VibeGuy

The odds of getting a Whataburger that looks like that are about the same as getting a rail-thin supermodel next to you in the middle airplane seat.

Their steadfast refusal to bring back the Monterrey Melt is a targeted personal affront.

* single patties only, bacon and cheese available at an additional cost plus 18% service charge

From the “Wasn’t Expecting To See That” today file: Legendary Texas-centric purveyor of greasy cheeseburgers is teasing this in their social media today. I’m genuinely intrigued to see what they cook up here.

The items listed as laundry don’t get hand-finished with pressing, aside from woven shirts like men’s dress shirts.

Same. I send out laundry every day, and we’re on board for four to six weeks at a time. I’ve had one damaged item (a pair of cheap linen trousers that probably didn’t like aggressive spotting) and literally hundreds of items that came back at least as nice as my local dry cleaner. The one quirk I hate is that sometimes they fold the jeans like creased trousers (seams stacked), when I prefer mine to have the front pockets touching. If that’s the biggest beef I have with my laundry service, life is good. I also would like the option of having t-shirts pressed (they usually just hang them without hand finishing) These aren’t Target specials either. Our dress shirts and my t-shirts are made to measure. Our formalwear and suits are, as well. So I’m trusting them with really nice fabrics from Canclini, Alumo, Loro Piana, Lanaficio Carlo Barbera, etc. (To those of you who know me IRL, just know it costs a lot of money to look this cheap, with apologies to Dolly Parton - I like nice things). They’ve fixed minor issues and replaced buttons as well. I feel very well taken care of.

So I’m infuriated enough to do some reading. Assuming CBP isn’t lying about TVS (which is only supposed to keep the actual photos of US nationals for 12 hours, and reduce the stored data to a biometric hash), the system that *can* and does keep US nationals photos is DHS IDENT - and the retention of those photos is consistent with the privacy policy of the various trusted traveler programs - they explicitly say they collect and store photos (as opposed to just machine-readable biometric hashes). This is all well and good, it’s a voluntary program, etc. But I could swear there aren’t supposed to be any non-government users of the IDENT data. The PIA for IDENT is here: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/privacy-pia-cbp-002e-january2020.pdf I’m trying to figure out who is allowed access to IDENT. More to come.

The photo from the card in my case was taken with a handheld Logitech golf-ball webcam long after they were obsolete, but what pops up on CBP screens is my most recent passport photo. The idea that my sweaty, disheveled GE kiosk photos are out in the wild being shared with offshore developers via Carnivore is infuriating.

CBP and the line certainly have an information sharing agreement, but I never would have assumed it included CBP photo data. What is particularly bothersome about this is that CBP has an explicit policy that the kiosk photo data is deleted within 12 hours for US nationals. Further, I knew I read this somewhere: “Secure Storage: Facial images are encrypted and stored only in secure DHS systems and, for a brief period of time, in a secure cloud environment for comparison against travelers’ historical photos. CBP’s approved partners such as airlines, airport authorities, and cruise lines are not permitted to retain any photos taken for the purpose of identity verification through the TVS, for their own business purposes.” Source: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/biometrics/biometric-exit-faqs Someone’s got some serious explaining to do. The photos Princess takes can certainly be used for their own business purposes, but this is clearly a giant stinking violation of their Travellers Verification Service licenses. Please make a giant stink of this, as I don’t trust Carnivore Corporation to get data privacy all that right given their preferred application development partner. There’s absolutely no excuse for this.

They’re in the process of turning it into a Courtyard based on the property code so breakfast won’t be free (not even for me as an Unobtanium Elite - I get $10), but I suspect it’s going to be a few months.

All four of my aforementioned Discovery sailings were since January 6, with the most buffet variety and best quality I’ve had in the 44 years I’ve been sailing Princess.

For anyone who stumbles across this: the hotel has changed ownership and brands and is now the Zone Hotel Seattle Airport and is available via the Marriott Bonvoy reservations network.

Leadless and that small? Wow. Medtronic thinks of *everything*. In the manual at https://wwwp.medtronic.com/crs-upload/letters/401/401_Micra_AV_Implant_Manual_with_Medical_Procedure_and_EMI_Precautions.pdf, there’s a set of tables starting at page 30 There’s a specific answer! Table 9 references the Disney Magic Band (same tech for the tap function) - no restriction on the band itself, six inches on the reader. An earlier table does confirm that small magnets also have a six inch restriction. I’m most impressed you can have an MRI with it in place and there’s not a whole lot of technical restrictions. For what it’s worth, I keep mine in my trouser pocket. I don’t like things around my neck or on my wrist and I don’t need to advertise my loyalty status - but this has been an interesting read and I am glad Medtronic has even addressed the most commonly worn NFC device!

An ICD/pacemaker magnet weighs a ton - the magnet in a medallion is barely as strong as refrigerator magnet. Given that you can “hear” when your device is in “magnet mode” and the magnet is VERY weak, I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s putting RF energy into the leads that is the bigger risk - but there’s not much energy coming out of a Medallion. The emissions are at 13.56 MHz (active only when tapping, with a return power of about 2mW), and at 2.4GHz at 10mW for beaconing/Bluetooth LE operation. This is substantially lower than a modern smartphone in these ranges. Your wife’s EP should be able to confirm this safety with the device rep given this data. Modern leads and modern devices are pretty tolerant because everybody has mobile phones and tablets radiating like mad.

I suspect if you asked about scones on the first breakfast, they might be able to make an appearance on subsequent days. They’re very accommodating.

I’ve never been able to figure out how to get t-shirts finished with pressing, even when I just lump them with golf shirts.

Our turnaround since the restart has been consistently “back tomorrow evening before dinner” if it goes out by 9 AM. here’s a reasonably current laundry slip - items on the right get pressed, items on the left are hung or folded without pressing, aside from cotton dress shirts.

Depends on the ship as well - I am *not* a dinner-in-the-WFM/HC person, and I was shocked by how many times in a month we did just that on Discovery. We’d just been on Diamond for three weeks - maybe once. But Discovery was the best buffet dining I’ve experienced on any ship of any North American line.

My favourite one of all time was from Côte d’Ivoire, which was absolutely beautifully written in longhand.

Crown is curtain-free.

On my two Ocean to Ocean sailings in the last 12 months, on Princess, passports have been collected and handed to the Panamanian authorities. They were individually examined and stamped, causing on one voyage a two hour delay in leaving Fuerte Amador because the authorities still had 600 to go when the last tender was scheduled. It was very much a return to the Old Days and the Administrative Officer onboard was going prematurely grey over it, especially after some clumsy handling nearly sent one of those 3x3x6 rolling cages, filled with trays of passports, into the marina harbour. I have distinct stamps for both entries, one hand, one mechanical, with particular notation that the entries are by cruise ship.

The US doesn’t have a six month validity rule and the Colombian 6 months is a “strongly suggested” per the State Departmenr, but Colombia is not one of the ports where the passports are presented for individual examination. The only port on this itinerary where the actual passport books are examined and stamped for cruise passengers is Panama and they’re 90 day. The problems with Princess’ boilerplate are legendary at this point. Once upon a time their reservations staff had solid resources to back up their answers but they seem to make stuff up with impunity these days. The Princess website says “Many countries require passports be valid for six months after the completion of your travel.”. This is a factual statement. Many of them do. None on this itinerary do. Princess may have a policy on this, but it’s not based on any legal requirements of the visited countries.

Princess did a deal with the three leading Alaska frozen seafood marketers. They’re serving wild pink salmon in both steak and fillet cuts. The smoked products are still farmed abominations, but since the restart the salmon quality for at least North American departures has wildly improved. I’m really really picky about fin fish quality and I didn’t eat their salmon before the restart.

The appetisers include grilled vegetables with Italian meats, bay shrimp salad with avocado and a Tuscan-style vegetable soup. The pasta is a cheese ravioli with marinara. The entrees include a cheeseburger, beef tenderloin, salmon or chicken cacciatore. The desserts include an orange soufflé.

The salmon is now both wild and decent. I find the grilled and griddled fin fish to be better than expected for the scale they’re doing it at, and they’re always willing to find me extra veggies. I especially enjoy their carrots because they’re baton cut from larger ones, which I just find tastier than normal sized ones or stale fake “baby” carrots. a shrimp cocktail with three ounces of cooked shrimp has about 100 calories, less than a gram of fat and feels indulgent. For 100 calories, no fat, practically no carbs, and a decent source of vitamin C, consider 1.5 oz of silver rum, club soda and juice of one half lime. Repeat as necessary.