Texas really is one of the most beautiful places in the World.

This is a quick picture I thought I’d add that I took while at the 2010 Taste of Addison festival on my Sony Cybershot. I had an amazing time with friends and the sunset in texas was absolutely incredible.

This is just a taste of some of my favorite photos I’ll be uploading in the coming weeks and months.

If you would like a larger fullsize version of this, please dont hesitate to let me know and I will be more than happy to send you a picture.

The Reserve at Galleria Luxury Apartments review.  This is my experience and complaint to the Luxury Townhome complex located in North Dallas. This is strictly my opinion and others may have had different experiences.  If you have, please tell me and I will gladly post counterpoints.

Normally I am not one to rant, but as a citizen of humanity I feel that is has become my personal duty to alert everyone in the Dallas Ft. Worth Metroplex to avoid living in The Reserve at Galleria Luxury Apartments (13907 Montfort. Dallas, tx 75240) The first thing I have to write about is the insane addition of  “at Galleria” included in the title of the apartment.  The Reserve (from the 6th level of hell) apartments are located about 1 and a half miles away from the galleria using google maps.  There are no less than 5 apartment complexes and even some nice town homes in between the reserve apts and the amazing mall in North Dallas.  This title is clearly a gimmick to provide apartment shoppers a false sense of luxury when looking for an apartment.  ( On a side note, they have removed the “at galleria” title from the reserve sign on the front of the property.  I only am reminding people of this because the website is still http://www.reserveatgalleria.com/. )

The Reserve is full of Garbage

Another issue with the hellhole that is located at 13907 Montfort Drive, Dallas Texas is the garbage pick up.  In living there two years, they have changed the dates of pick up numerous times without notice and then yell at you or threaten to fine you when you leave your garbage out on the wrong day.   Thats all fine and dandy until you goto your dumpster and find this picture!  Would anybody in their right mind want to live or walk within 300 yards of this Mount Everest of Trash.  I sincerely feel sorry for the people who have to look at this or live near this on a daily basis.  The Management needs to add at least one additional day to the pick up to avoid this monstrosity.

Run the Reserve into the Ground

Continuing on, The Reserve grounds are also terrible.  There are no less than 15 dead trees on the premises.  This provides the ominous atmosphere for the days and evenings as one commutes to and from work.  There are actually a couple of trees that are still alive.  One in particular provides a loathsome screech as is scratches the paint of my truck on a daily basis.  I think the Reserve is afraid to trip this tree, as it is the lushest and picturesque part of the complex.  I have provided an additional picture of this tree as well.  Notice how far into the middle of the road I am and the tree is still sitting in the MIDDLE of my windshield.  I should have the apartments provide a new paintjob for my truck.   There is also dead grass, dead bushes, and dog crap everywhere you look and step.  They have a “Dog Park” in the middle of the Reserve complex but unfortunately our apartment was “down wind” from this rundown dog poop park.  Almost daily I would have to succumb to the scent of fresh dog (and possibly other) feces during my 4 foot commute from my front door to my car door.  It also provides a romantic undertone when you’re going on or coming home from dates.  Nothing puts you in the mood like the smell of dog shit and urine.

The Gates of Hell

Honestly, where do I go from here?  The gates are always an interesting highlight of my days.  The two main gates are broken at least once a week providing a great way to remove the false sense of security gates generally would play in an apartment.  This is also convenient for the children that ride their bikes and razor scooters at full speed around corners and through the gates after school (which is when there is the most traffic coming home from work.)  So it’s always an adventure playing dodge the “special” children as you’re trying to park your car.  The primary gate to exit the complex is also an exciting adventure.  You have the luxury of having the gate literally bouncing back toward your car after the gate completely opens.  I have seen 2 unsuspecting vehicles get dinged by these malfunctions.  Oh I almost forgot, the gate to enter and exit the reserve apartment community is also completely broken and you can push it open and closed at will.  Oh, on top of that, when we moved in 2 years ago, The Reserve never provided us gate openers.  We had to stop every single time we went into the reserve and put in the gate code – unless we were lucky enough to have a broken gate.

Parking

Parking at the Reserve apartment complex is also a very difficult process.  When we originally signed our lease, we were told we’d be given this spot somewhat close to our apartment.  A few days after parking in this spot, a van started blocking our cars into this spot and wouldn’t let us leave.  We later found out that the leasing office had lied to us and another tenant in the complex. This was the first week we had moved in and we had already experienced issues with the leasing office and our neighbors.  They later gave us another spot about 50 yards further from our apartment.  They were even gracious enough to spray paint that it was reserved for our apartment number in the concrete.  But they wouldn’t enforce the towing, so more times than not, we were forced to park out side the gate.  You may be asking yourself why anyone would park outside a gate?  Well there was literally 1 parking spot and 1 garage spot for a 3 bedroom town home. They were encouraging 3 people to rent a 3 story town home with two parking spots and then lying about giving us a third spot within reasonable walking distance from the apartment.  Additionally, cars frequently parked in the fire lanes for days at a time because there was insufficient parking.  I can tell you with a straight face that for at least 2 months cars parked (and still do on and off) on the fire lanes because parking is so pathetic.

The Sound of Music

I will interject my negative comments about this horrific living situation with one positive experience we had while living at the Reserve town “home” apartments. Besides the constant sounds of honking and bass booming from 1970’s impala’s driving down montfort (the hood is right across the street from the Reserve in case you were wondering) Things were relatively quiet the majority of the time we lived at the reserve and I will tell you why.  These apartments are such a craphole excuse for living situations that for literally 2/3rd’s the time we lived in the 3-story “condo” we didn’t have neighbors on either side of us.  I have to explain now that living at this apartment was so bad that people are not willing to pay $1400 a month for over 1600 square feet because of how awful living here really is.  the 33% of the time that people did live on one side or the other, you could hear everything going on through the paper thin walls.  It’s always interesting to hear late night extra curricular activities occurring 3 feet and 1 paper thin wall away from you at 3am on a Tuesday.  Oh and if you own a loud ass chopper and drive down montfort to work everyday at 630 AM, thanks for the alarm clock buddy – you saved me 9.99 at CVS.

Amenities

There are none.  let me say that again.  There are no amenities at the reserve.  They will tell you about their tanning bed, but you cant use it because some jersey shore wannabe loves leaving his greasy residue all over the tanning bed when hes done.  There is a “pool” but its so small I’d have better luck swimming laps in my bathtub (my new bathtub, not the bathtub i had at the reserve.)    I already said no parking.  Gym is abysmal and the TV was apparently stolen from there.  There is no real place to grill.  One good thing – there is a dog park. (jk I just felt like using my strikethrough font.)  Your bills will be no less than $600.00 a month for electricity during the summer months. and if for some reason your Air Conditioner breaks, dont count on them fixing it properly.  They will put a “temporary” fix on for as long as possible – this helps jack up your bills even more.  The doors dont close all the way, the sealant on windows is gone.   They do give you two patios, one you can barely fit on because its liteally a foot and a half deep and the other comes with the byproducts of whatever was growing over at the dumpster.  This is literally algae growing on our patio!  That’s also the full size of our second patio.  Awesome Huh?

You may be thinking to yourself.. wow this is a lot for one person to complain about… but im not even finished yet.

The Reserve Apartments Suspect Foundation?

The granite is fake.  The roof and ceilings leak during every rainstorm and ruin your carpet but instead of cleaning the carpet or patching the leaks they just paint over them.  They’re very professional at the Reserve.  There also have to be a ton of foundation problems.  There are cracks everywhere.  At one point two tiles became dislodged from our fireplace and broke.  The Reserve did come and fix the tiles, but they used different colors.  I think they are planning on doing some sort of large scale mosaic at some point in the future!  There are also cracks up and down every wall in the apartment.   Every story has some huge crack.  my bathroom has a crack. my bedroom has a crack. the kitchen has a crack. the living room has a crack.  I think you get the point.  There are cracks everywhere in this building.  I really could keep going on and on about how terrible my living situation was at this apartment and I really want to, but my interest in continuing to chide this piss poor joke of an apartment complex is finally waining.

Speaking of suspect foundation… they also have suspect business practices.  After we renewed our lease, we habitually asked the apartments how much we owed, because each one of us would pay a slightly different amount.  this was fine and dandy until we received a $300.00 delinquency notice along with an eviction notice 10 months into living in the apartments on our SECOND lease. I want to point out that this company is so poorly run and managed that it took them over 10 months to catch this error.  If their accounting practices are this poor, imagine how poorly managed every other aspect of the complex is.

Oh yeah…. one more thing.  theres mold and they wont do anything about it.

Conclusion

In the end it’s really my fault for living here as long as I did.  I should have never renewed my lease, but the management company promised changes and I was stupid enough to listen.  It’s a shame. I am definitely going to report this company to the better business bureau unless i get my full deposit back.  This is just a warning for anyone looking to move into the Reserve.  Don’t believe the lies.  let the reviews and pictures act as the truth.  You’ll thank me in the long run.

As time went on, I continued listening to some more of their music and decided I would check them out in concert with a good friend.  I am very glad I decided to attend the concert.  During the show, the band cut out into a ballad called “Colder Weather.”  This track is an amazing song describing a relationship attempting to endure the struggles of lond distance and the troubles that come along with those issues.

After the show, I spent days trying to find a good quality version of the song because this song has not yet been released by the band.  After about a month of searching I found a decent version on youtube.  I have included it below – enjoy.

Politico 

The republican part is in a very large predicament.  As people become more and more moderate on social issues, fiscal policy becomes a key issue in retaining party loyalty.  If the party of Lincoln and Reagon cannot reorganize itself and become the voice and body for fiscal and economic responsibility then it will surely die.  Tempers have flared.  There are many “movements” for change and if  each of these movements could be organized into one voice, there may be a viable 3rd-party candidate on the ticket in 2012.

We will have more updates as they develop.

Source: ESPN

Expect some Juice soon.

I immediately fell in love with the track.. as I say in the title it is a pseudo cross between Mickey Avalon and MetroStation.  Imagine a Shake it mix up with slightly toned down Mickey lyrics… It’s glorious. 

Anticipating a one hit wonder, I reluctantly streamed a few more tracks via youtube.  15 minutes of pure joy played through my laptop speakers and I immediately purchased the album on itunes.  I’ve listened to the entire album through probably 3 times already.  The CD flows pretty well and although the songs do sound similar, there is enough variation to keep it interesting.  If I didn’t know that these were two college physics majors from Boulder Colorado (the 303 area code –  hence the name), I could easily believe one of them is a Lil’ Jon clone… which is hilarious in itself. 

Don\’t Trust Me

Honestly, 3oh!3 probably aren’t going to win an award or even get a lot of radio play, but as underground hip hop and upbeat party music, they are a fantastic duo that will surely provide some friday night preparty entertainment.