The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[StarWarsGirl]

When I first read this I saw "This google thing for food prep..."...!!!

Google is always good for food prep...and homework help...

 

[Cesar R M]

TRIP REPORT UPDATE

Day 3 Part 1 - Fort Lauderdale.

Spoiler: September 3: Part 1

After a good night of sleep, we were prepared to leave the hotel.

We decided to pack everything and then head out to check the beach of Miami one more time before leaving.



As you can see, the view pretty!
The walkway! We noticed a lot of runners and people doing exercise using this wooden road.

















So after enjoying and walking for a bit. We returned to the hotel and picked up our bags.

We then got down to check out. We mentioned again that the safe was not working (no power) and thus they did not charge us for the safe deposit charge.

Now we only needed to wait for the Uber to arrive and onwards Fort Lauderdale we went!

We were definitively excited!


TUNE IN FOR Day 3 PART 2 NEXT!!!

 

[Cesar R M]

I have officially decided there will be no more technology at work for today. We will be sending out all job ads via snail mail and they will be handwritten. That is all.

let me guess, most of your emails are somehow ending in limbo and others claiming they never got them (aka the spam trap)?

 

[StarWarsGirl]

let me guess, most of your emails are somehow ending in limbo and others claiming they never got them (aka the spam trap)?

No, stupid Windows on my work computer decided while I was working was a good time to start the update. This was after I got here and it tried to update when I turned it on, and I had to abort the update because it got stuck. And an automated HR campaign we were doing this morning didn't work because of technology.

I want wine.

 

[Cesar R M]

No, stupid Windows on my work computer decided while I was working was a good time to start the update. This was after I got here and it tried to update when I turned it on, and I had to abort the update because it got stuck. And an automated HR campaign we were doing this morning didn't work because of technology.

I want wine.

yikes...
Remember you can force windows to delay the installations UNTIL NEXT REBOOT.
By default its set to install immediately.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

yikes...
Remember you can force windows to delay the installations UNTIL NEXT REBOOT.
By default its set to install immediately.

Well, I don't have administrator status on this computer, so not much I can do...but I lost about two hours because of this stupid computer.

 

[Mr Ferret 75]

No, stupid Windows on my work computer decided while I was working was a good time to start the update. This was after I got here and it tried to update when I turned it on, and I had to abort the update because it got stuck. And an automated HR campaign we were doing this morning didn't work because of technology.

I want wine.

Don't forget the chocolate !

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Don't forget the chocolate !

Thanks to going to Hershey Park last weekend, there's plenty of that too.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Well, I don't have administrator status on this computer, so not much I can do...but I lost about two hours because of this stupid computer.

Yea, the latest Window update was a particularly long one. I don't remember any that were quite that long in the past. Worst part is that I don't see any significant change to anything at all.

 

[Cesar R M]

TRIP REPORT: Day 3 Part 2

And the Oasis gets closer!

Spoiler: September 3 Part 2

We got to the uber.
The trip was pleasant, our driver was a very nice black dude from Puerto Rico.
Had also a nice car.

The trip was mostly uneventful other than my mother deciding to start a political talk about Trump (oh dear..)
He was clearly republican but hated Trump. So thinks didnt go as bad. (My mother is conservative in terms of religion and sexuality/abortion but very liberal in terms of politics, so there was some clashes)
I somehow managed to derail the conversation into other things..

Anyway we were finally approaching Fort Lauderdale.

And problems started.
The Uber app suddenly changed the "Royal Caribbean" Port address of the Oasis of the Seas from Dock 8 to Dock 21. On the other side.. and then some things happened that I really baffled me.


We were getting close to the "Security stop" for the port.
Which looks like those Toll boxes but with cameras and security officers.

We approached entry #3 in the middle. And we were greeted by a white woman with attitude (she clearly was bored of her work, angry at something or dunno) But what happened next was BAD.

First, she asked and DEMANDED to know what the man (our driver) wanted. He provided the information that he was Uber driver (he even had the logos in his car).

She was skeptic and demanded paperwork. We scrambled to get all papers we could. Including our Visas, Passports, Printed papers for the Oasis of the Seas.

The woman was still not budging and claimed she "didnt know Uber". Our driver did show the app and the information, but the woman was still not accepting anything of that and started to shout.

The driver was getting desperate trying to explain her what uber is, I did show her also my app to show her that he was driving us in like a taxi.
Well I dont know what the hell but she insulted the man because now then both were bickering at each other (our driver was still not shouting or anything like that).
The woman then got the classic annoying "May I talk to the Manager" snotty face and called a Sheriff deputy.

The deputy was also white. We were moved on the side on the returning lane. We again tried to explain everything but the officer didn't gave a damn. Claiming we were doing a "ruckus" and "illegally blocking the way". Didn't get most of the exchange but there was clearly racism involved as the officer had always his hand on the pistol like ready to fire at our driver while he was trying to explain calmly.

The officer still didn't gave a darn on the proof as well and told us to GTFO or he will be arresting ALL of us.

My mother of course panicked and the driver just took us away from the officer and see if another uber driver could help us or call another taxi.
We still had 1 hour in our boarding window but we didn't want to take any chances.
After 15 minutes of struggling to get signal to call another uber or a taxi. I and the driver suggested to try again in another entrance on the same road.
We got to entrance #6 or 7 (not sure which, but it was on the opposite side) on the SAME entryway. Where a black officer was checking.
Our driver was "hey dude, we're from Uber and leaving these people on the Oasis of the Seas, heres the paperwork"
the officer was all " aah yeah Uber, The oasis is that way" after reviewing our papers.. (note that this was a black officer, and not a single minute he found himself annoyed or threatened like the white officer did.)

That gave me a very sour taste amplified by something I seen in the same area (Fort Lauderdale, beach zone) on my last day, which will explain on the respective day report.

Anyway, we were let in with no issue by this nice port authority officer. Then again our driver followed the Uber GPS route. Which was WRONG again.
So he drove to the dock 21, which was obviously closed and empty.
And I had to give instructions to the driver ( I mean he was blindly following the GPS and MAP route instead of following his eyes on the monstrous ship!, He was obviously still shaken for what we witnessed).


Anyway after 2 correct turns, we finally reached to the Royal Caribbean port Dock 8, which was full to the seams of taxis, shuttles, etc..etc..
The driver left us in a very convenient spot almost next to the entrance door. and right next to the baggage handlers.
So we gave us the bags to the handlers.. and then something that I really hate happened.
These people were DEMANDING tips.
Not asking nicely, just put an angry face with their hand out. and I'm like..what the hell..

Anyway, we walked a bit on to the terminal (which was utter chaos. You have to walk past the handlers moving pretty big carts full of baggage. Also, more than once people almost got trampled. All because they didn't see a cart coming their way).

Despite the crowds, the lines moved fairly quickly. You were divided according to your class and cabin type.

And each line had multiple security lines to check you (like airport).

Once inside, you were the terminal which had a big room with a bunch of booths in circular pattern. Full of computers and Royal staff processing all visitors and giving them their papers AND sea pass card.

After passing this area (which was pretty fast), including a photo of you for the records.
We went to take an "official" photo in the center of the circle. Then we were sent towards the waiting area.

We didn't have to wait anything as our number appeared in the screens as we finished the photo session.



Boarding the Immense Oasis of the Seas!


The entrance was anticlimatic. As they only check your card, make sure you're in the system and inside you go. Only a quick "HI Welcome". Big let down compared to Disney's lol.

Anyway, you enter right in the royal Promenade. Which is.. well, surprising! its like a floating mall with bars and restaurants.





We decided to go upstairs to check our room. I always have the tendency of "location" first. So we found and meet our Cabin staff. A very attentive man. not 100% sure if he was from Croatia or a country around there.. Hell Im not sure but he could be even from Lebanon.
He spoke a bit of spanish so we could communicate perfectly fine.


our room




After leaving our bags, we decide to go again to the royal promenade to get our coca cola lifestyle bottles and we decided to head to the WindJammer to see how it was.

Bad idea.. seems 95% of all the ship visitors were congregating there to eat. People were even eating outside in the windjammer entrance.

Yikes!


We decided to bail and walk around the ship towards the Solarium. Which I remember reading its the recommended to go place on embarkation day. And they were right. The place was lovely, relaxing and really pretty!




We relaxed and ate some of the food offered. Tasty and simple!


We also roamed around the highest available deck for normal cruisegoers (the higher areas were diamond level and suite level only If I remember correctly)

And we took a few photos. That military ship was interesting to see.




Thats all for now

TUNE IN FOR DAY 3 PART 3!!!

 

[Figgy1]

Well, I don't have administrator status on this computer, so not much I can do...but I lost about two hours because of this stupid computer.

Sympathy like, wine sounds good

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Yea, the latest Window update was a particularly long one. I don't remember any that were quite that long in the past. Worst part is that I don't see any significant change to anything at all.

On my tablet, it fixed an issue I was having where nothing would print. But other than forcing Cortana on me, it didn't do much. I'm thinking I'll probably have to restore my tablet back as well because it keeps going into hibernate at random, and I already checked the power settings, and it's not supposed to do that. Of course this means I'll probably have to install the update a second time...

 

[Figgy1]

Thanks to going to Hershey Park last weekend, there's plenty of that too.

I remember one trip back before Chocolate World opened and you could take the monorail over to tour the factory they sold Hershey bars for 1/2 price. Slightly off center labels but who cared it was chocolate

 

[Figgy1]

On my tablet, it fixed an issue I was having where nothing would print. But other than forcing Cortana on me, it didn't do much. I'm thinking I'll probably have to restore my tablet back as well because it keeps going into hibernate at random, and I already checked the power settings, and it's not supposed to do that. Of course this means I'll probably have to install the update a second time...

Sympathy like

 

[donaldtoo]

Half-day Friday...!!!!!

 

[donaldtoo]

Time for ketchup...!

 

[Cesar R M]

On my tablet, it fixed an issue I was having where nothing would print. But other than forcing Cortana on me, it didn't do much. I'm thinking I'll probably have to restore my tablet back as well because it keeps going into hibernate at random, and I already checked the power settings, and it's not supposed to do that. Of course this means I'll probably have to install the update a second time...

I can latter offer you a teamviewer session so I can check your power settings.

 

[Gabe1]

Student teaching doesn't pay. !

And Student Teaching is actually a great example of acceptable work without pay. Generally student teaching is a semester (here anyways) vs classroom courses being taken at a University. It is to be that semester's learning experience versus job history/employment/intern. The rubric is 'Is there already an employee being paid to fill that position and no additional employee's need to be hired if an intern wasn't doing the work.' That is the case with Student Teachers. School Districts do not fire or layoff the classroom teacher when assigning a student teacher. The classroom teacher should be watching, mentoring and guiding skills learned at their University. But if the student teacher was out sick, quit, died whatever, there is someone qualified already assigned to the particular classroom. Student teaching is more a professional courtesy to Universities and actually the schools do not benefit from the student being in a classroom as someone is already being paid to be a professional teacher. Now when someone NEEDS an intern to get everything done or they would have to hire someone that part of the rubric lends itself to being a paid position. That is what the labor board is now cleaning up the same way they are cleaning up low budget salaried employees required to work overtime without pay, thus making less than minimum wage when broken down to hours worked. Now the threshold for no overtime will be $47,500.00 salary, January 2017. Employers were just finding too many loop holes that needed to be revisited.

Hope that clears it up for you.

 

[Gabe1]

Time for ketchup...!

View attachment 166173

Love it!

 

[donaldtoo]

Allright, TRIP REPORT AHOY

Spoiler: AUGUST 31 - day 1

After all the drama to get things ready, It was time to leave!
The day was August 31. We had planned at least 3 nights at Miami Beach on the Lexington Hotel (formerly Days Inn Ocean Front) at Miami Beach. But Life as always a way to change your plans on the fly.

Woke up very early as our flight was supposed to depart at 9:45 am Local time. We finished our bags and off we went.
My sister graciously agreed to deliver us to the Airport. Things didnt go very smoothly. As her car was "fixed" recently, including a very deep repair on the brakes. Because they were failing. While we were on the road, the car started to make some NASTY banging noises right on the front wheels. So my sis decided to call her husband and drive slowly.

We arrived to the airport on time. We waited until my sister finally contacted her hubby to get the car towed and fixed. Once things were allright, we went inside the airport.
We had no issues passing thru security and we found our gate quite easily. There was a not so much people.
And the problems started.. We waited.. and waited.. and waited.. The plane was now delayed by 30 minutes.. ( not bad, as we had a 2 hour connection time in Mexico City). And there are ALWAYS delays on Mexico city for ALL PLANES.

So we decided to find something to eat while we waited. We decided to eat some quick pizza because we only had 20 minutes now until the plane arrived.
We ate some SBarro branded pizza.. and we immediately regretted it.
Third time in a row the pizza felt bad on my stomach, second on my mother. So we finally concluded their pizzas are ALWAYS BAD.
And we will NEVER buy there EVER EVER.

Anyway, after finishing our food, we headed back to the gate area and a quick bathroom trip later we sit down in the waiting area.
The plane finally arrived 45 minutes late.
Everything went smoothly so far..
We boarded, we put our stuff, and waited for the Plane to fill out.
The Internet plane was a russian made with French-Russian engines, Think of it a smaller Airbus 319 in a 3-2 seat configuration.
There was plenty of space between the seats, and the thing was comfy. But it felt a bit "used". The most apparent damage was the upper compartments for baggage, which had peeling of wear and tear on the bottom of them.
Anyway, the plane was pulled from the gate and put in the taxiway so the preparation to fly started..
The wings were tested, engine #2 was turned on..and then we waited..and waited.. and waited.. then I told my mother.. "something is wrong, engine #1 is NOT starting, no vibration, no noise.. this is not normal". My mother said "oh Cesar, dont be such a pesimist". Yeah right.. mere 2 minutes after I told her.. the Captain said nervously in spanish "Dear Passagers, We apologize for the delays, but we might have some problems with engine#1, we're going to make some checks to see if its only the computer onboard and make sure its not something mechanical". So the plane was returned to a secondary gate, and we waited.. and waited.. then we were told to deplane.. as they were still waiting for a certified mechanic to check the engine.
15 minutes later, The plane had its cowling doors on engine #1 all open. And a technician was checking the issues.

View attachment 165268

I decided to pass the time talking to the gate airline "manager". Who was enthusiastic yet completely clueless. As he was insisting the engines of this plane were "General Electric" (hint, they are not). Also promised us that all our problems would be resolved in Mexico city at the Interjet offices. (Yeah right)

After 20 minutes, the mechanic closed the doors and I noticed they were testing the engine at high power levels (even at the gate we could hear the ROAR of the engine).
The engine was tested for 20 minutes more.. until we got the go ahead.. we were now 2 hours delayed... Good bye connection flight.
We were obviously ****ed.
Anyway, we took off towards Mexico city, we arrived VERY LATE because the traffic was very high as well.
As soon we touched down, the plane stopped on one of the taxiways.. and waited and waited.. turns out 4 other planes had priority for gates.. so we lost another 20 minutes further. And seen the last Interjet planes take off while on the taxiway.. there goes our plane!.

We had to scramble and find what other solutions we had.. hint.. NOONE.
Since Interjet doesn't have any code share and doesn't have any other later flight... We had to pass a night in Mexico city.

Once we deplaned and headed to ask for information. We found Mexican bureaucracy at work.
First, they lost our bags.. They could not find them because we were supposed to be on a connection flight.
They took almost 1 hour to find them.
Then the office of the airline, which was near the baggage section didn't gave a darn about our issues.. told us to get out of the baggage zone, go to the public area outside the airport security section and go to the main office frontdesk of the Airline. Which had huge lines for many clients who also lost connection flights.
After dealing with an overworked and clearly fed up manager (who had a very angry tall lady telling she was going to hire a hitman to kill him for their terrible service.. I kid you not).. we waited, and waited and waited.. you wonder why we had to wait so much? not a single of the workers there could give vouchers or new flights. They had to call the main corporate office so an executive could accept them(see what I mean about useless Mexican style bureaucracy?). And finally we had our vouchers, tickets, and planes (all of them had to be separately accepted by different officials, sealed and sent to multiple offices, branches, people, leaders and appropriate offices).

They gave us voucher for a local next to the airport hotel. This hotel was a 4 star one. Very good and pricey for the city (150 USD pernight). And also gave us vouchers for lunch and dinner.
Turns out, the lunch one was useless because by the time we got picked up by the shuttle. It was almost night.

Anyway, the hotel rooms were VERY comfy. And I thanked for for the extra clothes I had in tow.
We took a small nap until we were ready to dinner. (because we had to wake up at 4:20 am to get the 5:00 am shuttle to get to the airport by 6:00 and leave to Miami at 7:30am)

Dinner was very good. They had a big buffet with plenty of tasty offers.

We got to bed and set everything ready to wake up early (including 2 alarms, because we were exhausted..)

Woke up a bit earlier (infact, I couldnt sleep much, went to the restroom and the alarm hit. so I woke up my mom. I showered got ready and we're good to go.)
Interesting thing about Mexico city, if it gets cloudy and rains a bit. It can get VERY COLD at nights. It was cold but not that bad.
Anyway, waited for the shuttle, arrived to the airport, checked our bags and to the airport we went.

Interestingly part is. IT was the first time that we enter the farthest left side of the airport (old international flights section, which was revamped and added many stores/food sections).

It was fun to see huge groups of kids going to Orlando. Clearly for Disneyworld and Universal Studios.
Including some canadian school members (from Canada, to Mexico to Orlando?).
Anyway, we boarded our plane on time (Airbus A320).. plane left the gate, was taxied.. and waited.. and waited and waited.. turns out, there were more than 30 planes waiting to depart almost at the same timelines.. worse is.. again the national airline of Mexico (aeromexico) was getting priority again and again (for every 1 flight or other companies, 5 aeromexico planes departed). So we lost another 45 minutes in the taxiway.. slooowly moving to the takeoff zone.
To make things worse.. one of the main runways was not being used.. (why? seriously?, no construction workers.. nothing!)
Anyway...

The plane finally took off


The departure was absolutely gorgeous, to see the cloud formations with the sun coming out. definitively inspiring.
View attachment 165270


To resume..
Do not fly Sukhoi Superjet 100;s, They shake worse than old DC9's with no stabilizers, worse than Embraer's on stormy days,. Are almost as noisy as 727's and for my experience.. their reliability is crap.

Stay tunned for the next parts.. as we arrived to MIAMI (MIA) International Airport

Woof...what a beginning to y'alls adventure...!!!!!
Especially love the flight video. Everyone here knows how much I love to fly, especially takeoff...!
Sounds like y'all would have been better off flying ancient, but, superbly reliable DC-3's...!!!
And yep, any plane that's as loud as an old Boeing 727, with basically turbojets, as opposed to today's high-bypass turbofans, needs to be avoided if at all possible...!