Once I had recovered from my jet-lag with the aid of Red Bull, double-shot espressos and a bit of napping, Portland nights were starting to become fun. Just like every other conference I've been to, the fun to be had is after 6 PM in some pub nearby. So I tagged along with the knowledgable crowd, who always know a nice place right around the corner, anywhere in the civilized world.
And then, there was the Oregon beer festival. Despite the fact that I don't drink, I headed out there to lose a bit of my inhibitions, purely by kindred spirit rather than the liquid version. The festival on the waterfront park was an amazing place to just sit down on the grass, chill out with a mug of free "designated driver" root beer.
After the dust settled at OSCON, I had nearly three full days to explore Portland. What really impressed me about the city was the very efficent public transport system. The light rail was my primary mode of transportation and it got me everywhere I wanted to. After wandering around the saturday market, I found myself gravitating towards the waterfront, to just spend the late evening sunshine in.
I spend Sunday exploring the north west and south west of the city, from the Pearl District to Washington park, on foot. Eventually, I ended up at the Rose gardens in the late evening. The roses were in nearly full bloom and spring was literally in the air (unfortunately, so was the pollen).
And then while walking around the Washington Park station, I saw something interesting carved into the wall. Maybe a yellow Post-It could've done the job ?
Portland ... hmm, if it were a house, it would have a doormat with "Welcome" on it.
--There is nothing stranger in a strange land than the stranger who comes to visit.
Finally, I got bored enough to update my inclued extension (as promised at OSCON). The extension now comes with a nearly completely non-intrusive data dumping mode. The new inclued.dumpdir can be used to dump the inclued data onto a temporary file without ever modifying any of your php scripts. Also included is some php code to transform the dump data into graphviz formatted .dot files.
Pick up your free & complementary copy of the source code on your way out. And stay clued-in about your includes.
--This quote intentionally not included.