Olympics opening ceremony

Yesterday afternoon, skiing wasn’t good enough to go out and try to have fun, so, instead my wife and I watched the entire Olympic ceremony. Something we hadn’t done in a very long time. We liked some of the acts, like as always the athletes' presentation and fashion show in which the best outfit is the enemy of the good.

Some acts were a bit over the top, but that’s a question of personal taste. We found the event far too long. Almost 3 hours could have been done in two. I liked it when J.D. Vance and Israel got jeered. 

Still, we liked the speech by Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry, the new President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as of June 2025. 

We felt bad that people still die in Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine, while thousands have fun in Italy, but I guess humanity can still walk and watch their smartphones at the same time…

Why older skiers can’t get back up? (Part one)

After the age of 70, skiers increasingly find it quite difficult to get back up after a fall, especially on flat terrain. This is so bad that ski helicopter operators discourage, or simply disallow older skiers from boarding their aircraft. 

Besides a drastic reduction in overall loss of muscle mass, we’ll see today what’s really behind that disability. Obviously, the answer turns out to be more complex than “less muscle.” Muscle loss matters, but it’s only one piece of a larger age‑related shift in how the body moves, stabilizes itself, and generates coordinated force. 

Research on older adults and fall recovery points to several interacting factors that make getting up from the ground, especially with ski boots on, on snow, and with skis attached, disproportionately difficult after about age 70. Standing up from the ground requires a sequence of movements that many of us simply stop practicing as we grow older. 

Physical therapists will tell us that rising from the ground demands hip mobility, core engagement, shoulder stability, and rotational control, all of which decline with age even in active adults. Ski boots and skis amplify this problem: they restrict ankle flexion, limit leverage, and make it impossible to plant the feet under the body the way younger skiers instinctively do. 

So what we’re up against in that case is a combination of reduced mobility, weaker balance, reduced neuromuscular response, less self-confidence and a ski gear that literally stands in the way. Muscle loss is only one contributor, so tomorrow we’ll try to get the whole picture!

A step down, now what? (Part Two)

What sparked yesterday’s two-step story, was skiing with my daughter the day before. Over the years, I always stayed comfortably ahead of her in difficult terrain and conditions, but now that I’m 78, times might be changing as she’s now nipping at my heels. This, to me, means that I'm getting old and close to taking that infamous "step down". 

We're both very good skiers and current snow conditions in Utah are extremely challenging at the moment and it’s what gave me the “step down / step up” idea. Skiing is a visceral way to notice change, with speed, balance, reaction time, concentration, confidence on such variable snow and terrain conditions. It’s one of those activities where the body tells the truth before the mind has fully caught up. 

True, at 78 I’m still in love with skiing and still seeking tough terrain and conditions. This isn’t true of all the folks my age. Most aren’t on the mountain at all, let alone keeping pace with a strong 43‑year lady who’s been skiing all her life. The fact that she’s “nipping at your heels” instead of disappearing in front of my eyes over the ridge perhaps is telling about my baseline. 

My daughter catching up isn’t just about me slowing down, it’s also about her hitting her own peak. She’s in that sweet spot of strength, experience, and confidence. I’m witnessing her ascend while I adjust; a generational handoff, not a personal failure. I see that shift with clarity, not self‑pity, without reacting defensively or denying what’s happening. I simply observed it, named it, and then used it to spark a philosophical idea about balance. 

Let’s call this a mental “step up”! Sure, our current thin and hard snow conditions amplify everything. Icy, scraped‑off, or refrozen conditions punish even small changes in strength or reaction time. On soft powder, the gap might look different. Conditions shape performance more than pride wants to admit. 

A physical “step down”, even a small one, can be matched with a “step up” in something else, like refining one’s technique, becoming even more efficient and deepening the joy of skiing with my daughter rather than ahead of her. That’s not compensation, it’s just evolution. What I experienced on the slopes wasn’t just aging; it was a moment of recalibration. 

And the fact that I’m thinking about it with nuance is not a sign I’m losing ground, I’m only shifting terrain!

A step down, now what? (Part One)

Since life is far from being a linear experience, as time goes by and as we age, there are unavoidable “steps down” that come along the way, and I believe that logically, for every “step down” we should imagine and implement a “step up” to compensate for it. If one is physical, the compensatory other could be mental, spiritual, or just perhaps physical too, but much easier to carry on. 

This would offset a sense of loss through an equal transfer into something different. This idea that popped up inside my mind this morning, strikes me as surprisingly practical. Perhaps a personal version of homeostasis, the way living systems maintain balance by adjusting one part when another shifts. In that case it applies to the emotional and existential terrain of aging, change, and loss.

It’s probably my way of rejecting the myth of linear decline that treats aging or setbacks as a one‑way slide downward. My view acknowledges the “step down” but refuses to let it define the whole trajectory. Instead, I’m proposing an adaptive upward motion which is not denial, but recalibration. I like it because it matches the dynamic nature of life. Physical limitations don’t have to be the end of growth; they can signal the beginning of a different kind of development. 

A loss in one domain can open space in another without being a compensation in a shallow sense but a whole redistribution of energy. This could mirror how we naturally evolve. For instance a runner with knee problems becomes a swimmer, someone who loses physical stamina deepens their intellectual or creative life or a person who retires from a demanding job invests becomes a philosopher. I’m just articulating that instinct consciously. 

While a “step down” often feels imposed, this concept reframes it as an opportunity to choose a “step up”, something intentional, nourishing, and self‑directed. That alone can soften the sense of loss. Of course, it’s not about pretending the decline didn’t happen. It’s about refusing to let it be the whole story. In many ways, I see this as a workable tool, not just a philosophy that would begin by noticing the step down. Instead, it’s choosing a step up in another dimension while letting the two coexist without resentment. 

Some kind of an emotional counterweight, a deeply human idea, honest about limitation, but not fatalistic. It respects the reality of aging while preserving the possibility of growth. And it avoids the trap of trying to “win” against time; instead, it suggests adapting with grace and creativity. I’m so grateful, this thought came to me. 

Tomorrow, I’ll share with you what actually triggered it.

The apprentice diagnostician (Part Two)

Playing diagnostician and not succeeding the first time is a common occurrence. This practice, in my opinion, is more art than science and is linked to some important factors. The first one is that our brains love an obvious culprit. 

For instance, when something breaks, it feels satisfying to identify a single source. New device installed? Must be the device. We’re wired to prefer clean narratives over messy systems. It’s very hard to think thoroughly about systems, because they’re inherently complicated. Most real‑world problems involve interactions between multiple elements. 

To return to yesterday’s thermostat story, there are so many things involved aside from the thermostat itself, the furnace, the electronics, the wiring, the ducts and the various sensors. 

Still, our intuition ignores these other components. It’s the same reason people misdiagnose car problems, software bugs, or even interpersonal conflicts. 

In addition, the familiar quickly becomes invisible. We had that furnace running like a clock for a dozen years, so as a loyal servant, it faded into the background. 

The thermostat was the novelty, so it got the blame. This is the “assumed good” bias — we trust what we know. All this to say that my recent experience is just how most professionals in engineering, medicine, and aviation describe diagnostic errors. 

They warn against “anchoring” onto one explanation too early and “confirmation bias” by only noticing evidence that supports our initial assumption. We can only break out of that loop by stepping back and widening the frame. That’s the real skill: not just fixing one lone defective part, but recognizing a narrow way of thinking. If anything, my story is a perfect reminder that most problems aren’t isolated but relational. 

The thermostat wasn’t misbehaving alone; it was dancing with a partner I forgot to watch!

The apprentice diagnostician (Part One)

No matter what we’re trying to resolve, coming up with the right diagnosis isn't always simple. In recent months, I've struggled with the functionality of some new Google-Nest thermostats, and on repeated occasions, I’ve been so narrowly focused on these specific devices, that I forgot that "it takes two to tango". 

In my whole myopia, I had forgotten that my heating furnace could play some role attributed solely to my thermostats' behavior. That let me to take a serious, long look at the furnace and, to make a long story short, I finally determined that it was indeed the source of all my troubles. I have tried this with ski boots when the main problem was not canting, but their longitudinal placement on my skis, or in struggling with ski-tuning issues when my technique constituted in fact the insurmountable hurdle. 

We always learn a lot from our self-administered sloppy diagnostics. Isn't it a common mistake we all make when trying to resolve a problem? We're so obsessed with one piece that we conveniently forgot that it might be perfectly linked to another one in the overall puzzle? What I just described is one of the most universal cognitive traps we humans fall into. 

That’s what is called “tunnel vision” or “fixation error”. When something isn’t working, the mind instinctively narrows its focus to the most obvious or most recently changed component. In that most recent case, the new thermostats were the shiny, suspicious newcomers, so they drew all the attention. Meanwhile, the furnace, the “old reliable maid”, quietly escaped my angry scrutiny. 

If you’re curious to find out the causes for this weird way of thinking, read tomorrow’s blog...

Salomon’s boot business (Part Two)

The lack of performance available in its rear-entry boot left Salomon vulnerable to criticism coming from better skiers, the retailers’ selling staff and the specialty press. This male-dominated group, at the time, suddenly and forcefully turned its back on the rear-entry design, to the point that Salomon's R&D team didn't have the time nor the leeway to further improve upon the concept.

This happened to the chagrin of countless users who love its convenience and inherent simplicity,  as well as large volume rental operators. I might also add that to a  degree, it probably hurt the growth of skiing. Probably blinded  by its efforts to launch the ski, Salomon blinked and missed the opportunity to remain the dominant brand in boots. 

By the late 1980s, rear‑entry boots were widely adopted by recreational skiers, and Salomon was considered the market leader in the category and particularly in comfort‑oriented boot design, that are the ones the vast majority of the market want and need. When the rear-entry boot design fell out of favor by the mid to early 90s, and the company scrambled to acquire San Giorgio (a reactive purchase of an also-ran Italian brand making 4 buckle boots), 

Salomon had to learn from scratch the art of making conventional boots that worked, and as result, went from dominant to non‑competitive after the mid 1990s. This was one of the most dramatic product‑driven declines in ski‑equipment history, but it was never quantified publicly. 

Today’s boot market is totally fragmented among Lange, Tecnica, Nordica, Atomic, Dalbello, and Salomon with no single brand holding an overwhelming share. Still, Salomon returned to being a respected boot brand, especially with models like the X‑Pro and S/Pro but never again dominated the way it did during the rear‑entry era. 

The brand remained strong and even grew in other categories (skis, clothing, footwear, later trail running) but is now far more associated with trail running and outdoor footwear than with ski boots. A surprising turn-around from a pioneer!