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Sunday, December 4, 2016

San Antonio (USA) - The American dream...?

San Antonio (U.S.A) 
04 December – 10 December 2016

I should have known better.

I should have known better than to have gotten involved with a bunch of shysters like Brian Payton &Ying Payton.

I should have known better to have bought into the garbage ideas and promises of 10%, 15% or 20% returns that ATW Investments (American dream renovations and construction) propounded.

I knew the trouble I was in when ATW Investments transferred their clients to Trinidad LLC.
I wish one day to get my hands around the neck of Brian Payton, that would be an interaction that I’d very much enjoy having.

If anyone has encountered these shysters all you need to do is look at the number of threads to realise that these ball lickers are worthless pieces of crap – worthless pieces of crap on the best day they have ever had. That’s means they're shit, literally shit.

Unfortunately I found myself taking a risk in the same way that you run the risk in a casino, with the idea that losing in a casino is much, much more likely than a real estate investment.


Flying over Montreal - Canada


The Lone Star State - Texas - USA

How Texas does this look!?!

My properties, like all the other ATW investors that had been promised ‘Property Management Services’ on their investments, took an almighty dive into oblivion from 40,000 feet. The buyers of my property didn’t make a single payment,  property taxes on the property had not been paid, the properties were utilised for whom knows what reason – it looked in the end that squatters had utilised it for their own bong block parties. I mean these properties had been brutalised. The legal trail of ownership was so convoluted that the chain of owners, for some time, did not easily find its way to me and I spent countless months nervously thinking about a financial debacle, that really, I should not of entered in the first place aside from my mental desire for the want of ‘things to be ok’. 

My failure, which I have to call out, is that I didn’t undertake an due diligence and I was stung fiercely. I still now have strong desires to take these two down legally, but I’ll save that for another day.


Now, lets get back to San Antonio for a moment. 

A major city in the south-central Texas has a rich colonial heritage. The Alamo, an 18th-century Spanish mission preserved as a museum these days, marks an infamous 1836 battle for Texan independence from Mexico. I didn’t have time to see that.



9779 Hidden Falls - Helotes Creek - San Antonio - Texas - USA

9779 Hidden Falls - Helotes Creek - San Antonio - Texas - USA

Yup, I owned THIS place for a few months....promises for renovation work NOT COMPLETED, promises to market my property, NOT DONE, promises to Manage my property, as in, for ATW to provide a service for their clients... NOTHING

All you did Brian Payton was rip me off! 

9779 Hidden Falls - Helotes Creek - San Antonio - Texas - USA

I was an San Antonio for a 5 day boot camp for ATW Investments to show me buildings that had been repossessed, I assume after foreclosure, which ATW had acquired. When I say acquired, I believe invested in an option to acquire, which in turn they would sell to investors such as myself who would buy the property in cash and then, with the assistance of ATW Investments, locate buyers who would purchase the property with a capital gain and would a mortgage to me, the owner, at a rate higher than which the banks would loan out funds…because these cats…these cool tenants, who weren’t tenants but rather owners of the property, but in debt to me, would effectually be paying me a rental. And the property managers, ATW investments, would look after the property on my behalf…which of course immediately shows a logical break. What is there position in a property that is owned not by me but by someone else?


9107 Cold Harbor Drive - Adams Hills - San Antonio - Texas - USA

So 'apparently' this was sold, to me - which meant that when it was sold to me mortgage payment should have been made. This never happened, was never managed and the property, in the end, was completely trashed.

Brian Payton you are a fraud!

9107 Cold Harbor Drive - Adams Hills - San Antonio - Texas - USA

9107 Cold Harbor Drive - Adams Hills - San Antonio - Texas - USA

9107 Cold Harbor Drive - Adams Hills - San Antonio - Texas - USA


I f**ked up!  I f**ked up out of a desire to generate cash-flow for my family and in my want to believe that being caught out in a scheme such as this happens to other people mostly through bad luck or bad management.  I denied myself my own intellect and need to investigate, and I denied myself the necessity of doing the work to realise the flaws in an opportunity that was nothing more than a blatant fraud, because, aside from my own negligence the real author of destruction were those that perpetrated the fraud. Not just on me but to so many.

…And this link to the heart of the issue which shows the problem in Texas – 

the foreclosure problem, as they call it, has grown to include issues of not properly assigning mortgage notes…and not being able to trace the line of ownership as the note is packaged and resold through a secondary market – and the allegedly phony documents created to reconstruct the line of ownership where its broken.


Personally I believe there’s a ticking time bomb here, so watch this space. 


The flag of the Republic of Texas - San Antonio - Texas - USA

Here's a small nod to Pearl Jam and their great album, Yield - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

Hard Rock Cafe San Antonio - Texas - USA


Anyway, onto some lighter stuff now.


I was driven around San Antonio and Corpus Christi. I bought into San Antonio, twice. What I lost on that investment would have allowed me to have purchased 2 Mustang Eco-boosts, the car that I currently drive. So yeah, I could have had three in the garage.
What did I like about San Antonio?


The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

Texas BBQ is legit. What they do they do so well.

The San Antonio River Walk is truly a gem, it’s marvellous. This outstanding tourist attraction is both a city park and a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio river, residing one story beneath the streets of San Antonio. Lined with bars, cafes, shopping outlets, restaurants and public artworks, this is a real draw card and quite an attractive feature in a large city that to me, has no real soul and feels kind of empty.


The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA

The River Walk - San Antonio River - San Antonio - Texas - USA



Flying over Detroit - Michigan - USA

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport - Detroit - Michigan - USA

...and back home - Belgrade - Serbia

The River walk winds and loops under two bridges, had a number of tourist boats cruising up and down it,  and at night comes alive with its attractive lighting. Without question, THE highlight of San Antonio and would be the only reason I’d ever utilise to make a return the city, and I’m not calling it out as a bad city, it’s just not inspiring, it has no spirit…and it’s the home of a couple of shysters who still need to be brought down a peg or two.



Saturday, November 26, 2016

Paris (France) - Time is the longest distance between two places



Paris (France)
26 November 2016

The last time we were in Paris together we were virtually strangers, meeting for only the second time on our first date. That was only two years ago but my, hadn’t we all rung in the changes since then. Up until that point my life had felt static, like I had slowly but surely found a way to sink deeper into the quicksand of complacency and the commonplace. I had all the right  to get me out of the quagmire but I just hadn’t been able to utilise them in the right fashion. It wasn’t for the sake of my own effort either. What it took however was a seismic shift, and when that necessary circuit break of rudimental certainty came, it flipped everything on its head. It also gave me the opportunity to take my life back.

Two years ago in this city I stood in the centre of my life’s own Venn diagram. There’s quote by Graham Greene that says, ‘A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead’ – symbolically or actually, Paris represents the end and start points of where I got to and where I’ve gotten to now.


Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Paris - France

Place de la Concorde - Paris - France


Only two days earlier I had asked Inga to marry me. Now he we were, in the city where we’d had our first date only two years ago, standing now on the precipice of a life together.  It was a poignant moment in many ways, filled with impactful, stirring memories. It sought to act as a great way to allow us reminisce but also, plan the way forward.

In these last gasps of Autumn Paris produced another wonderful day. Cold, for sure, but the sun was out, the leaves had reached a deep yellow, amber colour and symbolically underpinned this moment of change in my life.


Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Roue de Paris - Place de la Concorde - Paris - France

Jardin de Tuileries - Paris - France

Avenida de Champs Elysees - Paris - France

Jardin de Tuileries - Paris - France


Transit cities for entering/exiting Belgrade to somewhere else is almost an obligation for travel out of Serbia (other than Australia, strangely enough), so Paris was a necessary stop, but one that we were happy to have. Even though our time in the city was short we did spend a bit of time walking around the Jardin de Tuileries, before entering the Place de la Concorde and taking  a turn on the Roue de Paris, a 60mtr tall Ferris wheel that offers some fairly impressive views over Paris.


Late Autumn in Paris

River Seine - Paris - France

River Seine - Paris - France

River Seine - Paris - France


Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France


Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Pont Neuf - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Cathederale de Notre Dame - Paris - France

Walking in Paris is always a pleasure and we took on a small-ish circuit by heading down to the Seine, and casually strolling to Pont Neuf where we ‘locked ourselves’ into a chained fence, like so many before us.  Strangely, the origin of the ‘love lock’ or pad lock dates back to an old melancholic Serbian tale of World War 1, with an attribution for the bridge of Most Ljubavi, in the spa town of Vrnjacka Banja. Apparently, as the tale goes, a local school mistress named Nada, who was from the town, fell in love with a Serbian Officer named Relja. After they committed to each other Relja went off to war in Greece where he fell for a woman in Corfu (and of course who wouldn’t want to stay in Corfu, I mean the place is gorgeous). Nada was of course devastated, never recovering and died eventually from a heart-attack, literally a broken heart. A young woman from Vrnjacka Banja who knew of the situation wanted to do something to protect their own loved ones and thus came up with the idea of affixing padlocks on the bridge where Nada & Relja used to meet.



Pyramide de Louvre - Paris - France


Pyramide de Louvre - Paris - France

A late night Aperol special - Paris - France

Charles de Gaulle Airport - Paris - France


After locking ourselves into Paris for eternity, or until such time the locks are forcibly removed, we had an afternoon meal before finishing up with evening drinks somewhere in the 1st.

Paris, you are always a pleasure, and so nice to have you take part in this part of our journey. You're a city where we can both reminisce about what was, how we got there, and now also, where our collective futures will take us.