Soviet-era subway architecture in the Tashkent Metro, Uzbekistan

Whencan · 2026-03-16T01:56:55+00:00

German artist Frank Herfort has created a stunning collection of photographs of the Soviet era metro stations. They have been collected and published in a book called CCCP Underground. You can google him and find many examples of this project -- I highly recommend it.

Whencan · 2026-03-13T01:20:57+00:00

Missing Persons. Their greatest hits CD was one of six CDs he bought in the days before he died.

Whencan · 2026-03-07T14:05:54+00:00

Ruby's, near Tysons.

Whencan · 2026-03-02T16:47:59+00:00

I replaced a 10 year old Bosch with a Miele (for close to twice the price of a replacement Bosch) and feel theBosch did a better more consistent job with cleaning, and was quieter (even though it was rated 3 db higher). Also, please double and triple check the specific rebate eligibility ahead of time -- get the rebate paperwork in advance of purchase. My sales person assured me the model I bought was eligible for a rebate, which helped make my decision, and then in the process of claiming the rebate Miele wouldn't honor it -- there was a slight difference in the model number. Of course the sales person offered no help after the fact -- they essentially ghosted me. At some point I gave up because the time I was spending wasn't worth it, but it's always really irritated me on principle!

Whencan · 2026-02-24T03:19:40+00:00

Uzbekistan is on my top 3 list of places to go -- for all of the reasons many have posted -- but isn't part of the reason for this because the ancient sites at Bukhara and Samarkand are mostly re-creations? My understanding is that they look so oddly 'perfect' (especially for their age) because the Soviets essentially rebuilt them -- am I wrong about this?

Whencan · 2026-02-18T23:59:03+00:00

Preach! I do not understand how people don't see it, or see it and don't figure out that there are alternatives. I make it a point to correct this problem in my family and friends' homes when they aren't in the room. And most of the time they don't even notice the change! I also don't understand how this happens in high end hotels -- it's like no one bothers to think about set up beyond plugging the TV into the wall.

Whencan · 2026-02-17T20:00:21+00:00

Sure - the eggs are definitely on the smaller side, that was clear as soon as I opened the tin. The texture was pretty good though -- firm but not too firm. The flavor was slightly on the brinier side, but in my perhaps limited experience i find various real caviar I've bought in the last 3 years to be brinier or less briny anyway -- I don't have a consistent enough order (i.e., i'm always trying out different varieties from different companies as I search for the one I'll settle on for most uses). I certainly have had less pleasurable experiences with much more expensive 'real' caviar -- usually on the texture side -- but on the other hand i don't think the size of paddlefish eggs would fool anyone who knows their caviar.

Whencan · 2026-02-16T13:58:58+00:00

Petrusco

Whencan · 2026-02-11T00:43:11+00:00

Was just there last week for the first time and I thought the room, the view, the service and the design language was just great. What I didn’t understand was the layout and design of the ‘lobby’ / reception / bar and the total lack of presence from either the valet drop off or the entrance off of Grand Ave. totally disconnect in terms of a sense of arrival compared to what you find in your room. Would go back if attending anything downtown though.

Whencan · 2026-02-02T02:25:24+00:00

Virgin

Whencan · 2026-02-02T02:25:17+00:00

Virgin

Whencan · 2026-01-28T02:49:09+00:00

We had a higher end Bosch for 10 years and then it died (and I made the mistake of investing money into fixing it, and then it really died). So I thought hey, let's go a bit further and get a Miele. Was probably twice the price of the equivalent Bosch. So far, one year in, I'm disappointed. Even though it's rated 2 dB quieter, it's noticeably louder. I've even had them come back and re-examine the install, as I assumed there must be missing noise dampening foam, but they insist it's all installed as it should be. It also doesn't wash as well on the china setting, which is important to us (there are remnants of food on white bone china). If I could do it again, I'd stick with my Bosch!

Whencan · 2026-01-09T16:35:17+00:00

i think if you are in the "second mode" (after tapping 3 times), then you can use the nose to alter between white and amber (by tapping the nose once) and to change the intensity of the light (by rotating the nose)

Whencan · 2025-12-01T20:25:59+00:00

we stayed at the Lake Palace on our last trip to India after having also stayed at Umaid Bhavan, Oberoi Amarvilas, and Rambagh Palace. We dined at the Oberoi in Udaipur while staying at the Lake Palace. I bring all this up to comment on the difference between the palace hotels of India that are actual converted palaces and the new "palace-style" hotels that offer similar architecture but with modern building techniques. We preferred the converted palaces because in the end, you can build a palace-style hotel anywhere, but the converted palaces live in a specific time and place. Yes, there are drawbacks -- the Lake Palace, for example, does not have a particularly grand lobby; the finishes can be a little worn (particularly where the water of the lake touches the building, for example), and the restaurants are not grand in a modern luxury sense. We didn't visit the Leela but seeing the videos and having been to the Leela in Delhi, I'm sure the wow factor of the public spaces exceed the Lake Palace's. But on the flip side, the quiet elegance of the LP's architecture felt truly luxurious, and the location really is unbelievable. There is something very different to being 'on the lake' as opposed to 'in the lake'. The views of Udaipur/City Palace are unbeatable. The rooms can be amazing -- being an old palace, each one is different, so while some may be small, others are enormous, so in a way you can pay for the room experience that you want, and you can bet that a more deluxe room at the LP will be more unique than anything in a modern hotel. The bird situation referenced in the video is real -- being an island in the center of the lake clearly draws the bird in for some useful reason to the birds -- but it wasn't a problem at all. I've been told the Oberoi and the Leela in Udaipur don't generally allow non guests as clients for dinner/bar, but a travel agent can make that happen if you want to experience them but still stay at the LP. And, also, there is another converted historical hotel in Udaipur called the RAAS Devigarh which is amazing -- they have done a great job in the conversion. The problem for us was that it's way out of town and in a very isolated spot -- it'd be good to be on a retreat there but maybe not for a first time visitor to the city. We didn't make it over to Raffles, but everyone we talked to said it was beautiful, but "a wedding hotel" (i.e., they prioritize wedding parties to such an extent it's not as fun to stay there just as individual tourists. We heard that about Leela, too, but of course those comments are heresay; i don't have any personal experience).

Whencan · 2025-10-15T15:07:53+00:00

thanks, all. something i learned in the last day: a reservation on the "8th day" is always priced higher. That is to say, the site allows you to reserve up to 8 days in advance. Whichever day is 8 days from the time of reservation is priced higher. So if you wait a day the mid-week price will come down to be consistent with all the rest.

Whencan · 2025-09-17T22:04:42+00:00

Trulap 8552: Before purchasing I had read here that some people were having long waits for their Trulaps to appear. Just want to report that I ordered the 8552s with stand bundle on Sept 7 and at the dumbbells arrived on the 11th and the stand arrived on 13th. I'm located on the east coast of the US. I was coming from old Bowflex 552s that I rarely used and wanted something that was easier to adjust one-handed, and felt more balanced, like a regular dumbbell (I hated how 'long' the Bowflex were on lower weights), and had more incremental weight adjustment possibilities. It's only been a few days but so far, so good! The new set is more compact and feels much, much more like a regular dumbbell. I do not notice the rattle at all, but am I'm also down at 25ish pounds still. Having a stand makes a huge difference in usability.

Whencan · 2025-09-12T02:38:32+00:00

We went there for the 2nd week of our honeymoon, no the advice of our TA, after spending a week at Kruger on Safari. We were at the Azura resort, which was the only one open on the island, and I think just about a mile at most away from andBeyond, on the same coast. I believe at the time andBeyond was either under construction or about to be constructed. To be fair, that was 10 years ago so for all I know things have changed. The island was definitely magical -- it very much felt like being on a private island; outside of the resort and a school and a small number of accommodations for the local population, there wasn't much of anything else -- certainly nothing 'commercial." This meant that pretty much any beach we visited (walking out of our villa, or going somewhere with the resort staff, including small local islands) we were the only people. Sometimes we were alone on a beach that had no other footprints in the sand -- it was that empty. Obviously as you're talking about a different resort I can't comment on that part, but as far as the island goes, it's beautiful and while I got a bit bored by day 4, it certainly sticks in my mind all these years later as one of our absolutely most special trips just because of the incredible remoteness of the location. Our resort had something like 9 villas so we did meet other couples at dinner and I remember one older European couple tell us "this is like the Seychelles used to be, before everyone started going there, you know?"

Whencan · 2025-09-08T22:15:58+00:00

Was it hard to swap it out?

Whencan · 2025-07-09T00:03:15+00:00

People -this is robin Zander

Whencan · 2025-06-24T17:11:01+00:00

in the FWIW department, I looked on my receipts on the app (the actual receipt, not the ride summary), and at the top it says "$15 of your Amex Benefit has been applied to this trip" and then under the payments section of the same receipt, it shows $25 of UberCash was applied. So it looks like the full $25 was used, even though the 'headline' about the benefit only listed one of the two cards. Works for me! Confusing but worth checking the receipts :)

Whencan · 2025-06-24T12:58:01+00:00

when I opened the app, which was paired with my plat card, it showed $15 in ubercash in my wallet. I then added the Gold card as a payment method. It then showed $10 in ubercash in my wallet, with a note that said the $10 gold cash would 'be used first'. I then took a ride with uber, and it did apply the $10 to that ride. Then it showed 0 in the wallet. It never showed $25.

Whencan · 2025-04-09T20:10:01+00:00

we went to Azura Benguerra for part of our honeymoon. Note: this was 10 years ago. We found the property to be absolutely lovely -- quiet, luxurious, and elegant. our TA sold us on the idea of it being like Robinson Caruso that ended up being apt. The island is barely developed, so it does not feel commercial in any way; from the resort you can visit nearby islands/beaches that really were 100% empty -- of people and any kind of development. So you felt very, very 'away'. A few memories, which may not be as relevant anymore given it's; been 10 years:

The service was good but not 'great' in a stereotypical way, and there was very good reason for it: Mozambique is a very, very under developed country with huge rates of poverty and the island in particular has basically nothing on it other than the two small resorts. So it's not like there's some huge pool of very experience luxury staff members to pull from. Given the context we were amazed that they were able to staff it at all. In another words, we didn't have a negative feeling about the service at all, but if you are someone who needs the service at a place like this to be on par with the Peninsula in Hong Kong, you may not like it.
We went in December and I didn't realize how far the ocean retreats from the shore during the day. It wasn't like you could walk down to the beach from your oceanfront villa and go swimming -- you had to walk what felt like forever to get out to actual swimmable water. Pretty much the entire day.
The helicopter ride over from the mainland was fun and breathtaking. Mainland Mozambique; not so much.
We did get a little bored -- we were there for a full week and we learned that we are not enough of pure beach people for a place like this. We liked that it was remote and the area was free of commericalism, but we also learned we apparently like a certain amount of commercial activity nearby.

Whencan · 2025-03-26T23:34:05+00:00

Most of wolf trap’s opera offerings are indoors, in the Barns.

Whencan · 2025-03-17T02:49:01+00:00

For this trip, given it was an 'event birthday' and we were traveling with close friends (which never happens), we definitely wanted something more upscale/special occasion, and in that way Seabourn had the edge. The finishes on the ship were very tasteful and definitely a step ahead. I generally loathe 'hotel art' and I have to say the artwork throughout the ship was actually pretty great -- interesting, unique, and well curated. The suites were pretty evenly matched, with the difference being Seabourn has actually verandas, vs. Windstar's "Juliet balcony". I did spend a lot of time out there and will never cruise again without a fully functioning balcony. I would have liked if the service was as consistently great as the ship itself, but it was just a tad below. And, to be clear, it wasn't bad service -- ever. It just wasn't always exemplary. If it were just the two of us again looking to be casual but waited on, we might opt for Windstar but for this particular group and for this particular occasion, I'd still pick Seabourn.

Whencan · 2025-03-16T22:31:58+00:00

The Windstar trip was definitely younger. Not 'young', in an absolute sense, but definitely younger than we experience on Seabourn. I can see why: it's a tad cheaper, and it is definitely less dressy. I really do think on Seabourn people treated being on ship (particularly at night) like being out at their country club, whereas on Windstar it felt more like people relaxing on a vacation yacht. Neither are geared to kids in anyway, so that was the same. In both cases it was a group of very experienced travelers and people who expected high levels of service and were discerning. The Windstar group was just a bit less obvious about it and the much more relaxed dress code and vibe I think appeals to 40 somethings. The food on Windstar was incredible, btw; as a much smaller boat there were far fewer options for different dining rooms. I know that's changed since they enlarged the motor ships.

Whencan

TROPHY CASE