(Nov 2nd, 2021, 02:24 AM)Karo Wrote:

Happy late Halloween everyone!

I went virtual trick or treating in FFXIV it was interesting.

(Nov 2nd, 2021, 09:19 AM)Dragon Lord Wrote:

So it was an interesting day in the town I live in.

Drug bust + hostage situation. I thought something was up when I left the bar from doing my pulltabs job and I saw a county sheriff outside of our police station putting on a bunch of gear (vest and whatnot), and then saw another one come zooming in with their lights on, and then the town cop right behind them. But I didn't see any more when I went to the bank. Came out of the bank and it was chaotic. Looked down the street towards the police station and there was a whole army of police down there, fully geared up with dogs. Then saw two helicopters flying around. Got in my car and just kind of sat there for a while, because they had some of the intersections blocked off and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go any where, haha. While sitting there, I saw the group of fully geared up police walk past me, and then a bit later got to see one of them just casually walking down the street with a sniper rifle resting on his shoulder.

Then two sheriffs from the neighboring county showed up. Turns out we actually had three total SWAT teams from three different counties here for this thing. Ended up being someone I knew pretty well too, an old friend of my mom's. I had heard she had gotten into drugs again lately, and it ended up that her boyfriend had stabbed her and wasn't letting her leave the house. He finally gave himself up around 6 PM last night. Whole thing started around noon, so it was quite a lengthy standoff. He had let her go at some point though. Apparently he's quite the character. I've never seen him around nor did I even know she had a boyfriend (her husband and her recently split, though still married), but he's got swastika tattoos and shit I guess. Pretty much sounds like the type of guy you'd imagine this kind of situation happening with.

So yeah, for this small rural town of 700 people, this was a pretty chaotic event and I imagine it'll be the talk of the town for quite a long time. Especially since it involved someone who has lived her for many, many years and everyone knew, instead of being someone that just moved here recently and was an unknown.

In other news, I recently got the news that I'm going to be bumped up to full time at work. Yay! Hours won't change too much, since I was already getting 34 hours a week, so I'll just be getting that extra 6 to make it 40, but the huge improvement to the benefits offered is going to be where all the good stuff is at. The upgrade to the insurance alone is going to be a huge improvement. Comes at a good time too. I've been having a lot of pain in my right and left arms lately, and I'm fairly sure it's the inevitable carpal tunnel that I knew I'd get some day. So there's a good chance I may have to get that surgery done soon, and having the better insurance for it is crucial.

(Nov 2nd, 2021, 03:52 PM)Mr EliteL Wrote:

We got no trick or treaters, but went over to Moony's parents and saw their house decorated, although thanks to windy weather it was limited. Was good for the ghost they had up that got blown about a lot.

(Nov 2nd, 2021, 06:46 PM)Karo Wrote:

@Moonface 
It was pretty simple you just put in the party finder that your house was open for trick or treaters and you went to their house and said, "TRICK OR TREAT" and thne they'd trade you random food items I even got candy and jack-o-lanterns it was pretty cute! I even went to a halloween party and entered a costume contest. Sadly my mime costume did not win and instead it a street fighter costume...I should of dressed up as Cami. >.>

(Nov 2nd, 2021, 11:11 PM)Moonface Wrote:

FF14 gives you the ability to make your own costumes?

(Nov 3rd, 2021, 01:21 AM)Maniakkid25 Wrote:

(Nov 2nd, 2021, 11:11 PM)Moonface Wrote:

FF14 gives you the ability to make your own costumes?

Sort of. See, most any equipment you can wear can be dyed or glamoured (made to look like another piece of equipment), so it's not all that weird to see people in top-level gear looking like they're on their way to school, for instance (I have it on my Red Mage ^.=.^).

I spent it working, like I spent last night, and spending tonight and tomorrow, and thursday as well X.=.X. I prefer closing, but not working 5 nights in a row.

(Nov 3rd, 2021, 01:33 PM)Dragon Lord Wrote:

Nah, the job is a convenience store chain in the midwest called Kwik Trip (Kwik Star in Iowa). I have another side job that I do at the bar, which is why I was there. I technically have three different jobs -- the now full time one and two smaller side jobs for extra money.

As for the stabbing injury, from what I've heard, he stabbed her in her hand. No details on anything that happened have come out yet as far as I'm aware, so I don't know what exactly happened that lead to that. As for her dating that guy because he was enabling her drug use, that's most likely the case. It probably wasn't so much that she was interested in the guy himself, but more so the drugs that he was able to supply her with.

(Nov 4th, 2021, 06:39 AM)Dragon Lord Wrote:

You might have seen a different store chain by the same name. The Kwik Trip I work for is only in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois right now, with stores set t open in North and South Dakota at some point as well. There's another chain spelled with a Q though, Qwik Trip, which is why the one I work for had to use the name "Kwik Star" in Iowa instead, because the other Qwik Trip was already there before them.

(Nov 4th, 2021, 06:39 AM)Dragon Lord Wrote:

Yeah, I only quit my job at the convenience store here in town. However, I still do work for the owner there doing her reports and deposits for her. That's the third job I have. I gets me an extra $80-$100 every couple of weeks, which isn't much, but hey, more than I'd have otherwise and it only takes me like 3-4 hours a week to do the job. Same with the pulltabs, I get paid $625 a month for that job and usually it only takes me like 30-45 minutes a day to get everything done. Exception being when I have to count the tickets of a game I took out of play, which can sometimes take several hours depending on how many tickets were left and how many games I had to pull at once, but those days are few and far between. Overall I'm making a great amount of money off of that job for how little work I actually have to do for it.

So between all of the jobs combined, I get some where between $2,500 and $3,000 a month. The only downside is that for the pulltab job, I'm hired as a freelance worker, which means its considered a personal business. So I don't have taxes taken out of those checks, which means come tax time I have to pay in on those, which usually means no Federal Tax return for me. I usually owe the Government a few hundred dollars instead. Though when those checks are an extra $7,500 a year, paying $300-$500 in taxes isn't actually that bad. I'm still making more money than I would without the job. The much higher pay at Kwik Trip should also help reduce how much I owe for Federal as well, so maybe that'll go down to only paying in around $200-ish. I do still get a State return some how though, but it's usually pretty small, haha. Still something though, I guess, and helps offset what I end up paying in for Federal.