(I'll sneak this in during the post-election hangover, when no one's paying attention) The folks at J-Lab have posted a three-minute video profiling JDLand.com and its obsessive-compulsive creator, as part of their coverage of the 2008 Knight-Batten Awards. They did a very nice job of encapsulating my torrent of words about the site into a crisp little presentation, so take a peek if you have nothing better to do (here's a direct link if you're not seeing the embedded video):

Almost nothing from me today--other than to tell you to go and vote, dammit! You can find out what you need to know about many of the citywide races at other sources--the only Near Southeast-only race is for ANC 6D07 commissioner, where incumbent Robert Siegel is running against Geoffrey Kreiss. (I'll link again to this Hill Rag piece that looks at both candidates.) I'll post the winner as soon as I find out, but otherwise I'm buried in my real job and then another event through the end of the week. Next week, life should finally start returning to normal.

(A little diversion while everyone's waiting for Tuesday.) Those few hardy souls who've scrolled down on my 225 Virginia page may recognize the photo at left, which is a picture of my brother on the swingset in Garfield Park in 1964, with 225 Virginia (then the Washington Star building) at rear, and with the Southeast Freeway under construction. In playing with the family movies this weekend (having gotten them transferred to DV tapes from Super 8 film), I found about a minute of footage from that same day, briefly showing the Star Plant along with the rest of Garfield Park.

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was able to snag some time behind the fences at The Yards this week (with permission!!) and took a bunch of pictures. I also took this opportunity to do a bit of cleanup on the many Yards pages on this site, so if you haven't wandered through all of them in a while, I suggest taking the time to do so, keeping an eye out for the ubiquitous icon. Some highlights (click through to the pages for more details on each project):

A few items in the new issue of the Hill Rag might be of interest to Near Southeast denizens and aficionados:

According to the city's land records, on October 7 Akridge paid $4.65 million for the three properties totalling about 7,000 square feet on the south side of K Street between New Jersey and First, all owned by the Cohen family. (Currently on these properties are a defunct garage and an empty lot, as seen in the photo at right). Akridge already owns the lots along First Street south of K down to the Market Deli at L Street; and, from what I can see in my very-unlearned reading of other land records, it also now has agreements with both the Market Deli and the cab garage on the northwest corner of New Jersey and L.

Nothing in this WashTimes piece will be news for people who wander by here on a regular basis, but "Economy halts developers' ballpark plans" is a good survey that's probably still worth a read in case you've missed something. The crux is that the current economy has put an end to building on spec--"'Until you're getting your office building 70 percent leased up, you're not moving forward,' said Michael Stevens, executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District." And with things as they are, companies aren't moving to new office space, either. There's also this: "Monument Vice President Russell Hines said the financing difficulty is not because of pre-leasing requirements but rather demands for larger amounts of collateral on loans. Lenders once were willing to finance 75 percent of a project with only the project itself as collateral. Now, however, companies ask developers to put up additional assets to back the loan, even for just 50 percent financing."