It's Personal...

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:03 am

K wrote:The thing to remember is that everyone in a school office is a fucking moron. Financial aid, admissions, whatever. Doesn't even matter what kind of school as I've found them in a T2 Law school, a UC, and a community college. Trust no one.

This needs to be quoted. Even if someone in a school office sincerely wants to help you can't trust that they'll have the time or competency to do things properly. Handle everything in person, if paperwork has to be transfered between offices offer to do it yourself. Wait while they sign it. If you are not 100% vigilant you will get fucked over.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:46 am

I can attest to that.

Ess and I got married before we graduated, and the college repeatedly asked for our marriage certificate for financial aid reasons. Consistently, every time we brought in a copy for the school's files, the official would open up the folders and say, "Oh, look. There's already a copy in here."

I have no idea why there was no mark in the computer attesting to the fact that this very significant piece of paperwork had already been turned in. Nor do I have any idea why someone looking for personal information didn't just open our files to check on it.

No. Instead, they would print off a form letter saying they needed the information, have someone shove it into an envelope, stamp it, and send it to us (across the street) so we could use the school photocopier to make a copy of the original document and bring it down to the office, only to find that they already had it on file.

To top it all off, the woman who was in charge of the office lives in our apartment complex in a building that faces ours, knows us by name, and regularly says hello when we see her.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 1:52 am

So... our friends who live in the town homes behind us are looking to get a bigger place. They knew that we were on the lookout for a place. They mentioned the idea of renting to us. While this is still a few months away, it looks like we are to move to our own place in the near future and at an affordable rate.

We (Wife, kid, and me) currently live with my 'rents and after being there for 2 years, tensions are high. WOOT

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 2:18 am

And always, always, make a photocopy of every form you send in to a university or government.

You just spent an hour or more filling out the form, take the few seconds to copy or scan it, but "they" lose forms all the time.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:59 pm

I may be moving to a better apartment soon. I have found that the "deal" I am getting on my apartment was not such a deal at all, and that thanks to the housing glut in the nearby uni town I can actually get a new apartment with actual amenities for about what I'm paying now. Plus, my GF is offering to move in with me. Still tentative about the future though (The company I am working for needs to downsize some of the peeps they hired over the holidays, and until my 90 days I'm vulnerable. I've survived 5 retail winters in my life so I'm not too worried but I still need to bring my A game every day).

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Wed Jan 19, 2011 10:22 pm

Cynic wrote:So... our friends who live in the town homes behind us are looking to get a bigger place. They knew that we were on the lookout for a place. They mentioned the idea of renting to us. While this is still a few months away, it looks like we are to move to our own place in the near future and at an affordable rate.

We (Wife, kid, and me) currently live with my 'rents and after being there for 2 years, tensions are high. WOOT

Congrats. I feel for you, being in the same situation myself (only it's wife, me, and 4 kids). Housing around here is still fucking insane...a 3BR apartment (no utilities) is more than 60% of my take-home pay.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:41 pm

Congrats on maybe getting out of your current housing situations. I'm hoping that our tax return this year will help us get out, too.

I'm in a little bit of a bind because the school district that we currently live in is willing to enroll my son in a special program that's not taught anywhere else in the state... But housing here is more expensive than elsewhere, and our apartment is a hell hole.

So we either stay here for the schooling, or leave and get a life.

If the price is low enough (or the location closer to my mom), I'd rather move. I figure I'm smart enough to implement some of the ideas from the program I want at home.

In the meantime, my stereo and my headphones both died. Which sucks - music is life and I had just gotten over my two month cold that took my voice with it.

Fortunately, some gift cards and clever trading for cash netted us replacements for both that we set up this morning. I ended up with better equipment than I had before, a more versatile setup, and more desk space.

Time to subject my family to some singing.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 8:45 pm

In some cases, if you move to an area outside of (but near) the district after your kid in enrolled, they'll let it slide. Not a sure bet, but something to consider.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:13 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:In some cases, if you move to an area outside of (but near) the district after your kid in enrolled, they'll let it slide. Not a sure bet, but something to consider.

This is true, and Gi's teacher is willing to do some dealing to get us in, but we're thinking of moving out of county. Which won't slide.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:34 am

I am growing progressively more irritated by Firefox having a "Creative Commons" search engine that defaults to only showing things free for reuse, even commercially. You know, when I search the web I generally just want to SEARCH THE WEB.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 4:58 am

name_here wrote:I am growing progressively more irritated by Firefox having a "Creative Commons" search engine that defaults to only showing things free for reuse, even commercially. You know, when I search the web I generally just want to SEARCH THE WEB.

I'm pretty sure that Google is the default. It's probably your linux distro fucking with things. Also, changing the default search engine is trivially easy. Blekko and, of course, Google are good.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:17 am

I filed my taxes today, for free, thanks to a program at work.

I'm getting back rather a lot more than I thought I would. Because I took a year of a foreign language in college (partly, anyway).

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 10:37 am

Maxus wrote:I filed my taxes today, for free, thanks to a program at work.

I'm getting back rather a lot more than I thought I would. Because I took a year of a foreign language in college (partly, anyway).

What sort of program at work?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:15 am

Neeeek wrote:
Maxus wrote:I filed my taxes today, for free, thanks to a program at work.

I'm getting back rather a lot more than I thought I would. Because I took a year of a foreign language in college (partly, anyway).
What sort of program at work?

I work for Goodwill--sort of. Not in the stores, but still part of Goodwill (some janitorial contracting thing). Turns out, Goodwill (at least here) will do your taxes for free. You might have to find one of the community centers--should be in the phone book. I'm not sure if it's everywhere, but it's worth calling about.

Bring your W2, bring any stuff you find helpful (like your bank account and routing number if you want direct deposit). You'll have to ill out a sheet with things like "Are you married, blind, etc".

So they fill it out on a computer, but there's a live person asking questions about other things. Such as me taking a year of a foreign language, which evidently helped to get my refund.

But I do know that in my local area, they're doing taxes for free, for anybody who walks in with the appropriate paperwork. Direct deposit and 1-2 week processing at no extra charge.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:38 am

If you make under $48k (I think) a year, you can use Turbotax for free online. It's fucking awesome. Did it last year, will do again this year.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:11 pm

Last year, filing for us was free, but they changed the rates this year. We have to pay for the $20 upgrade because we have self-employment income and that's not part of the basic suite of services, but I love doing my taxes with them online. It's so easy.

We used to use H&R Block (which is also free if you don't have any crazy extra income), but I like TurboTax better.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:18 pm

Next summer I will be spending a week in Göteborg thanks to my father's generosity. Should be a fun time.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:33 pm

That's way cool, Count.

In personal victory news... I filed my taxes!!! And the return should be large enough to got to California for my sister's wedding, and move.

Now to find a place to move to.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:16 am

Can't sleep. Wife preheated the oven the other day without removing stuff that was sitting inside it. So a plastic cutting board (don't know why it was in there) melted all over the grille and on the base of the oven. Mother tried to clean it this night by putting a lot of cleaner in it and then setting it on self-clean for 5 hours starting at 10:00pm. After two hours, the smoke overcame the house and I turned it off but the smoke is everywhere.

The smoke has set off a bad migraine and with that insomnia.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:23 am

Cynic - make sure the house is well ventilated. Cleaner fumes, plastic fumes, plus normal smoke do not make a healthy combination.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:48 am

I've got all the fans running at full and as exhaust. ventilating a house at -10 celsius does not a good scenario make. The choices are smoke inhalation or hypothermia. It's hard to say yes to either. What will I do? choices, choices!

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:17 pm

That does suck. I'd take the cold temperatures over Cloudkill fumes. Hopefully you have more than 6 Hit Dice.

In all seriousness, vent it out, but make sure the temperature doesn't drop so low as to cause problems with your water lines. you might want to hang out elsewhere if that's possible for comfort.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:18 pm

update: due to the size of the house and bad insulation, the smoke cleared in a couple hours of my post. I also conked out finally.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:21 pm

Congrats. I've burned plastic on the stove a few times; makes me thankful I just had to ventilate an apartment.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:01 pm

I'm starting to worry about something. My landlord hasn't cashed the check I wrote him the beginning of the month. He never answers the phone when I call him, and he hasn't called me, but I'm wondering if he lost it and is going to try to blame me. (Because I'm kind of stupid sometimes, I didn't send the rent checks via registered mail so I could prove that he received them).

and moving out is not happening this month due to personal issues.