Category Archives: Diversions

Fun things I’ve found around the internet!

links for 2005-11-17

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links for 2005-11-16

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links for 2005-11-15

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UPDATE: I’m experimenting with a feature of del.icio.us that lets me post all of the links that I’ve saved for that day. What do people think if I made this a daily feature? (Normally, there won’t be nearly as many links. I was playing with del.icio.us a lot today!) Also, I posted about del.icio.us last May.

Are Home Sales Dropping Too Fast?

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It’s well known that things slow down tremendously in the winter… But none the less there have been some rumblings that things are slowing down too fast and that we might be approaching “bubble territory”. Using some pending home sale data from the NW Reporter, I put together the following chart:
4-County Home Sale Chart

It looks like we’re in a pretty typical October slowdown to me… Seattle homeowners: I’d be curious to know if you are concerned when you see this chart?

Hacking Your Dream Home

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[photopress:Living_Room_shadow.JPG,thumb,alignright]While we’re thinking $100M huge, here’s a question to lighten the mood up:

What sort of “neat” things and convenience features would you design into your dream home?

This question was recently posted at Ask Metafilter and there have been some wonderful responses. Here are some of my favorite:

  • Built-in bookshelves
  • Stereo speaker plug-ins in each room, run to a central stereo. Each room has a on/off switch for the speakers.
  • Built-in main computer area with either good WiFi, or cabled access throughout house.
  • Skylights, as many as possible
  • Japanese soaking tub
  • Good reading light over the toilet
  • Secret room
  • Gas-powered outdoor firepit

It is such a fun question! I found it interesting to see where people focused. Some responses were all about the kitchen… Some all about light… and others all about keeping the bugs out!

Thanks to Fraser at Toronto at Home.

Photos of Halloween in Downtown Ballard

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[photopress:archie_mcphee.jpg,thumb,alignright]Our first stop on our Halloween tour was Downtown Ballard where hundreds of kids gather to collect goodies from the local merchants! It is always a fun time, and a little bit of sprinkling definitely did not dampen the kids’ enthusiasm!

For those wanting to get a peak at a typical Halloween in Ballard, I put together a slideshow on Flickr…

Enjoy!

Keeping Real Estate Entertaining…

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[photopress:twinkies.jpg,thumb,alignright]
David A. Smith, founder of the Affordable Housing Institute, has a great blog that is loaded with articles that are both interesting and informative (is that possible?). In terms of readability, his posts are up there with grow-a-brain except David keeps more focused on real estate.

He posts on a wide variety of topics. Today he gives some lessons on how home owners can learn from haggling in third world contries in the Economics of Haggling. A few days ago he had an article (What destroyed your home first) where he relates the killing of Rasputin to whether or not insurance companies will pay to rebuild homes in New Orleans (read the article and it will make sense!).

All in all, David is a great writer, and if you’re interested in real estate, I highly recommend adding him to your reading list.

Fremont Oktoberfest this weekend…

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[photopress:Bridge_6871.jpg,thumb,alignright]
Fremont gives us another wonderful opportunity to celebrate the autumn, hear live music, have a glass of good beer, make some crafts and much more at the Fremont Oktoberfest September 23-25th

Autumn gets ushered in with the Fremont Oktoberfest. Historically, in old Germany, the brewing season began with the fall harvest of barley and hops and any beer left at harvest time had to be consumed before the new beer arrived. September was designated as the time to drink-up all of last season’s beer. It officially became Oktoberfest in 1810, when Ludwig I, the Crown Prince of Bavaria declared a 16-day celebration in commemoration of his wedding.