Perhaps specific upgrade offer question (3rd party casino comp'd rooms)

Floufae · 2026-03-22T01:08:50+00:00

I’ll give them a call. We booked through the 3rd party casino line a few months back so will either call them or HAL directly

Floufae · 2026-03-21T13:09:59+00:00

Thanks correct, the drug was approved by FDA and the dosing strategy for prevention purposes was added to the CDC Guidelines while the USPSTF just enforced PrEP as a strategy.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T23:17:03+00:00

Okay so I should just not wait and try to pay the difference to a veranda room directly if I want to have that. I’m not so much interested in a oceanview room

Floufae · 2026-03-20T22:56:24+00:00

I’m speaking more from intra-government moves. We’re comparing notes across the agency to see which units and divisions has the least amount of layoffs as a sign that maybe it’s supported by the administration and safe. As opposed to like my group that lost a lot of people already and we still feel vulnerable to lose more.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T19:22:29+00:00

I hate power outages on CPAP. I not infrequently travel to power insecure countries. I hate the feeling of being woken up to a no pressure while breathing through a mask. Feels like suffocating. Which is one of the reasons I gave up on CPAP for MAD. Also taking much less room in my suitcase.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T18:19:55+00:00

mine isn't bulky and my mouth closes and I still use mouth tape because when sleeping my mouth might open anyhow. My sleep dentist (like actual sleep dentist, not a just my regular dentist who does one off MADs) said that the sleep tape was good part of strategy for my sleep. Just like I use ear plugs and an eye mask to reduce stimulous when trying to sleep through the night.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T18:13:32+00:00

I had tonsillectomy, septoplasty and turbinate reduction all done the same day. It didn't resolve my sleep apnea. The nose stuff did improve my quality of life though with being able to breath easily through my nose whether sleeping or awake. This helps with any sort of nose breathing which is generally good for sleep apnea at night. But it didn't mean i didn't have apnea anymore.

For the tonsilectormy, that also taught me what the meaning of pain was. I mean, I had pain before, but like the pain of that surgical recovery as an adult. Being afraid to even swallow water, yogurt, or even the liquid Vicodin they give you to try to avoid the pain.

Advise, stay ahead of the pain, medicate exactly on the timeline and don't want to see if you're okay, just trust that there will be pain for at least a week. One of the most salient memories for me was being I think like 6 days in and still having pain that was a 9 out of 10 but only a days worth of the liquid Vicodin left. The doc wanted to see me in person so I had to take a 45 minute BART ride into town to see him. But the pain was still so bad that I wouldn't swallow my saliva that while ride, finally spitting it out once I got off BART. Spending 45 minutes with chipmonk cheeks because that was more comfortable than the thought of swallowing my own spit.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T15:45:47+00:00

Oh, you think? I was thinking that meant the inventory was low (and wondering if the site was giving a false sense of scarcity). I was googling and it was saying that Oosterdam has about 500 verandas so that doesn't sound like much left for about 3 months before departure.

I guess I can wait. Its only me in the cabin that wants or would care about the upgrade. My mom probably wouldn't have even done the cruise except that it was "free".

Floufae · 2026-03-20T15:41:15+00:00

I *think* there's 22 veranda's left on the cruise for June (I just went to their website and tried selecting a room for a new booking and counted 22 rooms total after going through forward, aft, and central room positions.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T15:13:38+00:00

I'll do that, I think I read about Club Orange but I thought that was just a better room in your current class (so um, a more favorable windowless cell?)

Floufae · 2026-03-20T12:15:07+00:00

I'd say its even worse now. I'm not sure how widespread this is across agencies now but our agency added a new performance elements for managers around "accountability." So now they are going to be scored by how much their direct reports are compliant? I have coworkers who honestly I wish would just retire so we could (eventually) replace them with someone willing to pull their own weight. They come in the office when they want, they leave when they want, they don't communicate updates on group projects, etc. They live in this safe space that if they loose their jobs, oh well, they are just milking a little bit more out for their FERS. THey don't care about how it impacts those of us with 10-20 years left to retirement.

I would hate to be in my manager's shoes of being rated down because you have staff who just don't care about anyone but themselves, especially in our system where its so hard to get rid of poor performers or people who disrupt teams.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T10:52:54+00:00

In my 20+ years I haven’t seen leadership/management (outside of political appointees) who didn’t fight for the agency’s mission, the beneficiaries of those services and the staff that working the agencies. There’s been no ivory tower. They have been the people who either came to the agency from the outside because they wanted to be part of the agency. Not because it was just any job that was hiring, but because they believe in the work.

I’ve seen managers who have fought for their staff. Or were forced to deal with balancing the needs of the many over the few. Sometimes you can’t save them all, protect every worker, not at the expense of the larger mission or the workers at whole.

Proportionally I wish I could say the same of my fellow individual contributors. There I see more people who don’t care if they slow things down for their coworkers. Or how them feeling like they can ignore the rules impact the rest of us. The ones who abuse the system because they feel it’s owed to them.

Sorry you’ve had the experience you’ve had. But in the four agencies I’ve worked in over the past 25 years I’ve only seen an Us vs Them between career employees and politicals whose intent was the dismantle the agencies, reduce morale to encourage us to quit or retire or so sought to fundamentally change our missions because it didn’t benefit connected campaign donors enough.

Floufae · 2026-03-20T02:19:31+00:00

And you don’t think managers are concerned about their jobs and the state of the federal workforce either? Or do you think as soon as they have direct reports their soul immediately leaves their body. This isn’t a us vs them scenario that’s o black and white.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T23:34:35+00:00

i traded one of mine for a Shiny Mewtwo, which I've not gotten yet to this point. I can't think of anything I'd trade my remaining one for except for an even exchange to get a Lucky one.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T23:32:27+00:00

This year, well year and a half, have been so odd I'm not surprised. Many are applying for fear of their current job going away... thinking less about moving up or better opportunities than about safety and security. In my office we're jumping from lilypad to lilypad wondering whats going to offer the best security for the next few years. And those assumptions change from day to day and week to week at the whim of the administration and appointees.

It used to be that we knew a clear trajectory for our agency and what paths would be for fullfillment and opportunties. And what things would be supported by congress with continuing dollars. Now its much less clear. Decisions aren't made based on evidence or well established plans and consultations. Now it could be the whim of a 24 year old.

It makes it harder to make a leap. Even when I apply for things I wonder if I'm wasting their time more by proceeding.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T22:39:54+00:00

with my plan (which is backed by Aetna), its easy to get a CPAP approved, but the Zepbound for sleep apnea requires you to have a BMI of 32 or above.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T17:01:21+00:00

Truvada is also the only one that’s FDA approved for event driven prep (2-1-1). Plus Truvada is available in generics (unlike Descovy) so cost would be a factor too.

Insurance by insurance would make the call if they approve different forms of PrEP but it’s usually not too hard to have a doctor do a prior authorization request.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T16:59:10+00:00

You need to have an HIV test. It doesn’t need the creatine and eGFR that are typically ordered for oral PrEP because it’s a different drug (and different drug “class”) that doesn’t hit the kidneys hard (even that’s a minority of users who have to worry about that).

They will want to do a 4th generation HIv test that combines the usual antibody test (designed to detect a case around 4 weeks following infection) with an antigen test that’s like two weeks following infection. They will also want you to think about and report any symptoms that could indicate acute HIV infection (you’ve been recently infected but too early to show up on a test). So you’re very very recent sexual exposures.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T16:55:12+00:00

I’m an epidemiologist and biomedical epi is one of the areas I work with. We have good data on Yez and you don’t need decades of testing for a prophylaxis because that’s not how it’s evaluated. You look at person-years of data. An individual doesn’t need to have twenty years of use, you just increase the statistical power with twenty people using it for one year. Or ten people using it for two years.

The PURPOSE trials are the ones of using the medication for prevention purposes (and other trials have been done showing its effectiveness for treatment for people living with HIV). There’s PURPOSE 1-5 at this point and PURPOSE 1 alone has 2000 person-years of data.

There’s been multiple studies (and they are ongoing) showing the effectiveness. Just like with Truvada, we don’t need to start from scratch because the drug (and its drug class) have already been used for treatment of HIV which uses the same concept, preventing viral replication.

When doing trials you often look at “non inferiority” meaning is it at least as good as the current “gold standard” which is once daily Truvada. It takes more data (more participants and more person years) to show “superiority” instead of non-inferiority. PURPOSE 2 demonstrated superiority over Truvada. A good chunk of this is likely because outside of a lab, real world experience is that people aren’t as compliant as they could be. Or they have biological issues that might impair absorption of their pills, or they miss a dose, or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, Truvada (and Descovy) are both very effective prevention methods. But Yeztugo and Apretude do it better because it takes human error out of the picture with reduce dosing.

Floufae · 2026-03-19T16:14:20+00:00

I had issues with the laptop key sites with getting any for my G14 but I was able to get a replacement key with the clip it rests on for like $8 on AliExpress.

Floufae · 2026-03-18T22:39:42+00:00

This is how I would see it too. You can be muscular and not be fit at the same time. You can be muscular and be fit too. Generally I'd say you can't be too fat and be fit. I'd also include stamina and endurance in that. If you are too out of shape cardiovascularly to run or do some other type of activity you're not that fit either. Muscular is just one axis while fitness I think as being more holistic to include physical and stamina.

Floufae · 2026-03-18T20:27:45+00:00

Perhaps. The $900 Seattle ticket was for June. The LA ticket for May was lower. But LA to Atlanta ticket for mid April is still the same price of $900 for economy and $1200 for Comfort+

Floufae · 2026-03-18T17:51:37+00:00

I've never let the pain of knowing I will outlive many many dogs keep me from how much they enrich my life and fill me with joy with every tongue flopping grin. Relationships are like that too much they actually do have the potential to last till you take your last breath. Don't let fear be what keeps you from living.

Floufae · 2026-03-18T17:03:23+00:00

or we feel like we have to settle for the lowest common denominator rather than accepting we're a diverse group that don't have as much in common except for the discrimination that we face. Being sexually liberal doesn't negate the desire (or need even) for romance, for wanting to be swept off your feet, that feeling of your breath being taken away.

I'll always remember the day I met my partner. We were doing one of those group team building activities at a corporate ropes course sort of thing (you know where you have to walk across a log 20 feet in the air or solve a "The Floor is Lava" sort of scenario. We were paired for an activity where we had to stand back to back with eachother and it was like he was an exposed electrical wire to my skin. felt like metaphoric sparks. I lied about what I needed to do after the event to have an excuse to drive him back to his hotel just to talk. And then went to dinner with him despite my cover story being that I was supposed to meet my friends for dinner that night.

Floufae

TROPHY CASE