New Delhi, Utah?

On Tuesday, the (bad) air quality in Park City climbed to 181, worse than New Delhi, India at 163 this same day! An air pollution like this is clearly unhealthy and represents smoking 3 cigarettes that day. Thank God, we aren’t at a full pack yet... 

This was caused by shifting winds bringing smoke from a 20,000 acre fire, just 30 miles away from Park City to move into town as the case has been for the past three of four days. At that point, on Tuesday evening, the fire was 21% contained. 

As a small storm system moved into the area, the smoke inversion settled into the surrounding valleys, including Park City, along with ash in some areas. 

Winds are variable, changing directions throughout the day. This requires firefighters to pay close attention, as wind direction and fire behavior can be erratic.

Hopefully the firefighters efforts will be successful despite a weather that remains stubbornly clear and sunny...

Netanyahu, butcher of the Middle East

Just like Trump, Bibi Netanyhu wants to stay in power and has no desire to go to prison, his likely destination should he lose his political immunity. So in order to satisfy Israel’s extreme right, he’s bent on massacring or chasing the entire Palestinian population. 

Taking advantage of Biden’s weakness and of an upcoming US presidential election, he ignores pleas for negotiations with Hamas and Hezbollah, knowing full well that no one, in American or in Western European governments, will dare say anything and carries along with his destructive genocide, an obscene price to pay just for Netanyahu's political survival! 

With a per capita GDP of more than $50,000, just like Canada, Germany or the UK and more than France, Israel keeps on getting financial and military aid from the US. I’m sick and tired of seeing my tax dollars going to kill innocent Palestinians children and women. Wouldn’t you?

Coffee, grinding time and quality

After trying a bunch of coffee grinder brands over the year, we settled on a basic Krups that we found to be durable, reliable and seemingly indestructible. 

Yet, what I’ve never been able to find, was the relation between grinding time in seconds and the taste of coffee. We used a very high quality (should I say costly, which might bear no relation to taste?) medium brown coffee bean, but I’ve always been wondering about the grinding time. 

I finally undertook to conduct some research and it would seem that as I’ve always suspected, grinding time can significantly impact the brewing quality of coffee beans. 

Here's a breakdown of how grinding time affects the taste of coffee: 

1. A fine grind would take between 20 to 30 seconds. It would extract more flavor and oils from the beans, resulting in a stronger, more flavorful cup. It would however lead to over-extraction, resulting in a bitter taste. 

2. A medium grind falls between 15 to 20 seconds and offers a balanced flavor profile, suitable for most brewing methods (pour-over, drip, French press). Its downside however is that it might not extract as much flavor as a fine grind. 

3. Finally, a coarse grind that lasts only 10 to 15 seconds allows for faster brewing time, with less chance of over-extraction. The argument against it would be a weaker, less flavorful coffee. 

As for the kind of coffee machine used in relation to the grinding qualities, espresso would require a very fine grind for optimal extraction, a pour-over would work best with a medium to fine grind, a slightly coarser grind would be perfect for a French press and for drip coffee (the one we personally use), a slightly coarser grind should work fine. 

It’s certainly a good idea to experiment by trying different grind settings in order to select one’s preferred flavor. Sure, water temperature, brewing time, and bean freshness also influence coffee quality. A good quality coffee grinder is also essential for consistent results. Now you finally deserve your own cup of coffee!

When unforeseen incidents add to knowledge

We love our Bosch dishwasher. It’s perfectly conceived and engineered, works well, is silent and now after more than 8 years of intense use, still cleans impeccably. 

This said, and in spite of its solid track record, we recently had a problem that posed a real challenge to me. After a wash, the water was still pooling at the bottom of the appliance. 

I got the printed instructions for the device that I always keep, went through its troubleshooting section and couldn’t find a solution, yet alone my particular problem. 

I persisted and went on line and providentially stumbled on a recent Bosch video addressing my situation, that was deliberately ignored in the printed brochure, presumably because it had never happened or was simply too rare an occurrence to even be mentioned in the brochure 8 or 9 years ago. 

The video, accompanied with a written description, is clear, perfectly produced and helped me resolve my clog problem that was a very serious one as it involved a large piece of plastic film sucked up by the pump! 

Leaving for a trip nowadays

Years ago, when I used to travel a lot, things were much simpler. I only had my luggage to worry about, of course I had my business stuff (papers at first, portable computers didn’t exist till the mid-eighties, no cell phone) in my briefcase with the files I needed and this was pretty much it. 

There were no electric adapters, extra batteries to take, SD or sim cards to worry about. Just a paper airplane ticket did the trick. Sure there was a pouch with unused foreign banknotes and coins, but I could manage it well then. 

Today, with the multiplication of devices and gizmos, whenever I go on a trip for vacation, there is a huge check-list that has materialized and is still growing over the years. 

Sure the old iPod or large camera is no longer needed, but there’s a smartwatch charger in its place... 

As time goes by, what was supposed to make life easier is in fact making it much more complex!

Spirits of my youth in the Alps

When I was a kid growing up in Montriond near Morzine, in the French Alps, the paranormal and the ensuing fear it generated was front and center during my young life. There were two bad actors, or maybe just one, sharing ominous names for me, the “Servan” and the “Chaufaton”. 

Those were either malevolent or malicious elves or sprites that were haunting the lives of villagers living in the remote as well as backwards Alpine valleys and villages of my youth, accomplishing all kind of unexplainable feats and acts that, the way they were represented to me by my parents were more devilish than mischievous and called more for some exorcism than any other remedy. 

The stories I heard were along the lines of the chaufaton “braiding a mare's tail or fitting two cows' heads inside the same manger halter”. Another story, also from Montriond, my hometown, was that of “a man resting on his bed, hearing the mare, outfitted with her bell, that had left the stable to amble into the kitchen, and was producing very melodious music by shaking her bell behind the door of the bedroom. The man had never heard anything so pleasant and so musical. 

Once the concert was over, he got up to go to the kitchen and see what was going on, but the mare wasn’t in the kitchen. Instead, she was tied up in the stable and quietly eating. He had been tricked by the chaufaton!” 

One last story, still in Montriond, “the chaufaton, always invisible, amused himself one day by inspecting a series of lined up wooden buckets. The homeowner, who was in the room, heard him stating in front of each wooden utensil: "This one is clean, this one isn’t." After a while, irritated by the comments, the man pulled off his pants and literally mooned in the direction the voice came from, exclaiming: "And is that one clean?" The chaufaton responded by butt-slapping the man with the manure shovel. 

As the mid-sixties and early seventies advanced with the rise of tourism and modernity the chaufaton went into eternal hibernation. My going through puberty and growing up chased my fears forever and all these legends became part of the past… until now!

A wonderful surprise visit!

Bill Bocquet, my only French schoolmate who lives in the US, stopped by this past Wednesday to visit us in Park City and we showed him around town to make him envious of our colorful Fall foliage, catch up and reconstruct the world. We had not seem him in person since 2003, so it was time for us to finally get together. 

The day was beautiful and the moments spend together too short, but almost instantly this impromptu get together morphed into a working session. That's how we came to consider building a retirement home for our alumni friends of the ENH (National School of Watchmaking) in Cluses, probably around the freeway and the old Carpanos Pons factory. 

It’s going to be located in the toughest part of this unforgiving valley pummeled by ice-cold weather in winter, unbearable heat in summer and situated in the middle of a strong wind draft blowing though the narrow canyon, as a way to test our comrades endurance, and verify Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous words: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” 

The place will include a clarinet school headed by Jean-Marie Peyrin, an art section under Mychel Blanc’s guidance, electric walkers everywhere, and even a small business school section of continuing education headed by Michel Deletraz who would admonish his students to trade their conviction for some solid certainty. 

Bill agreed to be in charge of financing that institution and I forced him to let me work on its architectural design. To be continued down the road...