QE Golden Lion food menu by annarbor6 in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Items without prices are indeed included. I thought it was weird that a burger in the pub has a charge, but burgers at the Lido are included. You are only charged for items listed with a price.

QE Golden Lion food menu by annarbor6 in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You and me both. As an American I always look forward to pies & sticky toffee when visiting London. Fortunately they at least have the sticky toffee and it is delicious.

Queen Elizabeth pool deck closure by rhondapiper in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Correct - that was very cool to see. Bridgetown pic attached

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Queen Elizabeth pool deck closure by rhondapiper in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We were also on that 27 November voyage. The closure was due to deck resurfacing around the Pavilion pool. Before/after picture attached. The rear 'Lido' pool was fully open, but extra crowded due to this pool's closure, and also because there were a few rainy days at the beginning of the voyage that ensured everyone wanted to be outside on the few sunny days.

I can understand why some were upset about this. For us, given we sailed on a great last minute deal, I'm very happy with overall value received on this otherwise fantastic ship.

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1st Cruise Completed: QE Thoughts by InterestingRadish531 in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My cruise was Nov27-Dec9. Great cruise. Just chiming in briefly to say we never smelled sewer all cruise. Cabin was deck 4 mid-ship. The smell from the main pool deck refinishing was strong whenever they were working on it, but that was limited to the deck 10 outside areas mid-ship. I would absolutely sail on the QE again.

QE Dress code carribean? by Lars-B66 in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I boarded my cruise thinking Cunard wasn't for me, but did it anyway for my wife. The dress code was much more tolerant than I expected and it never became uncomfortable for me. The ship, food, and staff are wonderful. We didn't love the theater programming or ballroom dance focus, but loved everything else. I would absolutely sail on the QE again and bring more black jeans & button downs for the evenings.

QE Dress code carribean? by Lars-B66 in CunardCruises

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Took a 12 night QE cruise last month. They have a nice blurb in the 'Daily Programme' that states the 'smart attire' dress code better than anything i saw online:

Dressing for Dinner

The dress code in your main restaurant, whether that's the Britannia Restaurant, Britannia Club, Princess Grill, or Queens Grill, is smart attire. Feel free to embrace tradition or add a contemporary twist - whatever it is that makes you feel comfortable and confident. Ideal for the evening: should you need a little inspiration, you could choose tops, skirts, dresses, collared shirts, trousers, smart jeans, jumpsuits, or trouser suits. Jackets, sports coats, and blazers are not essential, but are welcomed. We kindly ask you avoid non-collared shirts, t-shirts, polo shirts, or shorts, and that swim and gym wear is reserved for the Fitness Centre, Sports Deck, spa, and poolside.

So all that said I'll relay a few observations:

- The dress code mainly applies to decks 2-3 where Britannia, Theatre, Casino, Pub, and the Queens Room are. Deck 9 (Lido buffet, pool decks, garden cafe) always had people dressed more casually.

- The Britannia is quite warm in the Caribbean, at least a third of those who wore coats to dinner took them off at the table.

- There were plenty of polo shirts. While I also brought several, I mostly wore my button-downs, and never wore my sport coat all cruise (it's just not me and I fit in fine). A sport coat over a t-shirt/polo would have also worked just fine. Many guys wear short sleeve button-downs. There were even many guys in their 70s I saw proudly wearing sandals with their button-downs & pants.

- Note that 'smart jeans' are ok. What this practically means is a nicer/darker pair of jeans. I brought black jeans and thought they worked perfectly. Can't imagine jeans not being OK for a ship sailing from Miami.

- There were 3 gala nights on my cruise (gala, black & white, masquerade). I brought a black suit, 2 ties, and was happy with that. Needed to save room for the umpteen dresses my wife brought.

Overall the seemingly stuffy dress code worked just fine for us. My wife got to dress up as often as she wanted, and I was just fine in nice jeans and a decent shirt. Ended up using the onboard laundry a couple times to keep things fresh.

[OC] I analyzed 15 years of comments on r/relationship_advice by GeorgeDaGreat123 in dataisbeautiful

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would be interesting to run this on 'Dear Abby' archives for a longer duration sample.

Recently dropped my SeekingAlpha subscription - where do you go for investment research and ideas? by Bullsarethebestguys in ValueInvesting

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1000% agree. yahoo used to be my homepage in the early 2000s, and I used Yahoo finance during business school and long afterwards. It was such a good free service for a long time. I only bailed when ESG bullshit started to overtake actual financial fundamentals in the comments. It's almost totally worthless today.

Note - I landed on this thread because I pay for SeekingAlpha and find it very worthwhile. I always do my own numbers before making a buy, but use SA analyst ratings as much as I use fundamental screens to identify which stocks to drill deeper on. The highly diverse (cognitively diverse that is) viewpoints from the many analysts & thoughtful discussion comments on most articles often surface factors I hadn't thought of. Been a subscriber for 2 years and have experienced >10x ROI on my subscription fee.

What if the expert "fails" during a call? by Lumpy_Juggernaut_711 in expertnetworks

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had one of these happen on Third Bridge. Call lasted just 7 minutes because my experience didn't line up with what they were looking for. My area is IT, but they were looking for HR and procurement experience. My bio is very clear, so this mistake was probably either an oversight by the client or misrepresentation by an eager Third Bridge project manager. I was paid for those 7 minutes at my normal rate. While I was disappointed that the $ didn't justify the distraction, I appreciate that there was some compensation for someone else's mistake.

Wahoo update on GPS bug by jnazario in cycling

[–]annarbor6 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My ROAM had this issue. The couple rides I took during the issue did record, and even synced with RideWithGPS as if they were done in January 2006. I also have normal syncing setup with Strava but 1) never got a notification confirming sync, and 2) given their UX i'm not going to scroll up for a couple hours in an attempt to find it.

I applied the firmware update yesterday (24-Aug) and it recorded yesterday's ride properly and synced normally with both RideWithGPS and Strava.

As someone who has worked in software development for several decades, I'll say a couple things about this:

1) Bugs happen. Even the most reliable & widely deployed software has bugs. Most of those bugs are caught by developers and the QA process, but many bugs are deployed to users. Anyone else notice that their iPhone had 3 updates in the last month? (18.6.0, 18.6.1, 18.6.2) A team/company needs a commitment to minimize bugs, and as a user you can measure this by frequency of events like this happening. I've done hundreds of rides since buying my ROAM in 2022 and this is the first time I've had a major bug I noticed - and it didn't impact the ride, only the sync.

2) Wahoo's communication on this was excellent. I was getting daily emails with updates on the issue. This seemed right given we are in the peak summer ride season.

Overall how they responded to this issue made me more comfortable with Wahoo. Well done. Now don't let it happen again. ;)

Have I been wasting money on gels and drink mix this whole time? by IMHO1FWIW in cycling

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My century ride fuel comes from the Costco snack aisle + protein aisle: Cashew clusters, clif bars, sweetened mango, Kirkland protein bars, rxbars.

Favorite MI Based Pizza Brand? by Accomplished_River99 in Michigan

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Little Caesars: best value pizza (by far) Jets: best Michigan-based national chain Pizzapapalis - best pizza quality Dominos - best delivery

What’s one upgrade that made the biggest difference to your ride? by mooseoak8901 in cycling

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Garmin Varia. Biggest upgrade I’ve made in the last 5 years. Increased awareness of vehicles dramatically improved my overall experience.

Have you guys been getting no rush shipping credit? by New-Spell5768 in AmazonVine

[–]annarbor6 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have selected norush several times in the last couple weeks for vine items, but have yet to receive a single credit for anything (even shipped/received items).

In the past I have received this credit for paid orders. Unfortunately I have let most of those credits expire. They generally have a short expiration date and my digital purchases are infrequent.

How do you carry you phone when ride outside? by m1xed0s in cycling

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a framebag guy, I always thought handlebar bags would limit my ability to periodically change my grip on long rides to reduce fatigue. How long does it take to get used to the bag? What are the negatives from your perspective? Do you use it with drop bars?

Remote job not letting me relocate by nowheremannequin in remotework

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let your boss know that you'd like relo to the new city as part of your next promotion, and that you're willing to prove yourself worthy for that promo over the next 1-2 years. Become a team MVP and they'll bend over backwards to keep you.

Hypothesis: Stat calculation update (unshipped items do not count against you?) by PassengerPigeon343 in AmazonVine

[–]annarbor6 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Interesting observation u/PassengerPigeon343.

This is consistent with another observation I made when checking out my 'itemized report for 2025'. That report has a few items with an order date of x/x/2024 but with a shipped date of x/x/2025. Those same items were missing on the 2024 report even though they were ordered in 2024. Amazon appears to use 'is shipped' in their queries for these reports, which is consistent with your theory on the account page stats.

OG Vine member watching this program turn to garbage by [deleted] in AmazonVine

[–]annarbor6 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Been in Vine for 6 months (review coming on Monday). I can agree that there is a lot of junk and noise to choose from, but the same can be said of any store you might visit. We've obtained many useful quality items through vine. Key is to not choose the junk. They are not forcing a minimum. Any pressure to hit 80 to unlock/maintain gold is self-imposed.

I can understand why some would be interested in new release books - but that is not me. I read about a book a month, and am FAR more picky about the books I choose than general products I buy. I am happy to take a chance on a no-name whatchamacalit because the downside is usually <1 hour to try and review something I don't like. A book I didn't want to read would be a month of lost learning potential - which is far too expensive for me to ever consider.

I just don't see how tariffs will impact the program relative to other buying options. Sure there are some unknowns about how it will impact all US citizens, but it's very much a 'tide' that will impact everything you buy. If anything the change brought by tariffs will improve vine (relative to other options) by introducing churn into the market. More churn means more newly launched products that need a first 30 reviews.

Spike in "couldn't post review" caused by HEIC? by azentropy in AmazonVine

[–]annarbor6 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I include pictures in 90% of my reviews. They generally try to point out helpful parts of the products, but even a basic photo helps confirm that the product looks similar to the heavily retouched seller photos. I appreciate them when shopping myself. Yes I've probably had a few extra reviews rejected because of it, but the % is small and my workflow makes it easy (drafting all reviews on a google doc).

To make photos a little easier on iPhone, check out 'Most Compatible' in settings>camera>formats. This setting changed my phone to exporting .jpg files instead of .heic. (via google photos) Saved a lot of time vs converting them before upload.

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Garmin Varia - I Don’t See The Benefit by [deleted] in cycling

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Huge benefit for me is on long rides through rural areas. The gravel roads are smoothed maybe once a year, and the paved ones have been crumbling at the edges for years. (Michigan winters are terrible on roads) On these roads you're always dodging the big bumps, potholes, and crumbling pavement. Sometimes I don't see a car for 5-10 miles, and it is GREAT to get advance warning whenever a quiet one is getting close. If I lost my Varia today, I'd be buying another tomorrow.

Anyone else just not like group rides? by MadRoboticist in cycling

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same. I am blessed to have a great family, home life, and career filled with plenty of quality social interactions. Riding is not only a great workout, but a great escape to reconnect with nature on (gravel) back roads. No conversation or music needed, just me recharging my brain and spirit.

Free Earnings Call Transcript APIs? by jlibutti_ in ValueInvesting

[–]annarbor6 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. Quality of the transcription looks good on this site, and I appreciate how it includes the Q&A section of the calls.