Becoming Legendary Don't drown in the Quo

Corporate Housing has its Perks

If you get sent to a town to work for an extended period of time – about three months or so, I recommend staying in corporate housing. There are lots of choices for you, but hotels are cramped and expensive and apartments require you to purchase furniture (sure you could go rent some stuff from Aaron’s for a few months, but it is a headache – trust me – been there and done that).

The cool things about corporate housing (aka short term furnished apartments/suites) are as follows:

1. It’s turnkey – you walk into it and can relax because everything is there for you to live for an extended stay.
2. Most of them have nice furnishings – you aren’t going to have to sit on old couches or sleep on hard beds. I guess it depends on which one you stay in, but all of the ones I have stayed in are well-stocked with top of the line furniture.
3. The bathrooms work well – There is nothing as bad as having to stay in an extended stay with low water pressure, lukewarm water, and hard to flush toilets. The corporate housing suites I have stayed in have all prided themselves on providing the cleanest and most operational bathrooms I have ever had. Most of them are better than the one I have in my permanent home. That’s saying a lot.
4. Customer service – The owners and workers who run these corporate housing sites typically care for those who are staying with them. The hotels I have stayed in have workers who don’t seem to care about those who are staying there. But I have found that corporate housing workers get paid more and receive better training from the owners of the sites. It’s nice to know you have people who actually care about what you want and need while you are living away from home.
5. Size of rooms – The suites I have lived in don’t make you feel claustrophobic – there is plenty of room to live rather than to just survive like you would in a hotel room. I love having a bedroom that is separate from my workspace and my den.
6. Work happens – Once when I was working with several Texas colleges in a specific region, I found that the set up of the corporate housing seemed to make it easier to work than in other spaces. I attribute this to the lighting in these spaces – There is no fluorescent death lights above your head – there are soft lights that keep you from tiring out as quickly.

Now as I mentioned before I’ve only stayed in a few corporate housing sites and I know my experiences with them may be too generalized. Maybe there are some really cramped and stinky. But I have heard from other travelers who have stayed in the various options and also in corporate housing and they agree with my take on it all. Wherever you end up, I wish you the best possible stays. Feel free to comment on this and let me know what you have found to be most true.

Great House/Terrible Yard

I am just as bad as a lot of people who buy houses and pay most attention to the structure of the house and the way it is designed without paying much attention to the front and back yards. I recently moved into a super cool looking place in Southwest Lubbock and admittedly I fell in love with the vaulted ceilings and the sweet wood floors without doing much studying of the yards in front and back. Now, once I moved into the house I did notice that the front yard was mostly dirt with the occasional weed sticking out. And when I went to the back yard I saw that it was actually turf that grew huge stalks of weed that were nearly impossible to chop down. Anyway, I am just issuing a warning for all of us who don’t pay attention to the outside of things.

If you find yourself in this sort of situation, I want to recommend that you research companies that do landscaping in Lubbock. There are a whole lot of them and some are much better than others. Believe me, I have dealt with both kinds. One very professional group that not only does Lubbock landscaping but also does basic yard maintenance – they even hang Christmas lights (holiday lighting to be PC). I am friends with the owner of the company and I can assure you that you will get quality full-service care for your lowly yard. The company’s name is Lubbock Roots (www.lubbockroots.com) and I hope you will check them out over some of the other big name companies in town.

Beyond my recommendation of a specific company, I want to know that several other companies are able to not only give you a decent looking yard, but which can also bring transformation. If you want to raise your property value, find one of these companies who have a staff designer who maps out what sort of landscaping you can have. Why not have a front and back yard that are just as beautiful as the interior of your house? It can be done. I used one of these companies and they totally morphed my yards into more than respectable spaces. I can say that I am even proud of them and regularly receive unsolicited positive comments about the way things look on the outside.

Okay, that is just my two cents about landscaping and lawn care. Feel free to comment about what I had to say above. If you know of other companies that have on staff designers and who have really done a good job making your outside look as good as your inside, please comment and share your thoughts.

Thanks and be well.