The venerable Smith Tower, built in 1914 by manufacturer Lyman Cornelius Smith, is just a few blocks away from the LizardTech offices. Despite this proximity, none of us on the Dev team had ever been to the observation deck on the tower’s 35th floor, which we felt was pathetic. To rectify the situation, we went on a field trip over there today and got a big eyeful of panorama.

It was quite an experience. There are other observation spots around downtown. The most famous one is the Space Needle at the other end of the city. Most tourists go there instead. It’s a humdinger of a view, but the Needle is pretty removed from the downtown core, so that it seems a little like you’re looking at an effervescent photograph. There’s also an observation deck on the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower, Seattle’s tallest building (the curvy black one). I’ve never visited that viewpoint but I’ve seen the view from “43″ and even from half the building’s height, the city looks flat. You can’t discern any topography. It looks like you’re staring down at an aerial photo.

I thought the Smith Tower was just right. It’s pretty close to the downtown high-rises, so you get a sense of being “among” the tall buildings, but it’s posted almost like a sentinel at the southern edge of the downtown grid, so that views to the east, south and west are expansive. Also, the observation deck is only a little over 500 feet high. You can see a lot of detail in the buildings below and you still get the sense that Seattle is built on hills. We’re thinking of moving our offices. (Jealous? Here’s the link to our careers page: Jobs at LizardTech.)

I thought I’d share with you just a few of the many photographs we took.

A tall drink of water. The observation deck rings the top of the tower. Photo copyright Matt Fleagle.

This is the motor that works elevator #6. Note the famed Otis name. Photo by Walter Wittel, licensed via Creative Commons as noted below.*

Engineers drawing inspiration 500 feet above the city. From left, Walter, John, Michael, Glen, Mike, Kirk. Somehow, Chris got lost. Photo copyright Matt Fleagle.

The downtown core, with some of our old favorite buildings nestled among the newer giants. Photo copyright Matt Fleagle.

Ah, there’s Chris! And John, and the hands of Glen (we think) in the middle. They’re looking east over First Hill here. Photo by Walter Wittel, licensed via Creative Commons as noted below.*

Looking south to the historic King Street Station and to Quest and Safeco ball fields. Photo copyright Matt Fleagle.

*Image by Walter Wittel licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

You’ve heard of Open Street Map, right? You can think of it as Wikipedia for maps: people from all over the world map their own neighborhoods, and the results are made available for free, to all, with no copyright restrictions. For most of the US the road network has been pretty well mapped already, via free data available from the government, but it can get out of date surprisingly quickly and of course it doesn’t list the really important stuff like where to get the best ice cream.

These brave souls are about to redefine the leisurely walk.

On March 13th, nineteen people from CUGOS (including three Lizards) and one dog met up over on sunny Bainbridge Island for an Open Street Map mapping party. It was a diverse group — academics, kids, hackers, spouses. We met in the morning at the Bainbridge ferry dock, took a picture to commemorate the event, and divided up into four groups. Each group then spent the next few hours walking around a different part of Bainbridge’s downtown core, recording the coordinates of any “features of interest”:

• roads that had changed or been renamed
• “street furniture”: bus stops, park benches, fire hydrants
• points of interest: pharmacies, libraries, museums, pubs, ice cream parlors
• walking trails
• and much, MUCH more

Holly reviews her route while Dane gets “walking orders” from Michael.

Altogether we collected a few hundred different way points, using everything from handheld GPS units to iPhones to laser range finders. Over a leisurely late lunch by the waterfront, and in a subsequent CUGOS meeting, we worked to get all our GPS tracks and waypoints uploaded to the OSM databases.

Leaving no avenue uncharted, no point of interest unheralded, Michael, Walter and Roger investigate.

A walk through Bainbridge on a sunny day with friends — and GPS gear. What more could a GIS geek want?

Roger and Tifani display the elements of their GPS walking kit (bus stop sold separately).

Photos courtesy of CUGOS’ own Roger and Tifani.

Do you remember the riddle about crossing the river with your fox, your duck and some corn? You only have one small canoe, so you can only take two of your possessions across at a time. The problem is how to get them all to the other side without the duck eating the corn or the fox eating the duck.

Well, we’re having our office space remodeled and the shuffling questions have been similarly complex. We’re not worried that the engineering Lizards will try to eat the sales and marketing Lizards or anything, but walls are coming down and people are having to move over and share space.

Our hardworking sales force are gregarious high-energy types that make use of plenty of joshing, banter and even some bizarre character-building rituals as part of the way they get their work done. Our engineers do their socializing in weekly meetings, then retreat to their desks to puzzle out code issues in solitude or huddled in twos or threes around each others’ computers or whiteboards. Some Lizards were wondering how long it would be possible for us all to work cheek by jowl together before the engineers would all be working from home.

It turns out that it isn’t a problem, and we’ve all been getting to know each other. The sales crew has been really considerate regarding decibels, so there hasn’t been the disruption to the engineers’ precious quiet. And in return, the development team are developing an appreciation of the job that sales and marketing does. (It turns out that these people have been selling the software we build back here). To get to our desks the engineers have to navigate sales’ slap-tunnel of amicable teasing. It seems worth it. Maybe it takes a little disruption in the routine to bring about closer inter-office relations.

In case you were wondering, we’ll still be supporting our products (and selling them!) during the build-out. We expect construction to last through late January.

Oh, and by the way, the answer to the riddle involves three trips across the river and keeping the duck away from the other two the whole time.

Happy Holidays.

Photo courtesy of Walter Wittel.

Lizards and their families gathered at Gas Works Park yesterday for the company’s annual summer picnic. Our activities team supplied the burgers and pop, while the troops brought the dishes, dips, chips and salads …and desserts!…that made the potluck picnic a success. We closed the office a couple of hours early and headed to the north end of Lake Union.   

The day was beautiful, and the lake looked like a kid’s drawing of a lake; every kind of floating vehicle – kayaks, canoes, sailboats, seaplanes, yachts, even the Ducks tour boats made from converted World War II amphibious landing craft — was passing back and forth in front of us. 

Our sales engineer Robert won the Best of LizardTech Eats contest with his “Big Apple Pie”, a recipe he filched from some hoity-toity New York City restaurant (Serendipity) and totally nailed for us here in Seattle. Way to go Robert!

A special shout out to Genie, who started flipping burgers with a cardboard box before the utensils arrived, and cooked ‘em right!
 

Our director of Engineering, Michael P. Gerlek, attended and participated in GeoWeb 2009 in Vancouver last week. The annual GeoWeb gathering is a forum for new ideas and technologies that help shape the discussion of what it means to bring geospatial support into the Internet. 

Michael trio’d up with Galdos’ Ron Lake and the OGC’s Carl Reed for an all-day, tag-team relay session called GeoWeb 101. Each of the three presented about different technologies underlying the geoweb.

Other presentations throughout the week proved interesting, too. Michael’s “trip report” was published by GeoConnexion. Here’s the link:

http://www.geoconnexion.com/geo_online_article/GeoWeb-2009-Trip-Report/322