It is 10:00 PM on the thursday night before Christmas Eve. I'm at one of my usual haunts The Ace "Coolest Hotel In America" and I'm happily hacking away at my open source social network project. Alone on a computer. Putting time into unpaid passion work. This could be a depressing scene, but I am accompanied by 4 friends all working on their personal open source projects. We call these spontaneous hack sessions "Nerdouts" and they happen frequently.

During the Nerdout pictured here, the topic of SUVs briefly popped up. Everyone at the table just shook their heads in a shared recognition of the stupidity owning a Hummer in a city.

Why Portland is great is not because people here hate Hummers, or make free software- it's that people here are considerate- which seems to be a requisite for an environment that fosters true nerds! Food, fashion, environmental, computer, music, coffee, zombie, circus, or culture nerds- Portland is rife with droves of nerds following whatever whim or passion they please.