cable management

Update (to): This is what I'm talking about.


This is serious motherfucking cable management. Still don't know why the table has to be so ugly.

happy day

If this day is special to you, then by all means have a happy one. Hell, have a happy day even if it's just another day. For my money, the homemade pizza for breakfast every dec 25 is special enough. It's a tradition I think we can all get behind.

Big news around here, other than the snowpocalypse, is casa rakkaleff's new guestbook. The mustache guestbook. It's a silly idea whose time has come. It looks a little something like this:

mustachioed leff
mustachioed leff

some lqa buildings [architecture sunday]

Snow. That's what we have. We're not used to it, we're not prepared. Seattle has very few plow trucks (seriously, there are about 12 or something). So there's not much to do but crunch around in the snow taking pictures.

It's been a while since I did any architecture posts. So here are a couple of buildings near my house that I've always kind of liked.

The Delphian is a bit run down these days, and I can't imagine that it's super fun to live in. But I can't help liking it. I mean, it's blue. From the street it's a big blue box. What's not to like?

delphian

Here it is sans snow.


And right next door is this mid century thing. The balconies seem kind of cheery somehow. But what I really like is the entry way. Don't know why. Just do. It's a nice shape.


nice entryway

And again, sans snow. (golly, I like technology)

magician's bane (the final countdown)

Rakka and I got to Redfin Seattle's holiday party before it really got going. We grabbed a booth and were promptly trapped by a wandering magician, or as Rakka called him, a 'trenchcoat illusionist'. This sort of thing went on for a while.

Eventually, we found Mary and Daniel and hatched a plan. The karaoke machine had "the final countdown" on it. The magician was gone by the time we were done. I have no idea why.

Redfin uses google maps now! Rock!

In a release that I had almost nothing to do with, Redfin has transitioned from Microsoft VirtualEarth to Google Maps. The update went live last night.

Our CTO, Mike Young, has a good explanation of the reasons (in short, contracts and speed. It is so fast. Btw, we don't officially support Google Chrome yet, but hoo boy does display the map fast).

According to Sasha Aickin (Search team lead), it was surprisingly easy to get working. Of course Sasha and his team are a bunch of geniuses, so it didn't surprise me.

counterbalance disco


counterbalance disco
Originally uploaded by leff
We know about the wall lights at counterbalance park, right? Well, now they installed some on the wedge. Me and Eddy Grant went down to check them out.

They're pretty cool. I like them. I think the new ones needs some adjustment on the timing though. They're a little tweaky.

Here they are in context:
long shot