Knowing when enough is enough

As we acquire things, wealth and reputation, we generally seem to want more. More money, more houses, more cars, more glory, more you name it. 

The progression is hard to contain and impossible to control. It’s always devastating and result in old people staying in great jobs that should be better performed by much younger and nimble ones, plus all kinds of absurd way to hoard and accumulate.

True, saying “enough” is very hard, if not impossible, for those who have the most. Going into reverse is often unthinkable for most people as their ego could never deal with that horrible concept, plus becoming irrelevant, poorer or less powerful is for many both unthinkable and unbearable. 

Up, up and up, that seems to be the only way in a life where the exit goes in the opposite direction. That is precisely the huge problem with gaining so much altitude. 

There’s always a formidable crash that’s much harder to take when it eventually happens.

Keeping a clean mind

Just like stagnant water in a house causes mildew that grows and ends up rotting everything, negative thoughts create unhappiness that creep up all over what we do and ultimately poisons our lives. 

This is why I’ve been chipping away at all kinds of negativity for all these years and feels that it’s helping me a great deal as I advance into a continued fun and exciting existence. 

It’s important to keep poison away from us and a good mental health has no use of pervasive negativity!

Will it snow this winter?

Last Thursday we were told by the national weather administration that the U.S. was headed for its second La Niña winter in a row. The video below explains what it might mean for winter temperature, precipitation, drought conditions and of course our precious snow! 

For us in Utah, the temperature is likely to be warmer than average, which isn’t good, while snow precipitations will show equal chances, that is to say the same, or as mediocre, as last year. Finally, our exceptional drought will continue to dominate the western half of the continental U.S. which simply is bad news. 

Will all my heart, I hope this forecast is dead wrong. I’ll try to compare it to reality next April! 

God’s existence “proven” through science...

Two French entrepreneurs. Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies have published a book claiming they now have “proofs” about the existence of God. 

The book titled “Dieu - La science Les preuves” (God, the science, the proofs) fits perfectly well in an era of “fake news”, conspiracies theories and plain lies. 

Maybe this will endear that work with more attention than it deserves, because claiming having “proof” of God existence seems to be a stretch in an enlightened society where there are no “proofs” either way about the existence of a supreme being like God or the lack thereof. In their book, the two authors explain that from Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin to Freud, scientific discoveries seemed capable of giving an answer to the universe without having to resort to a Creator-God, thus explaining the triumph of materialism in the 20th century. 

Now, they claim that same this materialism is becoming an irrational belief, mostly because of the discoveries of relativity, quantum mechanics and the expansion of a complex universe among other things. 

In a language they say is accessible to all, the authors of that book recast a new way of interpreting these latest scientific breakthrough and offer some new proofs of the existence of God.

 I hope they can convince the world of their “proofs”, they might get a Nobel price in… Divinity!

Hapless brushstroke

I have a friend. Let’s call him Jim, and he has to paint a commercial building in town. In this post-Covid era, it’s hard to find contractors and even paint available to do the job. 

So after exhausting all the busy painters and handymen, Jim turns to Rob who did the exact same job for him six years ago, in 2 or 3 days, with his complete crew at the time. Even though Rob just retired he accepts the job and says: “It’s going to cost you $5,000, and I want to be paid in cash”. 

Just to be sure that Rob is in the ball park, Jim is lucky to get a bid from a contractor for $4,900. This reassures him except that it represents more to Rob since it’s an under-the-table payment. Having no other option, Jim accepts and doesn’t even ask for a written estimate since he trusted Rob and was pleased with the job he did for him half-a-dozen years earlier. 

When Rob starts on the job he only think there’s part A of the building to do, but Jim reminds him that the last time he also did parts B and C. Rob claims he couldn’t remember that it was included in the price, but without saying anything more, got started on the job. 

When he gets to part B, he advises Jim to change some wood trim that he deems to be rotten. Reluctantly, Jim acquiesces even though he doesn’t think that wood need replacing. That works takes a lot of time, yet at no point does Rob warn Jim that it will cost more... 

Then Jim reminds Rob that part C that still needs to be done. Again, Rob denies remembering it’s part of the job, but does it nonetheless. 

When the job gets done two weeks later and comes the time to pay, Rob tells Jim: “There is no way I’ll be satisfied with the $5,000 you want to give me!” He eventually meets with Jim and announces that it will be $7,000 instead. 

Since these amounts are cash and are unlikely to be reported to the fiscal authorities, the gross amounts would be more like $8,000 and $11,000 respectively, should a tax-paying contractor had done it. Time goes by, discussions continue, but Rob won’t yield one cent. 

At the end, and with no desire to prolong the painful situation, Jim pays Rob in full. Morality, always get a written estimate and an updated on if the situation warrants it!

The trees that fell in my yard…

On October 12, we experienced the first snowfall of the season while most of the leaves were still hanging on to the trees. 

Leaves and snow never go well together and, as a result, they were a huge number of broken trees and limbs all over town. Our yard didn’t escape the incident as two aspen trees were laying there as I woke up that morning…

I alerted my neighbor and sent a picture to my son as he’s is a “specialist” on fallen trees (he had two massive trees torn off his property during a hurricane-like windstorm in September 2020 in Salt Lake City. 

Knowing the “rules” so to speak, he reminded me that if my neighbor’s tree fell on my property, it was my responsibility to handle the tree removal service, not the neighbor’s. 

Conversely, if my tree had fallen on my neighbor’s property, it would become their responsibility to take care of its removal. Poor tree maintenance or other careless manners of handling a tree would of course not qualify. 

Sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s the law, at least in Utah, but also in my native France! Because of that, it’s not uncommon for neighbors to disagree with each other over the tree falling on their property due to a storm. 

In my case, my neighbor was great, he said “Don’t worry, me and my son will take care of that!” I offer to help, but after I return from my morning stroll with my wife, the trees were no longer there! 

A good bottle of wine and some chocolate compensated him for his good deed!

A super tight men’s GS

The men’s race in Sölden showed one dozen skiers finishing within one second of each others. In a World Cup GS, this seems like a tight space to accommodate so many talents! 

This also suggests that it’s the logical outcome of superb race course preparation and a concern for smooth and rhythmic course setting, not to mention a leveling of talents towards the top. 

Isn’t it time for the FIS to begin thinking on ways to tweak some rules in order to create more challenges and open up some space between racers? 

That way, ski racing might not fall into some form of robotic entertainment where it becomes impossible to differentiate skiers as they race down the course… 

How we can achieve this is up the organizing body that can lengthen the course, make it more turning and more challenging in a variety of ways they can imagine. What’s your take on this?

For the love of skiing

Yesterday, I was up at 5:15 am to watch the first ski world cup, live from Sölden, in Austria. 

The girls were racing on that famous Rettenbach glacier. Well, I only watched the second run and was rewarded by the American victory, courtesy of Mikaela Shiffrin. 

True, the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami gave her plenty of challenge in taking second, but Shiffrin’s talent was still there for all to see.

Seeing racers on a beautiful day gave me a strong urge to get back on the hill, but I’m consoling myself in thinking than in less than a month, it will be my turn too!

Gently releasing our grip

As we age, we need to learn, and begin to master the “art of letting go” and releasing gracefully things and ideas we used to hang on to. 

Of course, this is a lot easier said than done, and it’s a process more than a series of individual, conscious actions, which means that there’s a learning curve and a few mistakes, plenty of learning to go through before we can claim mastery of this new approach to living. 

This act of letting go can apply to multiple areas, just like it can apply to letting go of positive as well as negative elements in our lives. For today, I’ll concentrate on the physical aspects of aging that force us to either abandon or curtail a number of activities we used to enjoy before we stepped into our seventh decade. 

As aging slowly creeps up on us, these acts of acceptance also manifest themselves slowly and take a multitude of forms. We can easily feel that our physical strength isn’t was it used to be, our Vo2max shrinks, we get tired more easily, don’t sleep as soundly, etc. 

There are also elements that we instinctively know about. We wouldn’t jump a height of five feet out of a whim. Instinctively, we know that it would be a dumb idea; our cartilage, tendons and tissues are no longer as limber as they used to be when we were in our 20s. 

We also tend to avoid the accidents and the injuries that come with them as we also know that repair time gets much longer and trickier. So progressively, we adapt to these new realities and have the luxury of time to accepting them. 

We then slowly release our grip from things we cherished and enjoyed doing, and if we think about it, we should feel extremely grateful that we once could do them without constraints and limitations. 

The good news is that there plenty of other things we still can do and enjoy, so look forward to these and feel privileged and fortunate that all isn’t closed to us!

Finally, getting the skis ready

Since the weather has been acting like it was leaning towards winter for the last week or so, I’ve been repairing, tuning and waxing my skis and those of my immediate family, so no one can use “equipment readiness” as an excuse for not going out when the ski lifts open.

This year, I have investing in more and better tools, and what used to be a real chore, turned into a much more satisfying and significantly better work. 

I still have more tools to buy and more improvement s to make. 

Yet, to me, it would appear to be one of the only field of endeavor where I seem to be making some progress!

Too many people!

The pre-Covid busy tourist years proved – if anything – that our planet was bursting at the seams. From the US National Parks to Budapest or Bali, famous places were overflowing from regular folks and the trend would have exploded, had not been for the devastating pandemic. 

Today the UN is pulling the alarm signal about humanity being on the cusp to making a terrible climate change irreversible. 

But not one word, one single one is ever mentioned to address the root cause of that terrible situation: The planet’s overpopulation, so get ready to see a tourist explosion when Covid fades out into our world’s rear-view mirror! 

For years, I’ve tried to bring the concept up for discussion, but there seem to be absolutely no appetite for it, either from government and businesses hungry for growth or religions seeking more faithful at any cost. 

So what can we do to raise awareness about this state of affairs? For one thing bring up the subject with friends, relatives and people we know. Plant the seed, so to speak! 

Then, develop an approach that starts with a desire to see the world population stabilize as soon as humanly possible, stop encouraging large families and educate, educate, educate about the real impact humans have on the planet, about the cost of raising kids and ways to control births. 

When that part is done, maybe it will be time to slowly decrease the numbers, but please, don’t hold your breath on that one...

The governmental baby and its bathwater

Depending on the continent, 4 or 5 year terms are current for politicians, except for despotic regimes like China or Russia. 

Yet, in these days of rampant dissatisfaction, impatience, conspiracy theories channeled into unchained torrents by social media, electors demand idealistic perfection, believe huge lies, pick on peccadilloes and want change for just the sake of it. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum policies need consistency and long term application to work. Think of at least 10 or 15 years that are often require to produce results and make their mark. 

So unless the politician who is fired is totally incompetent, completely nuts or a proven thief, we might be better advised to let his/her programs take root, mature and bloom instead of throwing, over and over again, the baby out with the bathwater. 

We should carefully examine ourselves every day as our own image is reflected to us in that proverbial mirror, and agree that just like us, no one is perfect. 

That way, instead of kicking out of office imperfect known entities who have started to work on something that makes sense, we install in their place total strangers whose governing experience is totally impossible to predict and place them into a totally unknown and strange environment, foolishly hoping that they will do better. 

Pretty insane, let’s at least agree on this...

Pets in paradise?

Given the holy status bestowed upon pets and particularly, dogs, the next logical expectation from religious pet owners goes something like this: “Will my adorable pet rejoin me into the afterlife?” 

As cynics often say: “Good question, indeed!” As for me, my response would be more nuanced and include pragmatic questions like “Who’s gonna pick up the crap in heaven?” or “Can I get my aggressive pit-bull up-there?”

These down-to-earth questions should be enough, in my view, to disqualify the entire discussion, even though a certain number of established religions and file-and-rank believers are scouring the holy books in search for answers and justifications, and I’m not even talking about “exotic” pets like pythons or tigers. 

Assuming that we all agree there’s some kind of afterlife (a huge step in it of itself), my focus remains stubbornly stuck on available space to accommodate all of that creation inside some other plane, and doesn’t quite figure out by my human standards of measurement, plus the fact that, except for cats, I’m not too high on pets. 

As a result, I’d stick with making heaven pet-free and suggest that departing humans stock up on photos and videos of their favorite furry buddies!

When inflation wakes up!

I don’t know about you, but I’m worried about inflation and the Fed’s ability to do something about it before it’s too late and all crashes and burns. 

The October 13 CPI report should alarm all of us, but that’s not all, producer's price index was up 8% the next day, also news about an overheating housing market, raising oil and gasoline prices, a still broken-down supply chain and the Fed continuing to buy bonds are signs that we’re on the confluence of a major catastrophe.

In a recent Citi investment conference last Wednesday, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has, once more, sounded the alarm by saying that “The Fed's traditional role is to remove the punch-bowl just before the party starts, and that now that the party's gotten great, the Fed is not removing the punch-bowl until they've seen...conclusive evidence that everyone's going to get plastered.” 

Well, unless Summers is dead wrong, which I doubt, this is a scary perspective!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 76

Arriving at the brand new Paris Charles de Gaulle airport was the rude awakening signaling that the grand adventure was now over. 

I think I took a bus to reach Gare de Lyon, jumped in a slow train to Thonon-Les-Bains (it was long before TGV high-speed trains roamed the land) and arrived late afternoon in the capital of Chablais where my brother Gaston was waiting for me. 

I had not seen him for four and a half month. 

I sure was as glad to see him as I assumed he was. 

We caught up with the news and quickly talked about my house that was under construction. I had not thought much about it since last May. Tomorrow we’d go and work on the roof that we would cover with asphalt shingles. 

The dream was now over. I had finally landed on some harsh reality!

A first trip ‘round the world, part 75

When I got off the bus in Montreal, early that morning and after I placed my belongings into one of the station lockers, I felt pretty good. It was one of these awesome October fall days that are the hallmark of the east coast of America. 

In addition the Greyhound Station was steps away from the Park of Mt. Royal which provided me with a stunning first impression of that city. I spent most of my day there, walking around, watching people enjoying the warm autumnal sun and feeling good. 

In the middle of the afternoon, it was time to get on a bus to Dorval airport to catch my flight back to Paris. I still remember that moment quite vividly. For the first time in my life I boarded that cavernous Air France 747, and had not enough eyes to be impressed by the massive flying machine. 

I think I slept most of the time it took to cross the Atlantic. As I woke up, I felt conflicting feelings as I know realized that my trip was coming to an end and that real-life reality was lurking around the corner.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 74

In 1971, the Greyhound station was located in what was at that time the seediest part of New York City, with beggars filling the streets, prostitutes and porn cinemas of all kind. 

It was both scary and terrible, and these conditions would linger well into the mid 1980s eight year after I had returned to make my home one hour north of that dirty downtown area. 

Of course, the impressive sights were the skyscrapers. Walking in the streets or “canyons” below and craning my neck to look above was actually a tiring exercise. 

I remember riding the elevators to get to the observation deck of tallest tower of all, at the time, the Empire State Building (the World Trade Center wouldn’t be completed until 1973 – see video). 

I walked and walked and walked that day and was on my knees when it was time to rejoin the Greyhound station and spend one last uncomfortable night in one of its buses headed for Montreal, Canada! 

The Tapie and Trump m.o.

Recently, as Bernard Tapie, France’s Trump equivalent, passed away after a long battle with cancer, I watched a few documentaries about the man, and each time, I couldn’t help but compare him to Trump. 

I have already written enough about the man in trying to describe his evil side, but what I observed was the strong and lasting loyalty he was able to impress upon his base and his convinced followers. 

Just like Trump, Tapie stood as the poster boy for nefarious charisma and for a remarkable ability to convert millions of simple minded folks to his “sect” of populism and naive solutions to huge problems, with always one great family of powerful shortcuts: big talk, lies and deception. 

Both men are smart, stubborn and cunning, yet they are narcissist and only think about themselves. 

Sometime I even wonder if both men have soaked into their false and devious beliefs for so long that they now sincerely thought they were the absolute truth. 

Trump and Tapie are frightening, because they clearly show the road to easy brainwashing of entire nations, fast transition to tyranny and end of democracy.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 73

After visiting Chicago, I jumped on the next bus to Detroit with the goal of reaching Niagara Falls and marvel at its cascading waters. This to me was more interesting than walking into a large city where I didn’t know anyone. 

For the life of me. I spent a lot of time ambling back and forth between the Canadian and the United States border and watching all that water moving from Canada into the US. 

Sure, by that time, I had encountered many people on the bus; all came from all walk of life, several of them being recently freed from prison, mostly poor folks who couldn’t afford to travel by train or plane, all kinds of shady or weird characters, others ordinary American going to see family, trying to look for a job, or seemingly wandering around in that huge country. 

That night, I boarded another bus that was taking me down to the “Big Apple”, the fabled city of New York, the one that never slept...

A first trip ‘round the world, part 72

After spending about 5 days in San Diego at his cousin’s place, Gérard left on his American cross-country trip via Greyhound.

His cousin, who wasn’t too sure about Gérard chances of making it in one piece, had helped him plan the road ahead, from Southern California, all the way to New York City. 

Gérard remembers clearly the main milepost cities that stood out on his itinerary: “I left San Diego for Phoenix, then Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, Washington DC and New York Kennedy to catch my flight back to Paris at JFK. Luckily, I got three seat to myself, did not eat anything and slept through the whole flight until the stewardess woke me up and summoned me to put on my seat-belt before landing. When I got to Paris on October 10, I felt totally exhausted. Thank God, my sister was working in Paris at the time and I spent the night at her place before resuming my trip back home, up in Savoie!” 

This didn’t leave Gérard too much time for him to rest and transition to his return to work at ENSA, in Chamonix where he had to welcome and lead an instructor training class that was slated to begin early November! 

By the time Gérard had arrived in Paris, I finally had made it to Chicago, looking for its iconic gangster culture. Instead of finding Al Capone, I discovered a typical large, dirty and no so pleasant major American city. 

While I was there, I remember having seen the famous Sears Tower still under construction...

A better way to optimize Park City lifts

Instead of loading more folks on a new 8-pack chair and risking packing an even larger crowd in a limited loading zone, Park City Mountain (PCM) ought to look at moving skiers away from that already overly congested base of Silverlode-Quicksilver-Miner’s Camp, and divert as many of them to King Con, but even more so, towards a lowered Motherlode base station, on a bypass wrapping behind or below Miner's Camp, around the Prospector ridge (see drawing below). 

Then when that six-pack replaces the ancient triple, fixed grip Eagle chair, it will bring even more people faster that will be pouring more or less into that same spot, the Silverlode-Quicksliver-Miner’s Camp area… 

Such a bypass to King Con and a lowered Motherload loading area at around 7,700 ft, would lighten the overcrowding around Silverload and Miner’s Camp, and let skiers opting for the longer Motherlode Express that would be extended much higher on the mountain to reach the lower Puma ridge, just below Jupiter Peak. 

A higher unloading area at about 9,500 ft, would give users easier access to both Jupiter and the Pioneer and MacConkey lifts, as well as to the rest of the ski runs leaving from the current Summit area where traffic flows would have to be reorganized, taking advantage of the eliminated, current Motherlode top station. 

This might perhaps eliminate the need for the antiquated Thaynes double-chair while Jupiter could be upgraded to a triple by “recycling” the old, fixed-grip Eagle chair, which could see its line lengthened and its loading area relocated close to the Thaynes mine. Aside from relocating and lengthening Motherlode, the Eagle upgrade could just consist of a cheaper high-speed quad. 

Again the choice of chairlift size should be based on available capacity needs and data that PCM must have at its disposal. This would create a much better experience and open more of the mountain faster, and to a larger number of skiers…

A first trip ‘round the world, part 71

As I expected Cheyenne was a cowboy town, which meant a lot to a young European like me, but also that the place was quite boring and my only option was to go shopping for the cowboy boots I was longing for since JP had showed me their gliding ability on Bourke Street, as well as a new pair of Levi’s jeans. 

Another night and another long “red-eye” ride inside the bus to Chicago. The overnight journey seemed that it took forever until the night turned into day and I reached first Lincoln, Nebraska, then Des Moines, where I took a short break before another overnight trip to Chicago where I arrived on October 12.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 70

Since I had set a return target and finalized my airplane tickets so I would be back in France by October 17, I had to keep moving on in order to keep on schedule. 

I boarded the Greyhound bus after spending another nice day in San Francisco and chose to sleep inside the bus on my way to Reno.

Early the next day, I discovered the world of gaming like it was everywhere in Nevada, and walked around town, quickly running out of things to do and boarding another bus to Cheyenne in nearby Wyoming (it also happens to be the capital city of that quintessential cowboy state). 

Interestingly, I made a stop-over in Salt Lake City, visited the Mormon welcoming center, thought it was a weird place and continued onto Interstate 80. 

Around the moment we drove by Park City, I was awaken by some kind of a precognitive dream that, at the time, I also found a bit strange, but soon forgot and sort of dismissed for a long time...

A first trip ‘round the world, part 69

As I woke up the next morning in Santa Monica, I took care of a few maintenance issue, wrote a few aerograms, one of which would have an enormous bearing on my future life, located the Greyhound station and was intent on discovering San Francisco first.  

I was kind of infatuated with the place, having already romanticized the City after hearing of its Summer of Love and its vanguard social culture. 

I got there the next day, managed to find my way to the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, the birthplace of the 1960s counterculture movement.

There after purchasing the unavoidable paraphernalia, I met a bunch of hippies who were kind enough to invite me in their apartment to spend the night there. 

I was thinking “America truly is the land of milk and honey, what a terrific country, what bunch of wonderful people!” 

This statement would prove to be true in San Francisco, but soon enough, I found that it did not quite apply all over America...

A first trip ‘round the world, part 68

When I arrived at Tahiti’s Fa'a'ā International Airport, I wandered into Papeete and since I didn’t want to spend any money for a hotel, I spend the night crawled inside a rowboat. 

I didn’t enjoyed it one bit, and that made me thinking how I would juggle my limited budget and the many nights that still separated me from my planned return to France. 

A bit like for my friend Gérard, I didn’t make the best out of my free remaining day on that romantic island, but after I woke up, unharmed, I walked around the main town to find out that the streets weren’t all paved with gold and shaded with lovely hibiscus trees… 

Later that day, I walked back to the airport to catch my flight to L.A. This would be a long, but calming day as I boarded the UTA DC-8 and nestled in my seat for the 8 hour flight, in which one could only see sky and an endless ocean below. 

The flight was almost empty, which gave me plenty of time to relax, sleep and talk to the French stewardesses. 

The night had already fallen when we approached Los Angeles from the south, over San Diego, and seeing from my window seat the sea of lights brightening that huge metro area over more than 80-100 miles was a sight I will remember forever. 

What a way to discover America for the first time! 

As we got there, I had no place to stay and one of the flight attendants took pity on me and invited me to go the flight crew’s hotel, The Miramar, in Santa Monica, where she kindly gave me her room. Once more, what a lucky guy I was!

The travails of the US Ski & Snowboard Association…

Last March, Tiger Shaw, CEO of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard was let go as the organization’s results were evidently not up to the Board’s expectations. 

Shaw had been put in place when Bill Marolt left the leadership job in 2013. Was he installed because he was subdued, made no waves, or just because he could take the blame for Marolt’s management shortcomings, I’m not quite sure, but he evidently was never able to raise to the occasion, in spite of his $700,000 a year salary. 

He’ll be replaced by Sophie Goldschmidt on October 18th, as she relocates from Los Angeles to Park City. Her resume is impressive, with numerous leadership, commercial and marketing roles, most recently as CEO of the World Surf League (WSL). 

Prior to that, she held executive positions at the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Chime Sports Marketing (CSM), the PGA European Tour and Adidas. Can she ski or snowboard? 

Yes, the British-born claims to be an avid skier, even though she’ll be the first non-athlete to serve in the role in at least 25 years. Hopefully she’ll be able to turn her ability to ski into true passion. 

Her job won’t be easy though, because the organization is too Olympic-centric and only pays attention at results every four years and focuses more on prima-donna skiers (i.e. Shifrin) than the base of the pyramid. She’ll need to visit a lot of active ski racing folks of all kinds, ask a lot of questions, take a zero-base approach and stay humble. 

Let’s simply hope she rises to the occasion!

Unimpressed by Macron

A couple of days ago, Bernard Tapie, the celebrated national tycoon passed away in France. 

Yet,the big mouth fraudster was lauded by president Emmanuel Macron who wrote an op-ed praising the man in the southern press where the man used to enjoy a certain modicum of popularity, even though he owes the government of France some 400 million euros and left so many of my countrymen unhappy in his wake. 

In my view, his best achievement has been his singing career (see video below). 

Explain that one to me? Is Macron so afraid about is upcoming reelection that he has to pander to a bandit? 

His behavior is eluding, if not revolting me, and simply would turn me away from picking that man as my leader if I were still voting in France. 

A first trip ‘round the world, part 67

I landed at Noumea on October 4th and was lucky to stay with an Australian family that were among my Mt. Buller clients and happened to be vacationing there. 

I remember that they had a daughter quite infatuated with me and she gave me a copy of “Tea for the Tillerman”, Cat Stevens’ latest album, as a parting gift. I would reconnect with these folks again when they came to ski Avoriaz a year or so later. 

They were both very nice and generous to me! I stayed for a couple of days with them and soon was on my way to Tahiti, as my flight itinerary was firmly reserved and I wasn’t able to extend my stay at will. 

I must say that I remember absolutely nothing about New Caledonia, except that it was the first time I heard French spoken all around me since I had left my home country on May 29.

When I left Nouméa, and just like Gérard and Marcel before me, I got a chance to live October 7 twice, once there, and one day later in Tahiti as I crossed the date line!

Park City Mountain wants to go big!

In two years, that is… In recent years, though, Park City Mountain has built a reputation for congestion and long lines, not just because of Covid restrictions, but also as the number of visitors have increased, and its aging lift lift infrastructure is no longer up to the task. 

So in order to make its clientele hope for smoother trips up its mountains, it announced a few days ago that it would update its uphill capacity season after next... Currently, the Silverlode Express, a six-people chair, can’t handle the crowds that land at its sort of dead-end, restaurant-equiped base. 

Vail Resorts will, as a result, upgrade it to an 8-pack. The problem is that the company has been woefully unable in recent past to regiment its ski lines, so a legit question is to wonder how can they hope as the say to increase that lift capacity by 20%, if they don’t work at making sure that every seat, on each chair, is occupied? 

On top of that, I have also noticed that the more skiers are lined up on a chair (six-packs are a good example, but 8 will exacerbate the problem), the more they tend to fall at the top as they don’t know which way they’ll turn, collide with each others or panic when the must unload, resulting in repeated lift stoppages. 

The more beginner or intermediate the crowd, the bigger the problem. We’ll see how these issues are handled… Then that six-pack will replace the medieval triple, fixed grip chair called Eagle lift and will bring even more people faster to more or less the same spot, that base of Silverlode lift… 

Sure it’s an improvement, but it might not help the current problem that much. In January of 2020, I had proposed a simple (although partial) fix for that clutter problem, but it obviously went ignored… 

In a next blog, I will expand on this idea and, as usual, submit it to Park City Moutain’s management. 

A first trip ‘round the world, part 66

We went down to Melbourne the day before and we stayed with that lady nicknamed “Liza Minelli” by some, that JP and I had met at Mt. Buller and who was a steadfast fan, if not a groupie, of the French ski school. 

She was a petite brunette, wearing tons of makeup and married to a guy who, I was reminded, sold all kinds of clothes to the rest of us. 

For the life of me, I can’t remember her name, so “Liza” will have to do, but she was something else! She loved to tease all of the boys with her stanzas: “Roses are roses, etc.” inspired from Gertrude Stein's poem “Sacred Emily”. 

While down in the big city, we squeezed in a visit to the Melbourne Zoo to get a close-up view at its Koala bears. I also took care of my American visa and JP and I debated the rest of our trip. 

Always restless, Jean-Pierre wanted to go to New-Zealand and visit Cheryl Mason, our Kiwi instructor colleague and her family, on the North Island, near Mt. Ruapehu, at Chateau Tongariro Hotel, and possibly ski there for a while. 

By that time, after being daily with him since May 29, I need a serious vacation from JP. I loved the guy, but needed a sanitary break from his boundless energy. I decided to forgo the detour via New Zealand and let him have it all to himself. 

I got my return airplane ticket straightened out, purchased the Greyhound $99-ninety day pass and the next morning, on October 4th, our charming host drove us to the Melbourne Tullamarine airport, where JP flew to Auckland and me to Nouméa via Sydney… 

I’ll never forget the sound of “Indian Reservation” by Paul Revere & the Raiders blasting on her car radio… 

That’s in this terminal that we lost track of each other for quite a bit of time and wouldn’t get back in touch until the spring season, when JP had returned to Megève from the United States and was ready to depart for another season at Mt. Buller. 

Shifting majority

Up until recently, the majority of people, in every country, were pretty reasonable, had good common sense and constituted a stable, reliable mass of individuals that kept their nation in a safe and comfortable center. 

With the advent and the deep popularization of the internet and the spread of disinformation, misinformation, fake news and a totally unpredictable as well as unregulated social media, much damage has been done to this once reliable and steady segment of the population. 

Now big chunks of an otherwise well-behaved population are turning into brain-dead extremists. The advent of tyrants like Xi, Putin, Bolsenaro and Trump are, if we needed them, the new canaries in the coal mine and constitute some clear indicators that something is chipping away at democracy as we know it.

Sometimes, we feel that our developed and advanced world is going towards the deep end of the pool of insanity, and these feelings might be more justified than we dare to believe.

A first trip ‘round the world, part 65

Following Gérard and Marcel’s departure, JP and I kept the fort, so to speak, by continuing to teach skiing till the end of September.

I don’t remember if Alexis stayed also till the bitter end, but by now, the snow was fast melting and business drying up, and except for the carnival and other end of season silly celebrations, business was dwindling. 

As I had hinted before, we might have been allowed to stay a bit later in order to make up for the time we were delayed on the ship, and had a chance to earn a few more dollars. 

At that point, our minds had become fully focused on our return trip. It seems to me that Jean-Pierre had once again got a coaching job at Loveland ski resort in Colorado, and would eventually get back to Georgetown, the little cowboy town encased below Interstate 70. 

As for me, I was focused on crossing and discovering America with the $99 unlimited pass I was going to purchase before leaving Australia, and doing part of the Pacific crossing with JP. 

We still had to finalize our respective return trips, but our original plan was still to travel in tandem to America.

Becoming stingier as we get richer?

The New Testament quotes Jesus as saying "It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", thus handicapping the rich and indirectly saying that the richer we are, the more avaricious we become. 

Often times, rich folks make a big splash by making huge donations, that are in fact far less as a percentage of their income or wealth than poorer people give. 

A study by Independent Sector, a network of nonprofit groups, measured how much people gave based on what they had and demonstrated that poor household with incomes below $30,000 were giving about 4.2 percent of their wealth away, while richer folks were only giving 2.7 percent. 

People who grow up in poor communities where communal life is key, and neighbors are helping neighbors, are more oriented towards others and are more hospitable as well as charitable. Even as soon as these same poor people are thinking hard about making more money, rising in wealth and enjoying materialistic benefits, they gradually become less responsive to the needs of others. 

From there it’s easy to see that poor folks tend to value social connections because they are integral to their survival when they can't make it on their own. Studies after studies show that rural communities had strong social networks. But as individuals become wealthier, they seem to need one another less, and as a result, make fewer connections. 

In wealthy enclaves, autonomy and freedom are replacing responsibility and obligation. Wealth is therefore poisonous. As America became richer, good things have happened. Diseases have declined, education has improved, women and minorities have obtained more equal treatment. 

But it all came at the price of excessive individuality, self-expression, autonomy and freedom, but often a terrible sense of loneliness. This might not always be the case, but it probably means that the connectivity that came naturally to us in our modest, rural and deprived youth, might now need to be carefully and deliberately cultivated. 

Jesus was right on that one too!