Kavanaugh, beer and women

Besides not being able to keep his cool during his latest job interview, we also learned two other critical traits about Judge Kavanaugh during the last Senate hearings: His love for beer and his lack of respect for women.

About his love of beer, the judge said, “I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer.” He probably could have added “Sometimes we ALL had too many beers”, but he probably forgot about that all too-common and basic combination.

As for his lack of respect for women, this came loud and clear when Senator Amy Klobuchar asked if he had ever consumed so much alcohol that he blacked out, to which he responded, “Have you?” Klobuchar is certainly glad she didn't ask him “Was it your intention to have sex with Christine Blasey?” He might have responded, “What about you?”

To me, these verbal incidents were the last nails into the candidate's coffin and sent a clear message that Brett Kavanaugh belonged more drinking at the corner's bar with beers lined up in front of him, than interpretating the Constitution at the United States' Supreme Court.

Beautiful Uintas!

Yesterday we hiked to Ruth Lake, located one hour away from our home in the Uinta Mountains, a range of mountains straddling the Utah and Wyoming border.

These mountains are unusual for being the highest range in the contiguous United States running east to west. Its peaks average 12,000 feet high with Kings Peak, at 13,528 feet, as its highest point and also highest Utah's elevation.

The range is accessed mainly through the Mirror Lake Highway that crosses the western half of the Uintas on its way to Wyoming and presently, during foliage season, the drive is an absolute colorful treat!

Who lied?

I watched the entire testimonies of Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and concluded that Christine Blasey Ford was more believable than Brett Kavanaugh and therefore was more likely to be telling the truth.

In fact, that meant that my take-away was that Kavanaugh lied under oath in addition to being unable to control his anger. On the plus side, he surely displayed some excellent acting talents.

Today, under pressure from one of their members, Republicans agreed to delay a vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation for one week, to allow for an FBI probe into allegations of sexual misconduct against the judge.

If the man is still confirmed in spite of this, the only remaining hope would be for the press, while it's still free, to do its own investigation in order to unmask his shenanigans.

One can only hope!

My dream job?

Recently, my wife asked me: “What was your dream job?”

Well, that was a good, yet complicated question. As a kid, my talent was in my left hand. I had a gift for drawing cars and all sorts of objects or people.

I could have answered my spouse's question by saying I might have been a car designer or an architect perhaps, but that would have been without taking my roaring passion for skiing out of consideration.

True, this is why I became a ski instructor for a while, but without a steady activity to provide me with some revenue the rest of the year. That's when I said: “I should have been a ski sales representative!”

That's right, a rep, traveling around and calling on ski shops, transitioning at first with ski-instructing and eventually mixing that passion with a good mean of earning my living, but in the end, my professional activity ended up being 99% in that retrospective target and I would have gotten bored very fast, repping for a living.

So, at the end of the day, I pretty much hit my goal and have nothing to complain about.

Dream of flying?

There's a guy in Park City, that owns a two-seater Robinson R22 helicopter and each time it hovers over my head, it makes me very envious. I would love to own of of these puppies.

Notwithstanding the fact I'm a bit too hold for getting into flying a chopper, the cost of owning and operating one is simply super-onerous!

The purchase price alone is about $300,000 and the cost of operating and maintaining it is no less than $300 per hour if I flew as much as 1,000 hour a year, but since my usage would be much less, the hourly cost would skyrocket.

Well, I guess it's nice to still have dreams at my age, and I can only console myself by thinking that owning such a bird is exactly like having a boat or a RV; it comes with only two days of unmitigated pleasure: The day it's purchased and the day it's sold, with a lot of financial suffering and self-doubt in between, assuming there isn't a crash too!

Skiers and climate change

Yesterday, I was reading an article in a French newspaper complaining that The Grande Motte glacier in Tignes, that was scheduled to open on September 29th, won't be able to, due to lack of snow. The article added that it was another worrying sign about global warming.

What was astounding though, was the flurry of comments, all stating that while everyone in the ski industry was wringing their hands about receding glaciers, they didn't think twice before sending their entire ski teams to train in South America instead of on Alpine snowfields, adding therefore to the global CO2 emissions and making a bad situation even worse.

These comments are absolutely right, even if the impacts are minute in that great scheme of things, and I simply hope that these authors are consistent with their opinions, by refraining from traveling by air and individual fossil fuel-powered vehicles. If not they should shut up and work at changing the modes of transportation.

As for me, I must admit, I'm part of the problem too, and a hypocrite as the rest of the developed world who continues to abuse their planet on a daily basis.

Faith and my Catholic upbringing

I've always wondered about the mystery of religious faith and how it happens to people. I don't think it's a natural gift that humans are endowed with, but rather a social notion that is implanted into people so they behave according to their prevailing culture.

I was exposed to faith through my mother and the religious education I received at my Catholic parish, and both sources drove it inside me more through fear than pleasant desire. Since it wasn't attractive or fun in any way, it couldn't last. It never provided me with an enjoyable and comfortable place to be, and my religious faith ended up to be more repulsive than attractive.

It is said that more flies are caught by honey than by vinegar, and once again, the parallel is true with religious faith. Fear of hell was what drove me to religion, not heavenly or Godly love, and that left no nurturing ground for my developing faith, a fatal pedagogical mistake.

Fear of hell mixed with confusing messages about sexuality, not to mention a far-fetched doctrine, couldn't stand the test of my growing up into a critical thinking adult, and explained why faith couldn't take roots inside me.

Another warmer summer

Now that summer is officially over, it's time to take a look at my daily temperature measurements and see how they compare with the previous numbers I had.

These were taken outdoors, in the shade on the deck of my Park City home. I'm talking about maximum and minimum daily temperatures from June 21 through September 21.

I have started to record them since 2007, without missing a beat, and now have 11 full years to compare. Here, in Park City, we've been under the impression that this summer was the warmest on record, and we were right!

With a 126.33% daily index*, we beat 2016 followed by both 2017 and 2007. As for the maximum heat during the day, we broke all previous records with an average temperature of 80.13 degrees F.

Our coldest day temperature index remains at 117.71% in 2009, with average temperatures staying at a 74.67 degrees level.

With a 81.13% index, our nocturnal temperatures only came second to 2013, at 81.44%, and so did our average overnight temperatures that came to 51.46 degrees vs. a warmer 51.66 degrees in 2013. 

Our lowest nocturnal temperatures were observed in 2009 with an index of 74.62% and an average cool temperature of 47.33 degrees. 

How do these figures compare with your location's?

*Heat index calculated by adding all day and nightly temperatures for the three consecutive months of summer and dividing by their daily average.

What makes leaves change color?

Foliage season has officially begun in Park City. Not so long ago, as I was talking to my siblings, back in France, they both asserted that an early freeze was really what triggered the change in colors.

I knew that wasn't totally true and didn't argue until I had time to do some research of my own. While several factors create fall colors (temperature, precipitation, soil moisture), the key agent is light or lack thereof.

As the days grow shorter, less light causes a tight wall to form between the twig and the leaf stalk; as it gets denser the leaf can no longer access nutrients and water and the sugar it contains can't leave it either.

As an immediate result, the green chlorophyll pigment dies. When this happens, two other pigments show their bright faces: Carotene (yellow) and anthocyanin (red); both already exist inside the leaf but are masked by the chlorophyll.

The brown color in oaks is an exception and the result of tannin. In fact, it's the sugar trapped inside the leaves that is largely responsible for those vivid colors. So the next question, of course, is what creates the best fall colors? It seems that a wet growing season followed by a dry autumn filled with sunny days and cool as well as frostless nights produces the most vibrant palette of fall colors.

Unlike many folks believe, freezing temperatures and a hard frost may kill the entire process and lead to poor fall colors. Same thing with drought conditions during late summer and early fall, like we've experienced this year in Park City, that can “shutdown” trees prematurely as they prepare for winter, causing leaves to fall early without reaching their full-color potential.

Now that you know the whole story, make sure to go out and enjoy the show!

The end of Ski Magazine resort rankings

For too many seasons, Ski Magazine had been playing a very dangerous game in ranking the North American ski resorts, creating in the process, more enemies than it could afford to handle.

At the same time, its advertising began to drop (Vail Resorts has deserted the publication for years) and after its sister publication Skiing was jettisoned in 2003, Ski Magazine had to resort to sending free copies to people like ski area season pass-holders like me.

Ski Magazine is suffering the same fate as the majority of periodicals that simply don't get read. In 2006 when advertisers learned that more than half of Ski’s 450,000 circulation was made up of sponsored and partnership subscriptions, it became increasingly harder for the magazine to sell advertising.

Powder, is the only competitor left that might have a paid circulation below 40,000. Today, my guess that between paid subscriptions and newsstand sales, Ski's real circulation might be around 125,000. What is certain is that internet advertising has also killed these fan-based magazines.

Has anyone got any idea what the actual numbers are for Ski and Powder?

Are wrinkles the new fashion?

We love to watch CNBC's Nightly Business Report on PBS, and last night, the host Bill Griffeth was interviewing Deloitte's Rod Sides about the upcoming Holiday spending forecast.

While he asserted his bullishness about the 2018 Holiday season, my eyes were glued on his wrinkled suit.

Sure, I realized that he had been prepped by a TV crew before going on air (he was wearing a broadcasting hear-piece), but I couldn't believe that no one had noticed his remarkably wrinkled suit unless of course, I'm totally ignorant about fashion trends.

I'm totally ignorant about fashion trends. Well, any new wardrobe statement has to begin somewhere...

The expat dilemma

When expats have children, they'll always be confronted with that searing question as to whether they should stay in their host country or return home and how would this impact their kids, especially when kids are of school age.

We were expats, went through that dilemma and chose to stay in America. Around us, we saw Europeans in similar situations make different choices and, in all cases, their kids future development and careers were negatively affected. In retrospect, we think we made a harder, but much better choice.

I'd love to hear about opposite outcomes; has anyone anything to share on that topic?

Time for some preventive maintenance

Nothing is worse than a furnace that breaks down on the coldest day of winter, and yet, this is always when it happens.

This season, I've decided to be more proactive in scheduling some preventive maintenance on our so important source of winter heat, in asking a techie to come and give that key appliance a thorough check up.

Our furnace is quite modern and even though I've opened up the hood, I can't quite make sense of its internal organs. So, in order to educate myself, while protecting my household, I plan to watch this complete pre-season exam and become a furnace expert.

At least that's my plan. I'll let you know what I learned from the experience!

Observing aging

Aging is ineluctable and whether we like it or not, we have little choice but accept it, go with the flow and make the very best of it.

This has not just been so much my choice as a deliberate quest on my part, ever since I've felt the presence of aging in me, and as I like to say, have “started my descent”.

Initially, I began that observation as it related to the sport of skiing, but have soon have found that it could be extended to my day-to-day existence, making it a live experiment, complete with measurements and explanations.

To me, this exercise is quite beneficial as it turns an otherwise dreary experience into a continuous learning opportunity.

Hopefully, I'll discover and conclude that it is the best formula for embracing the passing of time and keeping on learning from it!

Back studying Japanese?

In the 1990s, I used to travel to Japan a lot and had decided to learn Japanese.

Little did I knew then about my dwindling determination to learn another foreign language, not to mention a totally new alphabet, having, until that time, tackled three European languages in addition to my native French, all with roman alphabets.

In a nutshell the attempt wasn't a resounding success and except for a few usual words, some banal phrases and counting to twenty, I didn't have much to show for my laborious efforts.

Soon, I will find myself in a situation that could benefit from uttering again a few words in Japanese.

So, I dug out my old book and I also looked for apps that could help me, only to find that the best one, for what I needed, might very well be “Google Translate” which I already have.

So here I am, brushing off my old and feeble Japanese with some great, 21st-century technology!

Disabling Trump?

This is the dream of many.

The following image is the perfect illustration of what Trump is: An unreasonable, fussy baby, impossible to control.

He embodies everything America doesn't need and informs my approach to the upcoming November, mid-term election is quite simple: The GOP is Trump's enabler. They're his de facto accomplice and should pay dearly for it at the voting booth.

As for Trump, his terrible behavior and dismal performance vis-à-vis the American public, makes his voters and supporters look like idiots. Enough said.

Another ski-dumb-dream

I had a vivid dream last night. With a bunch of friends, we were climbing the Hauts-Forts, a peak overlooking my home valley in France, with the intent to obviously ski it down.

While I distinctly didn't remember having any skis on my back and was kind of struggling hiking up, in the company of friends, that I could see carrying their own skis on their backs, some even dragging up what appeared to be electric generators, I realized upon reaching the summit that my boards were on my feet.

On top of the normally barren mountain, there was a small creek water flowing on the top spine and a nice shelter where my friend Michel Duret, once a ski manufacturer, had artwork hanging in there.

Then within mere seconds, - dreams travel super fast - the scene dissolved into Daly Chutes #4 a popular, short couloir, in Deer Valley, Utah, in summer, with a seemingly impossibly steep ravine we were supposed to ski down.

Then, I finally woke up without my skis on, this time...

Simple bicycle maintenance

My French friend Jacques is a consummate sportsman. Even though he's getting close to 70 years of age, he keeps on teaching skiing in the winter, and during the rest of the year, whenever he isn't busy working around his house, he sometimes hikes but rides a lot and logs some 8,000 miles a year on his road bike.

So as we were talking over the phone yesterday, I asked him which kind of cleaner and lube he was using on his bike; he simply answered: “Ordinary motor oil! I don't even degrease and clean the chain; every 500 km, I wipe it clean then apply some fresh motor oil and that's it.”

As for me, I've gone online and visited countless forums to find out what the best degreaser and lubricants were, without even finding a definitive answer among thousands of finicky opinions.

Jacques also told me that he systematically changes his chain at the beginning of a new riding season (8,000 miles). Jacques has spent his career in the ski and the bike industry, so he's quite knowledgeable.

In contrast, after I had bought my new bike at REI and put less than 1,000 miles on it, I was advised to change the chain, because it had build-up “too much play”, the following season, as I was taking advantage of the store “free tune-up” on my bike first anniversary.

This goes a long way in showing the terrible mentality of that establishment and the thousands of possible ways marketers come up to squeeze money out of consumers.

A better way to wash windows?

Yesterday was outside window cleaning day at our home. In the past, I struggled to do it, perched on my high ladder, stretching myself, worrying about falling (my wife was even more concerned that I could be) and doing a less than stellar job.

I only did the interior part, which was relatively easy and more at my level (skill and heights included). This time, we finally turned to professionals for most of the exterior, and since our high plate windows have always been a huge challenge, I videotaped the action.

I discovered that the window washer was using a water-fed pole and water-fed brushes to clean my most hard-to-reach windows, while using pure (distilled) water for rinsing and spot-free drying.

I watched, a tiny bit skeptical, but was totally sold on the concept when everything was spotlessly dry. Impressive indeed!

When will progress stop?

The lesson from Theranos

I just finished reading “Bad Blood”, the mind-boggling saga of Theranos, a biotechnology start-up, infamous now for its fallacious claims to have devised a super simple, non-invasive blood test.

The company was founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes when she was just 19. She and her partner managed to raise more than $700 million from investors, and reach a $10 billion peak valuation in 2013.

Both its investors and the media hyped Theranos as being a technological breakthrough, just like a new Apple. That was until October 2015, when John Carreyrou, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of the book, exposed the scam, causing the company to quickly disintegrate until it closed its doors on 31 August of this year.

The takeaway from that unbelievable story is that Ms. Holmes was a dangerous charismatic leader that knew how to play people, employees, investors and the media, just like Prophet Mohamed, Donald Trump or Joseph Smith (the founder of Mormonism) had done before her.

These people aren't just extremely effective and dangerous, they tend to resurface frequently under different labels and their mere existence should be a warning to all of us to always think critically and never take what these manipulators or their supporters assert at face value.

Now go back to work, do your homework when tempted by an investment opportunity and always stay on your guard!

Alterra's wide-open wallet

Alterra's shopping spree keeps getting wilder. Recently, Crystal Mountain, near Mt. Rainier, was the latest addition to its portfolio.

This reminds me of an experience I witnessed at the turn of the century, with a Vail Valley company in the property management business, that went into a shopping spree, only to sell off most of its portfolio of businesses around 2005, probably losing money on the whole.

Giving a fat checkbook to some salaried executives and assigning them to buy anything in sight is dumb, as strategy, priorities and due diligence take a back seat to an out-of-control shopping frenzy. The focus is no longer what makes sound business sense, but how can we spend the allocated resources?

At the start of 2018 Alterra Mountain Company, challenged Vail Resorts by launching its Ikon Pass, covering 23 ski resorts across nine US states and three Canadian provinces. Since that time, the company has added 12 resorts to the Pass, taking the total available to 35, including Australia and Japan.

At breakneck speed and with seemingly plenty of money on hand, Alterra appears determined to equal Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass (launched in 2008) and its 65 resorts worldwide.

With now 100 montain resorts in their two portfolios, and under the ominous threat of global warming, both entities are likely to discover very soon how this multi-destination business model will play out and if it will work out, or fail.

Time will tell, but be prepared to see many unexpected moves and adjustments as their collective experience of competing resort networks unfolds.

Winter weather “predictions”

About a year ago, NOAA's, America's climate prediction center announced that our average winter temperatures might be higher and so would our precipitations.

At the end of the season, we've had the worst early snow season in 45 years (November, December, and January) and ended up the season just under 70% of our normal peak annual snow-pack.

Yesterday, the long-range weather forecast for the winter 2018/2019, claimed that we're on some "El Niño Watch."

The consensus of model data predicts a 70 percent chance of an El Niño developing for the 18/19 ski season.

What this means is that the northwestern portion of our continent will be warmer dryer than normal, so people in Whistler will get a break from shoveling snow.

At the same time, the southeast (mostly New Mexico) will see more precipitations than normal so the folks in Taos Ski Valley will have to stock up snowblowers and snow tires.

As for us, in Park City, we'll have to suffer from only 90% of the normal snow-pack, which obviously is a major progress over last year!

Now, these are just mere promises that aren't worth much, and as usual, we'll need to regroup later to check how true they were...

A severe case of “Trumpite”

On November 8, 2016, as soon as it became clear that Trump had been elected president, I've been depressed like at least 100 millions of other Americans.

Ever since I had to function and live in spite of that surreal situation, but it has taken a terrible toll on me, my attitude, my future plans and my faith in the future.

I'm no longer the man I used to be, thanks to the Russians and the 60 million mean, gullible and idiot individuals who tipped the balanced in favor of that would-be-dictator.

Today, I seek solace in hoping that somehow, miraculously almost, we finally get rid of that scourge, come January of 2021.

The road ahead is still long and paved with pains and sorrows, but I need to pump myself up, to do better than just survive until that time.

Death and FoMO

As a person alive, I'm not thrilled by death, but when I dwell on the subject, thinking of it and of its consequences, brings the fear of missing out, aka FoMO, front and center.

That would begin with my family, including spouse, children, and grandson, then would go to my extended family and friends and then, the rest of my entire world, including skiing of course. I would miss the connection and I know what I'm talking about. from of FoMO would be very short-lived and wouldn't be a major issue.

I just left Facebook in April and have experienced lots of FoMO, but so far, have survived it gloriously. Would I feel the same if that happened again in the context of my final exit?

Yes and No.

Yes, for the few moments preceding the transition. No, thereafter, as there would be nothing (good or bad) that justified anything to be missed out. Let me be clear: In the case of no afterlife that would be it and in the case of life after death, I'd check from above and miss nothing.

Conclusion: Any form of FoMO would be very short-lived and wouldn't be a major issue.

Keeping that spring under tension...

It's frightening how many of my former friends, passed a certain age, generally in the seventies, suddenly “go extinct”.

Thank God, this isn't happening to all of them, but a sizable number is falling victim of that burgeoning trend.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand that, as one gets forward into the years, the good old energy of yesteryear, is slowly, but inexorably fading away.

This applies to basic communication, being present, interested and imaginative during phone calls, while responding to messages and keeping up with one's bright side of their personality.

This mean that no matter what happens to us, we need to get that “inner spring” working and under permanent tension.

There will be plenty of time to rest!

Hypocrisy. An American Product

From the day the European Colonists came to America, infected and killed its natives, before stealing their land, all in the name of a God of Mercy, we opened up the floodgates of hypocrisy upon the entire continent.

We then imported free labor from Africa to work the land and, to this day, have not been able to square up with all the evil we brought on them by simply hiding behind a philosophy of human rights in our own Declaration of Independence.

Today, while racism and native oppression continue to flourish in America, conservatives claim to be against abortion, but in favor of the death penalty, and when our printed money proclaim that “In God We Trust” while at the same time Church and State ought to stay separated, we have all the attributes to be the most hypocritical nation on the face of this earth.

Park City getting more Electric!

Our town offers a year-round, free bus system in an effort to discourage the use of cars and to minimize CO2 emissions. We only use it occasionally, but should it much more if we were “greener” and better citizens!

Currently, there are more than 40 buses in circulation and in 2016, the first full-electric buses began to be added to replace the older diesel vehicles. Today, there are 37 diesel and six electric buses in the transit system's fleet. Recently, Park City Transit was awarded a $2.29 million (2 million euros) grant from the Federal Government for its No-emission program.

The six electric buses have been used between Park City transit center and Kimball Junction, about 12 miles away on busy route 224. For its seven first months of operation in 2017, 183,104 passengers used the Electric Xpress. In 2018, from the start of the year through July, 315,877 passengers rode the Electric Xpress. That contributed to Park City Transit's ridership of 1,645,896 from that same period.

Currently, the 7 buses financed by the grant are in production and should be operational by December, replacing older diesel shuttles throughout the system. With all that clean transportation available to us, we have a very little excuse to take our car and keep on polluting the world!

Huntsville. A ski town?

On many occasion, and because of its proximity to Snowbasin ski resort, the quaint town of Huntsville, Utah, has often been dubbed “one of the cheapest ski-town to settle in”.

Located just 25 minutes East of Odgen (750,000 inhabitants), the 4,900 ft high town has less than 1,000 inhabitants, but boast three ski resorts between 10 and 15 miles away, Snowbasin, Powder Mountain, and Wolf Mountain.

The center of town is weird though, with almost no business open, but its iconic Shooting Star Saloon. This establishment is the oldest bar in Utah as it was founded in 1879, prior to the State admission into the Union.

The town is surrounded by Pineview Reservoir that offers boating, sailing, swimming and fishing, with three swim areas and sandy beaches. This artificial lake was built in 1937, to control and store Ogden River flood waters. It was further enlarged in1957, to a present capacity of 110,000 acre-feet.

As you can read, an enormous economic potential, but no commensurate development and things seem pretty well frozen in place for the foreseeable future, unless Vail Resorts or Alterra decide to purchase Snowbasin or the two other nearby ski resorts.

Vail Resorts, Alterra and the unknown

Much has changed in just one year between Vail Resorts and Alterra, regarding the strategies and tactics both organizations will have to deploy, the surprises that await them and the lessons they are likely to learn as the 2018-19 winter season unfold.

Of the two, Alterra will have the most to discover and, as a result, will have the most to correct come the spring of 2019. Vail Resorts will too, by closely competing in several market with a brand new creation.

When the powder settles, the public will have told them how they purchased, consumed and liked their respective products, how they've changed their ways of skiing, and in my opinion, this may lead to major changes that will have to be implemented the following winters.

Items like pricing, black-out dates, free days of skiing, outside resorts participation into the respective passes, will have to be reviewed and passed an extra time through the “blender” for further refinement.

The future has always fascinated me. What's your guess?

The pesky add-on sale

The end of summer is the deadline for paying for our family Epic ski passes at the early-bird price. We show up at the desk and ask to renew our Park City passes for another season (the 34th year).

The young lady tells us how much it will cost and since I'm good in arithmetic I see that the total isn't what it should be. Of course, on closer examination, it includes a “donation” for the trails.

We already give money for the trails, so I ask her to take that off. Well, the “voluntary” fee is built in into the price and she doesn't know how to work the computer to take it off, so she asks her supervisor.

She makes the correction, then asks, “Do you want to buy the insurance?” The insurance is a protection for being incapacitated and unable to ski. It would refund a prorated amount of the pass; I respond by the negative.

Then she asks if we want an automatic charge for the food we might eat at the resorts' restaurants. Another negative. Then she asks for another add-on deal that would be too long to explain. Another “No”. I'm sick of that nickel-and-diming to death by ski resorts.

Why in the world can't they keep their service, simple to understand and buy, and by all means, all inclusive?