Leveraging new year’s resolutions

Well used, new year’s resolutions can add a lot to a person’s capital and, over time, have the power of being incredibly transformational. 

Too often, new year’s resolutions are not really planned, but made up hastily, at the very last minute, as the new year gets underway. This might be one reason why these hurried pledges have a hard time “sticking”, and end up “vaporizing” almost as fast as they got formulated. 

Like for any important endeavor, a little bit of planning can make a huge difference in strengthening a resolution. When conceived early enough, resolutions will greatly benefit from an appropriate selection, ample planning and proper mental preparation, making them more likely to succeed.

In the past, all of my new year’s resolutions have never benefited from this kind of attention and too few of them have come through. 

This year though will be different, because I want to turn this popular tradition into a useful and lasting outcome...

Getting back up on skis as we get old

As skiers grow older, getting back up after a fall can just be an ordeal, if it's even possible. This is due to the fact that our muscle power, general flexibility and a bunch of other factors make what once was a piece of cake, both very difficult and embarrassing.

For an older adult to get up, the rules that we used previously remain the same, that is place both skis across the fall line and this time take all the time needed to get prepared to stand up again. Of course, the steeper and the more packed the slope is, the easier it will be, as opposed to getting up from a flat level ground or some bottomless powder or head first into a tree well. 

For instance, some helicopter skiing outfits discourage older folks, like those over 70-75 to participate. Of course and regardless of age, there should never be any rush or panic to get up, as saving energy becomes of utmost importance! 

So just think well before doing anything and have a method in mind for the many circumstances you can find yourself into. Obviously, make sure first you’re not hurt before trying to get back up. 

Then there are a bunch of methods available, including the one I always taught my students that require spreading the feet apart and placing the weight on the uphill one, and simultaneously getting some support from the poles if that’s possible. 

Whatever method you chose, it has to be sturdy enough to support your weight as you try to get up. Of course, there is always the option of taking off one binding, if it can be reached easily, of course. 

Finally, I found that REI video shown below, that shows several original techniques I’d never seen before, with #2 being in my view the easier for older folks, unless they want to default to #3 and remove one of their skis before attempting to stand back up. 

A more credible way to endorse

We’ve all seen celebrities from all fields endorse brands and tout the virtues of products or services in a blatant, yet not always credible manner. It’s hard not see the crass mercantile intention of the support these famous folks attempt to bring the brand they support and often times, the stratagem backfires. 

Recently, I was watching a documentary about Catherine Deneuve, the famous French actress in which some political endorsement was discussed. I can’t remember who the candidate was, it might have been Ségolène Royal, a recent presidential candidate. 

Yet, instead of just saying “Vote for so-and-so”, she went: “Here’s what I think, now think about it…” That short sentence, I thought was much more powerful than some “In your face” admonition to vote for that particular individual. Instead, it was giving full control to the viewer and appealing to his or her judgment. 

A much more clever way to endorse anyone or anything...

Bringing some order to my music files

Between my computers and my phones, I had lots of music files that used to be floating around and as a result, were very difficult to control and enjoy. 

To give you a sense of their number, they range between 10,000 and 14,000 depending on the way I use them. 

We’re talking about digital audio files, mostly under the mp3 format. Some are just music I like to listen to, ranging from songs in all genres and many languages, some instrumental tracks including pop, jazz and classical, and finally some soundtracks that I use for producing my videos.

Last week, I spent most of my free time organizing these various files to the point that it drove me almost crazy. Today, I’m almost done except for some fine tuning that remains to be done and some additions that still have to be made. 

Now, I’m almost ready to relax and listen to some good tunes!

Heads of state that can’t manage

As I have often lamented, politicians who end up leading nations have to be political animals, or better yet, sleazy salesmen who promise the moon or something of the sort to be elected and end up delivering very little. 

Having charisma can help a lot too, the end goal being to get elected at any cost. Aside from years of experience and a few educational failures along the way, no specific skills are required from our national leaders. 

So they generally prove to be terrible managers because that’s a skill they simply don’t have and have never attempted to learn.

Often times, I have been tempted to think that CEO would make good head of states, but more often than not, famous CEO are not good managers either. 

Neither are celebrities (Ronald Reagan), peanut farmers (Jimmy Carter) or billionaires (Donald Trump). What I’d love to see at the helm of my country is just a good, no-nonsense manager!

Picking the future we like best

As we move forward into our senior years, we often have a little voice that asks: “What do you plan to do with your remaining time on earth?” Many of us ignore that voice and carry one with the usual way of doing things. 

A few though, can’t dare to ignore it; they face it and look at three compelling options: Stay just the same, following the exact, usual ruts, Give a shot at improving or creating new ideas, or projects, and, of course, just do strictly nothing, letting nature take its course and riding the erosive power of time into full decrepitude. 

For me, this is a question impossible to ignore, perhaps because of my guilt-ridden nature or my devastating perfectionism, so I always aim for the big prize, whatever it happens to be inside my mind at the time. If that project can get traction, great.

If it threads water, it might keep me level. I still prefer having a solid margin of safety. I know for sure that if I want things to say the same, this might not quite work, and I’ll slide backwards, riding my own decline. 

Not an appealing option for me!

Revolt at the ski school

As I explained eight years ago under the “Avoriaz ski school saga”, an ugly conflict developed over the summer when I was in Australia. 

It eventually came to a head, at the annual pre-season gathering of my instructor colleagues, and I was chosen as the spokesperson to voice half of the ski school grivances to our director Edmond Denis. While 

I was able to speak in front of a group, my communication style could have been much, much better, and once I had said my piece, my fate was set for the remainder of my career in Avoriaz. 

From there, I'd learn a bunch of things from my new vantage point, including the fact that I had been instrumentalized by Francois Baud, an honorary member of the ski school who couldn’t stand Edmond Denis.

Also, I learned right here and there that it’s not just WHAT we say in life, but rather HOW we say it and while some modicum of IQ helps, the most important gift in life is Emotional Intelligence, a domain I had yet to discover... https://go-11.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-avoriaz-ski-school-saga.html

A quiet early fall of 1971

Just fifty years ago, I had returned from Australia and was busy building my new home with the help of my brother Gaston and my Dad. I wasn’t quite sure I wanted a house and wanted to grow roots in my hometown, just next door to my folks. 

I had bigger plans, but they were so fuzzy I couldn’t even see them. The six previous months, my travels around the world had opened up my eyes and I couldn’t see myself growing older in Montriond, even though it was a wonderful place promised to a prosperous future. 

I was now hooked on seeing even more of the world and just couldn’t settle forever in that one place. On weekends we celebrated my return in the company of my friends, all instructors at Avoriaz and our lives were light, easy and without large responsibilities. 

I had a lot of stories to tell and was proud of each one of them. One night, we went out in JF Rosset’s parents car, a Simca 1500 station wagon, along with Anselme Baud, JC Page and François Chauplannaz, had quite a few drinks and Rosset crashed the car in a curve, but we all survived, laughing.

JF Rosset was the only one who didn’t has he had to face his father’s fury. This mishap was just a precautionary warning. In a few weeks darker clouds would come over my head and suddenly change my blissful experience for a much more challenging one…

Covid’s astonishing tactics

Ever since the pandemic arrived on the scene, I couldn’t help but think, that it was Nature’s way of saying: “There are too many goddamned humans on this planet, time to do some mass-scaled thinning out!” 

Of course, humanity responded to the threatening virus with its formidable array of technology medicine and drugs. Yet, it seems to me that the virus, just like a school of fish or flock of birds, has an intelligence of its own and appears determined to leave no stone unturned or no subject left behind. 

As an example, Vermont the most vaccinated State of the Union is now undergoing a major attack by the virus. Can someone explain it to me? This kind of collective behavior is both fascinating and baffling. Is there a separate or overriding group intelligence that tell every single element (fish, bird or virus) what to do? 

Why does this happen? How is it choreographed? Is it a form of telepathy? All these questions beg for a response that we don’t seem to have, but I suspect there’s some truth in my observations. What do you think?

Temperatures and man-made snow

For the first time in many years, Park City wasn’t able to make any snow until November 17. And it’s not the only resort. 

All across the country a number of resorts have pushed back opening dates: Mt. Snow, Stowe, and Okemo in New England; Solitude, Alta, Snowbasin, and Brian Head in Utah; Steamboat and Telluride in Colorado; Heavenly and Northstar in California; and, Arizona Snowbowl. 

Mammoth Mountain, thanks to an October providential snowfall has been open for some time with 43 trails open and seven lifts running. 

This brings a new element to early season snow coverage and of course, skiing. Up until now, November has been a usually very cold month and ski areas took advantage of that to build their base and most trafficked runs. 

This year was quite different and might be a harbinger of things to come as our planet keeps on warming up, eventually rendering the most sophisticated snow-making infrastructure and equipment totally useless in a few years from now...

What percentage of the population is happy?

“Good question”, as the saying goes these days, but what do we mean by happiness? According to some “experts”, happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. 

More generally, happiness is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction and is discernible when we experience more positive feelings than negative. Add to that a topic that is incredibly subjective to the point that you might no feel happy if you were me and vice-versa. 

This said, yesterday, I heard on French radio that 80% of that citizens of that country were “happy”. This is good. 

Yet when I look at the OECD table summarizing our respective level of happiness, I see that France is ranked behind the USA and that Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway.

The latter being the number! What’s the OECD country trailing them all? South Africa. 

So now, you’ve got it. When I have a great day I feel like a Norwegian and when things are bad, or after I got my Covid booster shot, I fell worst than a South African!

Citizen of the world

Ever since I was a kid and began traveling the world over, I have gradually felt myself a home most anywhere I happened to be and this feeling has blossomed into considering myself a true citizen of the world. I don’t feel more American than French or Australian if I ever chose to live there. 

My home is the blue planet, the small bluish ball seen from space, without visible borders, nationalism and ideological conflicts. 

Just like geese fly freely from Canada to Mexico, fish swim freely the great oceans, fleas jump inside containers bound for all corners of the world, or Covid-19 knows no boundaries on the planet, I feel just like them and love the freedom to move around and claim my home just where I spend the night. 

I simply adapt to my new environment and to the prevailing rules where I happen to be. I believe world citizenship this is the way of the future and the only key to world peace. 

With modern technology, it could be implemented simply, gradually and with a small set of rules, at least to get the whole thing started. 

Of course, politicians don’t like the idea because it dilutes their importance, their impact and stifles their ambitions, but when the dust settles, aren’t we all citizen of the same world?

The FIS parallel slalom puts me asleep

Last weekend, I did my very best to watch a few athletes fighting side by side during the men and women parallel slalom in Lech-Zürs, but was bored to tears as I couldn’t find much entertainment value in that evening show. 

The lack of jumps took the only spice that made that event digestible, as well as the lack of top competitors. 

Why is FIS prolonging the torture it’s imposing it on both the racers and the public? 

Does it even try to understand what spectators want to see or what their likes and dislikes are?

What went amiss at Glasgow?

I’m sure all participants had a wonderful trip, some delicious food to eat and fun moments. That what makes these conventions memorable and all are looking forward to the next venue. Producing tangible results is a totally different issue altogether!

We are in deep trouble, yet don’t expect governments that are hostages of the fossil fuel lobby and work only for the short-term to act freely and decisively! We, American, are just starting to realize that we’ve got a “weather problem” (our political right excepted, of course). 

We, the greatest and most advanced nation on earth with only 5% of the world’s population still manage to boast the second largest carbon footprint of any country and still spews out twice the greenhouse gasses of India’s 1.3 Billion people with just 330 millions… 

Of course, we believe that putting a few solar panels on our roofs and at least one Tesla inside the garage, will go a long way towards solving the problem. As usual, we believe we can all get out of this rut without making any sacrifice! It will take more than cutting greenhouse gas to solve our planetary decay. 

Some scientists like Dr. David Keith, Professor of Physics at Harvard, says that even if countries hit all of their climate reduction targets by 2050 the earth won’t cool down due to all of the CO2 stuck in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It will take centuries for it to slowly dissipate after emissions reach zero and while sea levels will continue to rise. 

Some studies also show many places in the world where warming has already increased by 2 degrees Celsius or more… These Glasgow talks have been consumed with carbon issues and renewable energies and diluted by a reprieve on coal on India’s insistence. 

Clearly, the world’s biggest polluters, including China, India and the USA, aren’t willing and ready yet to take the bull by the horns, lead by example and begin to take the drastic measure that are past due. In the midst of all this, Kerry puts on a good face, but his hampered by a powerful fossil fuel lobby, this final agreement is not binding and its highly unlikely that that American pledge will be enshrined by Congress. 

This said, the rise in planetary temperatures is caused by overcrowding. The earth wasn’t created to work sustainably with today close to 8 billion humans and 11 billion by the end of the century. Cause and effects are rarely occurring at the same time and we still don’t know, nor have we experienced the damage that 8 billion humans may have caused to the planet several years from now. We are not even talking about about 9 or 10 billion! 

The elephant in the room at all these COP meetings remains overpopulation, but the subject remains totally taboo and not just because of a strong capitalistic system. It goes against the grain of quantitative growth and religious expansion. 

Cutting our carbon footprint alone won’t suffice and it seems past time already for implementing additional measures aimed at reducing, better yet stopping, or reversing altogether, a runaway global population growth!

The unbelievable things I read...

Our World in Data (OWID) is a scientific online publication that focuses on large global problems. It’s a project of a registered charity from the UK founded by Max Roser, a social historian and development economist and gets its data from a research team based at the University of Oxford. 

Recently, I came across a study from that organization claiming that:  

Two centuries of rapid global population growth will come to an end. The article claims that population explosions are temporary. Before 1700, the global population grew only very slowly – only 0.04% per year. 

This was explained by very high children mortality counteracted with high fertility. Once health improved and mortality declined, things changed quickly. Over the last 100 years global population more than quadrupled. 

This increase has amplified humanity’s impact on the natural environment. To provide space, food, and resources for a large world population in a sustainable way into the distant future is and remains one the largest challenges for our generation. 

Population growth is still fast: Every year 140 million are born and 58 million die, adding 82 million to the world population. The chart herein also suggests a slow ending of global demographic growth. As it declines, the curve representing the world population is no longer as steep. 

By the end of the century – when global population growth has fallen to 0.1% according to UN projections, it’ll get better. Yet, it is hard to know the population dynamics beyond 2100; it will depend on a falling fertility rate as development increases, and doesn’t rise above an average of 2 children per woman. 

In this projection the world population will reach almost 11 billion in 2100. 

In my view, this is an observation made in a vacuum. It doesn’t take into consideration global warming (a symptom of overpopulation) and its consequences in terms of maintaining a livable planet beyond 2100. It also ignores the planet social tensions rising from inequity that are likely to produce revolts, mass-invasion and other instability. 

It also hopes that the United Nations’ data and projections are correct. No one knows for sure. It sounds more like wishful thinking than anything else. My sense tells me that everything possible should be undertaking to further reduce and stop – if not reverse – population growth now.

Picabo Street’s biography

I just finished reading Picabo’s bio that stops in 2001. 

I had seen the book for a long time at our public library and finally decided to read it. I found the book interesting, honest and it showed me that some fantastic skiers can emerge from poor and sometimes dysfunctional families. 

In fact, Picabo Street’s path and character are very similar to Bode Miller’s. Then you have the well-to-do kids like Lindsey Vonn, Ted Ligety and Mikaela Shifrin, that had a big advantage of capitalizing on their god-given talents thank to a relentless parental support. 

The rest of the athletes muddle through and generally can’t get much of a foothold in a sport that isn’t nearly as well organized in the United States than it is in Europe through well-run ski federations. 

Street who has lived in Park City for a long time has had her share of problems. Her bio stops in 2001, on the eve of the 2002 Salt Lake City winter Olympics in which she only placed 16 and decided to retire. 

In 2005, she was inducted into the US Ski Hall of Fame, and in 2015, she was charged with domestic violence and assault relating to an incident when she allegedly pushed her elderly father down the stairs of her Park City home, but was later exonerated. 

More recently, she co-founded the Picabo Street Academy in Park City, with Michelle Demschar and Dan Kemp, that provides individualized schooling to students training in sports and the arts.

Stopover on the way south

For a few days, the US border has been reopened to Canadian visitors and we’ve noticed that Canadian geese have taken full advantage of the new measures as they are using our local golf courses as a convenient way to take a well-deserve break from their long return trip to Mexico.

With plenty of ponds available to them for some good fishing and relaxed swimming, we’ve observed hundreds of geese feasting on fish and drying up or relaxing on the green before resuming their Fall voyage.

However, we haven’t seen any of the white pelicans that stopped in the spring on their way north. They either used a different itinerary for their return travel or are still having fun in Canada’s Northern Territories. 

What’s clear is while we’ve seen the usual flocks of geese returning, we still have to see one single pelican. This mystery may never be resolved, so we certainly won’t lose sleep over it!

Ordered, finally!

After thinking about it a lot, hesitating even more and weighting the pros and cons probably too much, I finally stepped up and ordered a Tesla. 

I just said “ordered”, because I was told delivery might happen in October of 2022. 

I’ll be even more mature by then, if not downright older, but still under 75 and alive, I hope, which will validate this bold step forward. 

What happens if I change my mind? Well, I’ll lose the $250 deposit, but who knows, by the time delivery times materializes lots of things may have taken place, and with them, many more buying options in the electric vehicle department!

In praise of my Nordica boots

My current pair of Nordica NXTs must have been designed in 2015, if not earlier. I have used them 5 seasons, skied on them 529 days, about 1500 hours and logged 8.97 million vertical feet on them. 

Through all this, this pair of boots has been the very best I’ve ever skied on. That, to me, is quite impressive; no other ski boot has delivered so much satisfaction in my entire life! 

So a week or so ago, I thought it might be time for me to check out what was new and better at the Park City Ski Swap. Since the rest of my weekend was consumed with leaves raking and mulching, I could only getaway to see what was left of the inventory a couple of hours before the event was coming to an end. 

I didn’t see anything exciting that would warrant my considering switching ski boots, yet I just took the time to step into a pair of Lange that felt so uncomfortable on my feet that I left the place at once. 

When I got back home, I looked at my beat-up Nordicas and the only thing really close to clinical death were its sole inserts. The heels were completely chewed-up and the so important low friction pads at the toe were split and pierced in ways that looked deplorable on boots owned by a former executive at Look bindings! 

I just couldn’t skis on boots that were so wrecked, yet after I put them on, they still fit me so snugly and firmly that I couldn’t see absolutely any intelligent reason to replace them. I then checked where I could find a replacement set of inserts and after searching for a while, I got them at our local Surefoot store.

So, $50 later and after removing the worn-out inserts, I was back in business and my beloved pair of ski boots suddenly resurrected from their "near-death" status!

Big Island’s best memories

Our first big trip out of Park City in two years was nothing short of memorable, and broke the “Pandemic” spell so to speak. They were things we loved and others we abhor during that vacation that we’ve already related in that blog. For the moment though, let’s focus on the experiences we’ll remember and forget about a few “bumps on the road...” 

1. Hapuni Beach 

Since lave fields are so prevalent on that big island, it was hard to find nice beaches and while they were some around Kona, they were crowded by the locals. One had to head north towards the Kohala Coast and drive 40 minutes to find great, uncrowded beaches. 

2. Hilo 

Located on the opposite side of where we were staying, that small city had a lot of old charm that we appreciated a lot. We went twice there and loved the sights and he atmosphere 

3. Kona coffee plantation 

We talked about that one already. We’re coffee lovers, learn a lot about our favorite bean and it smelled and tasted so good! 

4. Akaka Falls 

Not far from Hilo, this is a picturesque, tropical jungle paradise! 

5. Poke dinner 

We had a wonderful poke dinner in a hard to find, semi-industrial spot, north of Kona. The service was poor, but the fare, just fabulous! 6. Nicoco ice cream 

Just in a small street not far from the water in Hilo. The best ice-cream I ever had! 

7. Costco 

We stopped at the Big Island store for gas and provision. We love Costco stores wherever they can be found! 

8. Our Hyundai rental car 

We rented a nice, comfortable Elantra. We loved it! 

So that’s the end of our shared memory about a great trip. Hawaii is a bit too far away to make frequent visits to these tropical paradise. 

Did we love the weather? Temperatures in the 80s during the day and around 70 at night are a bit too high for our taste, plus we love the seasons too much to live without them. 

Now would we return to the Big Island? Probably not, we prefer Maui...

National Parks are not created equal…

Coming from Park City, Utah, and living close by some of the most fabulously picturesque National Parks spoils us a great deal, yet, all Parks are far from being created equal... 

Hawaii’s Big Island is famous for its lava fields and huge volcanoes, so it’s only fitting that the Island hosts the Hawaii Volcano National Park. In order to motivate my wife to embrace the more than 4 hour round-trip drive required to see that site and visit a few of its features, I had showed her a fiery video overflowing with reddish molten lava. 

I don’t know when that film was shot, but when we got to the Park, there was no more glow, no spaying furnace or little devils forking sinners into the flaming abyss. Needless to say that my spouse was sorely disappointed and didn’t shy away from letting me know. 

In truth, if you ever get there during a non-active period like just now, expect for a large, dormant crater, a few minor ones and some petroglyphs, we didn’t see or experience anything exciting. We got taking in by the hype, like millions of tourist are every day, all over the world. 

This, I think might be a valid way of finding solace. 

How many Michelin’s stars?

The condo we rented in Hawaii was near a popular beach and a mile or so above the seashore was that shopping center with a few restaurants, including a popular “greasy spoon” that besides a classical “happy hour” had plenty of junk food but was located on a spot that enjoyed spectacular sunsets.

We only ate there one night, which we hope will not endanger our chances for survival. The only good element was the beer we drank, but the food was downright bad, and probably lethal, had we made a regular habit of eating at a place like that one. 

When we asked for the check, I also asked the waiter if the place had a “Michelin Star”. I assumed he knew what that kind of star this was, because he smartly answered “I don’t know, maybe a fraction of a star?” 

I reassured him that maybe another classification would me more appropriate like a “Two Star Firestone”. I picked that brand of tires because it had been severely beaten up by a series of accidents several decades ago. 

As a matter of fact, in September of 2000, Firestone admitted for the first time that it had produced defective tires, and that their design, along with possible quality control problems at one of its plants, appeared to be what caused the catastrophic tread failures it sustained at that time. 

The waiter was either very accommodating or quite sharp, because he quipped “That’s one I’ll remember!”

On a wing and a prayer

Do you still remember the ill-fated Boeing 737 max and its terrible software problem? Well that pretty scary flaw got fixed God know how, but eventually the planes were re-authorized to fly. 

The airlines tweaked the name a little bit so it wouldn’t spook passengers, hopefully trained their pilots to the enhanced crutch that make the plane fly without crashing. 

A year ago, I even said that I’d wait a couple more years to venture myself inside that plane, but unbeknownst to my, this day happened late October ! 

We were flying on Southwest on our way to Hawaii and we flew the 737 Max8 (a new name for the same bird!) on one leg out of four. Southwest has 68 Boeing 737 MAX 8s, nearly all of which I’m told are currently active. 

For now, its fleet MAX aircraft is overshadowed by 678 other 737-700s and 737-800s in its large fleet. I must admit that I wasn’t totally reassured when I realized I was seating in that aircraft that flies thank to a convoluted software, but I was even more grateful that my wife didn’t realized that we were trapped inside that once-doomed aircraft. 

She simply found its seats pretty uncomfortable and I had to agree with her. Yet, that below part comfort wasn’t compensating for my fear of surviving the flight. I guess ignorance is bliss, and yes, we landed safe and sound with crashing!

The curse of condo rentals

All the problems we experienced as we arrived to our vacation deserve a full explanation for those readers who are not familiar with them. 

During the last segment of my career, I got involved with vacation rentals (like Airbnb or VRBO), in which there’s at least a rental company, a homeowner and a guest, and sometimes even more parties involved. 

Unlike some marriage, or more appropriately “ménage à trois”, this union isn’t made in Heaven, but rather in some sort of murky Hell, in which expectations run sky-high, but the reality remains close to the ground if not subterranean. 

Let me explain: The guest or vacationer expects seamless perfection. After all these are their hard-earned vacations, right? Their expectations, even if they are going beyond the implied promises, should be fully satisfied, just like in any decent fairy tale.

For the property management company, what’s important is that the home is rented as much as possible, with as least hassles involved and that it leaves a hefty profit margin. Then, there’s the homeowner who typically began by falling in love with the area, before emotionally purchasing that second-home, and after seeing bills of all kinds piling up, reluctantly decided to place it into a rental pool. 

From that point forward, several things simultaneously happen: The rental revenue wasn’t as high as promised, they were always unforeseen expenses, the property manager was putting pressure on the second-home owner to maintain keep up the home so it would be super easy to rent, and worst of all, there was a lot of wear and tear, theft and other bad things that become a recurring reality. 

The homeowners never realized that they had entering the hospitality business and that their beloved property became an object subject to wear and tear or even frequently disrespected. In summary, these opposing expectations were conspiring to make that triangular relationship a dysfunctional nightmare. 

From a practical standpoint, rental homes are chronically dirty because good housekeeping is expensive, yet housekeepers aren’t paid nearly enough for their work and property managers will take any possible shortcut (like not hiring enough inspectors to check the units, train their personnel sufficiently) in order to increase their bottom line. 

The visitor is squeezed in between these two opposite forces and must fight like hell in order to get their due. In the process, the property manager blames its contractors (those who clean and maintain the rental home), as well as the homeowner, in an effort to dodge the criticisms. 

Not a good situation! Now you can appreciate that bad surprises happen when you rent a home, and they’re almost always more the rule than the exception!

Aloha!

Before anything else, Hawaii is a welcoming culture and place. Well, Covid-19 through a monkey wrench into that concept. 

Before we left the island, we were asked to provide all of our health information on line to the State Health Authority that wasn’t nearly as lax as our good old State of Utah. 

Upon completing the process, we were given CR codes along with an official on-line stamp of approval that we were good to land and come to that earthly paradise. 

Well I thought that it would be enough to show that once, upon disembarking, but when I showed up at the car rental place, they asked me to see not just my CR code, but also the governmental okay that the employee expected me to show off my smart phone.

The problem was that I did all that work on my desktop and had no idea what my password for travel.havwaii.gov was. 

On top of that it was 9:30 pm when we landed, so by adding to this a 6 hour flight and a 4 hour time difference, I felt totally exhausted and not in the mood to submit to that kind of brain-wasting exercise. 

So it took me forever, sweating profusely in the hot tropical evening air, to get a new password and be able to drive away with our rental car. 

Our rental condo was some thirty minute drive away on a perfect road and when we got there, we couldn’t get in, as the entry code we were given didn’t seem to work and we couldn’t get in our unit. I called the manager on duty on his cell phone and he apologized for the inconvenience while he set out to reprogram the code. 

When the door finally opened, we discovered that the place was a total mess, with the beds undone and no departure cleaning done. I got back on the phone with the manager who apologized again and said that he’d relocate us somewhere else. 

It was now well over 3am Park City time, and he found us a place to stay inside a gated community, a mile down the road, so we had to learn how to open the gate, find the unit among a huge condo complex in total obscurity, struggle to open a lock bock inside which we found the key to the unit. 

We were pretty upset but we had finally made it!

Lesson in coffee processing

While vacationing in Kona, any tourist worth their… coffee, has to visit a coffee plantation. In fact, Kona coffee is the market name for the arabica coffee cultivated on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa in the North and South Kona Districts of the Big Island of Hawaii.

It is one of the most expensive coffees in the world, reasons being limited supply and high labor costs. Only the product from the Kona Districts can be described as "Kona".

The coffee plant was brought to the Kona district in 1828 by Samuel Reverend Ruggles from Brazilian cuttings. The weather of sunny mornings, cloud or rain in the afternoon, little wind, and mild nights combined with porous, mineral-rich volcanic soil create favorable coffee growing conditions. 

While on the island we indulged in one of those visits and learned a lot of things we ignored about making good coffee. 

To get to the point, we realized in the process of learning about coffee production that the brew we purchased from Costco and co-branded by Starbucks was really as bad as it had tasted lately and were determined to switch to something much better!

Relearning travel

It’s been two full years since we had not traveled by air, after quietly following the pandemic rules and putting our lives on hold, in a sort of hibernation from leisure and adrenaline rush. This time, our first destination was Hawaii’s big island, a first for us, since we only had visited Maui, several years ago. 

While travel was already not fun back in 2019, adding Covid-19 rules to the equation made it even more awkward and even much harder to handle. Added new rules and forgotten old ones made for a complicated and bitter cocktail that got mixed up with the unpleasant symptoms of accelerated aging. 

Not just that, but since we flew on Southwest, with its quirky systems and procedures, we felt, at times, completely lost. This said, flying back and forth over the Pacific for at least five or six hours was a nice reminder of my first trip over that particular part of the world just fifty years ago. 

In fact, the huge expanse of water under the plane, the uniformity of things to see out of the window except for the ever changing cloud formations hadn’t changed, and that in many ways, was greatly reassuring.

No, I couldn’t see the Pacific’s Eastern garbage patch, but just catch a glimpse of a huge container ship crawling below. More seriously, this was just going from point A to point B and returning to A, with plenty of wild adventures in between, but we were glad that we finally broke the spell and did it!

Uber: the laws of supply and demand

As we returned from a recent vacation, our plane was late and we landed in Salt Lake City around 10 pm. By the time we walked to the end of new cavernous terminal, it was already 10:15, then among a huge crowd of travelers for that time of the day, I fumbled around to call a Lyft or a Uber to takes us back to Park City. 

I tried Lyft first and was asked to fork over $200 for a ride that normally hovers around $50. Shell-shocked, I looked into Uber and found a ride for $105 which still was a lot, but much better than the previous one, so I took it, knowing that with tip, this ride would set me $125 back! 

As I was waiting for the driver to accept my ride, my wife was growing impatient and kept on asking me: “Is that cab you ordered coming?” I told her that my phone showed it six minutes away, and asked to be patient, but since she was understandably tired of traveling all day, she kept on asking me the same question.

So much so that when I saw a white VW that looked a bit like Jetta and quickly glanced at the license plate that was about what I was expecting and screamed: “That’s it!” The roadway was a real mess and the driver had to load us on the fourth lane of that loading area, he said something to me that I didn’t understand and hopped inside the car that sped away. 

After 8 to 10 minutes driving, Fernando, our driver, exited to a Street that wasn’t our normal itinerary. I said, “This isn’t the way to Park City!” He responded, “Are you going to Park City? I thought you were going to Murray (a suburb of Salt Lake)! Aren’t you David?” I said: “No, I’m not David!” 

So clearly I messed up and didn’t really pay attention when the driver asked me if I was David when we entered his car, and the VW wasn’t a Jetta, but a CC, but in the heat of the moment, any VW looked like the Jetta I needed to get to Park City. 

Long story short, at the same time, the original driver, we ordered our ride from, kept calling me on my phone and I had no idea who he was, as he spoke with a thick Arabic accent. When I finally connected with him, I explained what had happened; he then asked me to cancel the ride, which I did and had to pay $5.75 for it. 

Then, as we were parked near the freeway, our driver asked me to re-book the ride. This time as we were 10 minutes away from the airport commotion and in zone with far less demand than supply, the algorithm brought down the cost of the ride to a reasonable $34.96, much more in line with what I normally paid. 

We were elated that the problem had been solved and even after tipping Fernando $20 for his emotional distress, my own mistake still saved me $60!

This of course taught me a very valuable lesson as to getting out of expensive Lyft or Uber rides by simply moving to a much quieter location, by simply using a free hotel shuttle going to some downtown location, away from a super crowded and crazy airport scene. Even more importantly, it also taught me that I must pay more attention to the car that’s coming for me and that I’m the guy who ordered it!

Managing emotions

Few folks from my generation had the good fortune of learning about the existence of emotional intelligence and the importance of emotions. 

This often made our life very difficult and most of us had to develop coping mechanisms to survive the upheaval emotions caused on us throughout our lives. Yet, this sad reality doesn’t mean that there’s no remedial help available. 

Of course we all know what feelings are, but are often taken by surprise when emotions invade us and don’t always know how to manage them. The first order of business is to learn how to identify our feeling as they show up. Doing this helps us know what’s going on with our minds and help us chose a way to respond, especially when it involves other people. 

We’re not talking about easy and positive feelings, but tough ones, like anger, jealousy or sadness among many others. So the big job is to learn how to pay attention to these feelings, and this takes some practice; here are a few tips: First, we must pay attention and notice our feelings when they erupt and name them. To start, just notice how we feel as emotions start to bubble. 

We should name them to ourselves. For instance, we might say, "I feel proud" after I have tuned up all the family skis or "I feel disappointed" when my grandson can’t ski with me because his equipment isn’t ready yet, or "I feel happy" when the family got together for Thanksgiving dinner. 

 A good idea would be to track one emotion during an entire day, any emotion, like joy, for instance and notice how often we feel it. Each time, make a mental note or write it down grading the feeling as mild, medium, or strong. 

Let’s also identify all emotions that come to us, find a fitting name for them and be on the look-out for new ones. Also, let’s ask ourselves, how many meanings we have for "angry" for example? We might feel annoyed, mad, irate, or fuming... 

Ideally, we should take a few minutes each day to write about how we feel and why; this would bring us even closer to our emotions. Another path to explore would be to start looking for emotions in art, songs, or movies. How did the artists express these feelings. 

How did they make us feel? The more we become aware of our emotions, the deeper we’ll begin to know ourselves better and understand the people around us. Noticing and talking about feelings is a healthy way to express them and release them, instead of letting them building up inside us…

Shifting majority

Up until recently, the majority of people, in every country where 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 the canaries in the coal mine and constitute 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.

Buddhism, reincarnation and me…

I like the basic concept of Buddhism, yet I have a tough time dealing with its story of reincarnation. 

My first reaction to that faith’s tenet is “Why in the world should we go through a series of lives, just to suffer and remember nothing from all of them?” 

That’s right, I can’t remember any of my previous lives, unless I have just started my cycle, which I doubt, as I should have begun at the very least as some obscure and nondescript microbe… 

Just ask around and try to find out if your family members, friends or world colleagues remember anything from their lives as bird or pig, and I guarantee you they won’t. 

Only convinced Buddhist monks, scholars or the Dalai-Lama himself, sometime pretend to remember, so you get my drift. 

That pretty much concludes that one incarnation is more than enough for the vast majority of people and definitely the maximum I can stand!