Soccer World Cup?

Until today, I've been ignoring the Soccer World Cup, not just because it's happening in Putin's Russia, which no longer is my favorite country, but also because I'm not at all into soccer, basket-ball or baseball.

I've never been a fan of spectator's sports and if I watch a few ski races, it's simply because of my natural infatuation – should I say obsession - with that snow sport.

Sure, I have watched team sports finals when my national or local team was involved, but that's about it; team sports aren't part of my DNA.

The bottom line, is how much time have I saved by not sitting idly and watching team sports on TV or in the arena? Hard to tell but probably a lot and that's in great part how I justify skiing and recreating outdoors as much as I do!

Knowing Jack sh*t?

Last Tuesday was the Utah Primary election, and Jack Rubin, a registered Republican from my neighborhood, vied for the seat of Utah Senate District 26.

Brand new to town, he mounted an impressive campaign, complete with multiple interviews and support letters in the local media, plus a never-seen-before sign-plastering effort, all over the county, and I assume well into that 11,500 square-mile discrict.

In spite of his gigantic efforts, the new Utahan misread that the huge geographic area he was competing into was more “Mormonia” than modern Park City.

As the vulgar expression goes: “He simply knew Jack sh*t” and just got his hopes crushed. Republican Ronald Winterton won 43.37 percent of the vote. The second, a fellow name Gorum, garnered 33.84 percent, while Rubin had to be content with 22.79 percent.

Democrat Eileen Gallagher will face Republican Ronald Winterton in November, and in the immediate term, Rubin will have to pick up all these red signs he planted everywhere, just a few weeks ago....

Counting American illegal immigrants

If you've asked anyone about the number “illegal immigrants” in the United States between the turn of the century and today, you'll invariably hear something like 11 million.

This is a remarkable number because it's the only one that stays the same. In contrast, the S&P 500 was 1,425 in January of 2000 and it's about twice as high today. A 48” flat screen TV was $10,000 in 2000 and is just $300 today.

You get my drift. If the Bretton Woods agreement never happened and one had to replace gold as the perfect benchmark for the US Dollar, the number of illegal would be it; or would it? Not in my modest opinion.

I don't believe in that fixed, 11 million number. Estimating that figure is extremely difficult if not impossible as there's no central database of illegal aliens. We're only dealing with estimates and since “illegals” have a strong motive to lie when asked about their immigration status, the accuracy of these figures is doubtful, at best.

My conclusion is that no one knows for sure and that number could be 15 to 25 million or perhaps even more. What's your guess?

If I were Sundance Resort General Manager...

We love to drive to Sundance, Utah, that mini ski resort, tucked away under Mt. Timpanogos and under the permanent protection of Mr. Robert Redford, its owner. Less than one year ago, on that blog, I suggested that I should become director of maintenance for the resort.

Today, I'm aiming a bit higher and would like the general manager's job (GM). Let me explain why. We were just there on Sunday and wanted to buy an ice cream. The weather was nice, right in the low eighties. We went inside the country store and waited in line. We couldn't see any ice cream offered for sale, but remembered that we had one last year.

Our turn arrived six or seven minutes later. I asked the employee:
“Do you have ice-cream?”
Blank stare, a short moment of silence and the staff member goes: “Yeah, I guess so”...
I asked: “Which flavor do you have?”
The employee: “Just chocolate.”
Me: “Can we have it in a cone?”
The employee: “No, just in a cup...”
Me: “Sayonara!”

In my book, this kind of service is called “missed opportunity” and while the back of the country store and restaurant used to be a bit lively just a few years ago, it's now going to the dogs.

No one is there. If I were the GM I'd rent these spaces to craft merchants and food joints to create what is missing at Sundance: Life, plain an simple. I would also maximize the cash flow of that place without making it too mercantile because Redford wouldn't approve of it.

Well, the only problem is that I'm not the Sundance GM yet!

Paul McCartney back in Liverpool

Yesterday, I finally watched the famous video created by James Corden, host of CBS Late, Late Show to promote Paul McCartney's new album “Egypt Station.”

I'm not crazy about artists pushing their products on TV and Radio Shows, but this promo was one of a kind that I ended up loving, probably because, I'm a hard core Beatles fan and also because it was very well put together.

So if you have 25 good minutes to spend and love the Fab Four, you've gotta watch it!

A “classic” summer ski race

Long before the affordable jet travel age, skiers from the Alps used to train on glaciers and when possible on a snowfield, well into summer months, instead of traveling to the southern hemisphere.

In my hometown, the Hauts-Forts, the highest mountain around overlooking Avoriaz could hold a skiable snowfield long enough to set up a ski competition. A memorial race, called “Coupe Emile Marullaz”, was held there for the first time sixty years ago and is said to have been scheduled some 36 times.

Enough snow was key, of course, to organize a short slalom course in summer. Last year's event was on the calendar but canceled when snow didn't hold long enough. To my chagrin, I've never attended the race, but remember its early days, often time around Bastille Day (July 14) when the French Ski Team came over to participate and the competition gave a boost to our family restaurant in nearby Lindarets.

These glory days are over and today it has turned more like into a fun race where post-event partying has become the main focus. Yet, just yesterday, the 18-year-old Ambroise Paget from Combloux and Laurence Lazier from Morzine, who is no other than the former GS champion Cyprien Richard's significant other, won the men and women's contests.

Who are the Trump voters?

Most reasonable people, the world over, agree that Trump is bad, but today, my question goes to his “base”. Who are the folks that ended up voting for that man? I'd tend to fit them in 4 slots:

1. The mean-spirited 
A fairly broad category that includes all the racists, xenophobes, ultra-conservative extremists and people that hated Hillary Clinton so much that Trump was their only alternative.

2. The gullible
Group made of religious folks that believe everything they're told under the cover of their faith and also believes politicians who told them just what they want to hear. A pathetic and non-salvageable group of individuals.

3. The idiots
A major block of people that are hopeless and probably all need therapy. They find their nourishment in Fox News and the right-wing talk show hosts, but don't understand basic finances and still believe Trump is a good businessman and a great negotiator.

4. A combination of all three
These are probably the most numerous and the worst and constitute Mr. Trump's hard-core base.

As you can see, the four categories are hopelessly set in their way. You can shame them all you want, but they'll enthusiastically vote again for Trump in 2020!

A guaranteed income for working people?

I just finished reading “Fair Shot”, a recent book written by one of Facebook many “co-founders”, Chris Hughes, in which he makes the case that “one-percenters” like him should pay their fortune forward in a radically simple way: a guaranteed income for working people.

That's not quite what he says in the book as the funding mechanism would happen by taxing gasoline and other stuff. The idea isn't new and is currently tested and debated the world over.

More recently, it was tried in Finland where it seem to have failed after 2,000 randomly selected unemployed Finns got about $675 a month during a two year test period without having to give anything in return.

I always had some skepticism about the concept and, except perhaps for stay-at-home moms that perform a real serious job, I'm not a believer. This said, I've evolved a bit over time, and really believe that the need for a guaranteed basic income starts with a decent minimum wage.

Currently, our Federal minimum hourly wage is still at $7.25 and I do believe that it should be jacked up to a living wage $15 or more per hour, instead.

For a host of good economic reasons, this shouldn't and couldn't be applied overnight, but gradually, say over 7 years, with a manageable $1.50 a year increase per year, reaching $17.75 on year 7 and then kept up with the consumer price index.

The rest of the proposed ideas are just a pipe dream.

Solitude's fate settled!

On June 20, the new Alterra Mountain Company announced it would purchase Solitude Mountain Mountain Resort in Utah, growing the company to 13 destinations throughout North America, including Canada's CMH heli-skiing.

My guess is that after unsuccessfully trying to sell Solitude with Deer Valley, its owners Stearns and Penske, not knowing what to do with that small, challenging resort simply threw the towel and chose to unload it to Alterra rather than having to run it themselves. Alterra probably didn't pay much, if at all for this last acquisition, and it might be possible that the sellers will be bringing some money at closing to sweeten the deal.

There seem to be nothing strategic about Alterra's purchase: Solitude, just 34 miles from Salt Lake City airport is fairly small with only 8 lifts, 77 runs and three bowls spread over 1,200 acres for a 2,047 feet vertical drop. It is and will remain a challenge to turn it from local resort into full-fledged destination resort with a tiny village and limited accommodations.

What is interesting is what will become of Brighton, its next door neighbor. Adjacent to Park City Mountain, it could be a logical and strategic high altitude extension of the resort owned by Vail, but Boyne Mountain, Brighton's parent company already has accords with Alterra through its Ikon pass involving Big Sky.

Time will tell, but the merger mania is currently so fluid that we might know sooner than later...

A bittersweet jet ride...

One June day, just 50 years ago, as I was serving my mandatory time in the French Air Force, I was asked to come to the Captain's office.

At the time, I happened to be in Solenzara, Corsica, where the squadron I was assigned to was stationed for target shooting over the Mediterranean Sea. The Captain tersely announced that my dad had passed away as per a cable he had just received from my Salon Air Base, near Marseilles.

Needless to say that I was both shocked and distraught, and didn't know how to react. He then told me that he could get me a ride on an air force jet trainer back to the Dijon Air Base a little over 200 miles away from my parents' place.

In less time than I could figure, I found myself fitted into a pressurized suit, helmeted and belted inside the jet cockpit.

We took off, flying over the picturesque island, I remember seeing some snow around Monte Cinto, and following a fast flight over the sea and the Alps, we landed in Dijon.

While I normally love to fly, I didn't fully enjoy that strange trip. From there, I hitch-hiked to my home where I got in the middle of the night, apprehending the situation I had been told about.

The front door was locked, which surprised me because I thought my mom might have expected me to come that night. I remember walking in the yard, under my parents' bedroom. My mom must have heard me and spoke to my Dad.

Elation followed confusion; I explained the reason for my being there. She said: “Dad is well!” The military had goofed up and got the names of two soldiers badly mixed up!

Utah's ski numbers are out!

Utah's skier-day numbers are just out. This past season saw 4,145,321 days, a 9.6 percent drop from the previous season that was an all-time record.

This honorable performance happened in spite of measly snowfalls representing only 60 percent of average, along with winter temperatures at resorts three to five degrees above normal.

Since the number of skier visits per resort is undisclosed, I've tried once more to reconstruct how the skier-days as I think they are spread among individual resorts.

Nothing to take to the bank, just a simple guesstimate!

Untangling the immigration knot

The subject of immigration is front and center these days. While I believe that we all belong to our blue planet and ought to be able to roam wherever we want, unregulated, free movement of individuals would create chaos and there's a need for rules established and managed by national governments.

The easiest to understand and deal with is the economic immigration stream, based on moving skills that are in demand in certain countries.

This should also include people willing to pay a hefty price of entry. Immigration, however, has three additional entry routes: the humanitarian stream with its refugees and asylum seekers to whom states are willing to offer protection; family reunification; and illegal immigration.

While I am totally in favor of bringing people to a country based on skills that are in high demand, a better way to deal with asylum seeker is to address the root of the problem with countries that have no rules of law, are in the midst of wars or have their social and economic fabric in tatters. Richer countries have a responsibility to address these imbalances.

Family reunification has merit but must be contained within a limited scope only. Illegal immigration, of course, is not okay and should be vigorously enforced unless a country doesn't really care or turns a blind eye on human exploitation.

Like in all other domains, there should be best practices established by comparing the various immigration policies all across the planet and developing compromises that are fair and well tested.

Raising “religion-free” kids

As immigrants to America and so far away from our families influence, we were under no pressure to forgo religious teaching upon our children.

Since we were non-practicing Catholics and thought it would be hypocritical to teach our kids religious tenets that we didn't follow, we choose to educate them outside of any religious influence.

Raising them in Park City was a good place, because about half of the population was irreligious, even though the formidable Mormon influence was besieging our ski resort community.

Without religious education, but with the force of their parents' example and moral values, our kids turned out to be great and successful human beings.

Some studies allege that children growing up in a faith community experiment less with drugs and alcohol and juvenile crime but they're countered by others that show that kids raised without religion are more resistant to peer pressure and more culturally sensitive.

In retrospect, I think raising kids “religion-free” is the way to go; I strongly believe that the opposite amounts to a form of child abuse.

An factual winter summary

The website Opensnow.com provide some interesting stats about winter snow cover and help us keep our memories straight.

As many know, this past November, December and January were some of the worst months on record since at least 40 years, until February 19. I've attached the graph related to Park City snow accumulation.

• The dark blue line is the average of seasons 1989 through 2010.
• The green line is this past 2017-18 winter; it's easy to see that we were well below average, peaking just under 70% of our normal peak annual snow-pack. 
• The light blue line is 2011-12 season, another dismal snow-season. Both had slow starts, then made modest comebacks. 
• The red line is 2014-2015 season that had the distinction of being the worst Utah season since at least 1976-77. 

 I had almost forgotten about it, which goes to show how fast our memory plays tricks on us, absent some written statistics!

Jupiter snow patch

From its 9,998 feet, Jupiter Peak towers over Park City and more often than not, holds the last patch of visible snow on the mountain, except for, these days, the enormous mounds of man-made snow used in the bottom skier's park.

Over the years, and depending on the season snowfall and post-winter temperatures, the remaining snow patch vanishes between the end of June and the end of August.

In spite of having survived the worst Utah snow season since 76-77, whatever is left to see of the Jupiter snow patch now (June 15 photo) might last us well until June 24, the worst date on my visual record registered 3 winters ago!

Life path, mentors, and catalysts

From point A to point B or at least well before point Z, we keep on encountering people as well as forks on our road that make us ricochet here and there, just like if we were meandering down a pinball machine.

Sure we also make willful or random choices and decisions that also affect to a various extent our own life paths. Today, I'd like to focus on folks or events that influence us, either by mentoring us or triggering as well as facilitating decisions on our part that can be far-reaching in terms of how they define our entire lives.

When I review my own experience I can only find one or two mentors, four life experiences, one book and almost a dozen people that triggered some of my life transformative ideas. In other words, my mentor has been few, life experiences have counted a lot, one book impacted me much and the rest was the sum of many people influencing the course of my life.

This said, what's my responsibility in all this? Having the guts, the folly and the curiosity to chose a radically different path!

“Deep Fake”

When I woke up this morning in Park City, the sky was a perfect blue and I had nothing to worry about, or so it seemed. It was before I read in Bloomberg, a piece explaining what “deep fakes” are.

Fake news on the internet aren't new, but we're now talking here about videos created by using artificial intelligence, so they can seem realistic, but show events or statement that are totally made up. If you don't know what's behind them, these clips can confuse the hell out of you.

According to that article, these forgeries are fairly easy to produce. As an example, you can see below former president Barack Obama delivering an entirely fabricated speech.

Russian fake news spread through Facebook have already derailed the American 2016 presidential election. Because people trust videos more than anything else that problem could get worse, as hoax clips may become part of some devious political campaigns.

Now, we've got something serious to worry about!

The sun revolves around Trump

Soon, when his reign is over, Donald Trump will be the most analyzed human being on the face of the planet.

To cut short to the endless analysis that the worldwide media is likely to serve us for years on end, I'd like to propose that Trump is only interested in himself. Period.

Not the world, not the United States of America, not the Republican Party, not his wife or even his kids. Him, him and only him.

He is the epitome of navel-gazing and, as president of what's called the most powerful country in the world, he's at the right place for what he cherishes most. Only the rest of us are in a bad, bad spot.

Trump's behavior at the G7

I wasn't shocked when I heard about Donald Trump's tantrum addressed at Justin Trudeau following the G7 summit. I wasn't surprised either.

This was pure Trump and absolutely consistent with the performance he delivered throughout his campaign.

All along, each and every American of voting age, knew that the man wasn't fit to be president, but because they were gullible and brainwashed enough by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, they choose to throw him against the wall to see if it would stick.

I can understand that, even though I believe the attempt was worst than dumb. Today, the remaining core Trump supporters should finally see the light and realize their error.

No, they still won't, because they're either too damn stubborn or hopelessly idiots.

Mountain, skiing, and numbers

In his 2018 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism, Swiss mountain expert Laurent Vanat, paints a comprehensive picture of downhill skiing, including of course snowboarding, ski-biking, etc.

This survey, including the winter of 2016-2017, shows the number of skier-days increasing by 4% over the previous season in spite of less than favorable weather conditions in Europe. According to Vanat, we are now looking at some 400 million skier-days worldwide.

Likewise, there would be 130 million skiers on the planet, which only represents 1.7% of the current world population. This number represents the total number of nominal skiers without considering their frequency of visits at ski resorts but that also includes skiers that did not ski during the current season.

Ski population is a tough number to ascertain and while Vanat credit the USA with 25 million skiers, I would suspect the real figure to be at most 10 million per season.

Like in many other domains, Laurent Vanat turns his readers' attention to China and its growth potential that could, under some scenarios, double up the current number of skiers worldwide, in a not so distant future!

The Vail Resorts experiment

This week, Vail Resorts went on another shopping spree when it spent $304 million purchasing Crested Butte in Colorado, Okemo in Vermont, Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire and Stevens Pass in Washington.

To many, Vail Resorts' hegemony is viewed quite negatively; they see it as a company only focused on growing at the expense of its employees, the communities it's doing business in, and the users.

Other applaud the financial performance of its stock that has wildly outperformed the market, raising in value 3 times of what it was five years ago.

The problem I see is that Vail Resorts stands as the apprentice sorcerer and has no idea of the consequences of its unbridled growth. It purchased Park City and after an initial big investment, seems either uninterested or unable to properly manage or improve the resort as it should. A case of biting more than one can chew.

Further, one might question Vail Resorts' business model and its sustainability over a long period of time. I'm not mentioning concerns about global warming and dwindling snow cover, but just plateauing revenues and cannibalization of its product offering through its mere multiplication.

If the law of unintended consequences kicks in, as it very well might do, hang on tight and perhaps, sell your Vail Resort stock position if you own any of it!

Like a Swiss Army knife!

There is, in Park City, a property management company that picked the name “Swiss Property Management” as moniker.


I don't know how many Swiss people work in it, but I suspect that the vast majority of its staff is Mexican.

Sure, it could have been called “Mexican Property Management” as well, but that name might not ring as sexy, or not necessarily convey that ironclad trust most folks expect from the small alpine country.

This lead me to think further and insert other countries to measure the level of reputation, trust and prestige that could compare advantageously to “Swiss”.

This is the ranking I came up with:

1. Norwegian 

2. Swedish 

3. Dutch 

4. German 

5. British 

6. French 

7. Italian 

8. Russian 

9. Algerian 

10. Congolese 

Now, what's yours?

Great planning, lousy facts

Several days ago, I had to have my car brake pads changed in Salt Lake City and since that work takes time, I thought it would be cool to stop by the Social Security office there, where I had something to check. After that, we'd return to Park City in order to attend a public meeting, and then we planned to have dinner at our favorite restaurant.

Things look terrific on paper and deep inside me, I was proud to be such an exacting planner. Reality would prove a lot different... Getting to the garage was easy, my appointment had been booked for 1 pm and the job would take about two and a half hour.

That left us plenty of time to hop in the garage's shuttle and visit with the Social Security office in downtown Salt Lake. When we got there, to my dismay, I saw a notice saying that office would be closed that Wednesday afternoon. Sure, it was opened every day a week from 9 am to 5 pm, but for some reason was shut down when we needed to go there.

With plenty of time ahead of us, we walked back to the garage under a 94 degrees heat! Since our car was ready on time, we returned home and waited till 4:45 pm to drive to the Park City public library where the hearing was scheduled. Upon getting there, I discovered that the meeting had taken place the night before. I simply had entered the wrong date on my calendar!

To cheer ourselves up we returned home for a well deserved drink, and while we were enjoying a cool one in the shade, I had the intelligent idea to call the restaurant, just in case, only to learn that it was only opened on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, during the late spring season.

Bottom line:

My planning was stunning, yet the checks and balances were terrible. I only got 25% of what I had planned. Another good lesson learned; next time, I'll call before going anywhere!

Are new home appliances pure junk?

In the past 10 years, we've had our share of terrible experiences with brand new appliances. In most cases, they all broke-down right after the warranty had expired.

We had never purchased extended warranty coverage before we realized that “the appliances were not made like they used to”.

Our woes began with a nice, high-tech, LG refrigerator that broke-down twice, once under warranty, then again after we were on our own, and was immediately trashed and replaced, a 2-year old GE dishwater and 12 month later, a 3-year old GE washing machine that were both replaced.

That was until, last week, when the replacement washing machine, still-under-warranty, quit working. The service company came to repair it, but didn't have the central electronic processing unit that was fried, so we'll have to wait another week before, hopefully, everything works again.

The Whirlpool machine cost us less than $900, but if it were not under warranty, our repair costs would be a whopping $500! A five-year extended warranty at $330 looks cheap compared to the prices we were asked to pay.

What is causing this tide of terrible home appliances?

Outsourcing to Mexico and Asia has got to play a role; add to it an invasion of cheap plastic inside the devices to cut cost and make everything lighter, so less energy and water are needed, allowing for feeble and inexpensive motors. I almost forgot cheap, unreliable electronics and we have a perfect storm for a downward spiral into engineering mediocrity.

Of course, this kind of radical value-analysis pays for cute colors, sexy styling, low prices, high profits at the expense of reliability.

While cars have improved markedly over the years, appliances are going to the dogs and it's time well all start screaming bloody murder!

Managing regrets

Here's a subject that has always fascinated me. Regrets are a commodity available to all of us if we are courageous and open enough to help ourselves.

I conduct that search on a pretty regular basis, often to return empty-handed from my quest, which in and of itself is quite good.

Conventional wisdom asserts that we regret inaction more than action; in other words, not the things we do, but those we fail to achieve.

More recently, psychologists are making an interesting distinction between what they call the “ideal self”, that is what we'd be if we fulfilled all our goals and ambitions, and the “ought self”, as if we were more focused on meeting our obligations to others by taking the high-road, and living a stricter moral life.

They claim that people regret ideal-self failures – in short, not pursuing their dreams – more than ought-self failures, such as failing to visit a sick relative or failing to do what's morally right. This is because we can always “fix” the later whereas the opportunity to attain the former is often long gone and can't be regained.

This segmentation isn't far from Carl Jung's suggesting that we shouldn't be asking what we want from life, but what life wants from us; another twist that further complicates the ways we ought to plan and direct our own destiny.
This said, since my stash of regrets isn't that big, should I even worry about these subtle and complex distinctions?

The luxury of many options

Who doesn't love to have plenty of options instead of either one measly choice, or worst, none at all?

Depending on how industrious, organized or lucky we are, we might be blessed with more than one option when we life-changing choices present themselves as we move along life.

If we're lucky or smart enough, having one good option can make all the difference, but having more than one puts us into an enviable situation.

Are they pitfalls to such an array of choices? You bet; picking the best alternative can sometime be quite difficult when none of the competing options stands as the obvious way to proceed.

It's then easy to get confused, hesitate, over-analyze, wait too much and end up with a deal that leaves us not quite fully satisfied. That's it; the flip side of too many options might translate into a greater exposure to regrets!

Low price ski passes for senior?

In looking at next season's ski pass offerings, the trend might no longer in favor of the older skier as special deals or even free rides are going down fast.

For one thing, if someone skis past retirement age, that person is generally able to afford the cost of a lift ticket. In fact, as a whole, those older folks are generally very well off and shouldn't need subsidized chairlift rides.

Perhaps a minority of die-hard, low-income skiers would deserve a price break, but being in a numerical minority never is a good place to be.

Clearly, what the ski industry must offer is bigger breaks to the very young with the savings it makes on the back of the old, affluent ones. This is called investing in the future!

Insanity's world meeting

There are a world trade, a world health, and a world labor organization, but to my knowledge, I've never heard yet of a world insanity organization or body.

This said, just be patient, a summit is scheduled this 12th day of June to bring the most insane individuals known to the world, to join hands in a summit dealing with a matching insane topic like nukes.

Nobody has yet called that meeting for what it is. You may hear it first on this blog.

Another endangered species

According to my very own research, there might be 850,000 white people on this planet, compared to a total population of 7.6 billion, amounting to a measly 11 percent.

In America alone, the “legal” population is around 325 million, about 70 percent is still white, but not for long. This means that the hegemony of the white man is dwindling fast and explains in part the desperate measures pursued by Trump and his supporter to keep the white segment of the population in power for as long as possible.

Already, whites are now a numerical minority in a half-dozen states, and they'll be the nation's minority in about 25 years. Today, for the first time ever, there is less white than non-white children under 10 years of age.

This explains the fear of many whites that they'll soon become a minority. This is only true in terms of numbers because they'll continue to be the majority in terms of wealth, power and prestige. Whites have amassed large amounts of wealth and other resources that won't just dwindle with their declining population.

Just like in South Africa, where whites are a numerical minority, they continue being the dominant group both politically and economically.

The life-saving habit of taking notes

In the absence of written or recorded material, it is almost impossible to maintain clear memories of facts and other measurable life events. stuff, when certain events take place, what-happened-when, etc.

This is the reason why I take a lot of notes and organize them in ways so they can be easily retrieval in answering future questions, making comparisons or just measuring how things change.

To help myself and to enjoy more of my daily life, I do my very best to organize the information that comes my way, whether it's where I place stuff, when certain events take place, what-happened-when, etc.

My system isn't perfect, still offers plenty of room for improvement, but is a life-saving start!