Friday's fever

As the heat moves into the Pacific NW we finally turned on our AC this week. The last time the temperature soared here we were at the coast enjoying low seventies weather. But we are here for the weekend so we have to "Endure."

Tru's 5th birthday is Sunday. The celebration will be on Saturday. Fortunately, Amy planned his party for the morning, so we can entertain the little kids and moms and escape to the AC for the duration of the day.

WX is calling for 100 degrees today, Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately, the humidity is low (NWS reports 20%). This air mass is due to an easterly flow coming off the High Desert on the other side of the mountains. Once the wind gets switched around and we get the ocean flow again, it will settle down. But they are calling for records to be broken here. Again, they are saying the coast will be 60-70...oh to be there again.

Wednesday and Thursday I lead the Certification Conference for Mediation Training Institute at the World Trade Center in Portland. There were 11 participants, none of whom came from Oregon! One from Ohio, four from Washington (ok just across the Colombia from OR) and the rest were from California. Interesting group.This is the third one I have done here and it is the largest. These are held in Regus locations which is an international office space rental provider. They have three locations in Portland alone and we get a beautiful room on the eleventh floor of the WTC overlooking the Willamette River. It is a big board room looking place and accommodates twelve, so we were at max with this.

The guy from Ohio is a clinical psychologist who is on the adjunct faculty at Franklin University in Columbus. They have about 7000 students, so I would categorize it as being similar to Davenport. PhDs can be a plus or a minus (just like lawyers and I had one of them too), but this gentleman was great. Laid back, but authoritative in his persona, he supported my teaching and descriptions....yes. He saddled up to me later and asked if I could give him some pointers on approaching HR managers since he is trying to sell coaching services to businesses as part of his practice. Of course, I was pleased to help him. The lawyer is the EEO person at the water district serving LA.

The traffic in and out of Portland was ok...slow the later in the day you travel, but I knew that and the weather was perfect so that many restaurants had outdoor seating for their lunches which is big business in downtown. I go to my little sandwich shop on Second Street get a great sandwich, carrots, apple and giant oatmeal rasin cookie and either hang out in the green space adjacent to the WTC in the shade or go back to the room to prepare for the afternoon.Aleene went in with me on Tuesday to put the materials together and we went up to Pioneer Park and drank coffee and listened to a rocker band perform. They had music on Thursday too.Hey, working two days out of the week in downtown Portland is cool. Somebody tell Gov. Granholm to come to Portland and see what a cool city is like.