So there have been some changes.<\/p>\n
I’m effectively no longer in the Army. I’m living in downtown Porland, Oregon. I’m a full-time college student at Portland State University. I’m breathing easier. Let’s take these one at a time, shall we?<\/p>\n
I’m effectively no longer in the Army. I am still on active duty, but I’m using my final 51 days of leave, which will run out at the beginning of February. As a practical matter, though, I’m growing out my hair and sideburns and I don’t have to show up to any formations or do PT. As a side note, I’m getting much more of the type of exercise that I need to stay in shape. More on that later.<\/p>\n
Portland is better than I’d hoped, but let’s start first with what’s not great about Portland from my point of view: it rains a lot. There. I said it. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to what is<\/em> great. The public transit system is clean, on time, well thought- and laid-out, free in Fairless Square<\/a> and right outside my front door. Within walking distance of me is PSU<\/a>, Powell’s Books<\/a>, the VA Regional Office, the VA Regional Hospital, downtown Portland<\/a>, the Greek Cusina<\/a>, the Rose Garden<\/a>, the Japanese Garden<\/a> and the Chinese Garden<\/a>. I’ve been to all of them. About half of the laptops I’ve seen in use around here have been Macs. There are three LUGs<\/a> around here that I know about already, but I missed their January meetings. Downtown is WiFi-enabled thanks to the ad-supported MetroFi<\/a> network. It took me less than 15 minutes to get the Oregon plates for my car. Google Maps is more<\/strong> helpful in Portland thanks to their integration of the TriMet<\/a> public transportation system. Directions by default are driving directions, but a link gives you access to the next three public transportation trips to your destination, including all required transfers and approximate walking times at both ends.<\/p>\n I’m a student at Portland State University<\/a><\/p>\n . It’s everything that I expected from a State University in terms of size and available resources, and at the same time, it’s a lot less than I expected in terms of bureaucratic <\/a>BS<\/a>.<\/p>\n (In general, folks in Portland have been pretty polite, helpful and friendly, and the PSU bureaucracy is no exception.) I am taking Physics with Calculus, Intro to Linear Algebra, Critical Thinking and Tai Chi this quarter. PSU has on-campus WiFi for all registered students.<\/p>\n I’m breathing easier, thanks to the much cleaner air around here. Since I have two major respiratory disorders, this was my primary reason for choosing Portland for my relocation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So there have been some changes. I’m effectively no longer in the Army. I’m living in downtown Porland, Oregon. I’m a full-time college student at Portland State University. I’m breathing easier. Let’s take these one at a time, shall we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-education","category-life","category-serious"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fanglord.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}