I spent the end of March in Portland, OR (27 March - 1 April), where I met up with some coworkers for EmberConf. I’ve been to Portland a number of times before, but every trip there has involved a conference. I think it’s a great city to hold a conference: public transportation will take you just about anywhere you’d want to go (even to and from the airport), tremendous number of wonderful bars and restaurants, and a conveniently located convention center. Really the only downside is that getting there, especially from the East Coast, is potentially not very direct; that’s a trade-off I’m usually willing to make.
Portland was a bit of a milestone for this journey. The route and the timing leading up to it were planned to get me there in time for the conference. So, it definitely felt good to have successfully accomplished that goal.
My last full day in Portland (31 March) was also the day that Tesla Motors revealed their next vehicle, the Model 3. That morning they began taking reservations for orders for that new vehicle, where people – like myself – gave money for a reservation for a car they had never seen. I believe in an attempt to cause lines of people for news agencies to cover, not unlike lines that form outside Apple stores for people wanting to buy iPhones, reservations were only taken in person at Tesla stores, until the online reservation system became available that night. I went to their store southwest of Portland, in order to join the crowd waiting there to purchase a reservation. It was certainly a fun experience, talking with the people waiting in line around me, and it was great to see how many people were excited about an electric vehicle.