Fake news hit home!

Today, I received in the mail a sample copy of “The Epoch Time”. I took a glance at it and quickly realized it was a piece of propaganda.

In fact, The Epoch Times is a newspaper extension of the Falun Gong, a new Chinese religious movement.

A same group also operates the New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD). Published in Chinese since May 2000, the paper is either sold or distributed free-of-charge in 35 countries, including various international regional editions.

The Epoch Times websites are blocked in mainland China. That media is primarily known for promoting far-right politicians across Europe and the United States, and Donald Trump in particular, as the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after Trump campaign itself.

The group's news sites and YouTube channels have also spread conspiracy theories such as QAnon and anti-vaccination propaganda. So, simply use that newspaper for your cat litter!

The likely shape of next ski season...

Absent a forceful anti-Covid 19 medication or an effective vaccine, this upcoming ski season may have to happen under an innovative protocol. Since no one knows what it will be, let me make it up for you. Ready?

Transportation: 
The easiest way to come to a ski resort will be to drive there with one’s own car. Getting from California to Park City is no big deal. Try to drive from Chicago or New York, that’s another story altogether.

Flying will resume but what percentage of seats can be safely used? Only 30 or 50 percent? How expensive will it be to fly? Won’t many of us be to scared to board an airplane? I would think so, and all these consideration might compound into a downward spiral.

Lodging: 
Let’s assume that skiers are staying in sanitized hotels and condos and that this part should be simple and easy. Further, it might be possible to see a significant drop in rates.

Restaurants and bars : 
This summer should provide ample time to test a viable protocol for these public spaces. Again, the authorized percentage of space occupied will impact the capacity of these facilities and maybe the cost of food and beverage.

Finally, my favorite, Skiing:
Unless skiers aren’t part of the same household, a double chair will only sit one skier, a triple chair about the same. Only a quadruple might accommodate two skiers sitting on opposite ends. Then what do you do with a six-person chair? Two or three passenger? I’d vouch for just two.

Now let’s talk about gondolas. A four-passenger will get two folks at best, just be careful when your diagonal opposite sneezes! An eight people gondola, may receive four at the very best. A 35-people 3S gondola will be lucky if it can fit 8 people and a 100 passenger tram might get 10 or 12 skiers inside at the very most.

So, as you see, lifts are likely to be the critical bottleneck and it’s likely that uphill capacity on busy day can only be 30 to 40 percent of normal. This applies to big lines early in the morning off the base as well as most of the day on popular lifts and during holidays and busy weekends.

Of course, one key element will be how ski resorts will manage the humongous lines that will result and will they get as much money for their passes if folks have too wait a lot; I’ll let you guess that one!

If your skiing don’t improve, your patience will by leaps and bounds!

Conclusion:
Based on the above premises, expect a ski season to be only 30 to 40 percent of normal, unless skiers decide that making many turns is worth a life with less accumulated years. Let’s check that in April 2021!

Mother’s Day Corona-style

This weekend, we got together with our son, his wife and our grandson to celebrate Mother’s Day in a low-key, casual setting, at their place.

We toasted the special day with a… Corona beer in hand, and had a great time, until very late into the evening. Of course, most of our discussions centered on the pandemic and our respective future if we all make it alive through the current ordeal.

We remained optimistic and wowed to stick around for as long as we possible could!

Wonderful Park City Library

We are big fans and great users of the Park City public library.

We missed it a lot during the initial lock-down phase of Covid-19, but on Monday, May 4th, it opened a curbside pick-up in front of its building.

What patrons have to do is quite simple: Select and order books on the library website from their home, get a confirmation by email and come over and pick it up.

Once there, call the number posted, just open up the trunk or hatch of the vehicle, and a librarian will drop the books inside.

The first books we ordered that way were biographies of Beyoncé and Mikaela Shiffrin (I didn’t know there was already one for the young ski champ), only to find out when we came that the volumes we selected that these were… for kids!

While this kept us a bit younger, it was another great lesson of the “live and learn” type!

When uncertainty kills us

What should I be doing during this lock-down and pandemic period?

Learn Spanish, mathematics or Rocky Mountains mycology, among others things I’ve always wanted to know better, or simply do more projects around the house?

Of course, I should. I simply have no good excuse for my lack of motivation, except of course, Covid-19 that systematic culprit that’s been eroding my willpower and has put me into semi-permanent state of hibernation.

In fact, it’s not the microscopic virus, but the immense uncertainty that surrounds the pandemic, our absence of clear knowledge about the infection, it’s fuzzy calendar and watching the ignorance and hesitancy of our governments in the face of its devastating effects.

Uncertainty has a paralyzing power and it sucking any natural drive out of us. So, don’t feel too bad if things that should be taken care of aren’t handled around the house, kids aren’t quite home schooled as they should and a few things, here and there are falling through the cracks.

You’re simply witnessing the eroding power of uncertainty at work over you lives. Just relax, it may eventually pass...

The lovable war criminal

This week, we watched the two-2 hour series of PBS “American Experience”, about the presidency of George W. Bush.

Always historic in nature and in the treatment of its subject matter, this TV show is of excellent quality and well produced.

It showed basically how an incompetent, sheltered son, rose to the gubernatorial seat of Texas, before becoming a two-term president of the United States.

It also showed how his unpreparedness and ego drove the country into a wasteful war in Iraq and a bunch of other bad decisions he made during the eight years of his fateful presidency.

At times, the piece asserted that Bush was a smart person, but failed to show that the Iraq adventure cost half-a-millions lives among the citizens of that country, plus the death of close to 4,000 American and more that 30,000 wounded among them.

The Iraqi carnage is enough to elevate Mr. Bush to the status of war criminal, even though he seems to be much congenial than the likes of Pol-Pot, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and appears sociable enough to have a beer with.

The other problem with that is that after getting treated, he’s now a teetotaler... 

Still discovering my computer!

In early 2016, tired of laptops and all-in-one computers that broke down and couldn’t be repaired, I went back to purchasing a conventional PC, with one big box and a separate screen.

Made by Dell, the machine has served me well for over 4 years (a record!) and Windows 10 that runs on it has performed almost flawlessly. My only problem was with the monitor sound system.

The sound was very low both off its speakers, and through my headset when it was plugged into it (as it should). It only worked fine when I plugged it directly into the box, but this wasn’t really practical as the cord wasn’t long enough.

A few days ago, quite accidentally, I discovered that they were almost invisible touch control-buttons along side the lower right edge of the screen to adjust the sound and the image being displayed.

In more than four years I only had be able to identify the much larger, albeit hardly visible “on-off” switch, situated to the lower right of the screen.

This goes to say that we learn everyday and that with electronics delivered without instructions these days, it’s increasingly hard not to miss some vital functions that would make life that much easier. But I guess, still better later than never!