Coronavirus

Msample wrote: The academic answer is that if your costs go up, so must your prices. But its a brutally competitive industry, and nobody wants to stick out as being "over priced". And many of these operators don't exactly have business degrees ) one reason for the overall high failure rate .

I know this is digression (I'm participating in) for the thread, but the other part here is that many of their competitors *are* large corporate and don't have a lot of these weaknesses: they have incredible access to unlimited finance, can sign long-term contracts for stable and cheap access for goods and supplies, and have a big economy of scale advantage.

Yeah, and people like The Jake suck, because they're staying home and making their own delicious food instead of spending $50 at the local Mexican place to feed two people.

I have six Mexican restaurants in delivery distance from my house, two of which are owned by the same people. It's a miracle they all stay in business, that much more so with so many people staying home and making their own meals now.

Between my Fasting schedule and making the majority of our meals in-house, I am tanking the Grand Haven restaurant industry. "Restaurants hate this guy....click here to see why!"

That’s classic.

I found out the Texas craft brew fest decided to be vaccination or 72 hour test required, so that is a relief since I'm flying out there in a month. It's an outdoor event, so I would have gone anyway, but this is nice.

ubarose wrote: Personally, I've mostly only seen the "we are short staffed" signs at places that have always had notoriously bad service, a high turnover rate, and constantly had a "We're Hiring" sign up even before the pandemic. Feels like they are only using them to excuse their long term practices of being under staffed and treating employees poorly.

While that is true in a lot of places, the other factor IMO is that a good percentage of former service industry workers - restaurants, retail, hospitality - have permanently left the industry. I saw a recent survey of restuarant workers and something like 35% said they were or already had decided to leave the industry for good. Shitty hours, work conditions and the biggest issue - the fucking customers.

I recently took flew on an airplane for the first time in about two years. After reading about the countless horror stories of unruly passengers, I stocked up on some Starbucks gift cards and handed them out to the flight crews on each of my flights. The look of at first disbelief then gratitude made it worth every penny.

Flying post-9/11 sucked before Covid; I can't imagine what it's like now. It's awesome to get in a plane and get out of it two hours later, a thousand miles away. But the experience (except for looking out the window - I love that) is miserable. How bad does it suck when you actually consider driving a thousand miles rather than flying?

RobertB wrote: Flying post-9/11 sucked before Covid; I can't imagine what it's like now. It's awesome to get in a plane and get out of it two hours later, a thousand miles away. But the experience (except for looking out the window - I love that) is miserable. How bad does it suck when you actually consider driving a thousand miles rather than flying?

I feel the same way about flying, plus I have a 25% chance of mild motion sickness every time I fly. On numerous occasions, I have driven 600 miles from the Twin Cities to Indianapolis or vice versa, and that is my upper limit for the distance that I am willing to drive alone. Actually, I might be willing to drive up to 800 miles if Chicago isn't part of the trip. My parents and sister moved to Shreveport over 20 years ago, and they would sometimes drive 1,000 miles to the Twin Cities. But that was with two or three drivers in rotation, plus they usually spent the night at a hotel along the way. It's often cheaper for two or three adults to drive 1,000 miles than to fly 1,000 miles.

My wife and I drove down to Florida to visit her folks in The Villages. 18-19 hour drive and still more convenient and cheaper than flying. We were also able to bring back stuff from an art show in Winter Park.

I can say definitively that my Fiat 500 seats are more comfortable than her Mini Countryman seats.

Not directly Covid-related, but I got the flu shot on Saturday. I've been getting the flu shot every fall for maybe the last ten years. I still felt under the weather today, but nowhere near as bad as I would feel with the actual flu. Or worse yet, the flu plus Covid-19 at the same time. I would love to get a booster shot for the Pfizer vaccine, but I don't qualify for it. This was the first year that I have had trouble getting the flu shot. It was out of stock at local pharmacies recently, and they set some aside for people who make appointments for the shot.

I haven't tested this theory yet, as I'm not 6 months out from my second Pfizer shot, but I've been told by a reputable source that you can probably just waltz into a drug store and get a booster whether you "qualify" or not.

hotseatgames wrote: I haven't tested this theory yet, as I'm not 6 months out from my second Pfizer shot, but I've been told by a reputable source that you can probably just waltz into a drug store and get a booster whether you "qualify" or not.

I've been toying with this idea, trying to ignore every ethics class I've ever taken. In other news my sister-in-law who teaches junior high and is a wonderful person and vaccinated contracted Covid. She is almost 50, and in a risk category, so I was worried, but my brother told me that her symptoms are milder than a recent cold, so that's a relief.

hotseatgames wrote: I haven't tested this theory yet, as I'm not 6 months out from my second Pfizer shot, but I've been told by a reputable source that you can probably just waltz into a drug store and get a booster whether you "qualify" or not.

Might be different in your state/county, but an overweight/obesity BMI qualifies as a health condition, and with how (IMO) out of whack the BMI scale is, I'm sure most people would qualify.

Cranberries wrote: I've been toying with this idea, trying to ignore every ethics class I've ever taken.

I don't think you have to worry too much on the whole ethics angle. Limiting booster approval is a political stunt to look better globally, and the shots are just sitting there unused thanks to an over-abundance of morons.