It’s late Sunday night.  Actually, it’s early Monday morning.  I’m in a hotel room in Portland, Oregon, for the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON).  For the weeks leading up to this trip, I’ve felt some trepedation.  This is the first time I’ve been away from my daughter for more than a couple of days.  Now that I’m here, though, I’m beginning to enjoy myself.

At the beginning of the trip, I ran into a coworker, Juan, at the airport in San Diego, who was on his way to OSCON, too.  We weren’t able to sit together on the flight, but that worked out in the end.  A man was traveling with his son of around five years.  The son had the seat next to mine, while the father was several rows back.  I offered to trade seats with the father, so he could sit with his son.  One of the flight attendants bought me a beer for my trouble.  On top of all that, the we arrived in Portland earlier than expected.

After checking into our respective hotels, we swung by the Oregon Convention Center to register for OSCON and pick up our badges and associated crap.  Actually, a mug was included in the bag o’ stuff, which I can actually use.  Plus, the bag can be kept in the trunk of my car for use at farmers markets.

Finally, it was time for dinner.  Juan and I met up with a friend of mine from the San Diego Perl Mongers and hopped on the MAX to head downtown.  After wandering around aimlessly for a bit, I searched for Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub on my phone and we found it in short order, taking a seat out back in their new beer garden.  I washed a corned beef and turkey sandwich down with three pints of Mt. Hood Ice Axe IPA and one pint of Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale.  Shortly after we finished our food, we were joined by two more coworkers, who ordered some food of their own.  We spent some time doing what one does in an Irish pub, namely drinking and talking, then we made a failed attempt to find coffee.

That brings an end to OSCON travel day.  Tomorrow morning I will head to the convention center for breakfast and will hopefully run into more people I know (or will meet new friends).  I have two tutorials scheduled for tomorrow: Introduction to 3D Animation with Blender and Get Started with the Arduino – A Hands-On Introductory Workshop. I know these tutorials don’t appear obviously relevent to my job, but I’m looking at them as useful for relaxing and enriching.  One of the reasons I like to attend OSCON is because I return to work refreshed and with a state of mind more prone to imagining creative solutions.  So, tutorials outside of my immediate area of expertise are exactly what I need when I come here.