mike carey

Glad to see you back in here, @JuniorNYC. I see my problem, I used an old e-mail address. The urgency of my next trip to NYC has just increased (noting the may be caveat to your being back).

As far as I'm concerned he can talk any way he damn well likes!

What @westernsyd said. I've rarely hired in Melbourne and not in Perth or Adelaide, and I don't frequent venues enough to comment. Escorts from Sydney and Melbourne do visit Adelaide at times, so it's worth checking rent.men to see if any show up, if they pique your interest.

I read elsewhere a little while ago someone express a degree of disdain for the overuse of the word 'curate', and another poster comment that they were glad that someone else had the same thought as they did. It reminded me of a segment on the radio just yesterday about a 'celebrity book curator'. While I share the disdain for the overuse of the word, this was an occasion where I thought its use was strangely justified. The man's business was collecting a range of books to form a small library for his clients, very much to be read but also as a display. I thought 'curate' worked because it involved not just any copy of a book, but of seeking out better copies, hard cover, leather bound, first editions and the like. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/meet-thatcher-wine-book-curator/11631870 The program is pretty much a collection of random items, which you will see if you click on 'View Full Episode' or 'Blueprint for Living' at the top of the page. On the short shelf life of 'popular' terms, I think back to a segment on a serious science program about the changes in Fremantle leading up to the defence of the Americas Cup yacht trophy in 1986. It referred to the gentrification of the port city and the proliferation of chic cafes and restaurants, intoning that the city was reaping the advantage of mining considerable quantities of Trendium, something that while good while it lasted was perhaps doomed because Trendium had a short half-life before decaying to its sister element Tedium. Sadly I can't locate audio of that item.

I feel that I need to comment on this thread so I can have the last word.

I have seen no difference in the accuracy of the feature before and after the change to the way it opens. When I've looked at profiles in Sydney and New York, by way of example, I get the same proportion that after zooming in show a CBD location near the Town Hall, or somewhere near Battery Park as those that show what appears to be a more specific street location elsewhere in the city. Whether either is accurately reflecting where they are, or a location they have entered manually is impossible to tell without calling them to ask.

I sent him an e-mail a couple of months ago and received no reply.

Yep, sure do. Broadly, solicitors do legal work, provide advice, draft legal documents, attend more minor court cases and so on, so if you're going to see your lawyer, it will be a solicitor. Barristers (as distinct from baristas) are advocates in court trials, usually on more serious cases.

Perfect!

No matter how often I hear this usage, I still have a momentary 'WTF?'. Here, 'solicitor' is a word for an attorney.

Thanks for sharing this. Kudos for trying to do it even though it didn't work out. The alternative was to spend the rest of your life wishing that you had done it. At least you know it was never to be. I never had the urge even though I was in the air force. Once or twice I got to sit in a pilot's seat in a C130 and the pilot, who was a qualified flying instructor, said I seemed to have the feel for what to do. That may have been just talking me up, I don't know.

This is something I hadn't thought of, but agree with the assessment. It's a useful corrective to the nervous perception that we are one of the targets of this policy. For my part, I'm rarely going to a city to hire, rather, I'm going there and hiring while I'm there. I tend to choose a hotel based on what works for me rather than think specifically about how an overnight would go there. I have never worried about keycard access. I wait for my guest in the foyer and go with them to my room. In part, this reflects the fact that what I'm doing is legal here, but I haven't really thought about changing tack in the US. I'm sure part of it's also white privilege, I expect not to be noticed.

Rather than offer another comment on this aspect, I thought I'd post a link to this article from a few years ago. David is well known in the forum, many of us have been to pool parties at his home in Palm Springs. https://www.out.com/lifestyle/2016/2/09/price-intimacy-time-i-hired-sex-worker

As has been said in many different ways, it's a personal decision based on the particulars of the airline program and on what you as an individual get out of it. It's interesting that the experience of different people on upgrades is so varied. As @Benjamin_Nicholas said, if fewer people qualify for the highest status, by definition your chances of getting an upgrade are higher, but that doesn't mean you'll get one. I've only spoken at any length with one person about this. He seems to be upgraded on most of his flights (with AA, he's exec platinum), but I know he checks the number of open premium seats on flights he is about to book. From the airline's perspective they're always going to try to monetise spare premium seats before giving them to frequent flyers. Unlike your FF points, upgrade credits aren't contingent liabilities in their accounts, they lapse if you don't or can't use them. My calculations are different, QF doesn't give upgrade credits, most of the benefit of status is access to their lounges, Qantas Club for Gold, and domestic business and international first class lounges for Platinum. They also give you hgher priority for upgrades, but those are points upgrades. Their calculation uses status credits based on fare class, flexibility and distance rather than specifically on dollars and/or miles. One thing about mileage runs with QF is that status requalification is discounted, so that extra flight to qualify this year will reduce the cost of next year's status. I wouldn't take a long haul flight just to qualify, but I would choose the date I travelled to move it from one qualification year to another. Having just gone through all that, I paused and thought of that old line that if you have to ask the price of something you can't afford it. Fretting over what to do and whether to do it in order to qualify for this 'status' thing is a bit like that, but guilty as charged!

... And in Australia, and has been for as long as I can remember. Turns out from the Oxford Dictionary it's a 1980s term, and it's not listed as being regional.

I agree, @Max but I'm not sure what point you were making. If it was that for all the issues with the B787 ten years ago, everything is fine now, then yes. If it was just about the B737, I suspect you are correct again. But that doesn't mean that the B737 Max will be the aircraft that carries the brand forward. The MAX may emerge from the current unpleasantness, but equally Boeing may back off and develop a different 'new' version of the B737.

Yup, the latest RM review calls him Jake Cook.

I've done it before, here I go again, posting tangentially related things, although in this case it's a) in keeping with the 'Will it ever fly' subject of the thread and b) featuring the aircraft type that the thread started on. So, to QF7879 JFK-SYD that flew over the weekend. https://thepointsguy.com/news/qantas-project-sunrise-sydney/

Good grief, he has enough trouble with English. I guess he'll shorten it to Trump NZ.

The new normal. Claiming that actual normality is pathological. Doing so ironically serves only better to illustrate the absurdity of it all! [MEDIA=twitter]1185207873199960065[/MEDIA]

@Realalist I wasn't going to comment, but I can only echo what @Epigonos said. You are entitled not to tell a potential hire anything about yourself, but if you don't you'll be on tenterhooks wondering if they'll turn you away. Many will say any age, race or body shape, but unless you've told them about yourself, you'll still harbour thoughts that it might have just been their advertising pitch. I now make a point of telling guys I want to hire how old I am, and also that I live in a small town so if I'm going to meet it won't be 'now' but when I'm in their city. Most responses are positive on both counts. I realise it's easy for me to say this and harder for you to accept it, and I had similar reservations. But in my trips to the US I have hired some incredible men whom I would have thought would turn their noses up at me. They didn't.

I have a total of 7 siblings and first cousins, only one other, my sister, is gay. No other relatives are gay, as far as I know. My sister came out 30 years ago when I was still in denial, has been partnered most of the time and is getting married in a couple of weeks to her current partner of 15 years..

English is such a wonderful language, nicht wahr? Things are going swimmingly in the sub-editing department of this newspaper. [MEDIA=twitter]1184352898592804864[/MEDIA]

I think that's what I was saying, but making it a general case rather than just about Scott. I'm not sure whether is is privilege or just a lack of consideration to think, 'You have to disclose this, but I don't'. As gay men we should be aware how tedious it is to have to correct other people's assumptions when they haven't bothered to consider the possibility that they were wrong.

You're right. A lot of things are 'the norm', and people can be forgiven for assuming that someone they 'meet' will conform to the norm until it's demonstrated otherwise. (In our societies the 'norm' is generally white, male, cis, married (or partnered), believer, Christian, even though people who don't conform to each of those are common, and in some cases (male) in fact the minority.) Being surprised by someone not conforming to any of those characteristics is perfectly understandable, putting the onus on them to tell you (apart from a momentary, 'I wish they had told me') is the issue here. We need to be able to check ourselves and reflect on whether it's our own assumptions that are the problem rather than the other person's disclosure or otherwise.