Portland!

This is our first day waking up in Portland, Oregon. The area is seriously considering hitting us with a rainstorm - this is the Pacific Northwest, after all. So far it has not rained, we've been lucky.

Cindy is in the shower as I type, and we'll soon be out finding breakfast. Our view out the only window is an assortment of condemned buildings with plywood over many of the windows.

If I owned The Westin Portland, I'd pay a stipend to the owners of the condemned buildings and dress the windows with curtains or blinds. If I was feeling really creative, I'd stash some kitsch in the windows, and give the building husks a lived-in feel until they are demolished. There is no sign that they will be demolished soon, so it would probably be worth it.

When you're paying nearly $200 a night for a hotel, ($170 with the in-room wireless access) you don't want your view to be three condemned buildings, that's all I'm saying. Now, I find old buildings interesting, and one of them has really cool window frames and I took a number of pictures. But really, it's a stark, somewhat depressing view.

We walked around Portland for a couple of hours yesterday, after checking in to the hotel. I took many many pictures, which I will eventually post on my web site. Very green and pretty, and there are Starbucks and a plethora of non-corporate coffee houses everywhere. And I mean everywhere. And they're all full of people, it's not like the area is oversaturated.

Lots of green, everywhere you look. Trees, grass, ivy, very nice. Even in the downtown area, very green and nice. The architecture is a liberal mix of old and new. A lot of the old buildings are well-kept and look like they're in great shape - unlike the ones in our window view.

We walked around looking for somewhere to eat something for dinner - Cindy had not eaten all day. We wanted something quick and cheap, so we stepped into a McDonalds. #2 Combo for each of us, thank you very much. It's one of the nicest McD's I've ever been in, very stylish and well-appointed.

We walked down to the Willamette River, where there was some kind of reception party going on for the local prom. Lots of young folks dressed up and giggly. Many cute little dogs of the Wishbone variety, we think they're clones someone's licensed. We'll take two yes thank you.

We walked back towards the hotel, and came across a Rite-Aid Drugstore. We stocked up on soda pop and munchies as if we were coming down off an afternoon of reefer use. I told Cindy we should have asked for rolling papers, to complete the illusion.

The cashiers at Rite-Aid were a riot. The guy who rang up our stuff started out seeming mostly normal, and then started going off, just rambling about nothing, just random quips, of the sort you might receive from an average cashier - but he wasn't content with the obligatory single quip, as per typical. He was quipping the light fandango, and would not stop.

It was like he'd launched into Standup Cashier mode. I swear, in the time it took him to ring up our 12 items, we were on the receiving end of at least 12 quips. And they weren't really funny at all. They were the nod and smile variety, and that's what I did, but Cindy was actually chuckling politely right along with him.

And there were many people in line, and he called for a second checker. A woman showed up, and she seemed normal, until she spoke, and her voice was deeper than mine. I'm not a James Earl Jones sounding guy, so it's not that hard to accomplish, but it sounded bizarre coming out of this otherwise normal looking woman. Was it a man? A woman with a voice issue? We'll never know. She seemed nice though.

After we got back to the room, we got comfy and devoured our snack goods. Then I took a long hot bath in the Heavenly Bath (tm) as I read the new book by Kevin Smith. The book is funny, it helps to know his movies obviously. The book is a series of essays, and it's good but not great. Since it was written as a number of disparate columns over a long period, there's no real cohesion or arc as you'd get from a lengthy narrative. But it's cute, he rambles about all the familiar people, and it's a fun read.

At around 10pm we dressed in our workout clothes and went down to the third floor to check out the Fitness Room. There are about 20 machines and we had the place all to ourselves. Nice! Cindy had been looking forward to trying an elliptical machine, and of course, that's the one thing this gym didn't have. Ah well, that just gives her a reason the check out the Bally's, which she's been considering.

I showed her how each machine worked and how to adjust the heights and weights and whatnot. We had a good time, it was cool that we were alone and could chat freely.

Then we came back to the room and watched tv. I spent a couple of hours writing, with precious little to show for it. I've been getting some writing done every day now, if just for an hour. At about 12:30 I lost all will to me mobile and passed out.

The beds are Heavenly Beds(tm) and they really fit the name. They are amazingly comfortable.