It's been a busy year for travel, at least the last few months. In late May, I drove by myself up to Colorado to go my nephew's high school graduation, and also to visit my mom and the rest of my family who lives up there. The graduation happened to fall exactly on my mother's birthday, so we had a party for her, as part of the festivities. My nephew is going to college in the fall at a non-Boulder branch of the University of Colorado. Good choice, I said, to someone, where I was there.
The trip to Colorado played out amidst the run up to the successful launch of the TriMet Hop Card project in Portland. We had a good hold on the project at that point, so there was not much to stress about, in those final weeks. I knew the whole thing would work, and it did.
I was there in Colorado about two and half weeks, and then came back to Arizona. By then it was the very hot time of the year, when the temperature was well over 110 every afternoon. It felt glorious to take an afternoon break on the patio in the shade. It lasted about a week, the peak of the heat.
Then in July, going up to Portland for the launch kept me out of Arizona for about five days. The launch went almost as flawlessly as one could hope, although I found myself busy for a few hours in my hotel room on the zero day afternoon, fixing a bug that I myself had unwisely introduced at the last minute, at the behest of someone at TriMet, and against my better judgment at the moment. Next time I'll know to put my foot down. In any case, it barely caused a ripple in the actual usage that day.
The best part about that trip was getting to meet all the great people associated with the project, not just my co-workers at the Brigade, but also the other agencies involved. Many of this people are ones I'd been working with for a year without ever meeting. In every case, I was delighted by the person behind the name. We had a great party down in the headquarters of one of the other contractors, at their classy headquarters in the Pearl overlooking an old Chinese restaurant at the edge of Chinatown.
At last, moreover, I had the opportunity to live test the system I'd been building. After walking in the heat from my hotel to the Safeway on East Broadway, I purchased a real Hop Card, then went back to my hotel room next to the Convention Center and used my very own interface to put money on the card. Then I went down to the MAX train, the line of which ran right under my window (I'd booked the hotel just for that reason).
I tapped the card, and voila, it worked, and credited my fare. I got on the train and rode it across the river. I got off in Chinatown and walked up to the top of the Pearl, passing the place where we'd had the party the day before. When I got to the crest of the hill by the Interstate, I texted an old friend from college, as we had agreed to have lunch.
He came out of his office, catty-corner to where I was standing. He gave me an earful about politics, in a very Portland way. He's a throwback to an era Portland that feels as if it is passing away. He himself said as much, in reference to his office, which he claims as the last artist loft in the Pearl, meaning the old, unrenovated kind that once incubated much local talent.
He rents the place for almost nothing from a nonagenarian who is the dowager head of a local prominent family. He got this through his connections, but he says he will have the office only as long as the woman lives. When she passes away, the family will sell the building, which will be demolished for something new.
Over lunch, I mentioned how it seemed like Chinatown was now "under the gun" as far as the next wave of Portland re-development. It was trending hot. He told me some of the history of the local Chinatown businesses and families. "They still own everything in Chinatown, but they put all that money into buying up 82nd Street," he said, mentioning the arterial street in far East Portland that is lined by nearly every type of business.
After lunch, we walked back to his office, where he gave me the tour. It really did feel like a throwback, and probably it is the last cheap space of its kind. It felt absolutely appropriate that my friend would be the person to occupy it, during its final days. He had been there all along, in a way, even when he didn't live in NW Portland.
After we parted, I walked down to Burnside and caught the bus back across the river. When I tapped my card to get on the bus, the system successfully credited me with a day pass, meaning that all my rides on TriMet were free from the rest of the day.
On the other side of the river, I walked back up Grand to my hotel. Inside my room, I opened up the interface and saw that my taps were recorded properly in my account, and the day pass badge was displaying correctly.
Everything had worked as it should. It was time to hand the project over to someone else.
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