Geekularity

It’s Sunday night, and I thought that I would post a brief recap of my experience here at the 2007 RailsConf in Portland, Oregon.

I arrived in Portland on Wednesday night after a brief stop over at my alma mater, Oregon State University. I had not seen the campus since I graduated 10 years ago. Several areas of the campus have been completely renovated, but its character is still there including the smell; the pleasant aroma of the spring flower blooms, followed by the stench of the evening breeze that drifts into campus from the agricultural research areas to the West. It took me back to senior year. After two hours of touring the campus, it was time to head on to Portland.

When I got to Portland, I realized that I went a little too far in my effort to save money on my hotel. It was in an industrial area of Northeast Portland, sandwiched in between the horse track, the motor speedway and a shipping container storage yard. It was scenic Portland at its finest. Next year I will dollar up and stay at one of the hotels near the convention center. The only saving grace was the burrito place just up the street. I had one of the best chile verde burritos ever!

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I spent most of the daylight hours at the convention center where I, and 1600 fellow geeks collectively drank from the fire hose of Ruby on Rails cool-aid. It was yummy! As a rails newbie, many of the sessions were over my head, but I took fast and furious notes, hoping to revisit them soon once I have some projects under my belt and can put some of the finer technical details into context.

Aside from the keynotes and technical sessions, one of the highlights came at lunch on Saturday when the Extra Action Marching Band of San Francisco serenaded the crowd with several burlesque numbers. Apparently they were so loud and raunchy that the convention center got complaints from attendees at the AsiaFest conference next door and promptly shut the show down.

On Sunday, I attended the keynote in the morning and several of the sessions. At lunch however, I got a new toy work tool and proceeded to forget all about the afternoon sessions and the closing keynote. When I finally came to my senses, I packed up my stuff and spent a few hours exploring Portland between the rain showers.

Before I left, I had to make at least one pilgrimage to a geek mecca, Powell’s Technical Bookstore. I frequented the city block sized main store several times while I lived in Oregon, but I had never explored the technical satellite store until today. It was a religious experience and I can’t believe that I waited for so long! I spent an hour there just walking the stacks. Check out the photo above of old computers. The entire store is littered with collections of goodies like this. I didn’t want to leave!

Back at my hotel tonight, I spent some time reviewing my photos and was sorely disappointed in my collection. Sadly, the pictures that I have posted here were the best of what I had. The rest were blurry or just bad composition. I was a yearbook photographer for goodness sake, and this is the best I could do. I am SOOOOOO out of practice. I’d love to blame my equipment, but that would be foolish. I need to take a photography reboot course at my local community college or something. Anyway, I had a lovely time here in Portland. I’m going to get on the road at 0-DARK-00 hours tomorrow morning to drive home. So Long Portland and fellow railies, it’s been fun!