[Porsche-O-Phile]

I lived in Portland for about 10 months. When there's nice weather, I can scarcely think of a nicer city I've been to. The problem is, that's about 25 days out of every year. Most of the time it's cold, raw, dark, damp, rainy and generally miserable.

The outdoor opportunities are great in the northwest, but again, you're limited by very rare good weather opportunities to enjoy them. Portland is a very pleasant place to live aside from the horrible weather though; people generally tend to be nice and friendly and open-minded. It gets kinda' hickish in the rural parts of Oregon though.

When we lived there it was VERY economically depressed. Apparently it took a horrific hit after the dot-com crash and never really recovered. There was a lot of poverty, lots of people out of work and down-on-their-luck types. Maybe it's turning around now, but it was such a crummy job market we got the heck out of there and back to SoCal where there were at least decent jobs to be had. If you're going there for a job, make DAMN sure you're indispensible or very secure in being guaranteed work. Having gone through it, it's not a place I'd want to be laid off in.

That said, it has the potential to be a nice place to live, but you better like rain and crappy weather.