I feel like the title should have been more lyrical than that, but I’m running on a ridiculous sleep deficiency so I’ll settle for offering only excuses. Nonetheless, I am – as the title may suggest to those of you with minds astute enough to crack my code – going to Portland. I’ll be in town for a week attending the OSCON 2008 conference.

If anyone (read: either of you) is in the area and interested in meeting up for a beer or your preferred social beverage, feel free to leave a comment, send me a direct message on Twitter or contact me via email at r o b (at) r o b w i l k e r s o n (dot) o r g (take that, spammer wannabes). I’ll be flying solo all week.

Since this will be my Portland deflowering, I’m also taking suggestions on what to see, where to go and any other touristy advice. Please donate. I don’t want to spend the week sitting by myself in my hotel room.

So, as many of you already know, I’m in India this week to work with my company’s Bangalore team. It’s my first international travel experience, so I had – and since today’s my first day in the office, still have – no idea what to expect from the week. Nonetheless, here’s a quick list of first impressions in (roughly) chronological order:

1. That’s a long time to spend on a plane.
2. Flying business class is a big improvement over coach and essential for long flights, I think.
3. The boarding “process” in Frankfurt (my connecting flight) was a complete gagglef***.
4. I need to figure out how to sleep on planes.
5. The culinary options on flights aren’t so bad. I was well-fed and most of it was really pretty good.
6. The aesthetics of the airport in Frankfurt look frighteningly similar to those of an IKEA store.
7. I was less impressed with Lufthansa than I expected. My United flight out of Dulles offered better service than did Lufthansa.
8. I couldn’t use my laptop on the flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore (the Lufthansa flight). The power plug was there, but I couldn’t maintain a connection for more than a minute before I’d lose juice and switch over to battery. That sucked. I had planned to get some work done.
9. Deboarding in India was a breeze. They did a really nice job of getting us through everything very quickly.
10. My hotel room has two single beds. I’m traveling alone, so it’s fine, but I can’t remember the last time I slept in a single bed (not counting last night, of course).
11. My hotel has free wireless access. I say again, free wireless access. Wish hotels in the US would offer that.
12. Traffic in Bangalore is beyond insane. Quite.
13. Bangalore’s population is ~10 million. Evidently they were all driving to work this morning at the same time we were.
14. Bangalore appears to offer the same mish-mash of wealth and squalor you might see in any big city. The squalor is a bit more visible and maybe a bit more pronounced, but that’s a difference of degree, not of kind.
15. There’s more green (in the way of vegetation) here than I’d have imagined. And palm trees. I didn’t expect that.

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I’m officially part of the international jet set. Well, that may be overstating it just a bit, but my trip to India is locked and cocked as far as the State Department is concerned. Until I started scheduling this trip, I didn’t realize how late I was to join the fraternity of international travelers (I’m not counting trips to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean or Los Angeles). For whatever reason, the opportunity just never presented itself before.

The thought of spending 18 hours on a plane is a little daunting, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.

For most of my professional life, I’ve worked for smaller companies and had little need or opportunity to travel professionally. These days, though, my organization and even my immediate team is international. I also have the opportunity to travel for conferences. It’s been a nice change and, with that change, a service like Dopplr has become more applicable to my life.

The service went public recently (from its private beta) so I joined. Although I’d hardly consider myself a road warrior or even a “frequent business traveler”, I do have a few trips coming up and a few more that I hope to make in the near future. I love traveling to new places, but I usually find myself wishing that I had a “guide”. I like having personal references for places to eat, places to stay, things to do, etc. If I know someone in the city, then it’s easy, but too often I don’t. I ask concierges and cab drivers, but it’s nice to hear from other travelers and frequenters of the city as well.

Doppler’s service offers that through tips. The user base appears small so far, but if it grows and if folks contribute, then it could be an exceptionally useful resource for folks like me that like a little insight into a new place.

If you find yourself joining, check out my tips for New Orleans, Toledo and (of course) Baltimore. I’m going to Charleston, SC soon as well as San Francisco, so I encourage you to enter tips for those cities if you have anything to offer. I was born in Charleston, but haven’t been back since leaving when I was 12 months old and I’ve never been to San Francisco.

It looks to be a busy weekend. Tomorrow I get to brave the DC traffic and make my way to the DC Design Talks conference. I’m really looking forward to the conference, but as much as I love DC when I’m actually in DC, I loathe northern Virginia. And even more than I loathe northern Virginia I utterly detest the commute into DC/northern Virginia. If it’s a bad day, it’s not inconceivable that I could end up spending more time in traffic than actually at the conference. Note to self: road rage is not helpful, road rage is not helpful, road rage is not helpful…

Then, on Saturday, I hop a flight to parts unspoken for an unannounced visit only to return the next day. Fly out Saturday morning, return Sunday evening, back to work Monday morning. Looking forward to that. Really.