stopped in my room briefly on my way to dinner, and it just so happened that the brownie lady was making the rounds. *knock knock* "Water and brownie for room 936?" I poked my head out and politely declined but Brownie Lady looked at me like I was crazy and insisted, "No, you don't understand: this is free!" Well, in that case. One shelf of her cart was filled with clear mini-envelopes with exactly one bites-worth of brownie in each, the other shelf with bottles of water with Tiffany's-blue labels.

Appetite whetted, I strolled down the block to the Little Bird Bistro. English pea soup and a baguette (plus a couple fancy libations) set me sailing.

From there I went to the Jack London bar, where I had read about a satirical Powerpoint show (Chad Chats) that would be happening that evening. Yes, perhaps it's strange that after a full day of sitting in a conference room and listening to presentations that I would voluntarily subject myself to more. But these presentations were fake and I could enjoy a beer, if only I weren't so full from dinner.

There was a cover charge, but before I could turn around to use the ATM, an altruistic dude offered to give me his plus-one. I took him up on it, thanked him and walked downstairs into a delightful cave of a basement bar where these Powerpoint comedians made us laugh tears for the next hour.

This man posed as a motivational speaker, promoting "Lance Life"

This was a guy who talked about the power of palindromes

This happened.

Little did I know that the guy who gave me his plus-one was one of the presenters, posing as Carl Sagan.

Portland was good to me. The weather was beautiful, the people were friendly (I even got to see a few family members), and the Max got me where I needed to go. I knew I needed to leave this alternate universe to head back home, and so, with head full of knowledge and tummy full of nice food, I returned. And it was nice to be back.


The end.