@patespo1 posted:For a once or twice a year it's a pretty good place. Well appointed, nice bar/restaurant. Worth it, that's another story, but the location really does make it.
i really love grabbing a drink at the epicurean and the foods not bad at all either
and yea i do feel like the bern's list has been fairly picked over nowadays unfortunately
@patespo1 posted:Interested to hear what you find on this trip. Last few times there I/we felt the list was a little 'picked over'. I know that sounds impossible but it seemed that way.
Best part is we stay at the Marriott across the street which makes it easy to bring any unfinished bottles back for a night cap.
IT is definitely picked over. Zero doubt of that. But we worked with my regular somm Brad to pull some special bottles for the evening. I'll be over in Wine Conversations in a minute to post a list of what we drank. I'm satisfied and then some.
@bman posted:The Epicurean? Is it worth the cost, notwithstanding the fact it's across from Bern's?
In my book it is. Literally across the street from Bern's with a flashing light crosswalk to help warn drivers to slow down. You could literally crawl back to your room. Bern's has a fine wine store on site in the hotel. I bought 3 bottles to share. There were at least 6 others floating around the afternoon before dinner. Krug, Opus, Diamond Creek, Grand Dame, you name it. Lots of great wine and very reasomable prices in my opinion. Decent on site restaurant. Roof top bar. OK pool. 3 or so block walk down to the bay. The entire area surround it has been gentrified. Easy to get out and walk or bike (they have free bikes available) to all manner of local restaurants and bars. 5-10 minutes to downtown and Ybor City via Uber.
In short, when Bern's is part of my trip, I won't stay anywhere else.
@wineismylife posted:In my book it is. Literally across the street from Bern's with a flashing light crosswalk to help warn drivers to slow down. You could literally crawl back to your room. Bern's has a fine wine store on site in the hotel. I bought 3 bottles to share. There were at least 6 others floating around the afternoon before dinner. Krug, Opus, Diamond Creek, Grand Dame, you name it. Lots of great wine and very reasomable prices in my opinion. Decent on site restaurant. Roof top bar. OK pool. 3 or so block walk down to the bay. The entire area surround it has been gentrified. Easy to get out and walk or bike (they have free bikes available) to all manner of local restaurants and bars. 5-10 minutes to downtown and Ybor City via Uber.
In short, when Bern's is part of my trip, I won't stay anywhere else.
Thanks. Looking forward to getting there one of these days, presuming it's ever safe to go to Florida again! And we are allowed to cross the border......
To bring this back around to COVID. While on our trip to Tampa to have dinner at Bern's once we left the airport and our Uber where masks were required we saw ZERO masks. We passed bar after bar with people lined up tight knit to get in and zero masks. Same thing with restaurants. Long lines tight knit and no masks. Our hotel? Nope. Staff? Mostly nope. Even the receptionists. Hostess? Nope. Manager? Nope. Bern's? Nope. Lunch? Nope. No waiters or bartenders. It's the effing wild, wild west there right now.
Side note. Their hospitals are stuffed full of COVID patients. My friend fell while there. Had to go by ambulance to Tampa General for stitches, scans and observation. He was in a bed in a conference room. One visitor for two hours per day no switching out or anything. COVID patents get zero visitors allowed.
Yeah, it's the f*cking flu. Pass in a day or two. My immune system is bullet proof. It won't impact me. Sh!t for brains.
I just returned from a trip to the Galapagos. Ecuador is much more strict than we are; masks are required to be worn inside all buildings and outside as well, and in cars, vehicles, etc. And people just did it. No one protesting about their "freedumbs."
The cruise line requires all staff and guests to be vaccinated. Plus, to enter the Galapagos, you have to pass a PCR test also. Even once on the ship, we were required to wear masks at all times outside the cabin, including on the outside decks. In restaurants, lounges, etc you could take them off if eating or drinking. Yes, it was probably overkill. But here's the thing: the cruise went off without a Covid hitch. Everyone felt very safe and comfortable, knowing we were all vaccinated and tested too. And they are going to be able to cruise the next week, and the week after that, etc without a major Covid hiccup.
I was thinking about how messed up it is that Florida's Governor doesn't want to let cruise lines in Florida require 100% vaccinations. And how on those ships you'd never know if the person next to you was vaccinated or not. And how inevitably, there would be Covid infections amongst the unvaccinated on the cruise ships and the ships would probably have to cancel cruises, etc.
From a business perspective of a cruise line, it just makes sense to require all guests and staff to be vaccinated.
"The US death toll from Covid-19 just surpassed that of the 1918 flu pandemic."
We're number one, we're number one. Congrats to all the unvaccinated who made this milestone possible.
TOM - 103 million lived in the US in 2018, compared to 330 million now. From the 1920 census, 49% lived in rural areas. Not necessarily apples to apples, but still very sad.
@arsenal4ever posted:TOM - 103 million lived in the US in 2018, compared to 330 million now.
I know it’s just a typo, but what a horrifying thought that at this rate, we’d have a billion dumbasses by 2024. 
@The Old Man posted:"The US death toll from Covid-19 just surpassed that of the 1918 flu pandemic."
We're number one, we're number one. Congrats to all the unvaccinated who made this milestone possible.
While I can surmise you’re probably referring to the anti-vax idiots currently clogging up hospitals and dying in droves, many of the first few hundred thousand deaths were of folks who never had a chance to get vaccinated. Congratulating those unlucky folks is extremely poor form…….
@arsenal4ever posted:TOM - 103 million lived in the US in 2018, compared to 330 million now. From the 1920 census, 49% lived in rural areas. Not necessarily apples to apples, but still very sad.
Yes, our healthcare systems, biotech knowledge, logistics to dispense vaccines at scale, and ability to educate the public of the efficacy of safe health practices haven’t advanced much in the past 100 years at all, amirite you tosser?
/sarcasm
@Insight posted:While I can surmise you’re probably referring to the anti-vax idiots currently clogging up hospitals and dying in droves, many of the first few hundred thousand deaths were of folks who never had a chance to get vaccinated. Congratulating those unlucky folks is extremely poor form…….
I guess you missed the point that we never could have reached this milestone without people refusing to be vaccinated. While the prevaccine deaths are of course tragic even many (not most) of those deaths were also caused by people who didn't take the virus seriously. Their president told them it was no big deal, so they wouldn't mask up and they continued to gather in large groups.
@The Old Man posted:I guess you missed the point that we never could have reached this milestone without people refusing to be vaccinated. While the prevaccine deaths are of course tragic many of those deaths were also caused by people who didn't take the virus seriously. Their president told them it was no big deal, so they wouldn't mask up and they continued to gather in large groups.
The first sentence of my reply made it abundantly obvious that I was aware of the intent of your post. There are unfortunately too many who passed away pre-vaccine that worked in essential capacities like healthcare, agriculture and service industries who couldn’t avoid exposure. You denigrate them when you stated that “congrats to ALL THE UNVACCINATED who made this milestone possible”. Their deaths are included in the total count. We wouldn’t be at this milestone otherwise.
Now if you had used a modifier such as “willfully” or “profligate” (or better yet, both of those modifiers), you would have insulted the many dummies while acknowledging the victims who were careful but unfortunate……..
@Insight posted:The first sentence of my reply made it abundantly obvious that I was aware of the intent of your post. There are unfortunately too many who passed away pre-vaccine that worked in essential capacities like healthcare, agriculture and service industries who couldn’t avoid exposure. You denigrate them when you stated that “congrats to ALL THE UNVACCINATED who made this milestone possible”. Their deaths are included in the total count. We wouldn’t be at this milestone otherwise.
Now if you had used a modifier such as “willfully” or “profligate” (or better yet, both of those modifiers), you would have insulted the many dummies while acknowledging the victims who were careful but unfortunate……..
Go clutch your pearls elsewhere. For whatever reason you choose to interpret it the way you do. No surprise there. That's on you not me.
No need to bicker. The unvaccinated who choose to remain that way w/o substantial medical reason are the pariahs. They deserve our collective anger. There has been plenty of time to educate oneself and respond in the public good. The reality is we have become ( more of) a self serving narcissistic intolerant country of warring tribes, the Un-United States. The sadness is that health science is entangled with uneducated misinformation promulgated by (anti)social media. Now to things I have some expertise in: On the science front, some good news: presence or absence of reactions to vaccines has no relation to adequacy of antibody formation; initial boosters will be available and recommended for those people who suffered most with initial strains- older than 65, health care workers and those with unavoidable exposure, and the immune compromised people; sadly, health care worker morale has plummeted affecting staffing and care; several states are rationing care away from unvaccinated COVID patients, but still affecting management availability and follow up of those with trauma, acute medical or surgical needs, and those with significant chronic conditions like cancer heart and lung disease. On the wine front, released 2018 looks great especially for Cal Cab and to a lesser extent for Zin, Pinot and Chard; 2019 also excellent, with the reverse order; but from discussion at several wineries, 2020 will be impacted by the fires variably, with both declassified wines and lower yields in part from tainted unusable grapes. In addition, plant and equipment damage had impact affecting harvest. Some wineries as a result will hold their ‘19’s for next year’s tastings and late releases . On the baseball front, the lovable loser NY Mets appear done with too many free agents to lose, but the Yanks are still fighting with the hated RedSox for wild card ( great for season’s end interest) and as usual some surprises; and despite lower BA (.245) and still too much of three outcomes (K,Bb,HR) the season made it through with any real COVID hiccups and Ohtani and Vlad Jr have been superb. The 2022 Hall of Fame ballot has 3 on last go around (Schilling Bonds Clemens) and 2 first timers (ARod and DOrtiz) and tainted in some way. The writers have been less inclined to vote against the steroid users but not enough yet. Maybe further away SRolen gets in And finally WWS fantasy BB ends, for me and several others on this site, but for me a frustrating year, performance the worst in 16 years.
Reddit has a site for the Herman Cain Awards - people who loudly and vociferously denied Covid and/or the vaccines and then got infected and died from Covid.
Schadenfreude at its best / worst.
Rothko - Yea just heard about this. A subset of Darwin awards. It’s about time for public shame and embarrassment; too bad, I suspect, the effect will be limited. When children are affected this fall and winter, then there may be more outcry
Two coworkers that I was in a meeting with Friday morning tested positive with breakthrough cases. We were all masked. Got a negative test result today - whew. I’m back to telling people to stay out my workspace or feel the wrath.
We still have a surprising amount of people who won’t get jabs.
@drtannin 2 posted:Rothko - Yea just heard about this. A subset of Darwin awards. It’s about time for public shame and embarrassment; too bad, I suspect, the effect will be limited. When children are affected this fall and winter, then there may be more outcry
"It's about time for public shame and embarrassment" --- I'm all in on that. I won't let anyone in my office who has not been vaccinated. If shopping malls, restaurants, entertainment venues, government offices, doctor's offices, my fellow lawyer's offices, brick and mortar stores, Ubers and Lyfts and taxis and trains and buses and planes, and all manner of other things were just closed to the unvaccinated, I think we'd see more vaccinations.
"California now has nation's lowest virus transmission rate"
"California's rate is 94 cases per 100,000. By comparison, Texas is 386 and Florida is 296. State experts say relatively high vaccination rates in California ahead of the arrival of the delta variant made a difference, and additional measures, such as masking, also helped stem the surge."
Well, duh.
@billhike posted:Two coworkers that I was in a meeting with Friday morning tested positive with breakthrough cases. We were all masked. Got a negative test result today - whew. I’m back to telling people to stay out my workspace or feel the wrath.
We still have a surprising amount of people who won’t get jabs.
I caught it from my little one who has 2 kids in his class that are out with covid.
He's still sneezing, I finally tested negative last week but I still can't shake this cough and my jogging mileage has cut in half cuz it feels like a 20 lb dumbbell on my chest.
But thank goodness i'm vaccinated.
@irwin posted:"It's about time for public shame and embarrassment" --- I'm all in on that. I won't let anyone in my office who has not been vaccinated. If shopping malls, restaurants, entertainment venues, government offices, doctor's offices, my fellow lawyer's offices, brick and mortar stores, Ubers and Lyfts and taxis and trains and buses and planes, and all manner of other things were just closed to the unvaccinated, I think we'd see more vaccinations.
i mean, if folks really really thought we were going to turn into a "communist country", they'd have their house doors welded shut or potentially shipped off in trains somewhere.
and in more fun news
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...AOVJme?ocid=msedgntp
looks like covid can be a trigger for diabetes.
Anybody gotten a third booster shot yet?
I guess I have to wait until they authorize Moderna for a booster.
@Rothko posted:Anybody gotten a third booster shot yet?
I guess I have to wait until they authorize Moderna for a booster.
Ditto. Waiting for official approval of the Moderna booster. I'll be exactly 6 months out from my second shot tomorrow the 30th.
@wineismylife posted:Ditto. Waiting for official approval of the Moderna booster. I'll be exactly 6 months out from my second shot tomorrow the 30th.
Me three although I am 5 months not 6. FKG had a second J&J
@wineismylife posted:Ditto. Waiting for official approval of the Moderna booster. I'll be exactly 6 months out from my second shot tomorrow the 30th.
I just realized today is exactly 6 months for me!
@jcocktosten posted:Me three although I am 5 months not 6. FKG had a second J&J
Interesting. Just went to a place offering it? My wife and I both got the JJ in March. I haven’t heard that second jabs of it were good to go yet.
It is my understanding that a lot of places including many in my area that if you show up and tell them you are immunocompromised they will go ahead and give you a Moderna or J&J booster.
I got my Moderna booster 5 weeks ago. I wanted it before I went to France. Mrs. H got hers two weeks ago after she returned from Taiwan. Just made an appt at a local pharmacy. In and out in no time.
Today. Pfizer.
@billhike posted:Interesting. Just went to a place offering it? My wife and I both got the JJ in March. I haven’t heard that second jabs of it were good to go yet.
Public free vaccine events - no questions asked - if you want them, you get them.
A Covid researcher we know, strongly advised she get a second dose as soon as possible given what a cluster**** Florida is - so . . .
From what I have been reading, the FDA is looking at authorizing a Moderna booster shot that would be 1/2 the amount of vaccine as the original. The original shot contained 100 micrograms of the vaccine goodies; the booster would be 50 micrograms. Lower chance of negative side effects.
I don't fall into any of the approved categories for the Pfizer booster yet, but I'll be first in line when I do. I think they're a little more circumspect in WA state about who they give them to.
I'll be getting a flu shot on Sunday morning. Debating this: If they offer me a Moderna booster, do I take it? (I am >65, but not immunocompromised). I guess if I'm going to have a sore arm, I may as well have a sore arm once.
@irwin posted:I'll be getting a flu shot on Sunday morning. Debating this: If they offer me a Moderna booster, do I take it? (I am >65, but not immunocompromised). I guess if I'm going to have a sore arm, I may as well have a sore arm once.
I'd take the booster if it's available. They might not offer it to you unless you ask. And you don't have to be immunocompromised, per se (cancer, lupus, etc.). You can have asthma or high blood pressure and be eligible. In NYS, being over 65 is enough, without any other factors at play. I don't know about MD.
@irwin posted:I'll be getting a flu shot on Sunday morning. Debating this: If they offer me a Moderna booster, do I take it? (I am >65, but not immunocompromised). I guess if I'm going to have a sore arm, I may as well have a sore arm once.
No booster is yet approved or recommended for the Moderna vaccine regardless of age.
@The Old Man posted:No booster is yet approved or recommended for the Moderna vaccine regardless of age.
They are giving Moderna (and Pfizer) boosters here in NYS . I know a lot of people here who got it. And friends in Hawai'i, too. I'm not disagreeing with you. Just saying that it's being administered widely.
