[SATLUG] gentoo, emerge and updates to portage

[Travis H.]

So I'm installing gentoo, and when I run "emerge --sync", it times
out.  I fixed that by capturing the rsync command it's running and
running it manually with --timeout set to something higher than 180.
When emerge --sync finishes, it tells me there's an update to portage
and I should update that immediately.  Isn't that what emerge --sync
is doing?  The manual implies so.  Why do I keep getting this error?
What am I missing?
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