Getting to Portland-

Portland is a gorgeous city. This is probably a very biased look at an incredibly green, lush landscape that is a stark contrast to the deserts that I grew up in. Flying in to Portland, you cant help but notice all the green. Of course, the Timbers had to be a shade of forrest green.

Somewhere between getting off my plane and walking into the Hotel Lucia on SW Broadway, I lost my drivers license. Not the best way to start things off, but what can you do. It's part of the deal when you're a space cadet like myself. But it's definitely something that will need to sorted out somehow in the 36 hours I am here.

Regardless, I check into my hotel after being dealt with by a front desk lady who's attitude resembled that of someone with a hangover. She admitted to the attitude though and me being an easy-going guy, I could work around that sort of thing.

It's probably a good time to go back and let you know that this whole trip is taken care of by Nike. Big thanks. My flight, my nice town car transportation, my hotel, everything. Taken care of by the good people at Nike.

So I get to the Hotel Lucia around 1pm. With about 2 hours to kill, the first thing I get sorted out is the license thing and my flight tomorrow. Luckily, Alaska Airlines says that I can fly back on the return flight because they know I've flown up with them and I got a Costco card with a picture on the back. So as long as I get there with enough time to answer some questionnaire, I'll be ok. (Thanks to my Sister-in-law for helping me with that.) Next up on my plate, I had to release the separated interviews of Monday's show: Paul MacDonald and David Michael of MyOldManSaid.com. Finally, that left me about an hour and fifteen minutes to run out and get a bite to eat while catching some of the sights of the city immediately around my hotel.

Out the doors I make a right and head up the street to whatever looks interesting. With only two cups of coffee, a Sprite and a small package of pretzels in my gut, I was looking about for food. After a couple blocks of stores and coffee shops, I run into a brick square where people playing chess on thoughtfully planned art-work greets me on the corner. Just past them, I see a little farmers market where a handful of tents offer up various berries and other fruits and vegetables. That's all well and good, but I was after something that would fill me up and last me until the planned dinner at 7pm. There was one stand that was grilling up burgers, and went right up to order myself one.

I was carrying on some friendly conversation with this dude behind the grill when I saw them. Sure enough, across the street were two of Aston Villa's less recognizable footballers. (I say less recognizable because being about 40 yards away and walking off in the distance, I couldn't make out faces, but I saw the blue jumpsuits with “Villa” across the back.) I damn near put an end to my order to chase these boys down to make them talk with me. What about? Who knows. But I wanted them to feel important and appreciated here in the States, because they were walking around being completely unknown. Well... unknown to everyone but me I guess.

Instantly I thought of Geoff in Philly who would have loved seeing this. Conversation was an afterthought and I shouted out, “Oh my god! There go two Aston Villa players!”

“What man?” Lacking interest, the burger guy seemed a bit upset that I left our discussion.

“Those guys play for Aston Villa. I'm supposed to go to their friendly against the Timbers tomorrow night.”

The Timbers brought him back to friendly terms. He told me where they were probably staying, and I took note. By they time he finished my burger and wrapped it up, I missed my chance to make the Villa boys feel like the celebrities they thought they were. Regardless, I'd get at them later.

Burger in hand, I headed back to hotel to prep for Day 1 of the Nike Soccer Immersion event. The group of 24 leaves the hotel on a shuttle at 3pm.

Reflecting on Day 1-

I felt like I was a tourist in some touristy locale, packing into a small bus where to check out the sights and sounds of the place we all chose to vacation at. Everyone had a huge smile on their face. It was great to put faces to guests I've had on the show or people I tweet at regularly on the twitter, and it was even better to see familiar faces like Ben Hooper of the Bumpy Pitch and Juan Arango of GolTV. No egos really at all.

Everyone was from some where. Everyone new about what your work and for the most part, everyone respected everyone else's work. It seemed like the perfect gathering of football family.

We made our way from our downtown hotel, out of Portland and onto the freeway to head to Beaverton, completely against traffic. Although, it should be noted, there wasn't much traffic at all to speak of.

When we pull off the free, it's a small town feel that hits you. It isn't until you turn right on to SW Walker that you start to get the feel of the massive Nike Campus. There's a 1.9 mile unobstructed running trail that circles the World Headquarters, covered by trees, taking you over bridges and keeping you in the picturesque natural surrounds of greenery.

We walked into the Tiger Woods Center first. Walking in to the rotunda, we're greeted by boots from Nike's past, present and future. After a few moments of everyone checking out the displays, we are wisked away as a group into a meeting room named after some golf experience. Everything is golf themed or related in the Tiger Woods center, touching on major moments in the golfers career.

In the room are multiple displays of Nike gear and football fashion. Manchester United kits and apparel, same goes for the Barcelona and US Soccer stuff. There is a current boot display that isn't really paid much attention to because we've all been there and seen it for the past few months. Then we are asked to sit down for the official greeting.

A hip guy by the name of Tim gives us the official welcome and quick run-down of Nike's history of boots. Fun fact: the first “swoosh” was applied to a 1970's boot that was used in the Mexico World Cup (even though it was an all purpose boot).

After we get a good run down of Nike's innovation driven football/soccer department from one of it's head's, we taken outside to overlook a gorgeous pitch we are told is “Ronaldo Field” named after Ronaldo #1, leading goal scorer in World Cup history. (Seems reasonable) We're broken up into two groups and we head off in separate directions to tour the Nike Campus.

Building after building, you come to find out everything is named after a Nike athlete who made history in the name of the brand. Like temples or memorials to various Greek or Roman Gods, we're taken into buildings named after the like's of the Bo Jackson Workout Facility, the Mia Hamm Building, or the Nolan Ryan Building. Each a shrine with tokens of history commemorating athletic achievements. And yes, we feel like we're walking through a college. It's quite inspiring to any person who is slightly interested in sports.

Finally we return to the Tiger Woods building, meeting up with the other group. We head on to the bus we came in, and the collective of media from around the country head off to Olympic Provisions. I found this clever as well, because not only was it referencing the Olympic region of the Pacific Northwest, but I'm sure Nike PR chose the place because of the Olympics which were set to launch in the next few days. Again, clever, clever.

Dinner was fun. Drinks were flowing. Meat was eaten. (There were vegetables and dessert as well) Nike picked up the tab as the group mingled, asking questions about each other's sites, columns, articles and work. The PR girls were kind and friendly, making the evening's three hour dinner (yup, three hours) go by pretty quick. At by 10, we all got back onto our special little bus and headed back into downtown Portland to chic little hotel.

It was around this time that I made the decision to walk to Jeld-Wen Stadium. I was told earlier that it was a reasonable walk from my hotel. And it was. Only about 16-18 blocks (I cant really recall). I made the walk, and just about when I was thinking I may have gone in the complete opposite direction, out of nowhere pops up the Timber's home. I made a lap around the thing to take it all in because I wouldn't be able to make the game Tuesday night.

Afterwards, I ran home. Jeans and polo on, I ran back to the Hotel Lucia.

I did a little work and hit my pillow at 12:36am.