I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[pillow]

Well... in “good” news, it seems that COVID-19 was able to stop AA shutdowns... I haven’t seen a shutdown DP in days!!

LOL I needed this comment!!

 

[disneedee]

Husband and I went to Winco just to see what was happening.... it was exactly as I expected and much worse than what he expected... but I have a lot of local FB friends posting their experiences and he doesn't so it makes sense.

We did buy some soup and boxed rice mixes... oh and some dried tortellinis Ooh and a double pack of tortillas! (I didn't even know they came in a double pack! I don't go to Winco often).

The churning angle? Winco doesn't take credit cards

I have 2 kids that work for winco and I hate to shop there because of the no cc thing. They will take those visa/mc that you buy at office stores if you use them as a debit card.

 

[Judique]

I am leaving for Hilton Head sometime between today and very early tomorrow morning. Meaning I have to finish packing the car and filling my cooler with all the foods for our time down there.

Earlier months ago after my trip to Florida with my Niro I had told daughter we would each drive our own cars. Family trips are usually in the van. But, the van always (in my opinion only because it is in excellent condition) has to have a visit to my mechanic before it does any bigger trips. I briefly thought of changing the plan and bringing it, but it was too late for it's check up.

So we will drive separately. DD and family intend to sleep over on the way. It is about 550ish miles - about 35 more for her. I'm still not sure of my timing. Maybe I'll arrive at their room for the night in the early morning depending where they stop. She hasn't booked a room yet, so not sure. Or maybe I'll get a room at the same place before I leave. We've split this trip and also drove it all at once. Anyway, I'm in no hurry to get going as check in isn't until 4pm tomorrow and doubtful our room will be ready before 2-3pm anyway, I'm leaning towards driving away early tomorrow morning at about 5am to arrive between 1-2pm and have lunch at Crazy Crab before going on to our room. Will see as the day progresses.

 

[bernina]

I bake bagels at least weekly and bread is pretty easy to make. Maybe you can learn to bake it? Might be fun

Oops--realize I'm late to the party.

Can you share a bagel for dummies recipe? I have yeast and flour and other baking basics.

 

[Judique]

Can you share a bagel for dummies recipe? I have yeast and flour and other baking basics.

Yes - please share! I shouldn't eat bagels but I love them!

 

[GlamMistress]

I am so disgusted with my agency's lack of response to all of this. I live in Washington DC, and things have really progressed rapidly with no response from our leadership. I asked my director about it yesterday, and he said he couldn't issue our department guidance even if he wanted to - he's seen other directors trying to let their people work from home full time, but our agency leadership has overruled them and denied it. The leadership had a meeting late last night, so I checked my email this morning only to find "Make sure you wash your hands! Stay home if you're sick! See you Monday morning." And we have a meeting Monday afternoon about regular work stuff, where we will all be crammed into a small meeting room. Real smart there.

Not to mention, Metro will be scaling down operations beginning Monday. Trains will be running less often, which means for all of us still stuck going into work, trains will be much more crowded and we'll have to hold on to handrails since we'll all be shoulder to shoulder. Really seems like the appropriate response to a pandemic.

Given I'm new, I'm going in the office 5 days a week. Considering I ride metro twice per day, and given how many people move in and out of this city, I have almost certainly been exposed. I had a serious health issue about 10 years ago. I've been okay in the years proceeding, but ever since that happened, my immune system has been poor, and I tend to catch everything. I got the flu for the first time after that happened. I got the swine flu when that first appeared. So I'm pretty rigorous about getting my flu shot and it helps, I don't get the flu anymore. But frankly, I'm concerned about this.

I've not been feeling great most of the week, a dry cough started yesterday, and I woke up this morning with shortness of breath and body aches. But I don't have a fever so I don't have an excuse not to go in the office.

Our agency head is an appointed, out of touch crony billionaire, so I expect nothing less. He's never in the building, so he doesn't have the capacity to understand or care about his employees.

Ok sorry, rant/vent over.

Do you work for a government agency? Many are slowly rolling out work from home decrees.
If you have to keep going to the office, can you take Uber/Lyft instead? I know that is expensive but perhaps this is a good time to use your stash of points to pay for those rides. It will give you peace of mind during this time.

Keep hand sanitizer in your pocket and tissues too. Use the tissues as a barrier for everything you need to touch.

If you don't feel well, stay home. Everyone in the world has been told that over and over now so employers can't really be surprised when more of us start doing that. Can't have it both ways. Many places do not want you around with respiratory symptoms now anyway, fever or not.

Try to sleep as much as possible this weekend.

 

[striker1064]

Do you work for a government agency? Many are slowly rolling out work from home decrees.
If you have to keep going to the office, can you take Uber/Lyft instead? I know that is expensive but perhaps this is a good time to use your stash of points to pay for those rides. It will give you peace of mind during this time.

Keep hand sanitizer in your pocket and tissues too. Use the tissues as a barrier for everything you need to touch.

If you don't feel well, stay home. Everyone in the world has been told that over and over now so employers can't really be surprised when more of us start doing that. Can't have it both ways. Many places do not want you around with respiratory symptoms now anyway, fever or not.

Try to sleep as much as possible this weekend.

I do indeed work for a government agency. Ours has been telling us to take our laptops home every day, only to turn around and trudge back into the office the next morning. I would really prefer not to take Lyft as that expense will add up quickly, especially since I'm in 5 days a week and traveling during rush hour both ways (so surge pricing will be in effect). I'm not interested in paying for my employer's incompetence. The only problem with staying home is I will be forced to take sick time, and although I do have some, I don't have weeks worth. I would much rather be allowed to work from home (100% of our job duties can be performed remotely with no loss of productivity). They won't allow us to work from home while sick.

Almost everyone in my office has been laughing about the virus and calling the response totally overblown. Assuming I still don't have a fever on Monday, I intend to go in the office and test that theory. If I do have a fever though, I'll stay home and take sick time.

 

[Psychodisney]

When can we talk about churning again? ...asking for a friend.

We all love our credit cards! But, I think this is a great group of people from all over the country. It's healthy for us to share our ideas, support, fears and thoughts. Another great thing about the best thread on the DIS!

 

[DisneyMandC]

All schools here in VA have been shutdown for the next 2 weeks. The county I work for sent out an email yesterday that said (I'm not even joking): "All employees with school-aged children who need to care for them may use their PTO over the next two weeks. Please ensure there is sufficient coverage for your department before utilizing your PTO."

Wow. How generous of you to allow us to use our own PTO that we have accrued while working here. Thanks for clarifying what is basically the normal policy for just working on a daily basis.

The icing on the cake was the Board of Supervisors announcing that the public would not be allowed into their board meeting on Monday night and they would livestream it only. So, they're worried enough about their own safety to cancel in-person meetings, but the rest of us better be at work

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Wow, this whole virtual thing is going viral

...too soon

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

We all love our credit cards! But, I think this is a great group of people from all over the country. It's healthy for us to share our ideas, support, fears and thoughts. Another great thing about the best thread on the DIS!

Where we were headed last night with some comments when I made that comment (tongue in cheek of course) was anything but healthy

Luckily people decided to move on

 

[GlamMistress]

I do indeed work for a government agency. Ours has been telling us to take our laptops home every day, only to turn around and trudge back into the office the next morning. I would really prefer not to take Lyft as that expense will add up quickly, especially since I'm in 5 days a week and traveling during rush hour both ways (so surge pricing will be in effect). I'm not interested in paying for my employer's incompetence. The only problem with staying home is I will be forced to take sick time, and although I do have some, I don't have weeks worth. I would much rather be allowed to work from home (100% of our job duties can be performed remotely with no loss of productivity). They won't allow us to work from home while sick.

Almost everyone in my office has been laughing about the virus and calling the response totally overblown. Assuming I still don't have a fever on Monday, I intend to go in the office and test that theory. If I do have a fever though, I'll stay home and take sick time.

I feel you. I have a job I could 100% do from home, except for times I needed to address media and things like that. But my company has a non telecommute policy, even though some of us (like me) have laptops with VPN access. The peace of mind I have is a giant bucket of PTO and EIB hours saved up. I know most do not have that luxury. Plus I own a car and can transport back and forth to work alone. Again, most don't have that luxury.

The response isn't overblown. In fact, the government acted way too late and is still behind the 8-ball. Your Dis friends are here for you.

 

[DisneyMandC]

In actual travel related news, I wanted to share something I found on Jetblue's website the other day. If you go to the home page and scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a link to something called "Timetables" This allows you to see future scheduled Jetblue flights that aren't available for sale yet! So while their sale calendar only goes through October right now, you can see flights schedule through March. Hope that helps someone, it helped me!

 

[afan]

At an almost empty gym 2 miles into my now virtual 10k. Given the cold and potential snow/cold rain the weather map showed over the course I'm ok with this. And they are going to try and reschedule to appease all the holes that complained about not getting a refund for something cancelled 3 days prior. They'd paid for most stuff, are a small run org, they aren't looking to make a profit and didn't want to cancel. People are so unreal.

I finished the MSR for DH's BofA Alaska Air a week ago, and about a month early. My 5k miles for support were deposited to my account about a month ago but still waiting for his 40k to post.

Still waiting for my CIC to arrive. Was approved on the Fifth.

Alaska has a support link now? I need to blast that to the world. I've never seen one before.

I am so disgusted with my agency's lack of response to all of this. I live in Washington DC, and things have really progressed rapidly with no response from our leadership. I asked my director about it yesterday, and he said he couldn't issue our department guidance even if he wanted to - he's seen other directors trying to let their people work from home full time, but our agency leadership has overruled them and denied it. The leadership had a meeting late last night, so I checked my email this morning only to find "Make sure you wash your hands! Stay home if you're sick! See you Monday morning." And we have a meeting Monday afternoon about regular work stuff, where we will all be crammed into a small meeting room. Real smart there.

Not to mention, Metro will be scaling down operations beginning Monday. Trains will be running less often, which means for all of us still stuck going into work, trains will be much more crowded and we'll have to hold on to handrails since we'll all be shoulder to shoulder. Really seems like the appropriate response to a pandemic.

Given I'm new, I'm going in the office 5 days a week. Considering I ride metro twice per day, and given how many people move in and out of this city, I have almost certainly been exposed. I had a serious health issue about 10 years ago. I've been okay in the years proceeding, but ever since that happened, my immune system has been poor, and I tend to catch everything. I got the flu for the first time after that happened. I got the swine flu when that first appeared. So I'm pretty rigorous about getting my flu shot and it helps, I don't get the flu anymore. But frankly, I'm concerned about this.

I've not been feeling great most of the week, a dry cough started yesterday, and I woke up this morning with shortness of breath and body aches. But I don't have a fever so I don't have an excuse not to go in the office.

Our agency head is an appointed, out of touch crony billionaire, so I expect nothing less. He's never in the building, so he doesn't have the capacity to understand or care about his employees.

Ok sorry, rant/vent over.

For your health please stay.home even without the fever. I get it but even if what you have isn't covid your system is down and you're more susceptible. I know they kewp pressing the fever but then say people have probably had it amd not realized which to me means no fever. If you weren't short of breath I'd think differently but your health is important and you don't want to get worse just cause you work with holes. What is with people?

 

[GlamMistress]

News

https://twitter.com/x/status/1238836557777231872

 

[palhockeymomof2]

I am so disgusted with my agency's lack of response to all of this. I live in Washington DC, and things have really progressed rapidly with no response from our leadership. I asked my director about it yesterday, and he said he couldn't issue our department guidance even if he wanted to - he's seen other directors trying to let their people work from home full time, but our agency leadership has overruled them and denied it. The leadership had a meeting late last night, so I checked my email this morning only to find "Make sure you wash your hands! Stay home if you're sick! See you Monday morning." And we have a meeting Monday afternoon about regular work stuff, where we will all be crammed into a small meeting room. Real smart there.

Not to mention, Metro will be scaling down operations beginning Monday. Trains will be running less often, which means for all of us still stuck going into work, trains will be much more crowded and we'll have to hold on to handrails since we'll all be shoulder to shoulder. Really seems like the appropriate response to a pandemic.

Given I'm new, I'm going in the office 5 days a week. Considering I ride metro twice per day, and given how many people move in and out of this city, I have almost certainly been exposed. I had a serious health issue about 10 years ago. I've been okay in the years proceeding, but ever since that happened, my immune system has been poor, and I tend to catch everything. I got the flu for the first time after that happened. I got the swine flu when that first appeared. So I'm pretty rigorous about getting my flu shot and it helps, I don't get the flu anymore. But frankly, I'm concerned about this.

I've not been feeling great most of the week, a dry cough started yesterday, and I woke up this morning with shortness of breath and body aches. But I don't have a fever so I don't have an excuse not to go in the office.

Our agency head is an appointed, out of touch crony billionaire, so I expect nothing less. He's never in the building, so he doesn't have the capacity to understand or care about his employees.

Ok sorry, rant/vent over.

Ugh...DH is in the same situation his job has been telling them since Monday to bring home laptops..
From your list of symptoms...the only one you don’t seem to have is a fever and I’m not sure everyone runs one...with your background I’d stay home to protect yourself

 

[Haley R]

5pm is a late dinner in Florida. Early bird specials are over by then

P.S. Happy Anniversary to you and DH.

There were some old people there when we got there but actually quite a few showed up while we were eating. So we were even earlier than most of the early birds haha

 

[havaneselover]

Can you share a bagel for dummies recipe? I have yeast and flour and other baking basics.

Sure and I think I probably have combined a few recipes over the years and have experimented a lot. It's one of those recipes you can modify to suit your needs. I try to keep it pretty simple.

Ingredients:
1.25 c. warm water
1 T honey
1 T yeast (or a packet)
2 c. bread flour
2 t. salt
1.5 c. whole wheat flour

1. I start with 1.25 c of hot water, add about 1 T yeast (or a packet) and 1 T of honey (I used to use malt syrup, but honey is cheaper and I can't tell the difference).
2. Then I add 2 c. bread flour and 2 t. salt in my mixer bowl and mix that together with a spoon.
3. Then I mix in the water/yeast/honey once the yeast is bubbling.
4. Once it's mixed reasonably well (by hand with a spoon), I add another 1.5 c flour (I usually use whole wheat here just to make it a little healthier but bread flour is fine).
5. Then I let my kitchen aid do the work but I have mixed it by hand. I find it takes some adding more hot water and more flour to get the consistency right. Don't want it too dry or too wet.
6. Then I just put a plate over the kitchen aid bowl and let it rest over night (but you can make it in the morning and give it a few hours to rest).
7. In the morning, I take the dough and beat it down (don't know the technical term) then form it into eight balls (a kitchen scale helps here to get them roughly even--mine are usually about 3.5-4 oz.)
8. Cover the balls with a wet paper towel and let them rise another 1.5-2 hours or so.
9. I poke a hole in the center of the ball and shape into a bagel. Pros roll them out into long strips then attach the ends but that never worked for me.
10. Boil for about a minute on each side.
11. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes.

I make bagels 1-2 times per week. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and is something I really look forward to. I freeze the extras and they thaw and toast well.

 

[Judique]

All schools here in VA have been shutdown for the next 2 weeks. The county I work for sent out an email yesterday that said (I'm not even joking): "All employees with school-aged children who need to care for them may use their PTO over the next two weeks. Please ensure there is sufficient coverage for your department before utilizing your PTO."

Wow. How generous of you to allow us to use our own PTO that we have accrued while working here. Thanks for clarifying what is basically the normal policy for just working on a daily basis.

The icing on the cake was the Board of Supervisors announcing that the public would not be allowed into their board meeting on Monday night and they would livestream it only. So, they're worried enough about their own safety to cancel in-person meetings, but the rest of us better be at work

Despite the tax disadvantage, there's been a reason I've chosen to live in Maryland all these years. I've looked at homes in Virginia first time around and multiple times over my years here. There are many things I love about Virginia, but the weighted pros have always stayed on the Maryland side for me. I've lived in DC and loved where I lived but then moved into base housing and from there elsewhere. Not moving into the district anytime soon...
TBH - the areas in Va that I looked at were Dale City, Fredericksburg, Ashburn, Leesburg and when I first was looking with my husband, Merrifield right off 50. We found a home there and got talked out of it. If only I had followed my instincts - that's where I would be right now - in a teeny home in Merrifield on 5 acres. It was 'country' when I came here, lol, and family thought it was too far out.

 

[pillow]

In actual travel related news, I wanted to share something I found on Jetblue's website the other day. If you go to the home page and scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a link to something called "Timetables" This allows you to see future scheduled Jetblue flights that aren't available for sale yet! So while their sale calendar only goes through October right now, you can see flights schedule through March. Hope that helps someone, it helped me!

Wow - this is fabulous. Thank you!!

On another note regarding JetBlue . . . DH and I both applied for the business card. Whoa - Barclays! DH was approved after a 2 week wait. I was not approved, so I called. They eventually approved me for a whopping $1k line. I had to send in a copy of my driver's license, SS card, and a utility bill. Is this normal for them? 60k miles after $1k spend is worth it imo, but it was a bit of a pain.