On the road again: Portland, day 1

Nothing says fun like leaving the house at 6:15 a.m. to head to the airport.

Actually, pretty much anything says fun better than that, but nonetheless, this morning I left at that godawful hour. Travel pretty much ate the rest of the day, though thanks to bandwidth on the plane and the Admirals Club during a huge layover in DFW I was able to stay current with work.

Lest I appear ungrateful, I must also hasten to add that the flights themselves were spectacularly better than any of my other recent trips: I was in First Class on both legs, both were early, and no one bothered me while I worked.

I did lose a little over an hour to hassling with AT&T a company I won't name that had terrible, inefficient, offensively incompetent inadequate customer service, but at least we finally resolved the issue and I didn't spontaneously convert to energy, flow down the phone line, zip through the switches, rematerialize, rip the head off the incompetent "helpers," and laugh as I pissed on the bloody stumps. So, it's all good now.

Dinner was a very pleasant meal at the Laurelhurst Market Restaurant. The foie torchon appetizer, which we split, was the high point. The meal was good enough that I'd be willing to go back--but not strong enough that I'm at all tempted to add the place to my standard Portland rotation.

Now, more work, and then, finally, some sleep.