Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Ghengis Jon]

Not sure yet, Jeff. We hold a conf every 3 years for the global guys and gals. Usually its at some home facility, it was supposed to be Brussels and then covid hit. I guess this is the 'reward' for surviving it all (both health and biz-wise) and doing a cruise instead. New and exciting, or so they tell me. Nothing firm yet but moving in that direction. I think I supposed to be excited. They're talking October-November and I think that's optimistic.

To be honest, I'd rather be roaming some unexplored foreign city. On a boat I'd feel tethered.

[iam416]

I thought Hagler won, but made a lot of terrible decisions for that fight for a larger purse and also during the fight. He started the first 2 rounds orthodox for some unknow reason as he was a southpaw, then switched, but basically let Lenard win on points the first 4 rounds. He agree to 10 ounce gloves instead of 8 ounce gloves, and the fight was 12 rounds (not 15 like back then) and agreed to a larger ring. I remember Lenard always ended the round with harmless flurry's to swade the judges, and I guess it worked.

100%

[THE_WIZARD_]

I think Hagler was too black...Sugar Ray was a coconut...too bad for Marvin Wokeness wasn't around yet to influence the judges...

[Jeff Buchanan]

Jon, each cruise line has it's own character so, without knowing which cruise line you'd be sailing with it's hard to say. But cruising has changed dramatically since the last time you cruised. Our first cruise was in 2001 and the changes that took place pre-COVID were substantial since then. Cruise lines moved to mega-ships carrying 6000 or more passengers. These are not my favorites but I've been on them - Royal Caribbean Oasis and Harmony. They are huge so I really didn't feel like there were 6000 other passengers aboard. Plenty of quiet spaces and reading a good book is a nice way to while away the time. I prefer smaller ships and Celebrity has been our go-to line for years. Their ships top out at around 2800 passengers. Royal Caribbean Group, Celebrity's owning company, has a few smaller ships still sailing. I've been on several of these and like them.

What I think has changed the most is the sense of an elegant vacation at a high end resort for a great price. As ships got bigger and margins became more carefully managed along with capacity to optimize profits, the experience changed. For a reasonable cost per day you could get nice rooms cleaned and made up 2X/d, get elegant 5* dining and Broadway level shows. You can still get that although food quality/presentation - what you get as part of your fare - has dropped a bit. Cabin pricing has remained relatively stable over the 20y we've been cruising and that is pretty amazing in itself. What has changed is the corporate focus on getting passengers to book more expensive and exclusive cabins. We don't go that route so not a factor for us. Dining options have expanded and these can be pricey if you want to partake. Your fare includes three meals a day in a buffet setting (and these are really very nice) or in a dinning room. You can eat very healthfully if you're disciplined about what you stuff down your pie-hole and good about taking a daily walk (ships have nice tracks that surround the perimeter) avoid elevators and use the stairs).

I think you'll find that a short cruise, 7d or less, can be relaxing if you're on a line that has an older passenger demographic. The classic example is Holland America, now owned by Carnival Corp. Carnival's cruise ships though are party boats with lots of families and it's share of tank-topped drunks at the bar. Royal Caribbean is family oriented but doesn't have the biker crowd that seems to flock to Carnival's ships. Norwegian is pretty much like Royal Caribbean. Most group cruises like you'd be participating in sail on Holland America, Carnival or Norwegian. Celebrity does some of these but I think groups like yours would be more likely to go on one of the three I just mentioned.

Let me know the line and itinerary when you know it and I can provide more details

[Ghengis Jon]

Thanks Jeff.


Here's a link to an article on prison employees refusing vaccines but they also touch on other employment groups. It demonstrates why covid mitigation proposals such as what is put forth by DeSantis (or even our own JB) will never be successful. And the problem lies not with those proposing science based options, but the large segments of the population that willfully engage in behavior that intentionally puts others at risk. Risk of health.

The one criticism I have of JB's up post proposal(s) is that our nation is not like us. We can agree on the merits of what is presented but our audience here is a bunch of older, college educated, white males. We do not necessarily perceive the societal environment as (perhaps) the majority of others do. Science based efforts depend on the cooperation of the populace, which is NOT present. I can cite 2 close to home examples here in Flyspeck Michigan. Perhaps you saw on national news when some 65 yr old a-hole wiped his nose and face on a 17 yr old girl's shirt telling her to fuck off about store mask rules? Or what happened to my son when some 30 something threatened to burn down the store and make sure my son was stuck in back if he tried to enforce the place's mask rule. Yeah, these anti-maskers and ant-vaxxers will certainly ensure the most well thought out plans will be effective. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Businesses, particularly smaller ones and the psyche of the population has suffered under this pandemic. In many cases excessively. I wonder how much less economic and psychological damage would have been avoided if citizens would have come down on those causing the problems instead of whining about their governors' draconian reactions. You got strong responses to strong stupidity. Doesn't mean its right, its just an equal response, brought upon ourselves. If we had masked and distanced from day one we might not have had any lockdowns. Nothing is going to change until we as a population prefer cooperation instead of polarization.

Enough of my triggered rant. Today I get my Pfizer shot. I hope they give me an extra microchip.


https://apnews.com/article/public-he...54e97c3428dce0

[UMStan White]

"I think Hagler was too black...Sugar Ray was a coconut...too bad for Marvin Wokeness wasn't around yet to influence the judges..."


What a fucking racist! Crawl back under a rock asshole!

[iam416]

I would have really bet against anyone finding a way to blame the results of "draconian" covid measures on something other than the "draconian" covid measures. But, if you're not wed to facts and logic anything is possible.

DeSantis and the like continue to lead the way. The remarkable vaccine efforts by private industry doing private industry stuff (w/ as much assistance from the Feds as they wanted) produced a remarkable outcome.

We're almost there. And, most importantly, the people who may actually die from this thing in numbers that matter -- they're getting vaccinated.

Now, I have no doubt that the Progs will continue on with the Joe Lowest Expectations line -- we're all still doomed because of the right. We will never be back to normal. No large gatherings after vaccination. All that shit. But, it just ain't reality. I know they want to control every fucking aspect of our lives and will continue to use anything to try to get there -- including a tragic pandemic. But, fortunately, the electorate won't have it.

[Hannibal]

But, fortunately, the electorate won't have it.

You overestimate the critical and independent thinking capabilities of the Left.

[Ghengis Jon]

You're politicizing the issue. That's a big part of the problem.


And Talent, as usual, misinterprets what is written in order to resume his sanctimonious gasbag schtick.

[Dr. Strangelove]

So cruise vacations are basically like eating Golden Corral three times a day for a week, only you're locked in the restaurant with the other Golden Corral patrons, there's slot machines, and there's an Alan Parsons Project tribute band that plays every night.

[iam416]

You're politicizing the issue. That's a big part of the problem.


And Talent, as usual, misinterprets what is written in order to resume his sanctimonious gasbag schtick.

If you don't want me eviscerating your bullshit don't post your bullshit. It's really that simple.

And, oh by the way, you make every issue political. You do. The next time you want to draw some ludicrously tenuous connection between Rs and a political issue just you can carry on with your DJT rants think about your hilariously self-unaware bitching about making the issue political. JFC.

[iam416]

The comparison in non-lockdown states vs. lockdown states is really all anyone needs to know. Those are just the facts. If someone wants to pretend that Whitmer did a better job managing the pandemic than DeSantis, they can go ahead. I can't really stop that. I can only point to the facts.

[Jeff Buchanan]

You overestimate the critical and independent thinking capabilities of the Left.

Regarding American's behavior in dealing with the pandemic, a couple of things: First, behavioral scientists who have access to and track cell phone movements report that as public health officials declare rising case numbers, mobility decreases and visa-versa. This is big data not an unfortunate example of a couple of people's bad behavior or a generalized statement above applied to COVID related behaviors. Other scientists who analyze such things have been unable to assign definitive causality to questions like, why has South Africa's COVID case numbers and deaths declined from January highs despite the more transmissible variants and lack of lock-downs while Europe's are rising even with harsh mitigation measures in place, including lock-downs? In general, we really don't know enough about the virus to say why it spreads rapidly or suddenly declines but we do know that while human behavior is among the reasons, at this point it is probably not at the top of the list.

Most of the thinking on this subject is speculative but top among these is that increasing case numbers and deaths are regional with the highest numbers and fastest rates of growth located in poorer regions where close quartered housing with multiple residents in one room is common. These increases are not seen in wealthier regions. When reporting is aggregated at the national level it gets skewed upwards prompting large scale, often politically motivated. knee jerk reactions instead of targeted ones. This is why experts harp on the need for gene sequencing to identify and isolate people infected with variants and increased surgical interventions not the use of nuclear options.

Certainly the press writes COVID stories based on reports of aggregated data, often not having access to local more granular data, with an additional motivation to scare the shit out of everyone so you'll read this crap and believe it. Coupled with that is what I consider an understandable yet dumb-ass take by US health officials and our own president that Americans need to remain cautious and not rush back into normalcy or anything close to it. FFS, you don't have to be an epidemiologist, virologist of have a PhD in public health to look at the numbers globally and in states, like FL, leading the way out of this shit.. As the number of vaccinated people increases, new case numbers decline, rates decline, deaths decline, hospitalizations decline, ED visits for ILI and CLI decline. Yet our public health guidelines from teh CDC are ....... continue to mask in places you don't need to mask, distance when it's unnecessary, don't socialize except under rigid circumstances???? In stark contrast look at Europe. Because of the ineptitude of the EUC in obtaining and distributing vaccines and the stupid, anti-science pause in the use of the AZ vaccine in several countries due to baseless concerns about blood clots post vaccination, the opposite is true.

The number one thing that has to occur, people, is get your fucking shots when they are available to you. Supplies are out there. While, in the US, state's means by which vaccines are administered vary - some better than others - we're moving forward, making progress. The reality is that vaccinated people can pretty much do whatever they want and as a lay person, I join many experts saying that. So, it's really frustrating to listen to doubters, anti-vaxers, certain officials and the press that remains set on being pessimistic. That is prolonging the pandemic while people like Desantis and Floridians in general led by sensible and effective public health policy are leading us out of it.

[AlabamAlum]

We will always have bad actors. It was the case with the Black Plague and smallpox and HIV and Covid. Enough will do the right thing to end this eventually.

[iam416]

We're going to be around 70% vaccinated (IMO) and way higher for people who have an actual plausible chance of dying. Again, this is the flu for people under 50. It's much worse for people over 70. The young 'uns should be getting really close to being able to live their damn lives.

Ohio is going to open up vaccines to Over 40 probably w/in the next week or so. And if people don't want their shot then great -- makes it easier for my anxiety-ridden wife to schedule an appointment. Me, I'll probably wait until I can schedule w/o spending 5 hours to do it. Probably an extra week or two. Whatever.