Craig Given

After pouring over apartment listings for months, and narrowing down the list each iteration, I set out today to check out my final three options in order of preference. With Susie's prayers added to mine, I'm happy to report that my top choice was available and I filled out the application today. It looks like I will be staying within minutes of work at the Post Dunwoody Apartments in Sandy Springs. It's actually located on the same street as my new job, and only two miles from work. You can see a really detailed satellite view and my unit is in the SW corner, on the East side overlooking a Japanese Maple. When viewing the Google Map, you can activate Street View and get a virtual drive-by view taken this past winter.

I think I’ve narrowed my hunt to three apartment complexes and I’ll be visiting each in order of preference. Since the leasing offices don’t open until 10AM I spent some time during rush hour checking the traffic flow from each property to my new job. There were no traffic problems, but morning rush hour isn’t nearly as bad as evening rush hour, so I’ll need to check again. While driving around and learning the neighborhood I stumbled across Ray’s NY Pizza. Harrison, while in Manhattan, had some Ray’s Pizza and said it was the best he’d ever tasted. I saw on the Food Channel that one key ingredient is the water, so when a NY pizzeria franchises they either ship their water from NY or process local water so it’s the same as if from NY. I wonder what Ray’s is doing? And speaking of pizza, the local Mellow Mushroom looked dead, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually closed or looked that way due to pizza not being a common breakfast item (outside of the home, that is) or because I h...

I had a decent night’s sleep considering being in a strange bed. I’d stayed out until nightfall the night before checking out area apartments. The Dunwoody area is looking more promising than Saturday afternoon’s hunt. Most leasing offices won’t be open until 1PM today, so I spent the morning researching on sublets to visit first. Although I found over 40 listings, the sublet search wasn’t too profitable: the price was the same as renting an apartment, they only wanted female renters, they were only renting one room of their multi-room apartment (i.e., roommate), the timing was wrong (it was only for July or wouldn’t begin until September or was just for one month), the location was wrong (South of Atlanta outside 285!), they were for luxury apartments or condos costing $400 per DAY, etc. Of the few remaining that were even feasible, they were simply assuming the lease at the regular rental rate, so I might as well just get an apartment in the same complex for the year instead of...

I packed this morning and headed for Atlanta. I arrived before check-in, so I checked out the immediate area for any apartments not listed in my catalogs and also stumbled upon Publix, Walmart, Walgreens, and other essentials. There was a light rain for awhile, but everything was sunny and dry by the time I returned to the hotel and checked in. After unpacking, I discovered the TV didn’t work at all. That won’t be an issue, but what’s a real problem is that the internet is VERY slow and drops the connection sporadically, which is a disgrace considering they charge extra (albeit not a lot) for the service. I checked the speed and after four failed attempts, it finally stayed connected long enough to measure: just a tad faster (119kbps) than dial-up. I have a full, strong, steady wireless 802.11g signal, so that’s not the issue. I cannot use my email client, since their proxy blocks Thunderbird, so I’ll be forced to use a web-based client. Using their internet connection to resea...