Bakery Square

It has been four days in the new office so far, and things seem pretty good. Wandering around on first arrival Monday was a lot of fun—I visited both "up-dungeons" and walked across the trapeze netting. I had breakfast on the sixth-floor patio, and then lunch there, too. There's a great view. The up-dungeons are the towers on either corner of the building that used to play some kind of delivery role in the cookie factory. Like all the seventh-floor rooms, they are named after Pittsburgh bridges. One is called Liberty, and houses our library, the other is called Warhol, and houses the Rock Band setup and other games. Unlike the other seventh floor rooms, these two have stairs up to their local eighth floors. We also have a nice big tech talk room, which doubles as the new location for yoga, so we don't have to lay our mats on the cafeteria floor anymore.

The commute to and fro is significantly shorter—just over three miles, versus just under six. It takes about fifteen minutes both going and coming, which is an improvement. It's also much more bikeable, because it doesn't have the elevation changes of Squirrel Hill, but I haven't tried that yet.

My desk is in a hexagonal cubicle in the middle of the open area on the sixth floor. The seventh floor is only partial, and we have open space all the way up past the seventh floor ceiling, with windows on three sides letting in plenty of daylight. That's a big improvement over the old office. There's a bit more ambient noise in the new place, but I've seen no detriment to concentration.

Lunch is slightly improved, because they have a full kitchen on site now, and there are some new food options in the micro-kitchens as well. I'm especially fond of the Natrona Bottling Company offerings, which include a very potent ginger beer. I had to visit all three micro-kitchens in search of one today, because the first two were out of stock.

The only problem so far is that there's no good place to play basketball in the vicinity of Bakery Square. For now, we retain our access to CMU's facilities, and we're planning to keep playing there on Tuesdays and Fridays, but it's too soon to tell whether attendance will survive the change.

I don't have any pictures of Bakery Square yet, but any time someone wants to come visit, you're welcome to the grand tour.