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Ghost of LL

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Ghost of LL

  1. On 3/15/2024 at 6:16 PM, DalTxHornFan said:

    Happy hours at Dukes in Waikiki are a must.  Live music, great drinks, and the very best calamari that you will ever eat.

    I agree with HH at Duke's.  The location with the view straight down Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head in the background is pretty iconic irrespective of anything else.  But yeah--the drinks and calamari are both good.

    Elsewhere on Waikiki Beach, I'd recommend Furusato Sushi.  It's a pretty nondescript location with just a handful of tables and like six seats at the sushi bar.  But the sushi is fantastic.  And the price is shockingly reasonable given the location.

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  2. 2 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

    So they aren’t actually subjects anymore even in the UK? Or they are, but they are citizens also?

    Oh, shit--don't ask me to go research the finer points of British nationality law.

    My memory is very vague on this, because it comes from a neighbor whose mother fell into this category.  So my recitation on the details may be wildly wrong,.

    But yeah--there are still some people who are British subjects who are not British citizens.  But I think it's limited to people who were from British India before independence.  So my neighbor's mother weirdly held a British passport, but could not live in the UK.

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  3. 2 hours ago, statsman said:

    Does the royal family count as citizens? I know that every single other Brit is a subject, not a citizen. If so, they may be the only ones. 

    They've changed that.  People of British nationality became "citizens" rather than "subjects" in 1949 (with some strange gaps that were largely resolved in 1983 relating to the Commonwealth and Overseas Territories).  The Royal Family are all citizens, with the exception of the Sovereign, who is just the sovereign.

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  4. 18 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

    Been on 3 Alaskan cruises in the past 6 years or so.  For Juneau I would definitely recommend whale watching as it's right in the bay so not very far and you will see tons of whales and hopefully some even jump and shit.  I have booked through Gastineau Guiding company and they do a small group tour.  They have a deal where you do the whale watch and then take you to Mendenhall glacier for a hike.  The whale watching in Juneau is great because the same whales hang out there all summer so the tours can find them pretty easily.  For Skagway we did a helicopter to the glacier and went dog sledding.  It was expensive but one of those memorable excursions.  If you do that book the first one in the morning as the weather can cause stuff like that to cancel out.   Ketchikan kind of sucks and I think it rained all 3 times I stopped there.  The best part about the Alaskan cruise is if you go to glacier bay or Hubbard glacier.  Those days are pretty spectacular if you like checking out nature.  

     

    23 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

    Following with interest - after going on our first cruise last year; a 3 day test cruise to the Bahamas out of Canaveral - it was okay), we joined in with my wife's family to to a 10 day Alaska cruise this summer. Holland America - rooms look okay, but they will be small; we upgraded to a aft veranda at the suggestion of the SIL who is putting it all together. The excursions seem pretty blah (we've been whale watching before, it's all just touristy crap), dining reviews seem to be decent and we aren't expecting 5 star meals (really not even 4 star), not sure what we will do all day on the sailing days, but I here you get a decent view of the coastline, sea and winged creatures and some blocks of ice. I am not a big drinker, but I am willing to try it out if it helps pass the time.
    I am afraid if this goes well it could become a regular thing, as both of our parents have passed and it is only things like this that we get together for bigger family gatherings. I think there are about 20 of on this boat, including some from our kids generation. Personally, I think I'd rather see more of the PNW and drive around, but I don't think you can really do that as easy with Alaska.
    Tips for an Alaska cruise are appreaciated - our group age range is 28-74, with most in their 50's-60's. Should I just spice it up by putting the upside down pineapple magnets on each of the groups door?

    Oh, shit--I completely missed that the Alaska cruise was over the summer.  For some reason, I inferred that it was in the next couple weeks.

    If it's over the summer, then you ought to check out when the salmon are running.  Ketchikan sucks generally, but there are plenty of good spots for salmon fishing around there.  Both out of Ketchikan and out of Juneau you could charter three or four boats (that would be enough for a group your size) and spend a half-day out fishing.  And the good/bad thing is that a day of salmon fishing can often turn into a few hours of orca watching (which sucks for catching salmon, because the fish aren't going to hit when they're running like hell from the orcas).  And those orcas have absolutely no fear of a small fishing boat, but they're really very curious.  You'll get really close to those bastards.

    The last time I was up there we went out with Chris Condor on Rum Runner and had a ridiculously good day--we caught so many we had Fish & Game waiting on the dock for us to make sure we didn't exceed our limit and check where they were all caught.  But check in with any of those boats, and they'll round up a whole fleet for your group.

    If the salmon aren't running, then I'd definitely second whale watching out of Juneau (or Ketchikan, though I'm generally less familiar with Ketchikan).  The same boats that run salmon fishing will also do whale watching tours, so you can talk with them about either.

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  5. 16 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:


    Tips for an Alaska cruise are appreaciated - our group age range is 28-74, with most in their 50's-60's. Should I just spice it up by putting the upside down pineapple magnets on each of the groups door?

    For a group that size, you are probably best served taking the cruises shore excursion list, seeing what everyone can agree on, and then running a Google search to set up your own private tours.

    The salmon aren't running right now, so that removes salmon fishing from the itinerary.  So in Juneau, I might just rent a couple large vans and go out to the Mindenhall Glacier, where there are a few manageable hikes.  There are also a few outfits that will take you out on kayaks on the glacier-fed lake, which should have plenty of icebergs this time of year.

    In Sitka, I think you can just take a walking tour of the town on your own with a little bit of Google research on what to see.

    In Skagway, that's where you can schedule yourself your helicopter rides over Glacier National Park.

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  6. 45 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Wait.....Trotsky is dead????  WTF????

    Yep--his blood is still on the fucking ice pick.

    They've got a few other murder weapons in there, including the umbrella used to kill Markov.  But the ice pick is the showpiece of the collection.

  7. 54 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    I disagree, the Boeing leadership was pretty candid about the need to make an air gap between business leadership and engineering. From the excellent 2021 Seattle Times reporting:

    It was the kind of big-picture planning Condit relished. General Electric famously had its headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut, separate from the diverse businesses it owned. As he and Hall talked, Condit became convinced that Boeing needed a similar structure. “Headquarters is supposed to be thinking longer-term: Where are markets going, have we positioned the company correctly, are we developing the right people, what’s the compensation structure that we have? The kind of things that are not how-do-you-design-an-airplane stuff,” as Condit later recalled. “How do you avoid getting deeply engaged in the day-to-day activity, and ignoring those strategic things?”

    Satisfying customers that wanted... Hmmm what was it? Oh yeah, lower costs. SWA wanted a plane with the performance of an A320 neo without needing to train on an entirely new type. Boeing was able to make that plane, but it did not have the same flight profile as the old 737 - that was the entire reason for the MCAS device. It wasn't that the plane was unsafe to fly, it just HAD to handle the EXACT same as the old planes.

    Because if it didn't handle the same, they'd have to retrain the pilots and that would cost more.

    It's a cop out and playing "hide the weasel" to say that Boeing was simply trying to satisfy its customer. Nobody was holding a gun to their collective heads and forcing them to hide critical flight systems and actively block any mention of the system from the flight manual except for a single time in the glossary (Seattle Times on that reporting too). The only reason Boeing made the choice to conceal those changes and ultimately kill several hundred passengers was to protect the low cost for production for the 737MAX, and thus, low cost of procurement for their customers. 

    1) Yeah--that entire justification for moving HQ was lipstick on the pig of seeking tax breaks.  I'm not saying there's no lipstick there.  There definitely is.  But let's be real honest: it's not very attractive to local and state politicians (or their constituents) to say "we're considering moving to your town solely because you're giving us the biggest tax breaks."  I mean, it's true.  But you've got to dress that shit up some.

    2) Keeping the 737 certification on the Max was all about Southwest's costs.  Not Boeing's costs.  Oliver indicates that it was due to the latter, when the reality is that it was due more primarily to the former.

    52 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

    I thought the main motivation for new model vs. new plane was time, that Boeing needed something to compete with the A320 (maybe the A320neo) and that it would take years longer to certify as a new plane rather than a new model. FAA bent right over and said yessir may I have another. 

    No.  Boeing needed an update to compete with the NEO.  But as to whether to build a new model or update the 737, that was a decision made entirely to appease Southwest.

    If Southwest would've signed on to being the launch customer for a 7X7 successor to the 737, Boeing would've gone that route irrespective of the timing.  But it didn't.  Southwest made clear that there would be a competition between the 7X7 and the A320, and Boeing didn't want that.

  8. So I'm just back from DC over Spring Break, because I suppose that as a citizen of the Republic it was required that I take my children to see the monuments and everything at least once.  So just a few quick hits.

    Hotel: We looked at a variety of properties, but we ended up at the Mayflower for two reasons.  First, the location is great, with the Farragut North Metro stop at the end of the block (and the Farragut West stop a block away).  Second, we were able to get a two-room suite for a pretty decent rate.  Not a lot of newer properties have two-bedroom suites anymore, but that's kind of a nice feature when you are traveling with the family.

    That being said, it's an old property that is maybe in need of a renovation.  I mean, it's not that anything is bad.  it's just that the furnishings and the bathroom seem a bit antiquated.  But look--you're staying in a 100-year old hotel; maybe that's part of its deal.

    Restaurants: I'm going to tell you--the second happy hour at Old Ebbitt Grill from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM is hard to beat.  Champagne, martinis, and oysters are all deeply discounted, and the people watching is pretty unparalleled.

    For Spanish, Taberna del Alabardero was really very good.  I think the mains are maybe a bit pricey--a $75 roast suckling pig was great, but . . . it's still just pork.  Perhaps the best plan would be to go there for tapas and then hit up OEG for late-night happy hour oysters.  

    Out in Georgetown, we really liked the Sovereign for both drinks and Sunday brunch.  That's a pretty cool place.

    Museums: The Udvar-Hazy Air & Space annex out at Dulles is really worth the trip.  Goddamn, it's a pain in the ass to get out there.  But it is really super-cool.  It's really remarkable how many one-of-a-kind airplanes they have there.

    Otherwise, the Postal Museum right next to Union Station is worth an hour or two of your time.  I'm not big into postage stamps and stuff, but they have some cool things, including a letter sent from the Titanic (offloaded at Cherbourg), a letter postmarked from the Moon, and a letter sent by an inmate at Auschwitz.  Oh, and an actual British stamp issued under the 1765 Stamp Act that preceded the Revolutionary War.

    The International Spy Museum was a bit controversial.  Mrs.LL and the kids loved it.  I found it just so-so.  It was a bit short on actual artefacts.  Though it did have the ice pick Mercador used to kill Trotsky.  So actually, . . . that was pretty fucking cool.  But unlike other museums in town, it's not free.  And at $30/head, I was a bit underwhelmed.  It helped that we got free admission for two of us with the suite through the hotel.

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  9. On 3/7/2024 at 3:09 PM, Braff Zacklin said:

    They re-upped it this morning.

     

    I'm typically a fan of John Oliver's, but there are a number of points in here that are just plain wrong or are really overexaggerated.  To identify a few:

    1) McDonnell Douglas wasn't a "deathtrap manufacturer."  It's fair to say that the DC-10-10 had some real problems.  But that was 25 years before the Boeing merger.

    The more recent models produced by McDonnell Douglas were both very safe and commercially successful.  The MD-11, which was a revision to the DC-10, is kind of a wonky bird that requires some careful handling on takeoff and landing, but it's perfectly safe and has had relatively few incidents relative to its flight hours.  And the MD-80 family was a great plane.  In a lot of ways, I'd argue it was superior to the 737.  

    2) The HQ move wasn't aimed at getting away from the engineers; it was all about getting a tax break.  Boeing basically put its headquarters out to bid, with the finalists being Chicago and Dallas.  The primary determiner was which city/state was going to give it the most tax breaks.

    I'm not going to argue that getting away from the engineers wasn't a side benefit (from the b-school boys' perspective).  But it wasn't the chief motivator.

    3) It's just wrong to say that keeping the 737 certification on the new model was about costs.  As I pointed out in a post some weeks ago, it was primarily about satisfying customers (chiefly, Southwest Airlines).  

    Absolutely none of which is to say that there isn't a major culture problem at Boeing.  But it is to say that when you get this many details wrong, it's hard for me not to find your conclusions to be suspect.

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  10. So last night I learned from a friend that all of the victims were gay men.  At least that's the story that is circulating in the Austin gay community.

    No idea whether that is the case.  But if it is true, then I'm definitely off Team Accidental Drowning and looking to sign a long-term deal with Team Serial Killer.

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  11. 11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    Ima vote. Does that count?

     

    I don't know.  On a scale of "I'm Totally Chill" to "Brisket-level hysteria," how much of an angsty teenage bitch are you acting like?

    If you're totally chill, then voting is probably enough.  But if you're being an hysterical bitch like Brisket, then I'm going to suggest that you ought to channel your energy in a positive direction by working for a campaign, raising money, or severing the brakes on the cars of MAGA voters.

     

     

    Joking on that last one.

    Or maybe not.

    I'll let you decide.

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  12. 6 minutes ago, Satchel said:

    The corporate media are so lacking in self awareness as to be a pitiful shame. I can recall at this point in the run up to the general in 2016, , they were laser focused on Hillary’s emails and the threat they posed to our national security. Matt Lauer went ape shit on Hillary in an interview about them. Now, they work around Trump’s 91 charges without dilemma. 
     

    We need to go back to the days when news organizations were cost centers.

    Ok.  But let me just say for a minute that I didn't like how Hilary dealt with her emails.  Anyone who has spent any time in public service understand that those documents belong to the government and are public information.  And I don't like how Biden handled some of the material in his custody.  That was just flat negligent.

    But elections are binary choices.  And in that binary choice, there is no equivalency.

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  13. 4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Excellent short-form summary.  Humanity is shit.  It takes a lot of work to treat that shit so that it isn't full of pathogens and disgusting.  It takes very little effort to take another big fat dump into the treatment pool and set the whole damned process back to the very beginning.

    In my youth, I had faith in humanity, and progress, and "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."  MLK was fucking wrong.  The arc of humanity is depraved, and as Jonesy said in the Hunt for Red October, it always "comes home to momma."

    Yep--that is a nice fairy tale the oppressed tell themselves at night to make themselves feel better about their condition.  But it's a lie.  There isn't a moral-universe arc.  There's just power and force and what you can do with it.

    The GQP gets that.

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  14. 8 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

    I told my wife yesterday we’re leaving after our daughter graduates. That kid is tearing through a full slate of AP classes like Michelangelo through a kindergarten finger painting lesson, and mentioned yesterday that she’s interested in UT. To which I responded “Fuck no. No daughter of mine is attending the University of fucking Texas.” Which stunned me when I processed what I had just said and realized I meant every word of it.

    How the fuck did we get here?

    I had a similar conversation with my son this morning, but probably for different reasons.

    It is damned near guaranteed that the 89th Legislature will get rid of tenure at state universities.  And so I explained to him what that's going to mean for the quality of his education and the value of his degree, and he was like "oh, shit."

    And then he asked, "but our football team will still be good, right?"  Yeah, son--because we're now basically Oklahoma.

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  15. 16 minutes ago, Js1 said:

    I can fly back 3-4 times a year to visit my nephews / family. But it’s not going to get better for GoLL and his daughter the next few years. I hope she’s not doing sports bc next thing will be public schools tracking menstruation data 

    Ha--yeah, she's definitely not doing any sports.  She's an arts kid.

    And look--nothing really affects her right now.  When they pass vouchers, our school district will be about the last to be really impacted.  When she needs contraceptives, we'll be able to get them from out of state.  There's really no present reason to uproot the family because I can see what's coming (but not here yet).

    10 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

    Well as much I give people guff for boasting about what generation Texan they are, the one thing they have zero involvement in...I will give you credit for my new band name, "The Nth Generation Czechs."  We're kind of a bluegrass meets polka thing.  

    And I'd pay to go see that band.

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  16. 1 hour ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

    So glad I left in 2019. Seriously. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence who is under 50 will get the fuck out of the shithole Texas has become.

    My friend, Mrs.LL and I will be joining you in NYC in just a few years.  I have to get the youngest out of the house and safely into college (she's in 7th Grade now).  But once that's done, I can get the fuck out of this shithole and never fucking look back.

    And by the way, I'm a 6th Generation Texan.  Saying that pains me.  But then I remember that one set of great-grandparents were Nth Generation Czechs; another set of ancestors were once Nth Generation English.  But they all figured out at some point that they needed to leave the shithole they were in to seek their entertainment and fortunes elsewhere.  And it won't take six more generations for my descendants to wonder "why the fuck did our family ever live in Texas?"

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  17. 11 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

     

    so they do their own road maintenance, fire dept, police dept? Seems like at a smaller scale, those things would be more expensive. What am I missing?

    The neighborhood is kind of unique in that it was fully built out decades before annexation.  So the roads and utilities were already built out.  Austin Water would continue to do the utilities; road maintenance would be done by the MUD through a contractor (road maintenance on neighborhood streets is really pretty cheap).  Police would be through the sheriff; fire through West Lake Hills (as it functionally currently is).

    That being said, there is only a slight break on the taxes.  Properties that are disannexed would still be on the hook for debt service on debt incurred while those properties were part of the City.

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  18. 15 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    If you want some really light bedtime reading it’s fun to dig into the ways countries with less robust nuclear deterrents seek to ensure they retain uncertainty and a reliable second strike capability. (Briefly: There’s a good argument to be less persnickety with launch authority). 

    Google "Letters of Last Resort."  It's a very British way of dealing with this issue.

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