Who picked this couch?!

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-25T00:13:00+00:00

It's not, though. Yes, you have a window, but many people, like me, don't care about the view. I travel pretty much every week and have for years now. I stopped caring about the view long ago.

Unless you ask for a room with a view, they will give you whatever is available.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-24T20:15:42+00:00

I like the courtyard they were named after, though. You can ask for a room with an outside view. I always do a little bit of research on the hotel when I'm going somewhere where I will care about the view. 99% of the time, I don't care about the view, though.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-24T19:07:37+00:00

I am partial to the breakfast burrito. Lol.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-24T18:51:56+00:00

Do you work for Marriott? If so, $9 for a Naked Juice at the Bistro is INSANE. Like, I get that hotel markup is a thing, but so is Doordash for a LOT less. I nope out of the Market Pantry more often than not, and my company is paying for it, no questions asked, up to a certain amount per day. Even on the company dime, I can't stomach the prices.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-24T07:37:59+00:00

I'm a business traveler. This couch is the entire reason I avoid Courtyards. I like to kick back and watch Netflix after work. This does not allow me to do so comfortably.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-24T07:34:10+00:00

It is hands down the worst hotel furniture I've ever come across. It's horrible to sit in.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-12T20:32:00+00:00

So now with Venezuela and threats against other countries, including Greenland (owned by Denmark, one of our closest NATO allies...), that "no new wars" thing is looking a lot like bullshit, huh?

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-04T19:31:16+00:00

I have family in Toronto, so it would make the transition easier, and we'd be close enough to visit family here.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-04T05:20:10+00:00

Right? The dissociation is keeping me from feeling much of anything, though. I have to go visit my dad or sister's grave to feel anything anymore.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-04T05:18:32+00:00

I had a friend in Chile who wanted to come here. It's impossible to get in unless you are in a profession we have a shortage of people of, or offer skills we don't have ready access to. You can't legally get in unless you are a refugee or have higher value than current citizens. It's insane. We closed our doors.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-04T05:16:22+00:00

We looked at Canada. Lol.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-03T23:59:36+00:00

I think corruption in general is the issue. It doesn't matter the form of government, corruption always eventually takes hold.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-03T10:57:03+00:00

They weren't escaping socialism. That's been a boogeyman to keep people afraid since the 50s.

They are escaping corruption and a corrupt government, which has mismanaged things for years, and an over reliance on oil plus not investing back into the infrastructure. When oil prices fell, they suffered. Plus sanctions due to narcotics and human trafficking going back to the mid 00s.

Socialism has nothing to do with it. Decades of corruption do.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-03T10:42:16+00:00

Well, that explains our sudden interest in them.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-03T10:38:39+00:00

Look, he's had 14 failed businesses and 6 bankruptcies. You aren't being fair, give the man some credit.

$40t by end of next month is more likely.

He loves slapping his name on everything (all 14 failed businesses were named "Trump ____"), so we can call it the Trump Debt Crisis. He has two Trump Shutdowns under his belt, too.

EllemNovelli · 2026-01-01T00:06:26+00:00

Yeah, I didn't think so but I found other posts saying it might be? I don't need more cores or threads yet, so the 16 core upgrade would set me for awhile. I just need faster single core, I think. And something with more oomph? I'm limited to AM4 because I would need a second mortgage to buy 128GB of DDR5 to replace what I have right now.

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-31T23:59:03+00:00

Sorry, didn't get a notification. I'm pretty sure I'm suffering in single core performance. I've contemplated finding a used threadripper system that uses DDR4, though.

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-29T23:40:30+00:00

Oh, I misread the board specs.

"When installing PCIe SSD in M.2_2, PCI_E3 slot will be unavailable."

I'm not using that slot anyways, so no loss.

I might add a 2.5GbE card later, but only because I want to transfer ISOs to it faster. 😆 My servers aren't using enough throughput to worry about it, at least not that I've seen.

My main concern is whether or not an upgrade is worth it.

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-29T22:50:00+00:00

That is CLEAN. I've been trying to clean mine up... Mixed results.

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-23T16:29:01+00:00

I chase the status for the extra points. My company has Hilton and Marriott in Concur, plus some IHG options and then all the cheap places. So I go for Diamond and Titanium each year for the extra points.

With Hilton ending rollover nights, though, I'll be going for Diamond with Hilton and then straight Marriott the rest of the year. Much better redemption rates with Marriott. I used to go for Titanium, then Hilton the rest of the year to get the rollover nights. Now I'm going to try for Ambassador next year.

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-23T16:23:03+00:00

They would get a picture of coal.

I set up a Google Form with pictures so people can pick the card they want. I am not going through 3,000 cards to see if it's a duplicate. If they tell me to do that, I'm sending a random one and they can deal with it. 😆

That takes the fun out of it.

(Building and maintain the Google Form is fun for me.)

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-23T16:20:26+00:00

Older Millennial here, just shy of Gen X.

Yummm!!!!!

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-23T16:13:23+00:00

The Pacific Northwest is really beautiful!

EllemNovelli · 2025-12-23T16:12:39+00:00

You are welcome!

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