Sleater-Kinney in Portland (Part I)

My trip to Portland for the Sleater-Kinney concert was exactly what my friend had said: I will never forget where I was on the last weekend of 2005. It all went by so fast but it was amazing.

On the morning of my flight, I woke Jason up by playing the Woods cd and did a last minute check on my flight. He dropped me off at OAK and as he was driving off and I was checking in, I realized that I had the monthly MUNI fastpass that was about to expire at the end of the month. Jason could use that since he was staying at my place to celebrate the new year in the city with Bobby who had flown in from NYC. I ran out and caught him just in time.

"Join the rank and file... on your TV dial!"

"Screw it. This frickin' Yahoo! maps blows." - It was not able to recognize the airport codes, at least the mobile edition.

enjoying a Foster's with Carrie, Janet and Corin

On the plane I got lucky and got a seat next to the emergency exit. It was a full flight... who flies to PDX for new year's? I also sat next to a guy named Nick who I chatted with the entire time (1 hour 15 minutes). He was a born and raised Oregonian who was returning from the Oregon Ducks bowl game in San Diego. He has two kids, a daughter and a son. He lives in The Dulles ("where?" "The Dulles"). We talked about Bush (Reggie), dune buggy (he has one with a 600hp 327) and all the mountains in Oregon. I was planning on listening to S-K and maybe getting some sleep but this was actually a pretty good experience. He recommended that I check out the "Oyster Bar" for some great seafood stew.

"PDX! yay."

I hopped on the light rail "MAX" which took about 20 minutes to get to Pioneer Place, THE place for shopping in Portland apparently. The Mariott was only about 3 blocks away and theres a Peet's on the ground floor! I check in and the room is big and the king sized bed is extra comfortable. I can sleep parallel to the headboard. That's luxury. I took a quick shower and went for a bite to eat (+ coffee). I went back to Pioneer Square and almost ate at Sbarro which I hadn't since the footy days of hangin' out at Lennox Mall in Atlanta... but then I was drawn to the free samples of "Bourbon" chicken at another fast food place which claims to have its roots in Louisiana (fried rice???). Still I ended up getting the combo plate (#1) pero no estoy tener dolor mi estomago.

A brief rant: After lunch I went to the Apple store to replace the TWO sets of earbuds that Lindsay had chewed and punctured. They had these replacements with extra features and they wanted $39.00: FUCK. THAT. (this is the only time in my blog I will say fuck). I just could not justify the price. Fortunately I found an Office Depot (where I am STILL a stockholder) where they had Sony earbuds for... $9.99. The Office Depot associate and I had a good laugh about the ibuds. Epilogue: When I returned from PDX, Lindsay prompty shredded the Sony earbuds.. I just don't know what to do with her.

That's it for now, part II coming up.