Working at the Friendly Deathstar

The last two weeks in Portland have been enlightening for many reasons. On the weather front, I've experienced snow, hail, rain, slush, and blinding sunshine all in the space of hour on an almost daily basis. The motto of most Portlanders seems to be "suck it up" when it comes to the temperamental winter/early spring mix. Amazingly, Portlanders are friendly folks and actually say "Good morning!" when you get on the bus looking like something that the cat dragged in (pre-first cup of coffee) at the crack of dawn. Coming from DC, where even catching someone's eye on the metro or bus is tantamount to "pistols at dawn" I have to say this is a refreshing social change. As for the bus, it's nice to drive my truck to the park and ride and hop the express to the hospital. There is a 6-year waiting-list for parking spots at my job! What idiot thought of building a huge hospital system on a VERY steep hill where the hospital architecture looks like a gleaming, but kid friendly, Deathstar (http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/) where the "ground floor" is actually the ninth floor and you have to cross two skybridges or take a skytram (note the "sky" theme here) to get to it! Go figure.

On the work front, my projects are going swimmingly well but I have to confess that working with urologists is...uh....interesting to say the least (imagine the love child of a prima donna surgeon and an anal/picky internal medicine doc and you have the Barbra Streisand meets Monk sort of character playing with your prostate). I'm also doing some consulting work on the side for a group at my old job. It appears my old org may have won the large South African grant which I spent a good part of my Xmas holidays sweating over and there might be some short-term consulting opps there for me as if the stars are aligned. We shall see. Need to finish the PhD!!!!

I still haven't got the replacement USB cable for my camera so no pics this time!