These pictures are from my trip to the SIGCSE 2024 conference in Portland, Oregon. The 2020 version of the conference was taking place in Portland just as the situation with COVID-19 was coming to light in the United States, cutting my trip to that one short. Pictures are from my Fujifilm Finepix HS50, my iPad Pro, and, on the ski day, the camera on my Pixel 6a phone.
Tuesday, March 19
I had a very early morning flight on American out of a packed Albany Airport. Pre-check was well worth it. I changed at DFW [Picture], with my departure gate conveniently located next to Chick-fil-A with breakfast biscuits. The second hop into Portland had great volcano views on the way in [Picture]. I was in Portland and with a car by early afternoon. This gave me time to take a bit of a scenic route through Gresham for lunch at a teriyaki place [Picture] and then up into Portland on 99E [13 Pictures]. I parked and checked in at the Hyatt Regency next to the convention center [Picture], took a little time to get some exercise at the fitness center, and got some Burgerville for dinner. (Meanwhile back home [Picture].) Then it was an early night as I adjust to the time change.
Wednesday, March 20
This day was my main event of the conference: an all-day affiliated event with the SIGCSE Committee on Computing in the Liberal Arts [2 Pictures]. Our session went very well. Some of us got a nice lunch from Cafe Yumm in a nearby neighborhood. After the session, I met up with some of our Siena contingent and walked across into downtown Portland (which is no longer a very pleasant place to walk) where we eventually found an excellent Mexican restaurant called Verde Cocina [2 Pictures].
Thursday, March 21
This was a full day at the conference, mostly attending sessions and meeting with colleagues. Lunch was from a small sandwich shop and dinner was at the conference reception. [Picture]
Friday, March 22
The fun day of the trip: Mount Hood Meadows for skiing [30 Pictures], then a scenic ride back in the Columbia valley [48 Pictures], and ending with a very pleasant dinner with a former student and his family in Portland [Picture].
Saturday, March 23
A long travel day that ended up longer than planned... I had the same itinerary home as my Siena colleagues, so we all loaded into my rental van to get to the airport in plenty of time for our midday flight to DFW. That flight went fine, but when we arrived in Dallas, we learned that an overachieving snow and ice storm at home resulted in a travel ban in Albany County, and cancellation of our second flight. Given that the American Airlines website was only giving us rebooking options a few days our and that we wanted to continue our travels together, we got into the lengthy customer service line in the terminal. It took hours! But...we ended up working with a few AA reps to get all four of us booked on a very early morning flight to Philadelphia then on to Albany. So we worked our way to an airport hotel, got a couple rooms and dinner, and "settled in" without our luggage for a short night.
Sunday, March 24
This day wasn't supposed to be part of the trip. It started ridiculously early in Dallas, where we easily got back to the terminal and through security for our early flight [4 Pictures]. We were in Philadelphia by mid-morning, and all wound up on the same flight again into Albany [8 Pictures]. In the end, only about 14 hours late, and a drive home on clear roads but with plenty of ice and snow still in the trees [6 Pictures].
Copyright notice: All images copyright © James D. Teresco unless otherwise specified. Unauthorized use prohibited.