Portland General Facilitators of Electron Flow

I interviewed with P G E yesterday in the Rose City. Nice position, I apparently made it far enough in the process to be in the top eight percent of applicants, even if I don’t get the job. The work would be interesting, fixing computers in house, and traveling to remote sites. I should find out the result within the next few days. I discovered a few interesting things while venturing up north for the day.
In a car that gets twenty mpg it is now cheaper to travel via Amtrak. In the simplest terms it would cost $17.35 in gas, and $7.95 for parking, totaling $25.30. If we complicate things slightly, at the new IRS mileage allowance ($.585/mile, the total cost of travel used for tax deduction purposes), it would cost $58.00 to drive to and return from P G E. My round trip Amtrak fare was $24.00. There are alternative means of commuting by buses which are even cheaper, but Amtrak was the simplest method. If I do get the job, I will most likely be moving to Portland, and this exercise in budgetary economics will close. Heck even if I don’t land the job, I might move to Portland.
I spent the remainder of the day traveling the city. I perused Koin tower, the Pearl district, the waterfront, and Portland State University. I enjoy the bohemian feel of Portland. I love Pioneer Square. The waterfront pedestrian path brought back memories of Chicago.
I decided I would rather not attend PSU. The student center smelled more of patchouli than a hash bar. (I am guessing at the actual smell of a hash bar). To be more accurate, an unpleasant merging of patchouli and homelessness. I actually don’t mine smelling patchouli, when used by those who bathe on a more regular basis than our medieval ancestors. This was simply rank. Another disappointing experience was being constantly checked out. I don’t mean in a investigate, security conscious sense. I mean being checked to see if I was ‘out’. I was constantly eyed by too many pink clad, flamboyant brimstone evaders to even count. It’s one thing to wave a team’s colors. It is much more annoying when one is on the hunt and want to see if I’m game. I’d rather not be a piece of meat, paraded daily.
One draw back to Portland is that it is difficult to tell the homeless from the hippies. It is still harder to determine if a subject is indeed, a homeless hippie. I came to realize that one could differentiate between living arrangements by the cleanliness of clothing. While hippie attire might be a twin set of that worn by one leaving a shelter, the clothes will be less likely rotting.
Overall, I came to the conclusion that Portland kicks Salem in the pants, leaving bruises, welts, and mud. The sad thing being that Salem seems not too mind.

~ by jamb on October 7, 2008.