Windows 7 sametime emoticons location

I’ve heard there’s a 3 day window for pick up, and if you don’t pick it up in that window you lose your VIN.. and I’d lose the 0.99 financing by having to effectively place a new order. I’ll be about 6-7 hours away so if push came to shove I could drive down and get it within the window, but I really don’t want to have to do that.

I was told yesterday by my bosses that this summer, I am expected to continue providing support for a child I work with who has different needs. I am also supposed to be someone who his aide can apparently consult if she needs support. I have been working with this child for nearly a year now, typically for 3 hours a day at most. For the last two months, I have been told that the child was supposed to be in a different location for summer, though I understand that a recent meeting with the child’s parents is part of the reason behind the change.
I am someone who struggles quite a bit with change, and this threw me off. I was also told that I will be expected to change this child’s diaper (child is 4 and not potty trained, almost 4 1/2 I think. The child tends to have blowouts, like feces running down their legs, which is why this newfound information threw me off.) The child tends to run away from the group and although I am young, I suspect that over summer trying to help them stay with the group (they are nonverbal and don’t tend to come back or respond if asked to remain with the group) will be difficult, as you’ll sometimes have to run over and go get them. I feel as though I don’t truly have enough experience working with this child to provide them with the support I will likely be expected to provide for them in the afternoons. I did sort of communicate this to my employers and suggested I’ll likely be asking a lot of questions and will communicate if I need the support. But I feel like that sounds like a lot of responsibility. I will make $18/hr.
I also admittedly feel as though I perhaps will not be paid enough to handle said responsibilities. I make $17 an hr and start making $18 an hr this summer, will be working full time (7 hours daily, until college courses resume in mid August.) Last month, I was told I’d be receiving this dollar pay increase. I started as a sub on more or less the first day of August 2023, and became an assistant teacher in January 2024. I was initially satisfied with the 1-dollar pay increase, but what I was told about my summer responsibilities in regards to this child have made me wonder if I should request a little more ($19 an hour or $20 an hour.) I will also be expected to help out a different teacher with our group of kids in the mornings, what I was hearing all sounds like a lot for a teaching assistant. I’m holding back on it, though. I’m a young adult with no college degree (yet.)
My coworkers who I checked in with today seemed to agree that requesting $20 an hour is reasonable. At my evaluation last month I was told I’ll be making a dollar more. I did send them a text mentioning, basically, that I think a greater pay increase is reasonable and would like to meet to discuss it before the second week of June. I know my coworkers are paid more than me.
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I’m freaking out about these ultrasound results :(. I noticed 2 very small lumps under the skin of my 9 month olds back, with a blueish tint on the skin where they. We just got the results from the ultrasound and I’m very scared! I understand that ultrasounds can’t confirm benign vs malignant, just looking for opinions.
FINDINGS: In the midline of the upper back, there is a subcutaneous hypoechoic wider than tall oval mass measuring 0.7 x 0.4 x 0.9 cm. Marked internal vascularity. No posterior acoustic shadowing. No fluid collection. Within the subcutaneous tissues of the right upper back is a 0.5 x 0.3 x 0.7 cm heterogeneous oval, wider than tall mass with areas of low and intermediate/increased echogenicity. Examination for internal vascularity was not possible due to patient motion and location. No posterior acoustic shadowing. No fluid collection.
IMPRESSION: 1. 0.7 x 0.4 x 0.9 cm oval, vascular mass in the subcutaneous tissues of the midline back. Differential is broad and includes vascular lesions such as glomus family members, neoplasm, and abnormal lymph node. Recommend surgical consultation. 2. Limited evaluation of an additional 0.5 x 2.3 x 0.7 cm heterogeneous oval mass in the subcutaneous tissues overlying the right scapula. Differential is broad. Surgical consultation is recommended.

The stress of the last six months has nearly killed me. Besides the general cratering of the outside world—political strife, climate change, inflated rents, corporate greed, and the baffling resurgence of crew socks—my internal life was falling apart, too. I'm at the point where I can't see a way out of the darkness, and that feeling has only grown in the last few days.
My struggles ramped up exponentially in the last two weeks. It started when my long-term girlfriend and I called it quits after five years. There was no definitive relationship-altering fight or infidelity. It was simply the boring banality of the "roommate-ification" of our lives together. We both felt the shift but never talked about it. Turns out communication is important.
Truthfully, we'd stayed together for so long because we couldn't afford to live apart. Our rent had nearly doubled the last time we re-upped our lease but even that was a bargain compared to what was out there currently. We were trapped by our need to have a roof over our heads.
My job had stagnated, and I couldn't find anything better. I was stuck. Like me, she'd been job hunting as well. Unlike me, she had a master's, and her prospects should've been higher. They weren't. For five months, she applied to hundreds of jobs and couldn't break through. If she got a rejection email, it was a win. Most of the time, the companies never responded.
Finally, she found a great opportunity at a Fortune 500 company. It was an involved process. She nailed the five interviews, and her "test project" was well received. She was offered the position, and it came with a massive pay increase—double her current salary. I was proud of her—she needed a win. We celebrated with pizza and beer that night.
Two days later, she dropped the bomb that she was breaking things off. The relationship ending wasn't a surprise. The timing was. The discussion was brief, and there was zero chance of reconciliation. She declined when I asked if she could stay until the lease ended. Mentally, it would've been too much for her. Two days after that, she moved out, taking half the rent with her. I was stuck in a lease I couldn't afford on my salary for the next six months.
My free time evaporated as I took on two extra gigs to help make ends meet. In addition to my office nine to five, I drove for a delivery app on the weekends and took a part-time night job stocking shelves at a local grocery store. When I wasn't hustling for housing, I slept or ate. I did nothing beyond that. Nothing brings me joy. There is no spark.
This drudgery has become my daily routine, and it's killing me.
To help cover some cost gaps, I've started selling off some of my stuff online. It was just me here, and I decided that the Spartan lifestyle would have to work for now. Anything I could fetch a decent amount for went up for sale. My apartment is so empty now every noise causes an echo.
Before my shift at the grocery store, I agreed to meet someone who wanted to take a look at my kitchen table. It was a lovely table – my ex had obsessed over it – but I didn't see a need at the moment. Now that I was a bachelor, my TV trays became my default kitchen tables anyway. I wasn't planning on any dinner parties in the future anyway.
A couple showed up later than they said they would. It was a bored-looking guy and a fastidious young woman. She made friendly small talk as she looked over the table. Her boyfriend (I think) stayed quiet and played bodyguard. I gave him a friendly nod at one point, and he just looked away. She said they'd take it without trying to talk me down. I took the small win.
She asked if I could help carry it down to their truck. I was running late, but feeling helpful, even for a fleeting few seconds, was worth it. Her silent boyfriend and I hauled the table through the hallway and even managed to avoid hitting the walls the entire way down.
I placed it in their truck, got my money, and turned to leave. The girl said thanks, and the boyfriend finally returned the nod. I gave a weird half-wave to them both and started to walk away when I heard the passenger window being rolled down.
"Hey man," the boyfriend said, his voice higher pitched than I thought it would. "What was up with your brother giving us the evil eye in the lobby when we got here?"
I turned around, "Huh? I don't have a brother."
"A cousin then?"
"My family lives about a thousand miles away. What happened in the lobby?"
"A dude that looked just like you was hiding in a dark hallway in the lobby and staring at my girl's ass."
"Jacob, really," she said.
"I'm sorry that happened, but I had nothing to do with it. We do have the occasional homeless guy meander in. Maybe you saw one of them," I said. "Did he say or do anything bad?"
"Jacob, I asked you to not say something," the girl said, burying her head in her hands.
Jacob's frosty attitude to me made sense now. "He said something about running up that ass. I dunno, he was mumbling. I told him I'd beat his ass if he didn't stop staring. Seemed to shut him up."
"Oh. Well, congrats," I said. "I'll tell the manager. Thanks for letting me know."
"You should do a better job keeping jokers like that out of the building."
"Jacob, he's not a security guard."
"He should still be a man and protect his home."
"Have a good night," I said, ending the conversation and heading back up to my apartment. I had about five minutes to change and head out before I'd be late. Last thing my ego needed was to be fired from my backup job.
Thankfully, I was able to slip into work and not get spotted by my boss. That was the last of the good news, though. We had a massive weekly order come in, which meant I'd be there late, plus someone had called out. Worse, our hand truck had a flat tire, and I spent the next few hours torturing my muscles, schlepping heavy boxes around the store. I soldiered on, counting down the minutes until I left and fantasizing about going to bed for the night.
If wishing for sleep wasn't a sad statement to my mental well-being, nothing was.
I came home after my shift at the grocery store and plopped down on the couch. I had contemplated selling it, but it was an older Ikea number, and I didn't think the value would replace my desire to sit. I could feel my body sink into the cushions, and the day's tension seep out. I was beat and tired to the point that turning on the TV was a chore.
I picked up my phone and thought I'd doomscroll until sleep overtook me. I didn't expect it to be a long scroll, as even the methadone that is my phone has failed me lately. As I lowered myself from a slumped position to a supine one, I heard footsteps outside my apartment door. This was not unusual, but the noise I heard sounded like kid footsteps. That was unusual, as nobody on our floor had kids, and it was almost midnight.
Despite my body screaming at me to not move, my brain suggested I check it out. I rolled myself off the couch and eventually stood up. I listened again and heard the kid running down the hallway. I walked over to my door and looked out the peephole. I didn't see anyone.
"Maybe I'm dreaming," I said to myself. "Maybe I'm not staring out a peephole, expecting to see a kid running down the hall at midnight, but instead, I'm cuddled up in my bed, snoozing." I pinched my arm and felt the pain. I was definitely in the waking world.
I turned to head back to the couch when I heard the running again, this time louder. I opened my door and peeked out into the hallway. Nobody was there. The door from the apartment across me opened up, too. Gloria, a young at heart grandma who was friendly/constantly buzzed in a wine mom kind of way, gave me a once over.
"You heard that, too?" she asked.
"Kids?"
"No rugrats around. I assumed it was some drunk assholes stumbling home from the bar."
I laughed. Gloria was, as always, blunt. "I didn't see any assholes," I said.
"Then you're not watching the right kind of internet videos," she said with a wink and a hoarse cackle.
I blushed. How do you respond to that? I just kind of nodded in agreement and shrugged.
"Gotta get your jollies while you can," she said before adding, "You need some rest, dear. You look like hammered shit." She shut her door and went back inside.
She was right. I felt like hammered shit. Since I wasn't going to solve the case of the mysterious runner and was sure it wasn't some lost kid, I decided to call it a night. I went back inside, shut down the apartment, and crawled into bed.
I thought about watching one of the "right kind of internet videos" but fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
***
"Your problem is you think the world owes you something."
John, my elderly coworker at the grocery store, was standing by while I unloaded a pallet of cereal. I liked John, and when I first started, we instantly clicked. He's quick with a joke and fun to talk to. He's also about thirty years older than me and speaks with the Boomer combination of accumulated wisdom, backhanded compliments, and fringe conspiracy nonsense. Still, regardless of how couched the kindness is in gobbledygook, he's usually coming from a good place.
"What?" I said, putting a box of Captain Crunch on the shelf.
"You're complaining about your situation, right? Saying it ain't fair. The world took a paddle to your hind quarters? Hey brother, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Gotta just pick yourself up and start over. You're smart enough – figured this job out right quick – you can do it."
The job was wheeling pallets around the store and stocking shelves. It wasn't much to figure out, but I understood his meaning. The other stuff wasn't necessary, though. "I'm just in a funk. I don't see a way forward."
"Hey, so you've bottomed out. No shame in that. Happens to us all. Silver lining, you can only go up," he said before adding, "Unless some other bad shit happens to you like your car dies or your apartment building burns down. But after that, it's only up."
"The apartment building burning down would be a blessing," I said, hoisting another little Captain on the shelf. "The rent is killing me."
"Have you tried negotiating a lower rent? They used to do that when I was your age."
"I think they'd evict me if I even asked."
"Hell, then you'd have at least thirty days, maybe forty, before they'd kick you out. Plenty of time to turn things around."
"Uh-huh," I said, "Any chance you could give me a hand here?"
"My back is screaming like a pretty young thing after prom," he said, holding his back for emphasis.
I didn't push. "Hey, I meant to tell you about some weird shit that happened the other night."
"Lay it on me. I love the strange."
"So, after my shift the other day, I got home around midnight and was flopped on the couch. I heard someone running down the hallway outside my apartment. I wasn't the only one. A few other neighbors heard it, too. When we checked, though, nobody was there."
"That ain't strange," John said, waving his hand, "that's a man who's plowing another man's wife running for his life."
I laughed. "That's not the weird part. So, for the next two nights, it's the same thing. Around midnight, someone runs down the hallway. Only this time, they're trying the door handles as they pass. So, I asked the front desk to check the security cameras, and they do."
"They see a man running away holding his clothes?"
"There wasn't anyone running down the hall," I said, "But the weird thing was, you could see the door handles turning on the video."
"Damn, that's a good one," John said, "You sure it wasn't just a camera glitch. These new ones from overseas aren't as reliable as they want you to think. Chinese probably using them to spy on you, too."
He continued as my brain tried to reconcile John's two opposing comments. "Weird shit happens at night, man. Before working here, I only worked the day shift. Even when they offered me more money to work nights, I turned it down. Even when they promised me a promotion, I turned them down."
In a previous life, John had worked as a paramedic. He came by it after serving in a medical unit in the army. He'd told me he loved the rush of the job, but after a while, the death and hurt in people's eyes got to be too much to handle. But he worked there for almost twenty years. So, the man had a tolerance for shenanigans and odd occurrences.
"Why'd you agree to work nights here?"
"Shit, we're home before the witching hour. This is like late afternoons, at best. But if it was overnights, hell no. Captain Crunch can anchor his own ship to the shelves. I'd take my ass to 7-11 for a day shift before agreeing to work an overnight."
"Something happen to you during the army?”
“I got the clap,” he offered.
I sighed. “What turned you off nights?"
"Oh. I heard enough stories from coworkers to know I didn't want to experience any of that hoo-doo shit," he said, "trying to save someone's life is hard enough without adding in demon kids and ghosts."
"Did your coworkers see demon kids?" I asked, moving on from the good Captain to the Trix rabbit.
He nodded, "They saw too much. I find it odd, even with all the surveillance we have now and all the science we know about these days, that the night still scares us. You ever know someone who worked a night shift?"
I had. My ex. During college, she worked the overnight desk at a hotel for a while. She quit because the job gave her bad vibes. I told John as much.
He pointed and laughed, "See! Don't you find it odd that every person who works at night always has a story of something eerie happening to them? Every person, buster. That's what they call an irrefutable fact."
"Maybe the ghost running down the hallway is an old employee still doing his rounds."
"In that case, keep that door double locked. I'd even wedge a towel under the door just in case."
"Maybe they're friendly? Casper-like in that way."
"You ever heard someone tell you about a friendly ghost outside the funny papers?"
"I'm sure it happens," I said, "The scary ghosts are more popular though."
“We think we know everything there is to know but we are just babes in the woods when it comes to night things.” John shook his head. "Imma tell you one or three things that happened to a guy I worked with back when I first got hired on to chase after corpses in the ambo. Guy's name was Gil. Quiet man, kept to himself. Didn't rock the boat or demand a bigger paddle. Just rowed with us. Good cat to learn under," John said, finally handing me a cereal box.
I took it, and he kept going, "Now, Gil, ya see, he had a little wifey that would pester him about working days. She was a cop and worked evenings at that time, so they never saw each other. When married people can't align their genitals every now and then, it spells doom."
"A little too much information but sure," I said, shelving another box of Trix.
"Probably part of what happened with you and yours," he said. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean I wanted to hear it.
John kept on, "Gil finally got approved to move to nights. Little pay boost and a happy, 'fulfilled' wife should've made that man happy. But it didn't. I saw him a few months later, and he had changed. He might've been quiet when he was working with me, but he'd talk to you if you engaged. When I saw him that time, though, oh boy. He looked sick."
"Wasn't a fan of working nights?"
"Wasn't a fan of living anymore is the feeling I got," John said, "After some prodding, he got to talking with me some. Told me he missed days because the nights were messing with him. I thought it had to do with the schedule change, but that wasn't the case. He said he saw things in the dark he couldn't explain. Things that would turn James Brown into James White, ya dig?"
"I...dig," I said.
"Told me they got a call to an abandoned apartment building one night, around three in the morning. Wasn't unusual. Old buildings in the city are where hop-heads congregate and share drugs. Sometimes, the drugs are too much. Sometimes, they find a person passed out or, worse, dead. When you work in the ambo, you aren't scared of death like a civilian. You've been around it. Probably seen a few folks take their last breaths. It doesn't bother you the way Mother Nature intended it should."
He handed me another box, continuing his assist streak, and kept going, "Ambo pulled up, Gil stepped out and looked for someone to talk to. Nobody there, though. Not uncommon. Some people want to help but not be involved. There's not a soul around. He calls out, but nothing comes back. Tells me he turns to get back in the ambulance when he hears a scream from inside the run-down building. They're calling for help. He's gotta go in the abandoned building in the dark."
"No thanks," I said.
"But it don't bother a medic like that. Gil's done a million of these calls. No big deal. He runs into that building but doesn't come back out until twenty minutes later. Just goes missing. After five, the crew heads in to back him up but can't find him. Gil tells me his crew called the cops. It was like he had vanished."
"What happened?"
"I asked him and he got real quiet. Said he fell into some place that looked like here but wasn't here. Said he felt their eyes on him. Judging him. Told me they followed him home and wouldn't leave him be."
"Who?"
John shrugged, "He didn't say. Shut down after that and left. Just walked past me like I was shit on the sidewalk. He quit about a week later. Heard he had a stroke a year later and was a tombstone owner three months after that. Good guy, though."
"Your aversion to overnights makes a little more sense."
"Never in a million years. You don't want something like that coming after you."
"In my case, could it get much worse?" I said with a half-smile.
"Man, I wouldn't even joke about that," he said, making the sign of the cross, "You don't want that shit attachin' itself to you. With your luck, you'd bring him in here, and it'd hop over to me. I can't have a ghost crimping my style."
After a bit, he got called away to sign off on a delivery. I finished out my shift and headed out to the parking lot. When I exited the building and spotted my car, I froze. My doors were all open, and the interior lights were on. Someone had broken in.
I glanced around the lot to see if the thief was still around, but there wasn't another person near me. I walked over to the car and peered inside. My glovebox had been ripped open, and my registration was pulled out, but nothing else was missing.
I found little hand prints in the dirt all along the body and the windows. I held mine up for comparison, and they were about half the size. It must've been some tweens or teens who did this. Maybe they were going to steal some things and got cold feet. I contemplated calling the cops, but since nothing had happened and they wouldn't do anything anyway, there was no reason to delay sleep any longer than I had to. I closed all the doors and climbed inside.
I started the car and heard something rattling in the AC vents. I pulled out my phone and shined the light at the vent. There was a small piece of paper inside. I looked around my car for some tool to pull it out and only found an ink pen and a bent-up paperclip. After McGuyvering the vent for a bit, the paper finally came out.
I held it up and unfolded it. There was a handwritten note. It simply read, "I know you're here. I know you're hiding him. I will find you both, and then it'll be your turn to run the race. We all have to run at some point."
I had no idea what that meant, but my body still provided goosebumps. Who was trying to find me? Who was the second person? Why leave a note in my AC vent? What the hell did run the race mean? I hadn't run a race since elementary school and wasn't planning to do so any time soon. Did they mean the rat race? Because I was basically marathoning that motherfucker already.
"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "What else, universe?"
As if it were a well-practiced comedy routine, the universe responded. My back passenger door swung open, and I heard footsteps running away from my car. I sprung up and scrambled to get out. There wasn't anyone else in the lot that I could see, but very clearly, someone had been hiding in my backseat.
My nerves were shot already, and this was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment. My brain decided that to avoid a breakdown, I needed to shift into automatic mode and just get back to the safety of my apartment. I'd be more prepared to deal with this – whatever it was – in the morning.
Either that or I'd jump in front of a bus. Both sounded satisfying, albeit in different ways.
***
"There he is," Gloria said as soon as I turned down the hallway. I looked up and noticed a small cabal of my neighbors standing in a semi-circle, waiting for me. They all look displeased.
"Hey guys," I said, confused. "I miss an invite for a block party?"
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"About?"
"Don't play dumb," another neighbor said, jabbing their finger in my direction.
"I'm not playing," I said, realizing the self-burn only after the words escaped my lips.
Gloria showed me the screen on her phone. It was a static shot of her door from across the hall. She pressed play, and nothing happened for a beat until something darted across the screen. That was the whole thing. I looked up at her, my face twisted up in confusion.
"Well," she said, "What do you have to say?"
"What was that?" I asked.
"That was you!" the pointing neighbor said, pointing harder than I thought possible.
"What?" I said, laughing. "Are you all serious?" They didn't laugh, and I realized they weren't joking. "How can you even tell it's me? It's a blur. Never mind the fact I've been at work for the last five hours. Plus, this blur is half my size. I get we're all weirded out about the Phantom Runner, but it's not me. I swear to God. I don't even have the energy to think about running, let alone the physical desire to."
"Then explain this," Gloria said, slightly swaying from the half bottle of Pinot Noir coursing through her blood. She rewound the video and froze it on a specific frame. I couldn't believe my eyes, but I was looking at...me. Or, rather, something pretending to be me.
"What the fuck?" I said, my jaw dropping.
"Still think we're lying?" the pointer said smugly.
"No, but, guys, this isn't me. I... I've been at work. Wanna see my schedule?"
I reached into my phone and pulled it out. There was an email with my work schedule that confirmed what I was saying. They relaxed, and, for the first time, anger gave way to fear. Their very plausible explanation was suddenly invalid. It left two implausible answers floating in the ether: either I had a pint-sized doppelganger terrorizing the hallways of my apartment, or a ghost was haunting the building.
"I'm...gonna go inside," the pointer said, walking back to their home. Everyone else drifted away until it was just Gloria and I standing alone in the hallway.
She looked at me and sighed, "I feel like an asshole," she said. "Sorry I accused you of causing the racket."
"If I had seen the video, I would've thought the same thing," I said. "We're good."
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
I shrugged and let out an exhausted sigh. "Honestly, Gloria, I've had a screwed-up night already, and this is the cherry on top of the shit sundae; forgive my language. I don't have the mental bandwidth to even comprehend what's on the video at the moment."
"Think it's after you?" she asked, though I suspected the wine had forced her to put that idea out into the universe. As I had already seen, the universe seemed to take requests on my behalf.
"Maybe it's after you?" I said, coming off a little meaner than I intended, but I didn't care. I left her there to contemplate that scenario and went into my apartment.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I felt on edge. Just because I didn't have the mental bandwidth to discuss the doppelganger didn't mean it wasn't dominating my thoughts. I saw the frame of the video. The damn ghost looked exactly like me. What could that possibly mean? I know I had wished for death, but I was very still alive. I had rent due to prove that.
Did I happen to live in a place haunted by a ghost that looked strikingly like me? Was it some kid with a passing resemblance just causing chaos? Was it something else I couldn't even comprehend – an alien? A clone? A secret government project?
There was a thumping coming from the hallway. The mini Usain Bolt was at it again. I knew the neighbors would ignore it. Since they had all thought it was me, which was proven to be untrue, they would avoid the running man from now on. While curious and confused by the creature, they'd never put themselves in harm's way to discover what it was. They were not a brave lot.
Neither was I, but maybe my life crumbling around me had forced my hand. I walked over to my door and swung it open. I hit record on my phone, stuck it out like a periscope, and glanced around the hallway. Nobody was there. No neighbors were looking. No person was running.
"You gotta stop, man. I need to go to sleep," I said to the empty space. No response, not that I was expecting one.
I turned to walk back in, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. A face at the end of the hallway peeked around the corner. For a quick second, we locked eyes, and it was like I was looking into a mirror. This thing was me. But...how?
I tried to get it on video, but it ducked back into the shadows. I took that as a cue to shut and lock my door. My heart was racing, and I didn't want to think about this anymore, but I couldn't help it. There was a me in the hallway who enjoyed pestering my neighbors. Worse, they liked to run for some ungodly reason.
I put my phone on the counter, the video still rolling, when there was a knock at my door. It echoed in my near-empty apartment. I tried to ignore it and convince myself it was something else, but it wasn't. The ghost was knocking on my door. Even with my brain paralyzed, I couldn't help but think that it was awfully polite to knock.
Another knock, this one more forceful. I wondered if the neighbors thought I was making this up?
"I know you're in there," a voice said. It sounded just like me. "This is about the race. We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I froze. My legs went wobbly like a boxer on the brink of a blackout, but I stayed tall. I opened my mouth to speak and found the words dying in my throat. I grabbed a nearby bottle of water and took a chug.
"We all have to run the race."
"What race?" I choked out, "What are you talking about?"
"Open up. They're in there already, and I need to get them."
I glanced all around my empty apartment. I didn't see anyone else in here. I didn't hear anything. Whatever this thing was, it was lying. I grabbed my phone and held it in my hand. I wanted to document this to prove that I wasn't crazy.
“Did you leave the note?”
“I know they’re in there with you,” it repeated.
"There's no one in here," I said.
"They're hiding. I think I know where. I can hear them."
"You've gotta get out of here," I said. "There's nothing here, and you're scaring people."
"I'm scared, and you should be! You have to run the race, man! Open up, and I can show you."
The handle started to shake. I peered through the keyhole and only saw the top of the other me's head. They began to shoulder the door, and it crunched against my nose. I screamed out in pain and stumbled back. I tripped over my feet and landed hard on my ass.
The thing slammed into the door two more times, shaking the walls. The strength seemed unnatural. On the third hit, the door burst open. I finally got a view of the thing. It was me. Scaled down by half, but it was me. We both seemed shocked.
"You're so much taller up close," the other me said.
"Who the fuck are you?"
I felt a buzzing in my feet that seemed to climb up my body until it reached my brain. There was an intense pain that rippled through the folds of my mind. Through the pain, I could hear a disembodied voice whisper, "We all must run the race. We all have to run. Chase it. Chase yourself." It felt like my skull was going to split in two. I clutched the sides of my head and let out a primal scream that hurt my own ears.
Then it was gone. But I could still feel the echoes in my mind. "We all have to run the race. We all have to run." The thought would waver between making no sense and making complete sense. One second, I was questioning what was happening to my mind, and the next, all I felt was the desire to continue the race.
"There he is!" the other me yelled, pointing at the hallway.
I glanced over and saw another version of me standing in the hallway. It was half the size of the other me that had broken into my place. When tiny me locked eyes with my intruder, he ran for the open hallway closet.
The other me followed, screaming that it would catch the little bastard if it was the last thing he'd do. I pushed myself up to my feet and felt queasy. I watched as the other me ran head-first into the closet without slowing. I expected to hear a loud thump as it hit the back wall but none came.
"We all have to run the race," the voice in my head said, soothing my nerves. "It's your time to run the race."
I moved down the hallway, each footfall echoing loudly in the empty apartment, each step bringing me closer to the closet door. Something was drawing me there. The voice's words echoed in my mind as well: "We all have to run the race. It's your turn now."
I grabbed the door and stopped. Something was compelling me to move forward. To go into the closet. To chase myself. To run the race.
"No," I whispered and yanked my hand from the door. I pulled out my still recording phone, and stared into the camera. My face was devoid of color, and you could see the fear etched into me. "I'm freaking out because...because…"
I stopped. I felt an invisible hand grab my body and tug. "Because...because if I don't run the race, something bad will happen. I have to chase it. I...I have to."
My phone dropped from my hand, and I didn’t care. The force pulling me forward stopped but my body kept going. I could feel the last strands of my rational mind splintering. My thoughts became focused on one thing: I had to catch myself, find out what was happening, and run the race. If I ran, maybe I'd win.
I needed a win.
I walked into the back of the closet and felt a door handle sticking out of the wall. I'd been in that closet a million times before and never had seen this. But a sense of calm washed over me. This….this was supposed to be here. This was perfectly fine.
I turned the handle and pulled open the invisible door. In front of me was a hallway that looked strikingly like the one outside my apartment. At the end of the hallway, I saw Gloria step out of their home to leave for the night. She was huge. Twice my size, easy.
Another door opened, and I saw...me—a giant version of me. The Hulk version of me was getting ready to go to the grocery store for work. I watched as the giant Gloria and giant me joked and laughed. I was stunned.
I stared, and a new thought came to me. I have to find the smaller me and talk to it. I needed to find out if there's a way out of this...this….
"It's your turn to run," the voice said.
Calm embraced me. "It's my turn to run," I repeated. As the giant me took off and the giant Gloria re-entered her apartment, the hallway beckoned.
"We all have to run the race," I said softly, "It's my turn now."
I started running.

In the original script the stage is set, Magnum, I mean Data, has the bad guy cornered and looking right down the barrel of his Varron-T disruptor. Angry about the death of his friend
Data: How many others are out there?
Kivas Fajo : You are still a schoolboy, Data, using schoolboy tricks.
Data: [shakes his head] No tricks. Who's next on your collection list?
Kivas Fajo : I have a shuttle to catch. If you are going to shoot me, do it now.
[Data doesn't do anything]
Kivas Fajo:You won't. You can't. I know you, Data. I had you for a week in my collection . I know you better than your creator. Your sense of... honor and fair play. Oh, you could shoot me - if I was armed and coming after you. But like this - Data... never, your ethical subroutines won’t allow it. Goodbye, Data.
Data: Fajo?
Kivas Fajo:[stops] Yes?
Data: Did you see the sun rise this morning?
Kivas Fajo [puzzled] Yes. Why?
[Data turns around and shoots Kivas Fajo]
In what would have been the most stunning moments of all of Star Trek was ruined by none other than Miles Edward O’Brien hitting energize thanks to the last minute rewrite by Brannon Braga. Some say Braga wasn’t ready to bring vigilante justice to Trek, and instead used the episode with an original air date of May 5th 1990 to single handedly bring the window of 80’s tv justice to an unceremonious close. It would be decades until we see 7 of 9 in Picard season one that we get a glimpse of what could have been.

I’ve been dealing with costo like symptoms for 7 months now, mainly pain in my chest. I had an mri done of my spine and they found a small syrinx located between t6-t9. Is it possible this syrinx is what is causing my costo or causing costo like symptoms?

I was told yesterday by my bosses that this summer, I am expected to continue providing support for a child I work with who has different needs. I am also supposed to be someone who his aide can apparently consult if she needs support. I have been working with this child for nearly a year now, typically for 3 hours a day at most. For the last two months, I have been told that the child was supposed to be in a different location for summer, though I understand that a recent meeting with the child’s parents is part of the reason behind the change.
I am someone who struggles quite a bit with change, and this threw me off. I was also told that I will be expected to change this child’s diaper (child is 4 and not potty trained, almost 4 1/2 I think. The child tends to have blowouts, like feces running down their legs, which is why this newfound information threw me off.) The child tends to run away from the group and although I am young, I suspect that over summer trying to help them stay with the group (they are nonverbal and don’t tend to come back or respond if asked to remain with the group) will be difficult, as you’ll sometimes have to run over and go get them. I feel as though I don’t truly have enough experience working with this child to provide them with the support I will likely be expected to provide for them in the afternoons. I did sort of communicate this to my employers and suggested I’ll likely be asking a lot of questions and will communicate if I need the support. But I feel like that sounds like a lot of responsibility. I will make $18/hr.
I also admittedly feel as though I perhaps will not be paid enough to handle said responsibilities. I make $17 an hr and start making $18 an hr this summer, will be working full time (7 hours daily, until college courses resume in mid August.) Last month, I was told I’d be receiving this dollar pay increase. I started as a sub on more or less the first day of August 2023, and became an assistant teacher in January 2024. I was initially satisfied with the 1-dollar pay increase, but what I was told about my summer responsibilities in regards to this child have made me wonder if I should request a little more ($19 an hour or $20 an hour.) I will also be expected to help out a different teacher with our group of kids in the mornings, what I was hearing all sounds like a lot for a teaching assistant. I’m holding back on it, though. I’m a young adult with no college degree (yet.)
My coworkers who I checked in with today seemed to agree that requesting $20 an hour is reasonable. At my evaluation last month I was told I’ll be making a dollar more. I did send them a text mentioning, basically, that I think a greater pay increase is reasonable and would like to meet to discuss it before the second week of June. I know my coworkers are paid more than me.

Every time I launch a new Firefox it open the window at this size and location
Left: 35
Right: 6
Width: 1012
Height: 991
I have deleted the xulstore.json in my profile.
I have looks for anything in prefs.js and about:config that could be doing this but i cant see anything.
Any help would be appreciated

Item Name Set Number: 30628 Monster Book of Monsters
Lego Price: $46 (6M US average)
Shipping: $19 UPS Ground + insurance (10x9x4, 3lbs, 10017 to 98357)
Raffle Total/Spots: $65, 65 spots @ $1/ea
Price justification: 6M US average
Call spots: Y
Spot limit per person: N/A
Duration of spot limit: N/A
Location (Country): Continental US, AK/HI pays the difference
Will ship international: Canada, pays the difference
Timestamp pics: https://imgur.com/a/OVur77F
Payment required within 20 minutes of raffle filling.
Payments should have NO COMMENTS. Comments will result in a permanent ban. PayPal payments must be friends and family. G&S payments will be refunded less fees.

PayPal Info: https://www.paypal.me
Cash App Info: https://cash.app
​
Tip BlobAndHisBoy
Number of vacant slots: 65
Number of unpaid users: 0
Number of unpaid slots: 0
This slot list is created and updated by The EDC Raffle Tool by BlobAndHisBoy.
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TLDR: it's possible to set a fractional percentage to transfer. Instructions below.
Tangerine has a feature called "pay yourself first" (on the "money rules" page) which lets you set up an automatic transfer between your accounts triggered by income matching a certain filter. It lets you set a particular percentage of the income to transfer to another account.
I wanted to use this to set aside portions of my income corresponding to my expected effective tax rate for the year, and also for the GST I need to collect. My GST remittance rate is 3.6% of gross income, so I wanted one of these "pay yourself first" rules to be 3.6%.
However, Tangerine's interface will only let you specify a whole number for the percentage.
This bothered me, since that discrepancy could add up to a fair amount over the year. I emailed Tangerine and they responded with "unfortunately we would not be able to make this change to our Money Rules feature at this time".
But I wasn't so sure -- it jumped out at me that the rules I'd set up showed the configured percentage to 2 decimal places. Why would they show that if it was always an integer?
So I went back to the form to edit the rule, opened up the browser dev tools, made the edit, and looked at the data sent back and forth. I duplicated and tweaked the request which had gone out to send a fractional number rather than a whole number, sent it, and saw that it was accepted.
The UI now showed that fractional amount, and I waited for my next pay to come in to see if it had really worked, and sure enough, it did.
It's frustrating that their system supports it, and so does their display UI, but their data entry UI does not, and it's more frustrating that they don't seem to care.
But in case it would help anybody else, here's how to work around their bad UI.
These instructions are for the Firefox browser. It would presumably be similar in Chrome and Safari.

1. Add a "pay yourself first" rule. Set any whole number percentage.
2. Get yourself to its "edit" page, by clicking its "change money rule" link, then the vertical 3-dots, then "edit rule".
3. Open up the developer tools. Find them at menu -> more tools -> web developer tools, or it's control-shift-i.
4. Click to the "network" tab of the developer tools panel.
5. In the main browser window, where you haven't actually changed anything, click the "update rule" button.
6. You'll see a few rows appear in the network panel. Find the one which has POST in the "method" column and edit-recipes in the "file" column. Right-click it, and choose "edit and resend".
7. A new panel will open up. At the bottom is a section called "body". In this section, scroll until you find "pay_yourself_first_percentage":3 where 3 is the temporary percentage you'd added. It was very close to the very end for me, so you might want to scroll to the very end, then slowly back until you find it.
8. Change that number to whatever percentage you'd like, so 3.6 in my case.
9. Click "send". You can then hide that panel with an icon at its top right.
10. You'll find another POST edit-recipes row has appeared in the network requests list. If it has a 200 status it should have worked fine. To double check, you could click that row, then change to the "response" tab in the other panel ("headers", "cookies", "request", etc), and expect to see status_code: "SUCCESS". You can close the developer tools with the × at top right.
11. Go back to your "money rules" page, do a full page refresh, and expect to see your chosen fractional percentage.

YMMV; worked for me.

[MAIN] 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon - 100 spots @ $10 each
Escrow for u/lotusstreetart
Item Name/Set Number: 75192 UCS Millennium Falcon
Set Price: $918 w/tax
Justification: S@H
Shipping: $92 (23x19x17, 34lbs) 80015 to 33040, UPS insured
Raffle Total: $1000 / 100 spots @ $10 each
Call spots? Yes
Spot limit per person? N
Duration of spot limit? N/A
Location(Country): USA
Will ship international? No, sorry.
Timestamp/pics: https://imgur.com/a/OtpIzYM
Description: Big boi Falcon.
Payment required within 15 minutes of raffle filling. 10 minutes for drama. DO NOT ADD A COMMENT TO YOUR PAYMENT; IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE MESSAGE ME BEFORE PAYING;

PayPal Info: Provided once raffle is 50% full
Cash App Info: Provided once raffle is 50% full
​
Tip BlobAndHisBoy
Number of vacant slots: 93
Number of unpaid users: 5
Number of unpaid slots: 7
This slot list is created and updated by The EDC Raffle Tool by BlobAndHisBoy.
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Backstory: Had an alienware aurora R12, that needed a mother board replaced, called dell support and was told that there was no replacement boards in stock and might not be for sometime.
I decided to purchase some brand new components as dell hates being compatible with every other brand out there. I purchased a new case, liquid cooler, power supply, and motherboard. I will provide a list of the exact parts below.
Case: Musetex K2 Mid Tower ATX
MOBO: MSI MAG B560M Mortar WIFI
CPU: Intel I-7 (11700F) 2.50 GHz (Reused from old build)
GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 ti 12gb (Reused from old build)
Liquid Cooler: ThermalTake TH120 ARGB
Thermal Paste: Corsair XTM50
PSU: MSI MAG A850G 80+ Gold
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 32gb (2x16) DDR4 (3600MHz) (Reused from old build)
Storage: SK Hynix 512gb (Not sure on model its from dell)
Toshiba 2000gb hdd ( Not sure on model its from dell)
ISSUE-
After the build was complete I started running into BSOD every 20-30 minutes tired almost everything from changing power settings to running memtest to re installing drivers and formatting my SSD and HDD and fresh installing windows. I'm running out of ideas and was hoping someone on here could lead me in the right direction.
I have purchased new ram sticks even though its says on compatibility websites that its compatible, when i searched on the MSI website it didn't show up under the list of hardware that's compatible.

Started between 6:30pm and 7:45pm EDT. It had apparently logged me out. I logged in. It seemed to need to think about it, but got there. I went to open a new instance of Reddit to do some mod things and it acted as if I wasn't logged in. I went back to the page still logged in, and tried to create a duplicate (Chrome on Windows 11), and while duplicating from a logged in page, it opened a new instance that was not logged in.

Sent this to my team today. Let me know if my logic makes sense (I don’t think you need to see the topology to understand what I’m getting at.)
So everyone is aware, the next big network project is routing between corp and the cloud instances. Currently, if we lose MPLS at corp, the remote sites lose connectivity to Azure, AWS, and GCP.
The primary objective is to get redundancy between routes at corp so the remote locations can hairpin through us to get to the clouds via IPSec.
This is going to bring in a ton of routing changes at corp. the biggest hurdle I see is that we run EIGRP internally which is not supported on FGT since it’s a Cisco-proprietary protocol.
I think we can bring OSPF into the picture simultaneously with EIGRP since O routes have a higher AD than D routes. So the OSPF ones will never make it to the routing table until we’re ready to pull the trigger
^ this is why I stood up eve - to test
Constantin wants to move the IPSec tunnels for the clouds to the VPN router for simplicity to redistribute routes to EIGRP - but I’m leaning towards using OSPF so that the IPSec tunnels can remain on the FGT because they are much easier to manage from our network administration perspective that way
I think Constantin’s idea is less overall configuration changes, but has to be done all at once in one maintenance window. I think my suggestion is a lot of configuration changes, but we can do them all before the go-live

I have used ABC Triple Crown systems for my entire ten-year window cleaning career. Phaser for five years and SG1 with a pump for the last five. ABC systems have worked well enough, and when I do have issues, I can drive a half hour to their location here in greater Denver to get hands-on assistance. However, I often wonder what else is out there, and if there is a system that could fit my needs much better. I do primarily higher-end, newish residential and always run multi-stage RODI systems. I have always used mobile cart systems that I can load/unload in and out of my Tundra bed (locking topper).
Lastly, I love using waterfed. It has proven to be a superior strategy that leaves the windows cleaner longer. My clients are thrilled with the results. And it saves my body from ladders as I'm firmly middle aged and can't be heaving ladders around a house these days (I always do the exteriors while my inside guy cleans the interiors)
Looking for opinions from any water-fed enthusiasts out there. Thanks in advance-