Old gas station gate customs

I'm just wondering if youth informal cautions (where you are cautioned on the spot but don't go to the station or anything) are ever wiped from police records (or police dont care about them anymore)
Adding onto that, if a minor between 10-18 years old commits a different crime after an informal caution with an unrelated charge, would police give them another informal caution or a formal caution, provided each incident is isolated and doesn't have any link?
Can't seem to find any information regarding this specific to NSW Thanks

Greetings, fellow Regards. I've done some DD on Carvana Co (CVNA) and I'm here to share some findings that suggest an impending short squeeze scenario.
Explosive Options Volume: Today, CVNA options have witnessed an extraordinary surge in volume, with a whopping 112,832 contracts traded so far. This accounts for approximately 11.3 million underlying shares, a significant 48.5% of CVNA's average daily trading volume over the past month.
$15 Strike Call Option: June 02, 2023 The call option for the $15 strike is attracting substantial attention, with 17,210 contracts traded today, representing around 1.7 million underlying shares of CVNA. This heightened interest suggests a potential bullish sentiment among investors.
Strategic National Ad Campaign: Carvana is making strategic moves to amplify its market presence. They have recently launched a national ad campaign that showcases glowing five-star reviews from satisfied customers. This offensive push demonstrates their determination to rebound from previous spending cuts and enhance their bottom line.
Profitability in Sight: CVNA's first-quarter earnings report indicated their expectation of achieving adjusted EBITDA profitability in the current quarter. The initiation of the new ad campaign further strengthens the belief that they are well on their way to realizing this goal.
Volume Surpassing Average: Today's trading volume has surpassed the three-month average even before noon. This surge could be an indication of short sellers scrambling to cover their positions by repurchasing shares, potentially fueling a short squeeze.
Bright Prospects in Asset-Backed Security Market: CVNA stands to benefit from an improving asset-backed security market. This positive market trend has the potential to substantially boost the company's EBITDA in the second quarter, leading to exciting growth prospects.
Bill Gates is holdin a bag. Bill Gates is holding a 5 million dollar bag. Also has received a positive outlook by JP Morgan
Considering these compelling factors, it becomes increasingly likely that CVNA is poised for a short squeeze. keep a close eye.
Not financial advice

Hello,
Any information/guidance anyone can provide here would be helpful.
We have a Weber Spirit 210, about 10 years old. Never had an issue and has mostly been covered or under the roof eve to not too much of the elements on it.
Last summer I took two of my tanks to a local company to get them tested/refilled and everything was fine. Brought them home and connected one. Immediately heard gas, disconnected it and connected the second. Same thing.
Set them both aside and figured it was a bad regulator and since it was late in the season I figured it was best to wait until this grilling season.
So today I went out to investigate further. Connected everything, turned on the gas and heard the same high pitched hissing and the smell of nat gas. But it was not coming from the regulatotank. Angled around and got under the burners and the sound got louder. Grabbed one of the burnenozzle stems and the sound got muffled/shifted. Grabbed the second, same thing, and again with the third. Dials were in the off position. Adjusting/pushing on the dials did alter the hissing but did not stop it.
There is no damage, nothing has changed since last year other than the tanks being pressure checked and refilled by a very legit and well known company.
I’ve never noticed this phenomenon at the dials/stem connectors before.
So questions:

1. Is this a problem that makes the grill unusable?
   
2. Could the local company have put too much pressure in the tank causing the dials to “leak” due to the over pressure?
   
3. Could just turning on the gas at the tank, leaving the dials off cause the tank to bleed off some of the “excess” pressure?
   
4. Can the dials have gone bad? All three at the same time?
   
5. Suggestions?
   

Okay so I fully finished my build as of two days ago before it was mostly done except I wanted to do custom cables and water cooled. Before it just had stock amd cooler and stock cables. (Build list at the bottom) I got a Corsair hydro X cooling kit and when taking off the stock cooler it pulled the cpu out and long story short I bent some of the pins and one broke so I ordered a new one and then when I finished everything I was leak checking it and it started to leak only one drop before I turned it off. There wasn’t anything plugged in to the Psu except the 24 pin with the jumper wire and the moles to turn on the pump. The drop unfortunately missed the paper towel and dropped on my gpu (like I said one drop, and nothing had power to it) so I pulled the gpu and cleaned up where it dripped fixed the leak and ran it for 24hrs to make sure no more leaks. Went to start it fully with everything plugged in and no signal. So I thought Fuck, maybe I fucked up the gpu so I switched it with an old strix gtx 980 and it worked just fine. So I ordered another gpu the same one I ordered less than one week ago and still the same thing. No signal.
Wtf am I missing?
Build list: ASROCK X570 Ryzen 9 5900X (originally 3900x) Corsair vengeance pro rgb 128gb Powercolor Red Devil 6750 xt Corsair rm850x Wd 512gb nvme Samsung 256gb nvme Wd 256 sata m.2 Wd 1tb hdd (x3) Jonsbo D41 case

My 10 yr old pug was attacked by my neighbors pitbull. They normally keep it in their backyard and I rarely ever don't see it outside and have never witnessed them give him any attention. Well yesterday evening he got out and busted thru the gate of my fence and attacked my dogs. They made a god awful sound and fortunately my lab mix was out there and I think dod enough to get the pit to let my pug go. The owners would not provide proof of rabies shot but told the cops he was up to date. My lab mix was covered in saliva and my pug has 2 puncture wounds from where he was bit around the neck. The vet said he should be fine but we have 700 in vet bills from this and I know.that they won't cooperate with paying for them.
Sorry if anything is unclear let me know if there are any questions.

I did about 2 grams and was really fucked up but during the downtime before the peak I felt kinda normal so I decided to walk to that gas station to get something to drink but when I got in the gas station I started to freak out a little haha. Everything looked fake, almost like a movie set. It’s hard to explain but I was just curious if this normal when tripping?

I've been reading about the possibility of a coup in Russia lately and wondered what you thought?
I very much doubt there would be any kind of coup. Putin has way too much support and he's one of the FBU elite which essentially are the controlling group in Russia.
The old school KGB have morphed into a quasi semi mafia power group of control in Russia. I think there's machinations going on but they're more about finding a long term solution for the current "quagmire" within Russia and surely every Russian understands that it's unsustainable really.
It's unsustainable not necessarily because of the financial and economic cost - Russia has a ton of oil/gas etc and it's a ready market with India and China but it does have a finite limit of men and the ability to produce war materiel.

I’ve had my dog (2.5ish years old) since November and have crated her since. There have been a few times I’ve tested her in a gated living room but she kept having accidents so it was back to the crate. She would also have a tendency to pee in her crate but in the living room she’d also poop.
It has been a little over 2 months since that has happened, so I thought I’d give it a try again. Gradual absences on the weekends up to 3-4 hours and then I tried a full work day today. I had so much trust in her that I didn’t even bother setting her petcam up. But I just came home to a nice area of pee and poop.
I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to proceed from here. Is it back to the crate tomorrow or do I try again? How do I get her to understand the rule? She never has any accidents when I’m home and like I said she has been consistently very good in her crate for almost a few months now.

Just curious how others would handle this. My family home is on a private road, in a gated community, for the past 45 years. Very quiet neighborhood where most people have lived for decades. I know I’m very lucky to live where I do, and it’s 100% because of my father’s hard work, proper planning, and buying before the gates went up.
We’re in the mountains, don’t have sidewalks or street lamps, lots of bears, mountain lions, bobcats, etc., and everybody keeps themselves to themselves. The privacy of my neighborhood is as much geographical as attitudinal.
The neighborhood was almost destroyed by forest fires a few decades ago, and our house burned down, like every other person here. Because of fires & rock/mud slides, we realized we could be cut off and unable to leave our driveway in the back, in the next emergency. So when we rebuilt, we paid a lot of money to pave over our flower beds out front, which was about 6 feet set back from the road.
People keep parking there, which is odd, considering how little we, as a community, bother each other. If you have a party, you either shuttle guests in, notify your neighbors, or instruct visitors to park on the side of the street that has ZERO houses.
It never bothered me, because they’re our “in case of emergency or when the rest of the family visiting” spots. But I’m my mother’s caregiver, and she is s preternaturally territorial. She’s told the neighbors that we don’t want strangers parked in front of our house for hours at a time, especially because they’re literally trespassing on our property. We are the only house with a set-back, and private spaces in front. Anyone parking there can see that they are on our property, because our mailbox still meets the private road.
Recently, crime is creeping closer to our community — never a problem in the past b/c of our relative isolation. When my mother told me that she experiences low level fear and uncertainty to have unknown stranger parking in front of our house, I suddenly got it, and it’s beginning to annoy me also.
What would you do? She’s against “tacky” signs, but last night, I ordered “Private Property: No Parking” 6 x 12 signs I can place close to our curb — if she lets me. I inherited the house, but I’m determined to defer to my mother out of love and respect. She CANNOT abide these parkers, and occasionally will email around asking whose car it is.
I’m staying here after she passes, and I’m kinda stressed about this weird issue the new neighbors are causing. The old neighbors we’ve always known and shared private sensibilities are dying or downsizing. More new people apparently means more boundary testing. I’m a lawyer, and realize I’m 100% within my rights to tow their friends, all day every day, but I’m also a good neighbor who appreciates the introverted sense if community we’ve always had here.
I want it to stop for quite a few reasons, but mainly, I want our boundaries respected. Yes, our spots are next to the road, but legally and visually are not street parking. I’m intense and aggressive by nature (helps w/being a trial attorney), but I love this little oasis of peace and do not want to upset the balance we’ve always had. But it’s starting to piss me off, now, so I’d truly appreciate other perspectives on this.
Edit: It’s not a frequent thing, btw. Happens really only 6-12 times a year. But the agitation & feelings of disrespect/violation (?) it’s starting to cause is something I want to stop. Life is short, but property law is property law. I’m an introvert, despite being confrontational as a lawyer, and the crossing of my/my property boundaries mat flip my bitch switch, which I absolutely do not want.

So I 33F met one of my best friends 37F at my baby shower of all places. A friend I went to high school with was pregnant at the same time as me so she came to my shower and brought her sister. Well her sister and I hit it off and we instantly became best friends. She had literally became my ride or die. We always were having girls night at my house or just going places and doing things together. She always included my daughter which made me love her even more. Well as the years went on she came to me when he and her other half separated needing somewhere to live. At this time I had moved in with my grandparents after my split. I was helping take care of them and they put a roof over mine and my daughters heads. Well when this friend called me she was bawling and I felt so bad for her cause she quiet literally had no where to go. I stuck my neck out for her and went to my nanna asking if my friend could move in. There was rules and what not that my friend agreed to so that very week she moved in. Keep in mind it was only a three bedroom house and my grandparents were downstairs and myself and daughter were upstairs in the other two rooms. I aloud my friend to move into my room with me where she also shared my bed. We had sleepovers before so it didn't bother me one bit cause she was my friend. Well as the months went on I was having to put extra food into the house which was not in the rules my nanna gave her. She was suppose to be paying rent, supplying her own food and necessities. I couldn't afford to pay her way. I tried to help her but finally enough was enough when she went to the bathroom and left the bathroom door open and then proceeded to yell and cuss at my 7 yr old daughter for standing in front of the bathroom door while speaking to me. (bathroom was right as you walked into my bedroom) I sent my daughter downstairs with her nanna and proceeded to yell at my friend. One thing she wasn't going to do was cuss or raise her voice to my child. It wasn't her fault that my friend didn't close the bathroom door which she should have done. Well a few weeks go by after the incident and I was hanging out with her other two sisters at my moms. And she started acting weird. Every time I left the house she tried to go with me. She even tried to go with me on my date with my fiance at the time. I quickly shut it down. Well a week later I was having a girls night at my moms with her other two sisters and this is when all hell breaks loose. I told her younger sister some stuff my friend had been saying about her cause it didn't make since to me. Well it caused them to fight. I wasn't trying to start anything but what I what I told the younger sister had me worried which is the only reason I brought it up. They fought and I fell asleep that night to wake up the next morning to my friend texting my MOM of all people. She was saying some stuff about me using her vehicle. I used it twice when mine was in the shop which she told me I could use. I offered her gas money and she told me not to worry about it cause she knew I was struggling with money myself being a single mom. So I got extremely pissed cause she was bringing it up after she told me not to worry about it. I texted her and went off. It was then brought to my knowledge that she was telling her WHOLE family I was pregnant. I was in shock. I had confided in her that I could be but asked her not to say anything til I knew for sure so I could tell my fiance. Well I found out I wasn't. She was with me when I took the test. So I had to clean up her mess again. I cussed her out over text and told her that if she wanted to be petty I could be petty. I told her I didn't have to stick my neck out for her or let her use my room. So from then on out that she could start sleeping on the couch. Well I finally make it home and come in to her on the couch and she moved all her stuff out of my room. I went straight to my room and did a movie day with my daughter. Now I'm a firm believer in not arguing in front of children so being a adult I texted her and told her I thought it was best for her to find a new place to live. She said she was working on it. I left it alone. Well then she wanted to argue with me cuss at me. She hadn't worked but three weeks the five months she lived with me so I got ugly. I told her she needed to be out by monday so that gave her two days to find somewhere to go. Keep in mind her mom lives on the same block i do, only a few houses up from me. She started packing her stuff and tried taking some things of mine. I called her out and took my things back and went back to my room. I sent my daughter downstairs with her grandparents just encase things got ugly. She proceeded to start throwing my things at me. I come around the corner yelling at her and she went to throw glass plates and bowls at me. I slapped them down to the floor and went at her. My grandfafther come up behind me telling her she needed to leave immediately. So then she proceeds to cuss at my 75 yr old poppy. It set me on fire again so I went at her again. I was pulled back and my nanna got in it. By this point im raging. My nanna tells her to leave and she can come get the rest of her things tomorrow. I turn and walk away and that when I'm told i'm bleeding. Her throwing those dishes at me and me reacting caused me to have to get stitches in both hands and arms and I broke my thumb shielding myself. Her sister came over and took me to the doctor. Thankfully when I got back she was gone. After she was finally out I realized she stole my daughters piggy bank that had over $400 in it and her whole Disney DVD movie collection that I had been buying since my daughter had come home from the hospital. anyways I hadn't spoken to her in months after this and her sisters kept trying to wedge me back with her. Well my friend apologized but I refuse to have her in my life anymore. She hurt me and stole from the one person I love most in this world. Am I the asshole for telling her to fuck off?

I have a Sheet with some GAS attached. It's three simple routines that allow me to process a cell that has a "custom currency," e.g. "10 cents" or "50 gold" or "33.2 shells"
The Sheet to which the script is attached has no problem accessing the functions. I deployed the script as a library, created a 2nd sheet, and a attached the deployed library to it with the identifier "CustomCurrency" However, when the second sheet tries to use any functions - e.g. `CustomCurrency.currency_value()` - I get the error "Unknown function ..."
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Sometimes when you look into the mirror, the mirror looks back.
William Bailey's forehead shattered the mirror like a sledgehammer. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feeling that he was falling through the mirror. Sub-cranial hematoma, a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull--that had to be the reason for the strange feeling. The mirror was mounted on the wall just to the right of the bar, four feet tall by about three feet wide. As consciousness slipped away, common sense and his strong belief in the rational world told him that he couldn't fall through the mirror. He must have bounced his head off the wall and be falling toward the floor.
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.

Over a decade ago, a lot of my older friends and elders want nothing but to own acres and acres of land. They miss it and love that primitive lifestyle. They love being out there in the country, in the middle of nowhere, far away from people, working on their land under the burning hot sun taking care of the land and animals, bending over all day and lifting heavy ass shit. It is full of labor but they love it. They spend their whole life savings to do this. They love it so much they'll tolerate hearing farm animals crying all day all night but worst they're able to smell the animal shit in the morning. And they'll do this even it means they're at a net loss.
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And I get it, different strokes for different folks. For a lot of the older folks, this is all they know and this is what their idea of peace looks like. Being a Hmong city guy, I simply cannot relate. I love having a convenient store and gas station around the corner. I love street lights and being in the suburbs. I love technology and modernizing everything I can. Thoughts?

I am a recent engineering graduate with no internship experience. I expected to get a lower application acceptance rate, but I'm surprised to find only one interview so far, which is tomorrow. Is my resume not impressive? How can I improve my resume for entry level electrical engineering positions? Any and all help would be appreciated. (I also wouldn't mind some advice for my interview tomorrow, but the resume is obviously the important part here lol.)
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https://preview.redd.it/6sc9uh8sl23b1.png?width=1700&format=png&auto=webp&s=45b9328f2af1df222295676e74c44abe77c1c194

Something that struck me when rereading some bits of Winter's Heart recently were the massive changes to Emond's Field in terms of economic development, demonstrated by the new houses and other structures, which happened in a very short time.
When Perrin goes back to Emond's Field, the village is basically the same as he left it. A backwater village where the locals mostly farm tabac and sheep, houses aren't particularly big, all roofs are thatched except Winespring Inn's, the bridge in the middle of the village is wooden, there isn't anything resembling industry, no shops or inns are mentioned outside of the Winespring Inn, etc. But when Egwene and Elayne visit it in T'A'R less than 8 months later, Emond's Field has become a town, and a prosperious one to boot. Here is how Elayne describe it:

She hoped Rand could still love Emond’s Field, but it was no longer the village where he and Egwene had grown up. There were no people, here in the World of Dreams, yet clearly Emond’s Field was a considerable town now, a prosperous town, with nearly one house in three made of well-dressed stone, some of three stories, and more roofed with tiles in every hue of the rainbow than with thatch. Some streets were paved with smooth well-fitted stone, new and unworn as yet, and there was even a thick stone wall going up around the town, with towers and iron-plated gates that would have suited a Borderland town. Outside the walls there were gristmills and sawmills, an iron foundry and large workshops for weavers of both woolens and carpets, and within were shops run by furniture makers, potters, seamstresses, cutlers, and gold-and silversmiths, many as fine as could be seen in Caemlyn, though some of the styles seemed to be from Arad Doman or Tarabon.

Even with the influx of refugees from Arad Doman and elsewhere these massive changes really stretch plausibility for me. Building all these new structures takes a lot of time, people and resources. And it really doesn't seem to make economic sense. How would all these new stores and businesses get enough customers? Refugees rarely have all that money, and for the ones who have it makes more sense to move to Baerlon. Same for the artisans skilled in trades for which a backwater village doesn't provide nearly enough customers, like goldsmiths or furniture makers.
Sure, Emond's Field's economy growing pretty rapidly due to the influx of skilled refugees makes sense, especially since there is a hint in the LoC prologue that some of them discovered iron and gold deposits in the mountains nearby pretty soon after the Trollocs were defeated, but not this quickly. It even has paved streets now.
Sure, you can say "Ta'veren at worK", but Perrin wasn't even there during most of the period of explosive growth.

Trying to shift into IT