Linus frequents it regularly. OHUKON [overheardintheuk.com]...

...Linus Torvalds really does have a posse. [p.lodz.pl]

Actually Linus spent most of his time playing pool in the back. (Where there was some vestige of air conditioning. It was over 90 degrees outside.) He seemed to be enjoying himself. It was not just a bunch of fawning nerds. (How you could tell from only two pictures, I don't know...) Linus is pretty shy around "fans". The main bulk of the party crowd stayed over by the alcohol and food and left Linus alone. (Many of them did not seem to even know he was there.) The crowd seemed to be about 70% men and 30% women. (Just like about every other corporate party I have been to in Portland.) It was a fun relaxed evening.

No sales tax. Great public transportation. More hybrid cars per-capita than anywhere. Kennedy School. Free wireless broadband covers the entire city. A damn good place to live and work.

Don't encourage people to move here. Oregon is full and unemployment is bad enough without more Californians moving up here and fucking it up that much worse.

And not a single tourist attraction.

Did you somehow miss:

• The world's largest city park (Forest Park)
• The world's smallest city park (Telegraph Park)
• The world's only independently-raisable double-deck lift bridge (Steel Bridge)
• The world's first lift bridge (Hawthorne Bridge)
• Oaks Park
• Saturday Market
• Pioneer Courthouse Square
• Riverplace Marina
• OMSI
• The Oregon Zoo
• Hoyt Arboretum
• The World Forestry Center
• The International Rose Test Garden
• 732 Evergreen, Lake Oswego (Childhood home of Matt Groening, house was inspiration for The Simpsons house of the same address in Springfield
• Ainsworth Elementary School (where Matt Groening went to school, building is Springfield Elementary in The Simpsons)
• Lincoln High School (Matt Groening's alma mater, Groening defaced the sidewalk on SW 18th along the back fence of LHS halfway across the street from the Salmon Street blue line station; walk south from the crosswalk along the fence to find it)
• The Oregon Trail goes from the east and turns south in Portland
• The Lewis and Clark Trail winds through town
• The Rose Festival has many televised events, most famously the Grand Floral Parade, which is televised in almost as many countries as the Super Bowl (Fuck Pasadena and it's wanna-be rose parade)
• Much more that doesn't come immediately to mind

And if you want to include everything within an hour's drive of Portland...

• Trojan Nuclear Power Plant (The now abandoned power plant was the inspiration for Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. The cooling ponds are in a public park owned by Portland General Electric)
• Sauvie Island, the world's largest inland island (fantastic u-picks and farmer's markets, decent beaches)
• Champoeg State Park, where Oregon became a US state instead of a Canadian province due to two Canadian fugatives illegally tipping the polls in favor of statehood (indeed, a sad day for Oregon).
• The west end of the Oregon Trail in Oregon City
• Government Camp, "The Highest Town in Oregon", the surrounding Mt. Hood National Forest, Mt Hood's peak and Timberline Lodge
• The Columbia River Gorge, home to Multnomah Falls, the second tallest waterfall in the US

Which makes me wonder: Are you blind? The Metro region and vicinity is one gigantic tourist trap. Oregon's most famous governor, Tom McCall, even bragged about it. "Welcome to Oregon! Please, enjoy your stay, but remember to leave when you're done visiting."

After I left HP, HP negotiated a non-agression pact with Microsoft. One of the results of this is that Microsoft required HP to edit the cover of the version of Revolution OS that HP distributed to remove the slashed-cirle containing a Windows logo and my photo on the DVD jacket. As far as I'm aware, the internal content is unchanged.

Bruce