Alone in Budapest

In the morning, after one last breakfast, we bid farewell to our fellow passengers as we checked out of the cruise ship, happy to recover a modicum of independence and finally free of overeating and drinking a bit too much.

The experience of our first river cruise had been good but not extraordinary. The cabins were tiny, the engine noise terrible, the clostrophic sense hard to shake out and the regimentation a bit too much for our liking.

The food was great though. Real good French food, of course too rich and not a sustainable feeding formula if we wanted to stay svelte for the rest of our lives. Would we do it again? Probably not. How did we rate our experience on a scale of zero to ten, with ten being nirvana?

We’d still give it a generous eight. In summary the perfect “been there, done that”.

Getting Buda and Pest together

That should be easy; Buda is the city on the West side of the Danube, while Pest sits on the opposite bank, but together they’ve made Budapest as they were reunited to create the capital of Hungary. 

After the previous evening “primer”, as bad as it was, we decided to take our chances on bikes in the morning and only five people out of hundred and forty passengers chose this riding option.

The others preferred the comfort and the stability of their tour bus as well as the incompetence of the previous evening’s tour guide who returned for an encore.

The bike tour was fun and led by Loïc, a young Frenchman, on very rudimentary bikes, without helmet and dodging both the traffic and the Budapest Marathon that was running at the same time.

Thank God, we made it back to the cruise ship unscathed and managed to enjoy most of the ride. In the afternoon, we began exploring “Vinca” the main tourist street and its terrible, globalist shopping options of big name retailers.

This said our first impression was quite positive. After dinner, we attending an evening of traditional folklore music and dancing in the city and were literally “dead-meat” when we returned to the ship well past our “normal” bedtime hour.

Danube cities weren’t all created equal...

Today we woke up in a town called Esztergom, that also happened to be the former capital of Hungary. The only redeeming value of that place was its massive Cathedral that we visited, but the town looked fairly poor and uninteresting.

What was remarkable though was that the Republic of Slovakia sat right on the opposite bank of the river, without offering much more than its Hungarian neighbor to the South. We then spent the afternoon cruising to Budapest.

Like the rest of the cities we visited during the cruise, the current Hungarian capital lies along the banks of the Danube and is said to be one of the most attractive cities in Europe. We certainly liked it much better than Vienna, that we found too cold, clean and serious.

We enjoyed some free time sightseeing the city before returning to the ship. After dinner, we were taken under the wing of a terrible female guide who could hardly speak English, sounded quite sad about the good old Soviet times and made our Viennese guide sound like a Goddess!

The ideal tour guide?

For the various tours we took around Vienna, Austria, we got a super talented French lady who could speak better French than my wife and I would ever dream of, and also perfect Spanish for the benefit of the two Mexican women passengers that must have felt lost in the midst of so many French people.

Our guide would have been absolutely perfect if she had been graced with more people skills, which she evidently lacked, and instead of reading her audience who wanted to linger around spots they liked, she pushed us into a harsh and unyielding schedule which wasn’t to the taste of most of the participants.

That day, we visited Vienna once more the famous Schönbrunn Palace. In the afternoon we took a break from the regimentation and enjoyed a long walk on both banks of the Danube.

At night we returned on board the ship and its awful, noisy engines and cruised on to Budapest, passing Bratislava on the way. That night was also the “kitsch” gala dinner and evening where we made a special effort to dress up a bit.

Was “Cowboy” in Melk?

After a not-so-pleasant night, we woke up to Melk a medieval City on the Danube river. Just before leaving the USA, I called my friend “Cowboy” on his birthday and he had then told me that he and his wife Robbie, would be cruising the same river at about the same time on an Austrian boat called the “Theodor Körn”.

“Cowboy” used to live in Park City and recently moved to Huntsville, a small town in close proximity to Ogden, Utah. As we got out of our cabin, I could see this particular boat just ahead of ours, but couldn’t connect with my friend.

I'll try to get in touch with him again when he gets to Budapest early October. Shortly thereafter, we visited the Melk Abbey and got stunned with too much too see in far too little time. Call this “information overload.”

We returned to the ship and cruised on to Dürnstein. We enjoyed some free time exploring this picturesque village, and its Baroque-stylechurch that was made famous in the Wachau region by the legend of King Richard the Lionheart.

My wife and I were in the minority of those athletic enough to climb to the ruins of the castle that overlooks the little town. On the way down, we got drenched but survived the unexpected shower.

After drying up our clothes with the cabin’s hair dryer, we continued cruising on to Vienna and upon our arrival, we were rewarded by a scenic night tour of Vienna, a truly beautiful city.

All onboard the… France!

We left Salzburg in the morning and drove towards Passau, through a charming countryside. While we got lost at one of those typical German detours, called “Umleitung”, we still managed to get to our cruise boat with time to spare.

Our plan was to cruise the beautiful blue Danube. We embarked mid-afternoon, were shown our tiny cabins and had a welcome drink as we met the entire crew of the “France” a river-cruise boat owned by a French cruise company from Strasbourg, and mostly populated as you’d guess it with French speaking guests, made of half French and half French-Canadians.

What was stunning was the passengers’ average age which was well within 70 years of age. Most of the passengers were part of two large groups, one from a promotion of the “Art & Metiers” school and the other was the group from Quebec along with their guide.

The independent travelers that we were stuck a bit like sore thumbs on the ship and without asking much about our likes and dislikes, we were summarily paired up with Serge and Annick, an older French couple and did our utmost to make the coupling work and did our best to enjoy our first meal together.

The only bad news was that the narrow boat was also very noisy at night which would have a disastrous impact on our terrible jet lag. The folks from New Jersey who sold us the cruise failed to warn us about our cabin location relative to the engines...

A special day in Salzburg

After spending a terrible night at our hotel that was very old, yet not charming at all and offered a bed which had a washboard quality to it. My wife slept on the couch and I had to sleep across the bad mattress to lessen its longitudinal bumpy profile.

We convinced the staff to give us a better room, which they did the next night. We explored the town, walked all over and in spite of all the strain and fatigue from the day before, managed to enjoy our experience.

Rupert is a patron saint of the province of Salzburg and when we decided to spend the day in that charming city, it fell smack in the midst of St. Rupert’s annual celebration.

This was a wonderful thing. Not only is the city of Salzburg naturally filled up with its authentic Austrian charm, but it felt just right when all the locals were drinking beer, chanting and yodeling on the genuine local tunes.

Boy, these Austrians seem to know how to have a wonderful time!

The stress of traveling

When you don’t travel a lot, you tend to forget that unpleasant things sometimes happen on the road.

This is exactly what we experienced when we flew from Salt Lake City to Paris and upon landing there, realized that our flight to Munich had been canceled with no apparent substitute solution.

When all was said and done, we were placed in a late evening flight that took us to our destination, some 9 hours later, at 11:30 pm. At that point, we still had to rent a car to drive to Salzburg, all the way in Austria and when we got there, it was raining hard, it was pitched dark and we could barely find our hotel and it was 2 am the following day.

All this to say that traveling implies uncertainty that always demand a requisite margin of safety if one is to avoid the stress of travel. Sounds complicated, but so true!

When kids put politicians to shame…

It all started after the Parkland shooting in Florida, and this week, the trend continues with global warming and mass demonstrations by kids.

Yes, kids, not adults or even younger adults are telling our elected officials that they aren’t up to the task they were elected to accomplish.

This of course is symptomatic of the fact that the electorate is more preoccupied by doing next to nothing, having fun and being consumer by their social media, instead of paying attention to politics and the job the people they elected aren’t doing.

Shame on our politicians and shame on all of us!

My Adidas training suit

Juste like Fidel Castro used to, I’m a big Adidas training suit fan. Ever since I quit running as a regular sporting activity, I hardly ever wear it, but I did today as the weather was rainy and unpleasant.

I wore it to pick up some of my last remaining salads in the veggie garden. When I entered back home, I saw my reflection into the glassed entry door and suddenly realized that the jacket didn’t quite match the bottoms, as the former had fluo yellow stripes and logo while the pants had gray stripes and logo.

Unless they had been designed by some color blind moron, the two pieces must have been switched at manufacturing birth and I had never realized it for all the time I had the suit. Neither had my wife who usually never misses gross abnormalities like this one.

Needless to say that my unconditional love for this outfit has taken a huge blow today. Will I keep on wearing it? Probably, because, deep inside, I’m as defiant and as iconoclastic as Fidel!

Learning Google maps’ tools

Today, while I was in the midst of planning a trip, I accidentally discovered the availability of “Google My Maps, which allows the use of Google Maps as a trip planner by creating a custom map and adding pins for multiple locations.

Not only is a great tool because, well, it’s Google’s latest twist to their maps, but it can be used in several different ways: from initial brainstorming to creating a trip itinerary, even submitting it to travel companions by sharing it, and from there, to navigating on the go.

My only challenge is that I’m running out of time to explore the tool, but I’ll do my utmost to quickly learn and see!

Solitude’s "dear" parking

On Tuesday, Solitude Mountain Resort announced that it will charge for parking this upcoming season.

Cars with one or two passengers will be pay $20 to park for the day. Three passengers will be charged $10 and four or more will “only” chuck $5. As an option, a $150 parking pass will be available to Solitude’s frequent skiers. To compensate for this, Ikon pass holders will be able to park at the mouth of the Canyon and ride the Salt Lake bus system for free. This is what I’ll do.

The idea is to cut car traffic in the Canyon and encourage skiers to carpool or ride the bus and it’s a great one. Jackson Hole has a much better program though, in which they charge $20 per car up to two passengers and then offer free parking for cars with at least three passengers.

Car traffic is a huge problem and solutions are needed like better mass transit, car pooling, or “resurrecting” the idea of an interconnect that would provide a car-free connection for Park City folks wishing to ski Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons or vice-versa.

Yet, what seems a bit unfair, is that this new policy was announced after the passes were sold in the spring, making the whole Ikon pass far less attractive for folks living in the Salt Lake Valley and even Parkites like me who purchased the pass.

Solitude claims it will give “some of the proceeds” to Breathe Utah, a non-profit dedicated to improve Salt Lake’s air quality. This means seems a little disingenuous on the part of Solitude management, they should give the whole proceeds, less parking management expenses, this would really look much better.

The mountain lion of my dreams

This past decade, there hasn’t been a year when several people have claimed to have sighted mountain lions in various Park City neighborhoods.

Even though this is my 35th year in town, I have to see one of these felines roaming free around my house or on the mountain during my hikes, mountain bike rides or skiing.

In this age of ubiquitous camera phones, I still am skeptical when folks reports so many sightings without a photograph to back up their claims. Without a doubt, these are city folks that can’t really tell the difference between a cat, a raccoon, a fox or a coyote.

At any rate, last night, I finally caught a glance of a real cougar, upon the roof of my house, as I was pulling out of my garage. The only caveat was that it was a dream.

A frightful one, though, that woke me up at 1 am and ruined the following two hours of sleep during which I remained wide eyed when I could have slept soundly.

Damned that big cat and the nightmare it brings!

Simple principles to live by...

I found an article inside Inc. Magazine about some useful guidelines to turn into life habits and while it’s was list of 10 traits, mostly for aesthetics, I guess, those were in a style “don't do this or that” and I turned it into some positive actions instead.

1. Take responsibility 
It’s important to take full responsibility for everything we do and don’t blame other people, circumstances or evn luck instead. In fact, taking responsibility is empowering and the best way to learn and remember a valuable lesson.

2. Relinquish control 
What we decide for ourselves is more important than we expect others to do. The only element we really control is ourselves and we shouldn’t waste our time and energies trying to control others people or circumstance upon which we have no influence.

3. Always stay humble 
It’s not because people like our house, our car or our visible signs of success that they’ll like us. Any good and rewarding relationship should be based on substance and not on material appearances. Let’s learn to truly be just ourselves.

4. Remain flexible 
We must be flexible enough to let go of ideas, concepts or possessions that can get in the way of our making progress and aren’t worth the amount of stress they may create in ourselves. Often, a change of perspective and material conditions can be a healthy way of learning and growing even more.

5. Listen carefully
It’s always tempting to interrupt and we often do it because we don’t want to lose what we think is a precious train of thought or give up on major element we’re attached to. Yet, interrupting is rude and means “I’m more interested by what I want to say than listening to your side of the story.”

6. Solve problems
Whining may feel good to the whiner, but is generally irrelevant to the listener. Complaining is not the direct path to making a bad situation better. It’s actually a waste of time, energy and never fully resolves the situation at hand, which should always be priority number one.

7. Show understanding and compassion 
We’re all different, have different outlooks and live our lives very differently, so who is to criticize what’s different from us and our way of handling our existence? Let’s value the differences instead, and learn from them…

8. Only give advice when asked to 
The older we get, the higher we’ve risen and the more we’ve accomplished, the more likely you are to think you know everything and have the right to tell people how to lead their life. When we speak with more finality than foundation, folks hear us but they don't listen. Only wait to be asked for in order to dispense advice.

9. Live in the present 
Past experience is valuable. Let’s learn from our mistakes and those of others, then let it go. When something bad happens, what a great opportunity to learn something we ignore. When someone makes a mistake, what a good opportunity to be kind, forgiving, and understanding. The past is just training; it doesn't define us.

10. Act with courage
Fear is a big deal that ruins our lives. we're all afraid, of what might or might not happen, of what we can't change, or what we won't be able to do, or how other people might perceive us. This fosters hesitation and missed opportunities, all swallowed by the passing time. Don’t postpone, instead seize the day and do it now!

Checking Thaynes out

This past weekend, we rode Crescent, one of Park City’s main lifts to go and hike to the bottom of Thaynes chairlift, that is also the site of the old Crescent mine and its huge heap of tailings.

The 3.3 mile round-trip hike is easy, almost flat and got us to the bottom of my favorite Park City run.

We saw no one around, the weather was nice and cool and it’s always hard to imagine that in about three months, I’ll be skiing up and down that hill!

More comments about the “Dem” debate...

Three hours is far too long for a political debate of that category and for the western half of the country, this fell smack in the middle of dinner time. Ten people on a stage are at least four too many and this is a prime case when less is best.

Only 14 million people out of 250 million voters watched the debate, but if half of the population is potentially voting for the democratic party, that’s only less than 12% of that electorate. Of course, with the exception o f Yang, all candidates were or have been elected official. Let’s say they all come from the “Congress Class”, not the sharpest tools in the shed!

We always expect folks of the caliber of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mike Bloomberg or Jeff Bezos to lead us, but politicians stand a few notches down these guys when it comes to smarts and common sense. I’ve said it before, I say it again, being over 70 is too old for the first job in the nation. We need the energy, imagination and courage of a 40 to 50 years old instead.

Unfortunately, aside from O’Rourke who wants to take assault weapons away from those stupid enough to buy them, the rest of the field is too measured and is calculating far too much. Biden has amply demonstrated to normal and intelligent people that he has no place in that debate and yet the media is woefully unable to see it and accept that sad reality. Trump would obliterate Biden with the first 10 minute of a debate opposing the two.

Aside from the “old” Sanders and Warren, no other candidates have “big ideas”. Case in point is national healthcare. It’s not rocket science! We have all the blue-prints with Medicare and that one works pretty well. I’m living proof of it!

Along the same lines, both Sanders and Warrens should have the acumen to tell us how much it would cost and how they intend to pay for it. If that wasn’t enough, let’s emulate what the Canadians, Brits and even French are doing. I know, no one admire the French outside of fine dining, wine and cheese, but my country-folks have the best healthcare system in the world. If the French can do it, America should at least be able to get to their level.

Give me a break, Dems, go back to the drawing board!

The third Democratic debate

Thursday night, we prepared to watch the third debate with somewhat high expectations, but after three hours of spectacle we didn’t hear or see anything likely to “move the needle” in one direction or the other.

In my simple opinion, Warren maintained her upbeat tone, Biden kept his head above water by avoiding a big gaffe, but Sanders looked old and beat up. I still believe that this trio is clearly too old for my taste.

I thought O’Rourke did a good job and so did Castro; both might have advanced a notch. Klobuchar was a tiny bit better too while Buttigieg and Booker didn’t do much to advance their cases. Yang made me yawn and Harris shot herself in the foot with her questionable humor.

It seems to me that when the top three leaders meld into two viable candidates, Biden is likely to suffer the most as those supporting Harris, O’Rourke, Castro and Buttigieg will go towards Warren (I don’t think Sanders will be capable to hold up and his fans will support Warren), while Booker and Klobuchar’s supporters might still go for Biden.

My sense is that Warren still remains the likely victor, but she will have to shed a lot of her leftist agenda if she gets the nomination and hopes to beat Trump.

“We’ll see what happens”

Every time Trump is asked a question, he excels at giving an empty answer made of a pile of words stuck together that don’t even form an intelligent sentence and often ends his response that is a non-response by “We’ll see what happens”.

This empty phrase sounds fatalistic, is most often than not, totally detached from the subject of the question and his responsibility as Head of State. For instance, Trump was asked Monday afternoon if the United States was headed toward war with Iran. He responded: "I'm hearing little stories about Iran, if they do anything, they will suffer greatly. We'll see what happens with Iran."

You see, when he’s asked a question, Trump simply bullshits his way out as if he wanted to say: “That’s the way it is”. Since he doesn’t know any subject well enough, he remain vague or non-committal with the answers he proffers. He tries to show that he’s so good and so resourceful that he can afford to improvise by uttering non-nonsensical prefabricated sentences. In fact the Emperor Donald Trump has absolutely no clothes.

Today, it still remain to be seen if he will stick around for another four years. I sincerely hope not, but as another idiot just said, “We’ll see what happens.”

A tidy office

It’s Albert Einstein who said that "If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"

Well, there’s no need to read between the lines, a messy desk is simply a sign of genius, if you listen to how messy the desks of Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Steve Jobs were.

At any rate, and under marital pressure, I finally cleaned up my office yesterday and had a great time doing it, but it took me all afternoon and even though it wasn’t quite completed, I now feel extremely satisfy and think of myself as a genius too.

Self-satisfaction must be contagious!

Scared to resuming an activity?

As we grow older, with each season comes the end and the beginning of weather-related activities like skiing in winter or biking in spring or summer, each time we have to get back into a physically demanding or courage-oriented sport, there always seem to be a reluctance or at the very least, a hesitation to getting back into that activity.

We literally need to push ourselves, take the plunge if you like, or else resuming gets postponed or simply won’t happen.

How can we explain this? In my opinion, the aging body knows better, appreciates the quality of its remaining assets, and wants us to adopt a self-protective approach to anything that could harm us.

In a way, it’s a form of survival instinct, exactly like when we were 17 years old, we never thought twice before jumping a 6 ft height. But today, these reckless moves are automatically and systematically inhibited and that’s often a godsend.

In the case of risky favorite sports or hobbies, it simply serves as a warning call or at least a wise offer to consider a much safer or preserving alternative. Just pay attention to it and proceed slowly at first and everything should go just fine...

Coercive tipping

Yesterday, we had our windows washed. I can’t do this anymore because the height is too great and the ladder too heavy.

So for the second year in a row, we had the same company perform the same job and, of course, we had the same expectation. This would have made sense if the pair of window-washers that were sent to us were as motivated and experts as the ones we got the year before, but this wasn’t the case.

Well, consistency, just like perfection, are nice but never guaranteed. This said, we voiced our displeasure, got that hapless crew to redo a few panes and when I received the electronic bill for their performance, I noticed that a tip was “suggested” on the bottom part of the document, just before the total.

It read something like 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and more. Now, let me ask you this; why should I tip those who wash my windows (especially if they do a lousy job), change my water filters, maintain the furnace, etc. ?

All receive a salary and if their salary isn’t enough I feel that their boss should give them a raise, even if at the end I’m being charged accordingly, but I really feel that this is tantamount of mendacity and I recent this manipulative “guilt-tipping strategy”. The 20% tipping at the restaurant is plenty enough.

What do you think?

Memory boosting aids

I don’t know if I’m the only one suffering from fleeting memory, but I often must take notes of little things I should do or think about, if I don’t want to forget them seconds later.

I don’t think it used to be as bad in the past, so I guess, it’s another sign that aging is well planted into my body.

Notes are a godsend to me and I must make a habit of penning down thoughts on paper if I won’t forget a great idea or some important step I have to take.

Thank God there are plenty of pens, pencils and pieces of paper laying around, and there’s always my cell phone inside my pocket to boost up my aging and spotty memory!

Safe to push myself?

After my difficult ascent of Mt. Timpanogos, and my desire to improve next year’s performance, I’m always wondering if there is not a risk of falling into the trap of “too much exercise”, and in the process, destroy my body and whatever I have left to get me comfortably into the end of my life on this earth.

I certainly don’t want to fall into the category of exercise addicts, these folks that generally feel an extreme need for control in their lives even if it might mean killing themselves out of “extreme” performance.

Such “addicts” are also often high-achievers (I used to be a bit of that, but I’m not anymore), so I no longer see a present and clear danger of destroying myself in exercising too much, but I certainly have plenty of room for performance improvement!

Mt. Timpanogos, the long walk

Early this week, after a three-year hiatus, I decided to return to Mt. Timpanogos, in the company of my daughter.

I soon discovered what a difference several years can make on a septuagenarian climbing performance. In years past, that summer climb had always been a grueling experience, but this time, it became sheer agony for me.

My backpack felt way too heavy, the trail overly steep and the sun far too warm. This wasn’t taking into consideration the fact that when one gets to the top, there isn’t any quick way down. No zip-line, no helicopter or para-glider.

What’s been done on the way up has to be entirely replicated on the way down, but by then, there’s very little energy left to sustain the sizable effort required. Well, we both made it down to the car and I promised myself that I would seriously train to make my next and 11th ascent a much easier one!

Hirscher: The smart way to retire

Too many skiers are waiting too long before they announce their retirement, balancing dwindling victory gains with their continued, tenuous sponsorship and end up turning their careers into slow death preceded by a long and painful agony and spoiled image.

Ted Ligety is a case in point.

Sure, Hirscher, the big winner could afford leaving on a high note like Jean-Claude Killy did fifty years ago, because he values his overall brand or image over a few more bucks garnered here and there. Congrats, Marcel you’ve been the best from A to Z!

It takes guts to leave at the top of one’s glory, but hasn’t Marcel Hirscher been gutsy all along?

How much do skiers make?

I’ve always wondered how much, top Alpine skiers were making compared to other professional sports athletes.

Recently, Ski Racing, the American ski competition magazine took a stab at the subject, but failed to go beyond what’s already public knowledge, namely the prize money earnings. The article revolved around Mikaela Shifrin and her breaking the million dollars mark this season (Marcel Hirscher only won half that amount).

Of course, this doesn’t take into consideration her contracts with Barilla, Longines and Adidas. Endorsements, of course are key to a champion’s income. Tennis star Naomi Osaka has earned a total of $25 million so far, including $8.3 million in prize money while Serena Williams has made almost $30 millions with only $4.2 in prize money.

As Lindsey Vonn puts it, in that article: “If you’re not in the top 5 or 10 in the world, you’re struggling to not have to get a second job”. In fact only Alpine skiers get good prize money income. The best cross-country skier earned less than $180,000 last season and freestylers could only count on what they made at the X-Games or on the Dew Tour.

So this still doesn’t tell us how much Shifrin and Hirscher make in total. I’d guess it might now be $6 million for the American, including her latest deal with Adidas, and $12 for the Austrian who is purported to be worth $200 million, but this is merely a guess.

What’s yours?

First mountain bike ride!

On Monday, I found the perfect moment to escape on my mountain bike. It was my first ridehttps://go-11.blogspot.com/2018/08/still-mountain-biking-at-70.html of the season.

Sure, I’m not 60 anymore and every vertical foot gained costs much more energy, but the end result is still priceless.

The conditions were bad. I left home at 10:24 and it was already too hot, but I took my time going up (I had no real other option), I saw close to 100 other riders, mostly kids and families, which is a lot, but returned home in one piece and – most importantly – with the keen desire to do it again, very soon!

Talent, experience, maturity and opportunities

Success is often at the intersection of these four parameters and depending how strong these are, when timing and luck are mixed to the recipe, they can sometime create outcomes ranging from great success to abject failure.

So, in fact, this foursome is nothing without the impact of the right timing and the perfect dose of luck. Sure, you could argue that opportunities contain the elements of luck and timing, but they aren’t necessarily married with them.

In my life, opportunities have often presented themselves when I was sorely lacking in experience and maturity, but it seems that talent made up for the absence of these two elements. Yet, it’s also true that good fortune and perfect timing played the capital role of frosting on the cake.

I won’t dwell on the generous amount of struggle, pain and hard work that were also required, but I guess these were just the extra fuel needed to perfect the picture!

Unhappy purchase

I used to be all excited as soon as late summer came and I could purchase my family ski passes for the new winter season. I remember anticipating a season filled with fun and adventure, new lifts, new ski runs and plenty of new experiences.

Not anymore. Since Vail Resorts purchased Park City Mountain (PCM) in 2013, it made a huge, initial effort of modernizing Park City’s skis lifts and mountain amenities and has since stopped doing anything significant, leaving third world, fixed grip, two-chair lifts, in place while claiming world-class standards.

It’s clearly the evidence that Vail bit more than it could chew when it acquired PCM, and is today, woefully incapable of managing and updating its infrastructure.

Hopefully, Mike Goar, its up and coming CEO might be able to understand what Bill Rock (the departing one) couldn’t see or do, and reconcile me with a mountain I used to love, but which ownership I’ve begun to despise.

The never ending project

In 1989, we started to plan for a new home and entrusted a local architect to come up with some great ideas in conceiving our dream house. We had in fact so much confidence that the man knew what he was doing, that we left him pretty much carte-blanche.

Not a good idea, as he designed a house much larger than what we had in mind, and when the project was already significantly advanced, it was no longer possible to shrink it. Not only that, but we also had the bad idea to straddle our new dwelling in the middle of the two lots we had bought. We should have built on just one and left the other vacant. Well, live and learn!

We ended up staying 12 years in this large, 5,000 square feet home and the folks who bought it from us, did some minor improvements and sold it two years later to a 9/11 widow and her two sons. She stayed in the place for 13 years, moved out, and a local contractor bought it.

He put an enormous amount of money into it, enlarged it to 6,300 square feet, and sold it last year for over $4 millions, to a rich, retired Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Recently this new owner obviously didn’t quite like what he bought, and proceeded to enlarge the house to 10,000 square feet and turning over the entire front of the house so it now look like a battle zone.

When will this folly stop?