04/17/2005: "Travelblogue - Portland Day 2"

Man o' boy, but I do be tired. So today was the big day of the conference and all of that. It started off with more wacky fun as we discovered that another one of my tires has a flat. But since we were at the conference all day and tire shops close early on satuday and are closed on sunday, we're stuck driving back down on the spare tomorrow (which is a full-size spare in good condition so we'll probably make it maybe). Meanwhile the conference wasn't too amazing. The highlight for me was watching this poor high school student read his paper, the thesis of which was basically "literature existed in the medieval era." Really I mean, all he did was list off some authors off books he'd never read and give a minor recount of the Canterbury Tales. Which might be a fine paper for high school but in a room full of upper division college students at a pretty university... well let's just that hilarity/shared embarassment ensues. People kept asking him questions and he was like, "Um, well. All literature is social commentary so, um, ya know."

After the conference we came back to the hotel then to the Max (Portland light rail) over to downtown and went to the always awe-inspiring Powells. Didn't find much, but I did get a copy of Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Rampo and another Go book, which is enough for me to to count it as a success. But the real highlight of the day came afterwards we went to dinner at The Rhinelander. If you have never been to the Rheinlander and you're ever Portland you need to go there. It's just an amazing experience. Really the best German food I've ever had, plus your meal comes with fondue, and the big plus, singing men in lederhosen with accordians. And I think we got an extra dose cause this old German couple were at the booth next to ours and they were just like singing German songs for a long time. And they were singing about beers and everyone was waving their glasses or steins back and forth. It rokked. But anyway, it's 12:40 or something and I got up at 7 so sleep is less of a good idea than a necessity at this point.