I'm off to Portland for a friend's birthday party - and he's a musician/engineer and producer as well. Only staying for just under 2 days, because I used to live there and so I can't be much of a tourist. I expect to meet a lot of musicians and have an excellent time. Musicians are all a bit Aspie - we just think differently and have an extra language we share. Looking forward to sitting in with the band. And I'm arriving a day early, while he will still be in Colorado, so I get a great hostel experience on my first night there (after an overnight train ride) and in a very hip neighbourhood I used to hang out in all the time when I lived there - so stress-free. Second night at my friend's house. Conveniently, just 2 blocks from the venue we'll be playing. So we'll likely make it home safely. Short nap, and back on the train arriving back home in the middle of the night. Yay!

Addicted to travel! It has become so familiar to me now - trains, planes and hostels - that I have incorporated it into my Aspie comfort zone. Is this now a repetitive behaviour now?

V-dog, make sure you check out the aerial tram. I haven't been down since they put it in, but it's supposedly a real engineering feat, since they had to snake the cable across freeways without disrupting traffic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Aerial_Tram

Where are you staying? I used to love Nob Hill, particularly 23rd Ave NW. Made a point of visiting there at least a day in each visit.

23NW? You must have visited there after my time living there - because it has been "yuppified" since then. It used to be fairly industrial, but I have visited since they fixed it up, and there are some good restaurants (good by Portland standards) like Papa Haydn's and Rose's Deli.

I'll be staying in SE the first night and NE the second night.

That tram looks really cool - and they really need that there because trafffic has always been a mess in that area. I used to live just south of there - at the top of the hill, and 43 (McAdam) was always a speedway. It's a lot of work to get up the hill where OHSU OMSI and the ZOO are, so I can see why they would put that in. Looks like you can connect right from Powell (Hwy 26) to the hospital by public transpo.

I probably won't have a chance to check it out, though. I'm arriving late afternoon by train, will check into my hostel, grab some dinner and stop in at a couple of pubs there - maybe go to the theatre where they serve microbrew and pizza by the slice and it costs almost nothing to get in. I'm pretty sure that that's on the same street as my hostel - then meet my friend in the morning (he's flying in from Colorado after midnight) and then we'll go grab some food and start setting up the gig.

You know that with TWO engineers setting up the sound system it wont be just a couple of mics and a couple of wedges. We've got to figure what order everyone is going to play in, load in all the gear, and set it up so it can be removed in proper order and the show can flow smoothly.

We've each done this hundreds and hundreds of times, but it takes a little thought to make it look effortless and not have anything getting in anyone else's way while they're playing - or making noises (hint: loosen the snares on all snare drums except the one being used and put all the tube amps on "standby.")

After crashing at my friend's house, it will be time to go. Officially, the party ends at midnight, but I bet we go until 2AM - and then we might have to strike a bit.

Then I'm catching an early afternoon train out (NW PDX near 5th I think) - so I won't be headed down that way. I won't even be visiting my good old Reed College or my former classmate who is a professor there now. Just not enough time.

I'll have to check it out next time. Thanks for the tip.

It's so weird that after always wanting to do this audio stuff since we were all kids, that now they're like - "There's the stage - Do what you want." And it will be totally pro. We have become the old guys who were always saying "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!!."

Awesome! This is the place I was thinking of: http://www.mcmenamins.com/index.php?loc=9&id=176

Even after 23 years I had a feeling this was on the same street as my hostel.

And this is what will be playing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1156398/

Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray, pizza slices and microbrew - and admission is only $3. I'll take it. It's a really fun neighbourhood. A poor man's version of NW 23rd ;)

"Addicted to travel! It has become so familiar to me now - trains, planes and hostels - that I have incorporated it into my Aspie comfort zone. Is this now a repetitive behaviour now?"

I started out finding it exhausting - the rental car line, the cab stand, the airport terminal. But once I figured it out, yes repetitive and enjoyable.

I did 500,000 travel miles for work in a span of 10 years and loved it.
Don't miss it now, but grew to love it then.

The house band is going to be top-shelf. I'll want to do sound for this one and let Jason hang with his other friends. As much as I hate live sound, I'm excited about doing FOH for this gig.

All I need is a mini-Maglite, a Sharpie, a roll of duct tape, and a roll of white masking tape. Coloured tape is cool too, so you can put a some on each mic and then a matching coloured tape strip on the board for each mic - but most of us don't need that level of anal-retentiveness.

YAY! Behind the board again - and for a good cause. Then I just have to make sure that Jason doesn't remember a bit of it until he sees the video.

You can buy rolls of colored electrician tape at places like a dollar store for $1 (duh) for a 5 pack (red, green, yellow, blue, white). I love color coding. This tape peels off more easily than masking tape.

Enjoy your time there.

Good idea. I'll look before I go, because it will make it more difficult for non-total-pros to screw things up if they man the board for a bit - and we've got 5 hours of music scheduled. It's likely someone else will be taking over for brief incidents, but once I set things up, there's a way to make things foolproof but less perfect.

What am I saying? There's no foolproof in audio. I meant unable to screw up the mix. Lots of other bad things can happen, especially if you are mixing FOH and monitors all at once from the same board. (Likely here.)

"Anything called foolproof underestimates the human ability to be foolish." In other words, "DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!"

BTW, the masking tape is for the plastic strip at the bottom of the board - and the sharpie is to label each channel on the masking tape. You just cover that plastic with masking tape and write away. It's especially handy in the studio when mixing, because you can just peel the masking tape off and hang it from a mic stand so when you have to go back to mixing a particular track, you can just reinstall the original masking tape and not have to make a new one from the track sheets each time. (Though that's why God made second engineers.)

Of course, with the new studio gear it's all electronic and the automation handles every parameter - but live mixing tends to be old school.

I am so jealous! Wish I were going, sounds like much fun.