Too much of a good thing

Portillo, the Chilean ski resort was supposed to open for skiing on June 27. It couldn’t as snow was not there on time. It did the weekend later with snow making on its Plateau ski runs, but on July 14 the access road was closed as a massive snowstorm began on Wednesday, July 15, 2026.

Over 5 meters (16+ feet) of total snow has piled up across the resort area since the system hit. Ski Portillo has remained closed and isolated due to the high volume of snow and safety precautions. 

Unofficial local forecasts and resort communications suggest that the closure could realistically impact travel until the first few days of August 2026. The Chilean Highway Department and Guardia Vieja local authorities manage Route 60 (the highway to Portillo). 

Clearing the road will require an immense amount of time to dig through the deep snowpack, clear stranded freight trucks, and complete extensive avalanche mitigation work. 

Ski Portillo's management said that once a safe weather window finally opens, they will first attempt to transport stranded guests to and from the resort via helicopter before the highway is fully cleared for public vehicles. 

While some central Chilean resorts like Valle Nevado have managed restricted 4x4-only openings for residents and staff with bookings, the severe high-mountain corridor leading to Portillo remains strictly impassable. 

Be careful of what you wish for!

The difference between mentors and catalysts

When I take the time to think about it, I don’t think I was ever fortunate to have a mentor, spotting me, guiding me, imparting their knowledge and watching me grow. At the very least, what I’ve often thought were “mentors”, were just encounters that deflected on my trajectory and made it somehow think. To borrow into the present fad, “influencers” might be a better word for what these people did to me. 

I could also say catalysts, which might be a more appropriate term. In fact, what I’m describing is more common than the classic “mentor–mentee” narrative we’re all taught to expect. Perhaps, the distinction I’m making between mentors and catalysts is something most of us never articulate, but many end up experiencing. 

Again, if a mentor is someone who walks alongside us, a catalyst is someone who bumps into us and changes our direction. In reality, most people have far more catalysts than mentors — but we often mislabel them as mentors because “mentor” is the socially approved story.

True mentors have three characteristics: They are there for the duration, they actively invest in our growth and they offer guidance, not just influence. They’re relational, present and committed. They’re the people who say, “I see where you’re going — let me help you get there.” 

Most people have very few of these, sometimes none. On the other hand, catalysts are very different: They appear briefly enough to disrupt our thinking, shift our trajectory and don’t stay around to watch what happens next. Catalysts are not mentors, they’re just inflection points. For instance, they’re the professor who said one sentence that stuck, the colleague who challenged our assumptions, the stranger whose comment re-framed our worldview or sometimes the book that jolted us awake. 

Catalysts don’t guide us — they ignite us. We generally confuse the two because our cultural narrative around growth is built around mentorship and we’re told that successful people have mentors. We’re also told that guidance is the noble path and this wisdom can only be passed down through relationships. 

Many of us never have a true mentor not because they’re unlucky, but because mentorship requires relationships, resources, time, alignment, mutual commitment and a shared sense of purpose. Catalysts, however, can be everywhere as life is full of collisions, not apprenticeships. 

Finally, if some people thrive under mentorship, others, like me perhaps who tend to be independent thinkers, self-directed learners, and people who value autonomy — grow more through catalytic encounters. Maybe I could say for people like me, catalysts often are the real mentors — just in a different form.

Forgot to do what I preach?

The other day, I was on the phone with a friend of mine who recently moved to France with her husband and explained that she was overwhelmed with a large make-over in the older house she just moved into. 

I suggested that she attempt to parcel out the tasks in trying to break up the work and then I realized I should tell her what my approach is when I’m faced with projects or challenges much larger than what I can handle. 

I told her to look at that undertaking with all of our competitive might and see in it a challenge that she had deliberately chosen to measure herself to the sea of average, mediocre human beings. She thought it was a cool idea… 

Then a few days later, as I’m now struggling to tackle a big project that doesn’t appeal to me at all, I suddenly remembered what I admonished that young lady to do and realized that the cobbler had no shoes and I better should tell myself the same set of admonitions. 

I did, and suddenly that ugly task of mine became sexy again and appealing to me. Amazing how our brain loves to forget or overlook what’s good for its own survival, health and pleasure! 

Should we stay with Prime?

If you are not familiar with Amazon Prime. it’s the company’s paid subscription service that offers members fast, free shipping, video streaming, and exclusive discounts. It offers cost-free two-day, one-day, or same-day delivery on millions of eligible items. No minimum order is required. 

Likewise, it also gives access to free delivery on qualifying orders from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods stores. In addition there’s free access to stream movies, TV shows, and live sports which we’ve never used much. There’s also a selection of music and podcasts which we’ve never accessed either. Cost for the service is $139 per year or $14.99 per month plus taxes. 

However, non-Prime members qualify for free standard shipping on orders of $35 or more on Amazon. Today, since I’m no friend with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, we’re reevaluating if Amazon Prime is worth it based on how often we shop and the fixed cost involved. After doing my own survey, it seems that if I place less than 20 or 30 orders per year, Prime is probably not worth it, especially if we often buy items that already have free shipping without Prime or batch many items together to get to $35. 

We might only go above these numbers yearly if we purchased lots of small, inexpensive items. We should also consider the following hidden factors people forget as Prime influences us to buy more frequently, buy smaller items, choose Amazon even when alternatives are cheaper and value convenience over price comparison 

Without Prime I need to meet the order minimum of over $35 of eligible items (those "fulfilled by Amazon") or any items marked "FREE Shipping" on the product page. If I want to reduce my Amazon addiction, canceling Prime is one of my strongest levers. Since my renewal is up soon, I’ll try this: Cancel and for the foreseeable future and keep track of the shipping fees actually paid, any inconvenience from waiting and any purchases I postpone to reach the free-shipping minimum. 

This way, I'll have real data instead of guessing. This way I shouldn’t have to renew, unless I’m ordering from Amazon very frequently or I know for sure that I’ll save more than $139 a year in shipping. People who place few orders find they can avoid most shipping charges by combining purchases or meeting Amazon's free-shipping minimum. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Soccer World Cup post-mortem

It’s with increasing pleasure and excitement that we have watched the 2026 Soccer World Cup. Without adding to what all of you have seen, read or thought, I just wanted to share my impression that might shine some new light or show a different view on the whole series of events. 

First, it took us some time to get in the mood and catch a certain rhythm as we are notoriously poor team sport spectators. We hardly see any, whether it’s NFL football, basketball, hockey or baseball. We’d rather do the sport than watch it! 

Next, we were shocked at the players’ rough behavior on the field. It seemed to us that it was perceived by players as worth taking a chance the referee wouldn’t see the fault, which confirmed itself as a fair probability. As spectators, we can see fault very easily and quite clearly because of the 3-D view the camera affords us, while the referee is far from enjoying the same visual luxury! 

Of course, we rooted both for the US and France, and while the former was a victim of Trump’s trickery, the latter disappointed us as the going got tough and the opponents harder to beat. 

As a French exiled from my home country since 1977, I had a tough time squaring up with a national team composed in its vast majority of players of African origin. Both England and Spain had teams that looked more representative of their respective population. 

Maybe it’s a sign that I’m overdue to return to France for a visit… Finally, we were delighted that Spain won. "¡Viva España!"

Learning a language with IA (Part Two)

In the previous blog, we’ve seen that when the topic is meaningful, my brain is more likely to remember. So today we’ll see how variations can tremendously amplify my learning if I incorporate them in my conversations. 

To achieve that, I plan to take a given topic and redo it once in simple Spanish, once in a more complex version, once using only the past tense, then the future and maybe – only maybe - using subjunctive triggers (“aunque”, “cuando”, “si”, “ojalá”). All this to build flexibility, not just vocabulary. It’s also my plan to prioritize listening as much as speaking by asking TalkPal to speak at native speed, slightly slower and with regional accents (Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile).

Based on my experience I know that listening is the bottleneck, so if I can understand fast Spanish, speaking becomes much easier. Along with speed, I’m also planning to ask for corrections in a selective manner. If TalkPal were to corrects everything, I would lose flow, but if it fails to correct me I’ll fossilize mistakes. 

I’ll ask: “Solo corrige errores importantes que cambian el significado.” or “Déjame hablar libremente y corrige al final.” Hopefully, this will keep the conversation natural. When I get good at conversing, I plan to push into emotional and philosophical topics, areas I enjoy talking about. Things like aging, dreams, fear, meaning, mountains life, lessons learned throughout my life and reflection on time that goes far too fast. If I can succeed with all this, I’ll be able to track my progress in comfort, not perfection. 

For this I’ll make my own measurements by asking: 

• Am I hesitating less? 
• Am I thinking more in Spanish? 
• Am I recovering from mistakes faster? 
• Am I enjoying the conversation more? 

All these elements are the real markers of fluency. But again, when the real hurdle to learning languages is the fear of being judged and looking stupid. I only need to keep in mind at all time that I’m interacting with a robot that sounds and talk to me just like a human, but this might be a tall call… 

Wish me good luck!

Learning a language with IA (Part One)

After learning Spanish with Duolingo two years ago, I felt that I had accumulated enough knowledge to tackle conversation, something the popular language learning method” seemed ill-equipped to provide. I'm now moving on with the halo of AI and the TalkPal app. I now need to practice my conversation and I suspect that I’ll have to retool my approach to make the best out of that new technology.

After learning more than three extra languages, I know that I’m entering the most important phase of language learning — conversation — and after quite a bit a research, I turn to TalkPal because I found it to be the best bridge between structured learning (Duolingo) and real‑world fluency. The key for me now is to use the tool in a way that forces my brain to operate in Spanish rather than “translate into Spanish.” 

Obviously, TalkPal shouldn’t be treated just like a quiz, but like a teacher (albeit a robotic one!) This is no time either to ask it for vocabulary lists or grammar explanations, as I’m already supposed to know those from Duolingo. Instead, the new tool should be used a conversation partner.

I should tell it stories, describe my day, argue a point, ask for opinions, express emotions make mistakes and keep going, the goal being flow, not correctness. Of course, I’ve learned a long time ago, that when learning a language I must immerse myself into it, so there’s no English (or French) unless it’s absolutely necessary. 

Based on that premise, if I don’t know a word, I use several to express what it means and describe it in Spanish: 

“Es como…” 

“Es una cosa que…” 

“Sirve para…” 

“Parece…” 

This is one of the most powerful fluency skills and I make it mine! When I learned English, adult beverages helped me a lot as I was shy and afraid to look like a fool. In using TalkPal to simulate real situations by creating scenarios that matter to me, like booking a hotel in Madrid, asking for help on a hike in Patagonia, discussing architecture or mountain climate, reminiscing about Park City glorious winters or just planning a trip with my wife. 

I could also use it for explaining my philosophy about aging and dreams (in Spanish!) In the next blog, we’ll see how I can fine tune my learning to my advantage...