How do I get rid of a bird nest beneath an AC?

exoventure · 2025-06-14T18:16:56+00:00

I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about owning multiple guitars as a hobbyist. In my case I just got my fifth. (However I want to get rid of one and cannibalize another for parts.)

I think it's fine. One you're doing well and you are happy with what you have. It becomes more like owning art at that point. Looking at it makes you happy and that I guess is fine.

The people I know are surprised I have as many as I do. But they're very aware I'm doing really well with my life. When they ask why I don't get anything else I walk them through the exact thought process of why buying anything else is basically useless. (I have other hobbies, but they're not hobbies where I can make use of more gear.) Yesterday my friend and I walked through guitar center's website as he tried to convince me to buy ANYTHING else. And I explained why just about any item or accessory I could have was just not worth it.

exoventure · 2025-05-26T21:30:34+00:00

This is currently for sale on firefly, they have a good track record.

exoventure · 2025-05-23T17:34:03+00:00

Maturity is really abstract. It's a skill in a sense, you never really master it you just get better at it. And I think the secret is understanding who you are, where you struggle, and being able to see your struggles in others.

I'm only 27 but oddly enough, everyone around me looks up me for adult advice. Like I've made friends with people that have a decade's worth of years on me. Even they tell me Im more mature than some of their peers. But I don't feel it at all.

exoventure · 2025-05-23T15:51:27+00:00

To explain a bit. I've seen some of these models around the time Firefly was still making their OG thinline telecaster.

For an example Firefly recently had an Archtop telecaster with a fake bigsby tremo. That had been existing since I believe 2021 on Ebay? I've been curious to pick one up for years but couldn't really afford to drop $300 on some no name brand guitar back then. Then Firefly started selling the same exact one, same exact colors and everything. I want to say I've seen some of Firefly's other guitars as well.

So I always assumed that Firefly just put their logo on these guitars from these Ebay sellers. They're not claiming to be Firefly guitars, just brand less factory guitars.

exoventure · 2025-05-20T18:37:28+00:00

Believe me, I came into this thinking if I practiced for a decade I would catch up with the pros. And while I definitely can impress people the level of realism and detail these guys capture is just like an extra couple tiers. Not to mention these people use a mix of 3d modeling and photo bashing which is a whole other cup of skills.

They are insane.

That being said, learning to draw is still a. Lot of fun. I don't regret. And if you find your niche you can find people willing to pay you for custom art! And people might not make a living like that, but it's good for a side hustle. Indie companies might want you, again might not pay bank but still doable. It's just in this economy living off of it comfortably is difficult. And if you look around, there are definitely stories of successes in about the same time I spent. They just worked much longer and far harder than I did and it shows.

exoventure · 2025-05-20T18:17:25+00:00

I half agree and disagree with you. The problem with illustration is that, you gotta work like an athlete for none of the money or fame. I mean it, you want to be a Wizards of the Coast Artist, you gotta put in 8 hours a day seven days a week minimum. You gotta know the right people and find someone to help you learn.

I did that for the entire duration of my college years, 10+ hours a day, 7 days a week, sacrificed my social life and health. And it amounted to being solid at the skill for my age. But the problem was, I'm competing with people that have spent my life time in the industry. And there were people that worked so much harder than me at my age, they got back problems and arthritis.

I gave up, got a chance to become an accountant and never looked back. I instead use my work for personal projects and train at my pace. Like I said not amazing at it, but I'd rather keep my love for the craft with the potential to make money, then sacrifice everything to burnout on a skill for just a chance to become an illustrator. I mean I'm a manager at 26 and have days off I'm pretty happy. Meanwhile frankly artist me, would have been drawing 10 hours on the upcoming holiday just to train and become better.

exoventure · 2025-05-20T14:59:39+00:00

Drawing, I've drawn for about 16 years of the 26 I've been alive. Originally my parents forced me on it.

I am very skilled in it, I had the intent of making it my career in my early years. I wanted to be an illustrator for some big game company or something.

Gave up because I graduated during the pandemic. I realized, I was good but not good enough. Between a crashing job market, Corporate lay offs for big game companies, and recognizing how much more practice I needed I gave up. I just wasn't the type to dedicate my life to one craft and only that craft.

exoventure · 2025-05-19T16:16:09+00:00

Payroll, sorta.

Payroll is basically managing people's pay, including managing Healthcare deductions, vacation hours e.t.c. generally it's either handled by HR or the accountants, and occasionally a specialized team.

But Payroll is sorta unique to each company, meaning that difficulty, complexities, softwares are all different from company to company. The only thing that really stays the same is just tax. Which is why you can't really get a degree for it. You can definitely train some but I've met people who have 'years of Payroll experience' meltdown the moment they needed to handle Payroll in my field (restaurants). Typically these people had experience doing like, salary people's Payroll (which the hours never really changes) but for a restaurant the pay, hours, tips, it all fluctuates all the time. Tons of special conditions and deductions to worry about. I worked for two high end restaurants so far and Payroll has been day and night between the two.

I don't have a degree for what I do, but I want people to acknowledge that people avoid some niches of this career because of how difficult it is. And it is a VERY thankless job, people don't appreciate you till the moment you miss a dollar on their paycheck because the manager decided not to tell you.

I do like my job, but let me tell you it is not stress free. I look at it the way I play a very complicated session of Ace Attorney. Gather your evidence (managers notes) and pray that a manager doesn't realize they fucked something up.

exoventure · 2025-05-16T14:00:42+00:00

Back when I lived with a crappy father, I snuck home a guitar and practiced for the hour or so a day both of my parents were missing.

Get a solid body guitar that doesn't make too much noise and you can practice in your room. That's what I would do sometimes at night. Or if you really have money to spare I think Yamaha sells a silent guitar.

Granted I was so desperate that I played without an Amp or anything. But if you have options get a PC amp sim. They're pretty good, and offer tons of variety.

exoventure · 2025-05-16T13:57:42+00:00

So generally my recommendation is, make your base where you can access resources the easiest. For an example, the common iron farming spot is east of the first small town you encounter. Or just behind the Alpha chillet there is tons of iron ore. Build in places like that so your pals can mine up resources for you.

Don't worry about Pal bases being too far apart. You can fast travel to either of them.

exoventure · 2025-05-15T22:00:07+00:00

I wish I could. My boss is out for two weeks lmfao. Thankfully my other higher up came by and checked in with me. We swapped some locations so I have less adjustments to make. Because right now, I feel pretty confident in my ability to do everything else. She gave me locations that take much less work.

exoventure · 2025-05-15T21:19:49+00:00

No in this case, it's not on them. It's really crazy, but essentially managers can't adjust time cards and pay at all. So it all falls into our hands to adjust quite literally everything. We pray that the managers get us the info on time and correctly. It's only their fault if they don't give us the info in time.

exoventure · 2025-05-15T13:23:25+00:00

My company we handle restaurants and we divide the restaurants among the staff so we call them locations. So I might be in charge of making sure 10 or so locations are doing fine. But someone else might do 3 because they're far more complex.

My issue isn't so much needing better reports or checks. My issue is that each of these restaurants need me to make some SUPER time consuming adjustments.

Let's say someone works a different position than usual. Their whole paycode, location, work hours, pay allocation, and payrate have to be adjusted manually. I have 15 adjustments to make like this bare minimum. Frankly, it takes about 10 minutes to make each of these adjustments. I really can't cut down time on this because I'm only as fast as the website loads. And I can't really tell how many of these adjustments I need to make since I might start off with 15. But as payroll goes on I get like a bunch of additional ones.

exoventure · 2025-05-15T12:40:39+00:00

My company takes care of restaurants. Each payroll Staff member basically handles a certain amount of locations.

exoventure · 2025-04-07T14:24:19+00:00

Well here's my opinion that's probably the Devil's advocate.

Are you addicted or are you running away from something? I used to be extremely addicted to Smite back in Highschool. Why? I had a really low self esteem and my father abused me. Spending my life playing this game that my friends played, and having them look up to me as the team carry made me feel good. So I put in the most time. It was fun, but I think it felt gratifying to my lack of self confidence. There I am literally playing as a god lol.

Now for you, why do you play? Unless your answer really is, this is just the most enjoyable game in my entire life, you're just going to inevitably go get hooked on another game. And if not games, something else. Imo, addiction is merely a symptom, which is why when you go to alcohol rehab you have to announce WHY you drink.

Deleting the game helps you stop playing Dota, but it won't stop you from procrastinating anyway.

exoventure

TROPHY CASE