wild_turkey

If she had disagreements with her supervisor, is this coming directly from the supervisor or from higher up? If it’s from the supervisor and they are just being petty, I would go over their head and discuss with HR. Otherwise, maybe best to take the $800 for personal travel and move on.

It doesn’t seem right at all. If she can keep the $800 for personal use, that’s probably easier than fighting it Agree with letting her coworkers know the situation before she leaves so that everyone knows what kind of company they are dealing with.

Sounds like a shitty employer. How big is the company and what industry is this? What is the total cost of the flights in question? What airline? Even though they are non-refundable, is it possible to convert them to airline credit for personal travel?

In a worst case scenario, if New Orleans became completely uninhabitable and lost, that 82 billion wouldn’t vaporize or go to China. American citizens would still spend most of it on vacations and long weekends to other domestic locations.

Fuck Baylor

Max is getting rid of Band of Brothers?! Will they also sell off The Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones? Then we could all agree that HBO has been entirely destroyed.

Oh wow, that sucks. I sort of know those guys and always wanted them to do well. Terrible news.

Board faster compared to which other airline? Faster flights compared to which airline? Happier people? Direct flights? Cheaper prices?!? If your comparison is Spirit or Frontier, that’s a pretty low bar. Also, I rarely see better prices or more direct routes on SWA, but I live in DFW so AA can almost always beat them. The seating on SWA is a complete joke. It’s hard to believe that is still a thing in 2023 but their computers are too old to understand assigned seating. I understand the smaller airports for people who care about that, but that’s a vote in favor of an airport and not the actual airline. That’s settling for a subpar airline because you want the airport. SWA is basically Spirit with better branding.

I wonder if there’s any way to factor in the entire HBO platform becoming a subpar Max service during that time. What % drop in overall viewership or subscribers have they experienced?

Has anyone watched Invasion season 2? I remember the first season being underwhelming but can’t remember specifics. I think it was generalized stupidity of the various main characters. The ratings for season 2 look a little better, judging by IMDB episode guide and RT.

SWA is a discount airline with non-discount fares. No business class, no premium economy, no ability to pick your seat in advance. I don’t understand the people who are still loyal to them.

Probably a lot more people have had it than you realize, but it just gets written off as a bad cold because they don’t have the prolonged symptoms. It’s most commonly caused by EBV which infects over 90% of people, and about 25% of people infected get actual mono. Pretty sure I had it sophomore year at UT because I had a flu-like illness that lasted about a week during spring finals (not flu season) and I rarely get sick otherwise. I remember feeling like shit in WEL 2.224 trying to take a chemistry final. Hope your kid gets to feeling better quickly.

Let’s fucking gooo!!!

So, recently got back from Sardegna/Sardinia and overall loved it. Thanks to sidis for the planning advice. We flew DFW to Paris, stayed one night there, had a nice dinner at Frenchie, then a short flight the following day from Paris to Olbia (Costa Smeralda). For the first 2 nights, we drove from Olbia over to Alghero, about a 2 hour drive but mostly scenic and easy. The hotel we picked for Alghero was not great. Bare minimum amenities and an extremely hard bed, even by Euro standards. We picked it last minute when options were slim, so perhaps it was the best thing remaining, but at least it was only 2 nights. There is some cool stuff near Alghero, and the old town of Alghero is a medieval city now filled with restaurants and shops, similar to Dubrovnik or Bonifacio. We enjoyed walking around there and we had an excellent dinner at a place called La Saletta that we thought was deserving of a Michelin star. We also visited a tiny little beach called Dragunara, where apparently there was an unwritten rule that bikini tops were prohibited, and the little cafe served good casual Italian fare. Nice place to sit and drink Ichnusa and Vermentino, go snorkeling, and let the wife even out her tan lines. We hit a small rough patch after that. As we made the drive back to the east side of the island, we made plans to visit Spiaggia La Pelosa which looks incredible in pictures. Had to purchase tickets in advance because they cap the number of daily visitors. On that day, the weather turned cooler and it became extremely windy, so the beach was not great. We snapped a couple of pics and then left. We drove on to Castelsardo which was described as being similar to Positano. Long drive to get there, and to put it politely, we did not feel that comparison is fair to Positano. So we left. Spent a lot of time in the car that day with bad weather. Kind of the low point. Things greatly improved from that point onward. Second hotel was fantastic - Sulia House Porto Rotondo. Part of the Hilton Curio collection which gave us pause because we normally avoid chain hotels, but this was a really great boutique hotel with great staff, a bar, spa, gym, pool, etc. Nice rooms, comfy beds, and good views. Beaches on the east side of the island are plentiful, water is beautiful, calm, turquoise and clear. This was the view from Spiaggia Dottore, but the coastline is covered in similar spots. Some have no facilities so pack your own stuff, others have beach clubs and bars/cafes. The highlight for me was the day we drove down to Cala Gonone and rented a boat. There are lots of companies that will rent you a 5-6m rib boat, no license required. You can then take it down the coast and see various beaches that are only accessible by boat, with the 2 standouts being Cala Goloritze and Cala Luna. There’s essentially a zone along the coast where these boats are allowed, and the outfitters have people out there making sure everyone is okay. Surprisingly easy and the beaches and geography of the Baunei Coast are unlike any I’ve been to. And finally, we went up north to Palau where we booked a private boat tour of the La Maddalena archipelago, a group of tiny islands located between Sardinia and Corsica. We used a company called Sardinia Island Tours which I highly recommend. The main island of La Maddalena has a small town on it which seems like a fun place to kill a couple of days. We walked around town eating gelato and drinking wine before getting back on the boat. If you’re interested in going to Sardinia, just keep in mind that it is somewhat different from mainland Italy. Traditional Italian pasta is available but does not fill out the average menu. They have a local pasta called fregola, they serve a fair amount of risotto and gnocchi, lots of seafood, and lots of cured meats. Their predominant wines are Cannonau (grenache) and Vermentino, and their digestive is Mirto in place of limoncello, which I found enjoyable. The local beer is Ichnusa, and even though I prefer IPAs, it was rather drinkable. I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend an agriturismo for dinner. Think of it as a hyper local farm-to-table dining establishment. We had no idea what to expect, but at the recommendation of our hotel concierge, we went to Lu Branu. When we arrived and were seated, there was already bread and a pitcher of Cannonau wine on the table waiting for us. There was no menu, but we were bombarded with an assortment of meats, cheeses, olives, beans, multiple pastas, more meats, salad, more wine, desserts, coffee, and liquor - mirto and goat’s milk liquor. It was fantastic, more food than we would normally eat at Thanksgiving, and a grand total of 80 Euro for both of us. It was a bucket list experience I didn’t know I had. Finally, we discovered that Sardinia is one of the world’s five Blue Zones, regions where there are longer life expectancies and higher rates of people living to be 100 years old. This is multifactorial but can be attributed to physical activity, eating a diet that is mostly plant-based (although not entirely vegetarian), high amounts of olive oil (6 tbsp per day), and drinking Cannonau wine. Apparently, the Grenache grape grown in Sardinia has a thicker skin that produces a wine with significantly higher antioxidants than most red wines, which they drink 2 glasses a day on average and is credited with helping their longevity. I struggle with the plant-based diet, but I can easily get behind the daily Cannonau lifestyle. We intend to return sooner rather than later. We loved Sardinia this year, we loved Corsica last year, there is plenty more to do on both islands, and the next logical step is to plan a return trip that splits time between the two. I now have a boat guy who can shuttle us back and forth.

Telluride is my default for most of these questions. Awesome town, rarely crowded in the summer, directly in the mountains with plenty of hiking options, and they have guided fly fishing. So that already checks your high priority boxes. They have a wide range of good restaurants, one brewery, no winery that I know of. Not much in the way of monuments, although if you drive up near Montrose there is a lake with boating available and there is also Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP. Breckenridge would be another solid option that checks a lot of your boxes and it’s drivable from Denver and Winter Park, if that’s important to you. It will be more crowded though. They have easily accessible hiking. I did a fly fishing trip with their fly shop this year and it was fun, but we did have to drive about an hour from town to reach the river. There is of course Breckenridge Brewing, which isn’t my favorite beer but it is a cool spot to visit. They have several nearby wineries, a distillery in town, and the town has a cool main street with lots of shops and restaurants. Fort Collins is also good, but not directly in the mountains. I did fly fishing up there last year and really enjoyed it. The town has lots of breweries - Odell, New Belgium, Funkwerks, just to name a few. There are lots of nearby lakes for those activities, but being slightly removed from the mountains, I would assume you need to drive a bit for the best hiking.

I can’t seem to figure that one out. Just using the TCU game as a test, it lists ~10 links for streams, but none of them work on my iPhone. They all go to weird sites that want to sell me a VPN or else they trigger a switch to the App Store which is also blocked.

I’m on a flight with decent wifi but the streaming services are all blocked due to geolocation ambiguity. Any suggestions for a non-legit streaming site?

I read elsewhere that the shooter fired 3 shots into the victim (stomach, shoulder, head) and would’ve fired more shots, presumably at other people, except that he ran out of ammo. He apparently hit a girl in the head with the gun before running away. He is believed to be homeless.

Since this law is not yet in effect, do your kids currently have unfettered access to porn with zero hoops to jump through? As their parent, if it’s important to you to restrict that (which it should be), then you have plenty of options available. Also, I hate to break it to you, but if teenagers want to look at porn, they’re going to look at porn. They’ll probably get a VPN of their own or simply upload your driver’s license to Pornhub when you aren’t paying attention. Good luck with that.

Panther City

Have you seen any of Nolan’s other movies? You only mention Oppenheimer and Dunkirk, but what about Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, or Memento?

Hopefully they release a new Marvel movie for your entertainment.

I would be rebooking the first flight (OLB-FCO) to an earlier time, which would render my original later flight pointless. I would be sacrificing that flight as a sunk cost of about $400. There’s no way to know if I “made it” or not because I would already be on the new earlier flight. The second flight is FCO-DFW, significantly more expensive, and currently nothing wrong with it. I’m not messing with that flight or booking a backup.

You're entitled to your opinion, but that's certainly a minority opinion. It's won 8 Emmys already and has 21 nominations for the upcoming Emmys. It has an overall 90% critics and 86% viewers on Rotten Tomatoes. People generally tend to like it, especially season 1. But this isn't the Ted Lasso thread, I was merely making a comparison, which I think is a fair comparison to make. At least we can agree that The Bear is a great show.

Looking for some flight advice and this seems like the catch-all thread for this stuff. Flying home from Sardinia in a couple of weeks. Flight booked on Aeroitalia from Olbia (OLB) to Rome (FCO) with a 3h55m layover at FCO before catching my next flight on AA from FCO to DFW (nonstop). Aeroitalia now emails me to say their flight schedule changed and will be 2.5 hours later, so my layover in Rome is now only 1h25m. In my mind, that is not enough time to comfortably make the connection. We are not checking bags and there is no customs, but I would be switching airlines and the second flight is international, so that makes me nervous. Also, there is always the possibility of the Aeroitalia flight getting delayed on the day of travel, which wouldn't be a huge concern with a 3h55m layover, but could easily screw me on a 1h25m layover. I contacted Aeroitalia and they don't give a shit. I asked for a refund so I could book a different flight and they said no. My ticket was nonrefundable and apparently EU regulations allow flight schedule changes of up to 3 hours before they are required to offer a refund, so they are within that limit. I'm thinking my best bet is to eat the cost of the Aeroitalia flights (was about $400) and book new flights on a different airline. It kind of irritates me on principle, but I don't think I'll win that argument unless they happen to issue another delay that puts them over the 3 hour limit. I'm also thinking that 1h25m window is too narrow for comfort, but I've been burned on delayed flights quite a bit lately, so I'm probably a tad paranoid at this point. What say the surly travel pros?