Cup of Coffee

December 15, 2017: Quick Jaunt

67 Comments

I was going to miss out on that coveted silver airline status by roughly 120 miles (out of 25,000). I fly just enough where it's a pain not to have it as I'm taller and need the legroom (all the legroom!). Anyway, I'm flying to a nearby hub for a matter of hours then flying back. At about $100, that's $500 cheaper than the option to just buy my way across the finish line. Also, it's cheaper as 2 one-way flights than round trip. Weird system all around.

67 thoughts on “December 15, 2017: Quick Jaunt”

    1. mine's some stupid thing where there are miles, and then there are miles (which are what i needed). i could've done an upgrade for more miles on my flight earlier this week for about that price, but to get the lowest amount possible of miles, it would've been an extra $500 for the accccceeeeelllllerator.

    2. I fly a lot from H'istan to Minny, but in general am disappointed in Delta's miles program. I have Delta SkyMiles Gold card, and use it a lot, but feel that whenever I go to redeem the miles/points for a flight, it's a rip-off. It's like I need double miles or suchat to book a flight. Rip. Off.

  2. Such a weird system. My dad informed me that he'll be platinum next year and apparently he'll be "gifting" me silver status for 2018. I'll take it, but it's ridiculous. (Also, I promise not to take seats with extra legroom from those who actually need it.)

    1. Eh, with silver on my airline, it just means you can upgrade for free to economy plus* at time of check-in, so roughly 24 hours before. If it's still around by then, go snatch it up.

      * In case you couldn't tell, i'm italicizing what I see as ridiculous.

  4. So, Cole Aldrich finally notched a non-DNP, and the Wolves win. Coincidence? I think not. Wolves are 17-12, currently 4th place in the West, with ~30% of the season complete.
    -And-
    Wild with their 4th win in a row. They are 7-3-0 in their past 10 games (17-11-3 overall), good for the first Wild Card spot, and also with approx. 2/3 of the season remaining.

    1. There were some MVP chants from the next section to where I was sitting when he scored last night. Why were all the starters back in with six minutes left?

    3. The Wolves have won four of five, and I unfortunately attended the loss. So irritating. Now I've got an excuse to get to another one soon, though. Gotta clean that taste out of my mouth.

  5. Your daily dose of Schadenfreude - Specifically for those working within the realm of Daubert and motions in limine, but also for anyone here who's ever known a completely unqualified candidate offered a promotion, only to see them flub the interview, this is almost too uncomfortable to watch ... almost. I'll give a pseudo-FZ warning, because of the video's title, but it's not really political.

    2. A (long) while ago, I went to a cheque-printing company in Arden Hills (do they even exist anymore - who writes cheques?) to interview for a VP in I.T. job.

      HR Dude goes through kind-of-standard interview questions, then leans over and tips a rectangular plastic dealie-bob on his desk that has different color oils/liquids swishing around.

      He: so what do you see happening in this device?
      Me: Umm... (I see myself getting up and walking out of here)

      2. I interviewed with same company in treasurer's department. Interviewed with assistant treasurer who I would have reported to. She looked at my resume and said, "Wow! Look at all that education and certifications. I didn't even go to college." I did not take the job.

    1. I should point out that even in the 22 cases where he needed his speed, in some of those cases, he STILL needed something else.

      For example, in another 5 star play, he needed to cover an extra 7 feet, but this was a short-run play, so even though his extra sprint speed helped, it wasn’t enough. In those cases, he needed his quickness and/or burst of speed to cover the rest beyond his speed.

      So, the breakdown looks like this for Buxton:
      11: only speed needed
      7: speed + quickness+burst both used
      4: still-to-determine
      3: only quickness+burst used
      —
      25

          1. They're nice for being able to eat 20 slices. Everything else is terrible. I don't want to have to use a fork to keep my hands clean.

          3. We didn't call it "party cut" or anything stupid like that. We just called it "pizza." That's the way George's served pizza. When you grow up with something, it seems pretty normal.

            btw, they aren't "slices", they are "pieces". You wanna be all fancy and have a slice, you can just go to NYC.

              1. pfft. Small-town folk putting on airs, thinking their better than us. "Slice" is city talk.

                [There their they're thayer]

        2. Your linking to the Austin paper reminded me that, during Thanksgiving, we were down in A.L., and as there were a lot of lawn signs in Albert Lea saying 'Save Our Hospital', I asked the MIL wassup?

          Sounds like The Mayo (Corporate_Greed.gif) is looking to consolidate in-patient operations with Austin or just move them to Rochester.

          The MIL was livid in that just last year they got the City Of to approve a fully equipped ambulance centre in A.L., and now they are shuttering Naeve and telling folks to drive to Spamtown or Mayoville. Not happy campers.

          This could seriously affect property values for a large region - who wants to live in a place where you have to drive more than an hour for a routine (or serious) surgery.

            1. An old h.s. friend was a doctor in Spamtown for years. He's a right-wing godsquadder, but probably a good doctor (certainly a smart guy). He got fed up with Mayo and left a couple of years ago, moving his practice somewhere up north to escape their bureaucratic clutches.

          2. This is happening all over. Maintaining a variety of infrastructure and staffing for higher-order medical services is expensive. Big incentives to consolidate and shift costs onto consumers (such as having to travel farther). Small-town America is up shit crick without a paddle.

    2. The funny thing about this is I grew up in a tiny little town and for a while we had a totally local non-chain place that served pizza just the way they described it. I never thought of it as Minnesota-style pizza (and had not even heard of that term until after I left Minnesota), but I feel like there might be a small bit of truth to it, even though it's not particularly ubiquitous.

      1. I'm with you. I've had it in Lake and Cabin country (Breezy Point at the Commander Bar), and I've had it in the farming south (Courtland at Swany's Pub).
        I think that Heggie's Pizza may count as this, too.
        I can't speak at all if it is or isn't found elsewhere in the US.

  9. Rodney says he wears his cap tilted to the left side of his head as a tribute to his father — Ulise Rodney — who died six days before Fernando made his major league debut with the Tigers in 2002. Ulise was a fisherman in the Dominican Republic and wore his cap tilted to the side because “that's the side the sun hits his face.”

  10. Any of youse have thoughts on kichen knives? I’ve decided to purchase some new cutlery in the new year. Our henkels knifes are just not that good, and the assortment of shitty Costco industrial cookware are worse. I’ve been looking at Zhen knives which are Taiwanese finished Japanese vg10 steel. The good doctor sometimes isn’t as careful as she should be with the cutlery as in they sometimes end up in the dishwasher. (We’re working through this....). Any suggestions, folks.

    1. I think (like you've pointed out) that the care of, and sharpening of, a knife is as important as the knife itself. When I bought my Pit Barrel Smoker in H'istan, I treated myself to a Wüsthof (think Solingen) carving blade (7" Santoku), and that baby is not going to be chopping carrots and will never see the dishwasher or soap.

    2. VG-10 is on the brittle side, so if the knife is likely to be handled/used by parties with varying levels of care, the Zhen might not be the best choice.

      I have a mixed set. My Henkels from culinary school are nearing twenty and could use a thorough resharpening, but have held up admirably. They'll never be the sharpest knives available, but their durability means I don't think twice about most uses. The others are Shun Classics, which are solid and were priced as acceptable reaches when we got them. I believe they were an Alton Brown recommendation a decade ago.

      I'd check out the MAC MTH-80. I've heard so much praise for MACs over the years that I should really treat myself to one someday. The edge retention should be better than an old-school German blade, while the knife itself should be more durable than a traditional Japanese knife. It's not a true stainless knife, so you'll want to rinse it after cutting acidic food.

      I hate Globals; the handles are atrocious. I don't understand how people hang on to them. Apparently some seriously misguided people love them. YMMV.

      In the end, you should handle a bunch before deciding, ideally in a setting where you can use them a bit. Even the best knife is no good if you're not comfortable holding it. That's a recipe for disaster.

      1. I defer to CH's professional experience. I have both Henckels and some Chicago Cutlery and some of the Costco shit and some Deglons, all of which work just fine for me.

        I am not adept at manual sharpening, so I swear by my Chef's Choice. The Mrs refuses to use the steel at all, so that is left to me to remediate....

        My Chicago Cutlery is soft. The Henckels are very hard. The Costco is very thin. All can be sharpened to do the job.

    3. "Any of youse have thoughts on..."

      I think we've established that whether the words that come after that phrase are "square cut pizza", "[forbidden zone]", or "cargo shorts", the answer is "a whole crapton of them, actually".

      1. Short exposure to southerners at a few formative times in my youth quickly convinced me that the plural of "you" is "y'all" (and that a sweetened sparkling beverage without alcohol is a "soda").

          1. In my recollection, "All Y'all" is for a larger collective, particularly when distinction needed between a few who had already been addressed personally.

            1. My grandmother in Springfield, Missoura, referred to a group of people in plural as you'ins.

              You'ins and us'ins, and them'ins.

        3. In Georgia and surrounds it's all Coke. In Texas and Oklahoma it's soda. In the Midwest and back east, it's just pop. In western Kansas, I've heard it called sodee-pop, as in there's a machine with sodee-pop down to the filling station. So all y'all are right, depending on what you consider south.

          1. At the lake growing up, there were some Okies visiting with one of the neighbors. I remember playing night games (like 12 o'clock Rock) and they would say stuff like 'we need more pliers', meaning players.

          2. My parents grew up in NE Nebraska. When I was a kid in Spamtown, I can recall my Dad very distinctly referring to "pop" at a soda fountain as "Coke" -- e.g., orange Coke, Cherry Coke, etc.

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