I hadn\u2019t been to Portland for five years. \u00a0The last time I was there, life was very different: I had just started this job, I was carrying my laptop because of fantasy football draft requirements, and I had just started using the Kindle app on my phone to read books. \u00a0Now, the Kindle app (or device) is pretty much the only way I read books, and I was doing it on either my iPad or my Moto X. \u00a0I did end up spending most of the time carrying two phones, thanks to the requirements of the job (gah) and I learned I don\u2019t want to do that anymore, so I got that going for me which is nice.<\/p>\n
But Portland. \u00a0Five years ago I said it was like \u201cwhat if my high school was its own town\u201d and I see no reason to change that. \u00a0This year, it feels like San Francisco, only with nothing to prove and successful treatment for Asperger\u2019s. \u00a0It\u2019s like Silicon Valley if it could only realize there were other people. \u00a0Without fail, everyone was nice<\/em>. Like seriously nice. The only real problem with the week is that it was hot as balls in a part of the world that I am assured is reliably cold, rainy and fogged in. Jacket and socks were a no-go. \u00a0Otherwise…<\/p>\n It points up the real problem: we could totally<\/em> move to Portland. \u00a0I\u2019d find another job, the wife could probably telecommute, we could totally afford a house – but as soon as you move out of the Bay Area, you\u2019ve moved away for good unless you hit the lotto or somehow arrange to move back into a house trailer of some sort. \u00a0It\u2019s the problem with having a house that\u2019s suddenly worth a million dollars: sure, you could sell, but then you have to turn around and buy something else in a market so hyper-inflated it thought your house was worth a million dollars.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s all the beer. \u00a0There\u2019s all the coffee. \u00a0There\u2019s Distillery Row and an allergy-sensitive bakery around every other corner and a light rail-streetcar system that goes places you want to be and a soccer stadium smack dab in the middle of town and a soccer team that\u2019s THE big attraction and an NBA franchise if you need that, so you have a local sport year around. \u00a0There are trees everywhere, plenty of shade, the beginning of fall color already.<\/p>\n Now.<\/p>\n I know that a lot of this is down to the novelty of a different place, coupled with the joy of not being at this job. \u00a0And that\u2019s as may be. And it\u2019s entirely reasonable that people in Portland would drive me nuts after a while. And you know what? \u00a0That\u2019s exactly what I said when I decamped from DC to the Bay Area. And it worked out just fine. \u00a0At least until this job turned shitty at the same time as the technodouche boom washed up the flotsam of a hundred thousand hipster CS50 washouts.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not going anywhere. \u00a0Not for a good long while. \u00a0But wouldn\u2019t it be something if we could?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hadn\u2019t been to Portland for five years. \u00a0The last time I was there, life was very different: I had just started this job, I was carrying my laptop because of fantasy football draft requirements, and I had just started using the Kindle app on my phone to read books. \u00a0Now, the Kindle app (or … <\/p>\n