Coronavirus complaint/commiseration thread.

[Core Shot]

My cure for vertigo is doing bat spins.

[TahoeJ]

You’ve never had vertigo or you would know that’s quackery. Weed is devastating with vertigo. Headache, dizziness. Truly awful.

You're right, I've never had vertigo and didn't suggest otherwise. My former father in law does, and that's what worked for him. My ex also has had it and it didn't work at all and only made her more sick. People are different.

[UTpowder]

I've got fucking Vertigo. It's insanely trivial, I realize, but I'm going on two weeks and it's driving me fucking nuts (and depriving me of my sweet, sweet doobage).

Don’t know what’s causing your vertigo but the most often cause I see is because of BPPV. Try a couple of these exercises especially the Eply. Can’t hurt and may solve the problem


https://www.webmd.com/brain/home-remedies-vertigo

[tetzen]

Bosses want to implement video monitoring through the laptop webcams in the coming days. Seriously considering telling them to shove it and I'll keep that sticky tape I have covering the lens on there, except for our Zoom calls. They can come remove the tape covering the lens personally if they really need to see me throughout the day. I don't need the camera randomly turning on and recording me during the day without my knowledge.

It's a worrying prospect to think about giving up this job in this environment, but I also have some lines I won't cross.

[RockinB]

Bosses want to implement video monitoring through the laptop webcams in the coming days. Seriously considering telling them to shove it and I'll keep that sticky tape I have covering the lens on there, except for our Zoom calls. They can come remove the tape covering the lens personally if they really need to see me throughout the day. I don't need the camera randomly turning on and recording me during the day without my knowledge.

It's a worrying prospect to think about giving up this job in this environment, but I also have some lines I won't cross.

Fuck this. Play along with it and make sure you don’t wear clothes for the first few days. I’m sure that policy will go away shortly after.

[Core Shot]

Fuck this. Play along with it and make sure you don’t wear clothes for the first few days. I’m sure that policy will go away shortly after.

Bra and panties for the win. They can’t fire you if your transitioning. But nudity at the office is not allowed.

[riser4]

Get a blow up doll and sit that in front of the camera. If you use a USB keyboard and mouse along with external monitors you don't have to sit in front of the camera. My camera is taped over. We use WebEx and it says it doesn't support the camera so I haven't tried.

[liv2ski]

Serious question. Companies can't tell employees are getting work done from home? When I started working for home in 2014, I became much more productive, but I am self employed, so no boss to give two shits.

[mcski]

Serious question. Companies can't tell employees are getting work done from home? When I started working for home in 2014, I became much more productive, but I am self employed, so no boss to give two shits.

Smart companies know they get more out of people letting them work from home because the employees are worried about looking like a slacker to the boss/peers and end up working more. Same idea with companies that offer no limit on days off. People end up taking fewer. At least that’s how it works at most tech companies. YMMV

[KQ]

This totally sux.

Whitehouse-Crawford closes for good

When restaurants are finally able to reopen their dining rooms for service, Whitehouse-Crawford will not be among them.

The Walla Walla restaurant helped set the foundation 20 years ago for modern-day fine dining as a compliment to a budding wine industry, becoming the culinary backdrop for celebrations, proposals and major fundraisers in a restored 1904 planing mill operation that survived two major fires and had been on the verge of demolition before a battle to save it.

But the restaurant will not survive a global pandemic, owner Jamie Guerin said.

The loss of spring business, often relied upon by local restaurants to help rebound from the lull of winter, is hard enough, he said. Now COVID-19 has left summer and fall openings uncertain. And even if restaurants are permitted to open, will white tablecloth dining rooms draw consumers as they did before the coronavirus pandemic?

“Taking all of that into consideration, I just didn’t see a path forward,” Guerin said.

The decision was agonizing. “I don’t want to do it. This restaurant is really, really important to me,” he said.

It may also be just the start of the vastly changing face of food service.

In a survey released earlier this month by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, just one in five restaurant owners said they are certain their businesses will survive the COVID-19 crisis that has shuttered dining rooms across the country and shifted those that can provide it toward delivery or curbside pickup.

As of April 13, restaurant owners reported laying off 91% of their hourly workforce and nearly 70% of their salaried employees, the results of the survey said.

The Paycheck Protection Program helping other businesses does not fit the restaurant industry. Provided he were approved for a loan, Guerin would have to hire his staff of about 24 people back within just a couple of weeks but have no clearance to open beyond curbside service.

“I think everyone’s learning a little bit more about restaurants right now because of what’s going on with them,” he said.

“My best guess is fine-dining, white tablecloth restaurants are going to take an even bigger hit than a lot of (other restaurants).”

Guerin plans to continue forward with his second restaurant, Main Street’s Brasserie Four, which he believes is better positioned for a post-pandemic economy.

What will happen in the spot, which along with occupant Seven Hills Winery is owned by Crimson Wine Group, is not yet known.

“My sincere deep hope is something special comes into this space,” Guerin said, casting a glance across the empty dining room. “Ideally a restaurant. Something that was consistent with how special this building and space is.”

Its history in the community is a storied one. It dates back to 1880, when a pair of businessmen named Cooper and Schmuck, opened a milling operation on Third Avenue between Cherry and Sumach streets.

In 1888, George Whitehouse, a local contractor, and his partner, D.J. Crimmins, bought the company. Five years later, fire ravaged the planing mill and adjacent lumber yard.

In 1904, Whitehouse and Crimmins began reconstruction, but the financial impact of the fire was too great for the latter. Crimmins sold his interest to John M. Crawford of Grinell, Kan., and the operation was renamed Whitehouse-Crawford Co.

In 1911, Whitehouse sold his interest in the firm to James T. Crawford, John Crawford’s brother. But the name remained. Over the next 70 years, the business influenced the building style of the area. The community’s grand homes and many of its landmark buildings — the Marcus Whitman Hotel and Whitman College’s Cordiner Hall, for example — were crafted with handrails, doors, sashes and moldings came from the mill.

In 1960, another fire devastated the operation, leaving the mill itself intact while the lumber yard across the street was ravaged.

Closure eventually came in 1988, and the milling equipment was sold to another outfit.

According to local history a decision to sell the mill and lumber yard property to the city was part of a larger plan to entice the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build its $10 million district headquarters in downtown Walla Walla. While the headquarters were constructed where the lumber yard had been the mill sat vacant another decade.

That was until the city of Walla Walla entertained negotiation with a Boise development firm that planned to raze the building.

The plan drew opposition from the late Carl and Sonia Schmitt. Sonia Schmitt was a Walla Walla native who met her future husband in the mid-1950s at Whitman College. Post graduation the two moved to California, where Carl Schmitt’s successful career in banking included the launch of University Bank & Trust of California.

Upon retirement they moved to Walla Walla. When they learned of plans to demolish the planing mill that helped build the town, they rose to action under a limited liability company they called named “Salvation!”

In a move to disrupt the plan between the city and the Boise company, they showed up to a Council meeting in August 1998 with a checkbook in hand and prepared to pay $130,000 for the property on the spot, archives detailed. When Council opted to proceed negotiations with the outside firm, the Schmitts vowed to do whatever they could to stop the demolition.

True to his word, Carl Schmitt sued the city in a case that was ultimately dismissed but not before becoming a thorn to the developer, who opted out of the deal.

In April 1999, the Schmitts signed for the purchase of the building for $153,448. Restoration of the structure was led by Ketelsen Construction. Seven Hills Winery signed on to the project, opening a tasting room in part of the building.

The restaurant, opened in May 2000, with classic elegance as its hallmark: brick walls, white rafters, refinished fir floors, white tablecloths and napkins, royal blue velvety chairs, a single fresh flower on each table and an open kitchen concept that showed chef Guerin and his staff at work.

Joining Patit Creek Restaurant in Dayton, The Homestead, Weinhard Cafe and The Marc, the restaurant was ripe to grow with the wine industry.

“Wine really needs food, and food really needs wine,” Carl Schmitt said in a 2001 interview. “We have the ability to provide a level of cooking that is easily matched off with a really good wine that’s produced locally.”

The growth of the food and wine scene since then is nothing short of amazing, said Guerin, who joined as chef recruited from Seattle’s Cafe Campagne and later purchased the business from the Schmitts.

“I’ve witnessed this go from a few businesses to a world-class wine destination,” Guerin said. “There are places to stay, things to do, a theater.”

Perpetually battling the notion that the restaurant was fancy and expensive, he said the most important part of what happened at Whitehouse-Crawford was the care provided through food, drink and company.

“All the people who are really good at this business have sort of a natural instinct for taking care of people,” he said.

For regulars — even those coming once a year for a wine weekend or special getaway — the place was a home away from home.

“We know them all,” Guerin said. “We know what they like to eat. We know what they like to drink. We know when they like to come in.”

That’s the part that’s hardest about the decision, even if it makes sense on paper, he said.

“We’ve done a lot of really awesome things in this space. We never could have lasted this long if it wasn’t for the local community supporting us,” he said.

“Restaurants have a crazy way of bonding us.”

[MakersTeleMark]

How was the food? That's a good run for most restaurants.

[westoxified]

How was the food? That's a good run for most restaurants.

The place is fantastic. They must see the writing on the wall or something. So sad.

[tetzen]

Serious question. Companies can't tell employees are getting work done from home? When I started working for home in 2014, I became much more productive, but I am self employed, so no boss to give two shits.

I told the HR folks today that there was no way I'm going to agree to this nonsense. Happy to take part in Zooms and whatnot, but they don't get to control when things are recorded in my home. I'll see what happens.

I'm enjoying the blow-up doll as an idea. Maybe a nice picture of some friendly ladies strategically taped 3 inches from the camera lens would do the trick too.

[mcski]

I hadn’t seen your earlier post w that scenario. All day video is idiotic. Makes me wonder if they already had it enabled in the workplace. I’d be resistant too. At the very least ignore and accidentally put a piece of tape over the cam when not on zoom. It’s also stupid, because if they want to be all Orwellian and monitor your work, using there are plenty of apps that monitor automátically and produce charts. Video would be pretty useless if they wanted to make useful decisions

[wooley12]

Had a Zoom with my brothers today and mentioned your predicament. My brother Rick said when he had his first company meeting from home he didn't wear pants just to bust balls. In mid meeting he stood and walked away to get a drink. When his boss called him out Rick said "I'll work in my own house but I don't think you can tell me how to dress in my own house." Rick had been with the company 25 years so they all knew it was Rick being Rick.

Good luck. You're a pioneer. If they want to have access to viewing you at will they need to do it in their own space. They're out of line.

[Benny Profane]

This totally sux.

Whitehouse-Crawford closes for good

When restaurants are finally able to reopen their dining rooms for service, Whitehouse-Crawford will not be among them.

The Walla Walla restaurant helped set the foundation 20 years ago for modern-day fine dining as a compliment to a budding wine industry, becoming the culinary backdrop for celebrations, proposals and major fundraisers in a restored 1904 planing mill operation that survived two major fires and had been on the verge of demolition before a battle to save it.

But the restaurant will not survive a global pandemic, owner Jamie Guerin said.

The loss of spring business, often relied upon by local restaurants to help rebound from the lull of winter, is hard enough, he said. Now COVID-19 has left summer and fall openings uncertain. And even if restaurants are permitted to open, will white tablecloth dining rooms draw consumers as they did before the coronavirus pandemic?

“Taking all of that into consideration, I just didn’t see a path forward,” Guerin said.

The decision was agonizing. “I don’t want to do it. This restaurant is really, really important to me,” he said.

It may also be just the start of the vastly changing face of food service.

In a survey released earlier this month by the Independent Restaurant Coalition, just one in five restaurant owners said they are certain their businesses will survive the COVID-19 crisis that has shuttered dining rooms across the country and shifted those that can provide it toward delivery or curbside pickup.

As of April 13, restaurant owners reported laying off 91% of their hourly workforce and nearly 70% of their salaried employees, the results of the survey said.

The Paycheck Protection Program helping other businesses does not fit the restaurant industry. Provided he were approved for a loan, Guerin would have to hire his staff of about 24 people back within just a couple of weeks but have no clearance to open beyond curbside service.

“I think everyone’s learning a little bit more about restaurants right now because of what’s going on with them,” he said.

“My best guess is fine-dining, white tablecloth restaurants are going to take an even bigger hit than a lot of (other restaurants).”

Guerin plans to continue forward with his second restaurant, Main Street’s Brasserie Four, which he believes is better positioned for a post-pandemic economy.

What will happen in the spot, which along with occupant Seven Hills Winery is owned by Crimson Wine Group, is not yet known.

“My sincere deep hope is something special comes into this space,” Guerin said, casting a glance across the empty dining room. “Ideally a restaurant. Something that was consistent with how special this building and space is.”

Its history in the community is a storied one. It dates back to 1880, when a pair of businessmen named Cooper and Schmuck, opened a milling operation on Third Avenue between Cherry and Sumach streets.

In 1888, George Whitehouse, a local contractor, and his partner, D.J. Crimmins, bought the company. Five years later, fire ravaged the planing mill and adjacent lumber yard.

In 1904, Whitehouse and Crimmins began reconstruction, but the financial impact of the fire was too great for the latter. Crimmins sold his interest to John M. Crawford of Grinell, Kan., and the operation was renamed Whitehouse-Crawford Co.

In 1911, Whitehouse sold his interest in the firm to James T. Crawford, John Crawford’s brother. But the name remained. Over the next 70 years, the business influenced the building style of the area. The community’s grand homes and many of its landmark buildings — the Marcus Whitman Hotel and Whitman College’s Cordiner Hall, for example — were crafted with handrails, doors, sashes and moldings came from the mill.

In 1960, another fire devastated the operation, leaving the mill itself intact while the lumber yard across the street was ravaged.

Closure eventually came in 1988, and the milling equipment was sold to another outfit.

According to local history a decision to sell the mill and lumber yard property to the city was part of a larger plan to entice the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build its $10 million district headquarters in downtown Walla Walla. While the headquarters were constructed where the lumber yard had been the mill sat vacant another decade.

That was until the city of Walla Walla entertained negotiation with a Boise development firm that planned to raze the building.

The plan drew opposition from the late Carl and Sonia Schmitt. Sonia Schmitt was a Walla Walla native who met her future husband in the mid-1950s at Whitman College. Post graduation the two moved to California, where Carl Schmitt’s successful career in banking included the launch of University Bank & Trust of California.

Upon retirement they moved to Walla Walla. When they learned of plans to demolish the planing mill that helped build the town, they rose to action under a limited liability company they called named “Salvation!”

In a move to disrupt the plan between the city and the Boise company, they showed up to a Council meeting in August 1998 with a checkbook in hand and prepared to pay $130,000 for the property on the spot, archives detailed. When Council opted to proceed negotiations with the outside firm, the Schmitts vowed to do whatever they could to stop the demolition.

True to his word, Carl Schmitt sued the city in a case that was ultimately dismissed but not before becoming a thorn to the developer, who opted out of the deal.

In April 1999, the Schmitts signed for the purchase of the building for $153,448. Restoration of the structure was led by Ketelsen Construction. Seven Hills Winery signed on to the project, opening a tasting room in part of the building.

The restaurant, opened in May 2000, with classic elegance as its hallmark: brick walls, white rafters, refinished fir floors, white tablecloths and napkins, royal blue velvety chairs, a single fresh flower on each table and an open kitchen concept that showed chef Guerin and his staff at work.

Joining Patit Creek Restaurant in Dayton, The Homestead, Weinhard Cafe and The Marc, the restaurant was ripe to grow with the wine industry.

“Wine really needs food, and food really needs wine,” Carl Schmitt said in a 2001 interview. “We have the ability to provide a level of cooking that is easily matched off with a really good wine that’s produced locally.”

The growth of the food and wine scene since then is nothing short of amazing, said Guerin, who joined as chef recruited from Seattle’s Cafe Campagne and later purchased the business from the Schmitts.

“I’ve witnessed this go from a few businesses to a world-class wine destination,” Guerin said. “There are places to stay, things to do, a theater.”

Perpetually battling the notion that the restaurant was fancy and expensive, he said the most important part of what happened at Whitehouse-Crawford was the care provided through food, drink and company.

“All the people who are really good at this business have sort of a natural instinct for taking care of people,” he said.

For regulars — even those coming once a year for a wine weekend or special getaway — the place was a home away from home.

“We know them all,” Guerin said. “We know what they like to eat. We know what they like to drink. We know when they like to come in.”

That’s the part that’s hardest about the decision, even if it makes sense on paper, he said.

“We’ve done a lot of really awesome things in this space. We never could have lasted this long if it wasn’t for the local community supporting us,” he said.

“Restaurants have a crazy way of bonding us.”

"Restaurants have a crazy way of bonding us.”

Says Anthony Bourdain from the great beyond.

Yeah, this is sad. The industry will come back, but it looks like a year or two before that happens, because nobody can justify the business model with half the tables and no bar. Meanwhile, a lot of people are learning to cook, which, again, will not bode well for the restaraunt industry, because millions are going to suddenly realize how much they were spending going out to eat and drink so much. Of course, many will be forced to stay home because they simply have no money.
It's an important industry in large cities. Of course it employs millions, but that employment is an entry level job in the cultural industries in NYC, and, with those gone, less kids starting out, so, less artists. Sad.

[SkiCougar]

I sure felt like obeying traffic law went right out the window as I still have been driving daily to work.

"The Roads Are Quieter Due to Coronavirus, but There Are More Fatal Car Crashes "

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-roa...es-11588152600

and it nuts out there on the roads:
"the highway patrol wrote about 2,500 speeding tickets to drivers caught going more than 100 mph. That was an 87% jump from a year earlier, despite a roughly 35% drop in traffic volume on state roads.

In New York City, cameras captured 296,000 speeders during a five-week stretch beginning in mid-March, an 81% increase from the same period in 2019, according to data collected by the city’s speed-camera vendor Verra Mobility. "


after the virus passes, you all should probably remain in your homes at 40,000 auto fatalities yearly; it's nearly as dangerous as corona

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

it takes a powerful amount of stupid to equate auto accidents with a highly contagious disease.

[Benny Profane]

it takes a powerful amount of stupid to equate auto accidents with a highly contagious disease.

I don't think so. I live up in the woods in a near exurban area to NYC. I road bike a lot, and I live here because the roads are pretty awesome and well maintained. But, there's tons of money here, too, which equates to a lot of high performance machines in garages. Lately I've been passed by a lot of high horsepower German machines in groups going very fast, stuff you rarely see on a Thursday. Fuck, there's a guy out there with a damn Mclaren. The cops are now playing a cat and mouse game with them I've never seen before. I stopped and talked to one, and he told me this was easy overtime now. I've also experienced some really stupid shit on local 25-35 mph roads. Another reason to stay inside. People suck.

[glademaster]

Come on, Benny, if you had access to a high performance car you would be taking advantage of the relatively uncrowded roads right now too.

[Benny Profane]

Oh, sure. But in a Caterham with the higher horsepower Cosworth.

They're usually uncrowded, it's just that a lot of people have free time and they know cops don't want to risk their lives for traffic stops.

[BmillsSkier]

My Sunday drive route is a parade of exotics if you get out after noon. Before that the roads are empty. After 2 the roadies join in the fun to make it a hilly, twisty full-on clusterfuck on a tight 35-45 mph road.

Moral of the story, get out right after your coffee and then park at the tiny general store to take in the shitshow.

GSP clocked a bike doing 173 on the highway in the city last week. The quote was “we didn’t even try to stop him”.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Hey Benny, are you naturally this obtuse, or do you have to work at it?

[Benny Profane]

Should I type slower and use smaller words for you?

[riser4]

I was on I-89 on Monday to go down to Costco. I set the cruise control at 67. Tons of people getting on my ass and getting aggro and then going past me. They loved it when I dropped down to 55 in the construction zones. However, a bunch of them got pulled over because the VT State Police, plus local cops, were out in force.