Are religious believers more gullible than others?

It’s always been my opinion that religious beliefs always affect critical thinking, and as a result, if someone believes literally in the teaching of a sacred book like the bible that is filled with myths, there is always a danger in believing in a host of unproven assertions. 

I’m not talking about people that are “casual” members of a religions and don’t have genuine faith, but more so about folks that are fully invested into their religious beliefs and make them part of their daily life. 

These people, in my opinion are more likely to be at risk of believing stories that “sound good enough to be legit” and by so doing, constitute a fertile soil for being taken advantage of by unscrupulous politicians, peddlers and other swindlers.

In general these deep believers have been indoctrinated into their religious faith as kids, when the where naturally gullible. Even for those of them who eventually lost some or all of their faith, the consequences of early indoctrination stick to them like an old chewing-gum. 

On top of this, they have been trained and instructed never to doubt or even question the tenets of the religion they were told about. This fear of doubting unavoidably influence non-religious statements or beliefs that are forced onto them by less-than-honest individuals, and make them a perfect target for such deviant abuse. 

For instance, the state of Utah, where I live, is sadly famous for all kind of fraud targeting members of its main Mormon faithfuls. Far-right politicians are also praying in the same way on evangelical christian communities in America that culturally believe in far-fetched religious stories of rapture or miraculous powers of religion. 

When all is said and done, blind belief, this other form of “religious poison” is also quite widespread and can be activated in no time to mislead individuals that are deeply faithful and take advantage of them for all kinds of reasons and purposes.

The end of impatience

Youth goes hand in hand with impatience. Not so much that it’s limited in the time it has at its disposal, but because youth has so an impressive array of options that it wants to be acting on them at once. Too many things going on that can’t get done fast enough to address the next ones. 

Gradually though, as we fail to always get what we want in the time we had hope for, as we experience failures, errors and surprises of all kind, impatience begins to erode and gains more elasticity in the way we look at it. It’s no longer as firm and as unconditional as it is often fraught with issues than are created by rushing things along. 

Later, it keeps on getting worse as impatience further deteriorates and loses most of its cutting edge as well as its luster, as we discover patience, its opposite, that all along was quietly waiting for us to begin using it and appreciating it. 

That is in fact quite paradoxical as the less time we have left in front of us, the more amenable we seem to make peace with, and use patience, as it was intended for. This time element even becomes irrelevant as we are discovering the process inherent with patience and start showing some real appreciation for it. 

We no longer see the tool as an end, but rather as a pleasing process that we enjoy observing as it slowly unfolds its power of maturation and its perfect use of time. That how impatience eventually leads to a renewed interest for, and sometime a re-discovery of patience.

I love a rainy night...

On Saturday we were promised rain that never came. I was so disappointed. You see, rain has become a rarity in Park City. In winter we got snow but the rest of year, our tiny paradise has become far too dry. 

When we first moved to town in the 80s, an afternoon rainstorm was almost the rule. Now these refreshing events have become a happening of the past. 

Sure, long term weather forecaster had told us about a drying up of the American Southwest, but like the vast majority of the people I know didn’t believe or didn’t paid too much attention to that dire prediction. And it’s been here with us for decade. 

The West is running out of water, we’re scared of forest fire and having to breathe ashes and micro-particles the whole summer! So, when it began raining between Saturday and Sunday, I feel elated. Finally Mother Nature had made the right move and listened to my deep wishes. 

As it neither fails, the Eddie Rabbit’s song “I love a rainy night” came to my mind and at 1:45 am, I silently hummed the tune… 

Good old cardboard to the rescue!

Any project often starts in one mind’s to address a problem or to answer a need. I have done a few of them. 

Before this, I have spent quite of bit of time thinking about what I was going to do, I did a lot of drawings (that’s a hobby of mine) and when I got satisfied with the rendering, began to cut into material and start building. 

That’s when I discovered issues that my best drawings ignored, did not see or couldn’t anticipate. The net result is that I had to do everything all over again or worse, give up the project altogether out of sheer disgust or discouragement! 

Over the years, I believe that I’ve evolved for the better, I hope, and discovered that a few pieces of cardboard could often time recreate the actual project I aimed for, without implicating all the difficulty and expense a project using real material would lead to. 

That’s when I systematically began to anticipate my creations as cardboard or carton models first. Nothing new there, architects do it all the time even though 3-D computer rendering are now ubiquitous and sometimes can replace the physical model, but sometimes with caveats. 

Recently I traded in my ten-year old Subaru for a new car and since I didn’t want to mount a ski rack on that one, I decided to have a hard, plastic box made to fit our skis and poles inside it. 

Since it’s more complicated than it might appear, I resorted to fabricating a cardboard box first. Its first iteration taught me a litany of things that will undoubtedly save me plenty of time, money and grief!

The glorification of the French ski instructor!

When I was a ski instructor in my native France, everything was low key, we loved the sport and were eager to teach what we knew. 

Everything was new and pump and circumstance was absent from the professional culture. We just were happy to ski and to share our passion with our students. 

Now things have changed and the French ski instructor community has delivered close to 20,000 fully-certified pin (mine is stamped with the relatively low number 3457). 

This past week was the French ski instructor national convention in Nice, right on the French Riviera to celebrate 375 newly minted ski instructors that received their iconic red sweater and their numbered pin. 

In fact, the Ecole de Ski Francais (ESF) represents 17,000 instructors spread in 250 ski resorts and generating close to $300 millions in revenue, which controls about 85% of the market in France. 

These last certified instructors were all were part of the class of 2022 and were celebrated as if they were semi-gods on their way to full-fledged divinity. 

In reading the account, I suddenly felt my arthritic wings, reminding me of my past, lofty status.

Can America ever move beyond guns?

The last Texas school massacre that left 19 children at an elementary school dead along with two teachers, made any one who is remotely human, sick. 

Except of course the vast majority of Republican politicians that can only recommend “thoughts prayers” against the American fire arm epidemic. They are naively and stubbornly wed to what they said is the sacredness of the second amendment. In fact, they’re afraid of the NRA and a few firearm fanatics from their base. 

They refuse to listen to their constituents since in a recent poll, taken before that tragedy says that 59 percent of respondents said it was “very” or “somewhat” important that elected leaders in the US pass stricter gun control laws. 

Only, 13 percent said it was “not too important” to pass gun restrictions and 19 percent said it was “not important at all.” Finally, nine percent had no opinion or did not know, according to the poll from Morning Consult and Politico.

With no immediate desire of changing its stance on that issue. the Trump-GOP party has now officially become totally insane by remaining desperately stuck to Einstein’s alleged definition of the mental flaw: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” 

As for me, it’s past time to dismantle the socially-obsolete second amendment of the US constitution.

The long agony of American ski magazines

After Skiing, Powder and Snow Country magazines, only Ski had managed to survive by the skin of its teeth at newsstands and among its subscribers in America, following several changes in owners or publishers, and trying to show a good face until the established Outside magazine took the publication over this winter. 

Unfortunately that new owner wasn’t apparently able to turn things around. The editorial quality had gone from bad to worst and Outside’s fingers in the fissures of the dike couldn’t stop the hemorrhaging of readers. 

Today, Outside Inc., announced that it will reduce Ski’s print production by 80 percent, just by offering one yearly print issue of the magazine under the name “Annual Winter Gear Guide.” 

This to me is a last ditch effort Outside feels compelled to try before throwing the towel and exiting gracefully its print publication of Ski. 

Further, in a company-wide shift, Outside Inc. is laying off about 15 percent of its workforce, including three Outside magazine editors. Except for its art director Ski’s editorial staff will remain intact, but don’t expect to see that publication last much longer. 

Very soon, our brave new digital world will have finally killed America consumer’s ski publications.

When I think about my Dad...

To my immense regret, I have never spent any time, one-on-one, with my Dad. I guess that I was fearful of him and my parents in general. There was therefore never any opportunity for some close or cheerful dialog. It was mostly corrective and mean remarks that were made to me that characterized our relationship. 

In summary, any communication, when it took place, was mostly negative and none of it encouraged a pleasant exchange. As a result we’ve spent all of my youth ignoring one another and now that I look back to it, I think it’s terrible. 

I don’t remember my father being physically abusive on me, maybe one or two spanking that were totally accepted at the time, but mostly bursts of anger directed towards things I didn’t do right and mostly, disapproving and angry looks most of the time. 

The only times we were really together were when we were sorting the blueberries out from their leaves during harvest season, using a wooden blower designed for wheat, and also once when I drove him to Annecy to see a cardiologist. 

But even during these situations, there was never any meaningful communication I would have welcomed it, but was never expecting it from him. 

To his credit, my Dad must have only simply repeated the treatment he observed and had received from my paternal grand-father.

This was a very dark and regrettable part aspect of my upbringing, experience and memories from my Dad...

What’s impacting our environment most?

Greenhouse gases, including CO2 and methane trap the heat and make the planet warmer. Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years. 

This include both the planet unrelenting industrial development and its endless and as of yet, wild population growth. The world over, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, agriculture, industry, transportation and climate control.

Since 1970 and through 2020, emissions of CO2 have been going up and are showing no sign of letting down. We know which the largest polluters are, as China, the US and India are sharing the podium in this horrible contest. We often only think about transportation and climate control when talking about what creates global warming, but these are not the largest economic sectors contributing to CO2 emissions. 

Those are electricity production (25% of greenhouse gas emissions), the agriculture, land use and forestry (24%) that includes greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture come from livestock such as cows, agricultural soils, and rice production, while land use and forestry can act as a sink in absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere or a source of emissions.

Since 1990 the US forest and lands are a net sink, in that they’ve absorbed more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit. Industry is another large contributor to greenhouse gases at 21% (24% in the US alone) It comes from industry primarily burning fossil fuels for energy, as well as from certain processes and chemical reactions necessary to produce goods from raw materials. 

Transportation plays also a huge role, that vary a lot per country (14% worldwide, but 27% in the US) and includes cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes. Finally buildings, both commercial and residential (6% worldwide, but 13% in the US) emit from fossil fuels burned for heat, the use of certain products that contain greenhouse gases, and the handling of waste. 

With such a diverse and complex number of sources and so many countries that need to march on the same drumbeat, there are some good reasons to be pessimistic as to humanity’s ability to extract itself from the global warming predicament...

Next, plugged-in people!

Yesterday, as we were walking on the multi-users trail we were passed by a bunch of riders on e-bikes and my wife asked me “Do they have to recharge their electric bikes after each use?” 

I kind of responded, tongue and cheek: “Yeah, they do, just like they do with their mobile phones, smart watches and other electronics, and soon they might have to do it for themselves when technology finds a way to recharge us all!” But in fact, why not? 

When we are tired, on our knees, or just getting older, wouldn’t it be great to get a jolt of current to recharge or regenerate our failing bodies and dwindling strengths to get us going for more and even more? 

As we evolved as a species and lost our tail, we could recover that appendage under the form of an electrical plug that we’d carry around, and when needed, enable us to receive a needed charge to erase that lost energy and replace it by some extra to help us reach that proverbial extra mile. 

It could very well be that the new “fountain of youth” might be found in lithium batteries, a regenerated tail as a plug-in cord and ubiquitous human charging stations just like we now see them all around for electric cars!

Snowbird slipping closing dates…

During the Dick Bass days, the original founder of the ski resort, Snowbird would close until the snow was gone and skiing impossible. 

Since the acquisition of the famed Utah area by the late multi-millionaire Ian Cumming and then by his kids, things have gotten much tighter. In the past I’ve skied Snowbird on the 4th of July, but most of the time we could ski it in June and always for Memorial Day weekend. 

This webcam photo from yesterday shows that skiing would still be possible. Today, these days are long gone! 

Is it a harbinger of global warming? Not really, but since most visitors show up with their season’s passes or the ubiquitous Ikon, there isn’t much revenue the resort can count on and let’s be frank, the costs of operating the place aren’t going down either. 

So, Snowbird is indeed embarked on an inexorable slippery slope, the good old day of late skiing into summer are long gone and here comes the “new planet warming order”. 

Just be grateful to see the resort open next winter and a few more down the line. Now, I just take this as a dire warning that "the end is near!"

The endless improvement process…

If you ever happen to be bored or lacking some stimulating inspiration, ask yourself, what could I improve around or inside me? 

A seemingly insignificant question leading to an incredibly immense array of options, because there’s so much that can be improved all around and inside us! 

As a result, it’s not so unusual that we prefer undertaking something totally new instead of confronting the drudgery of improving something that exists, nags us relentlessly and begs for some real help.

Improving isn’t necessarily perfectionism, yet it can be a refreshing alternative to our world of infinitely “More” and its related obsession for “Quantity” that besieges us all. In fact, when you take the time to examine it, many times, “improving” comes down to a potentially joyous act of love. 

I too should remember this more often and when I feel like not knowing what to do next, it should hit me, but it must also be that I happen to tired and often disregard and forget to “Improve something”…

Primary voting season!

Recently, I was watching the late George Carlin, an American stand-up comedian, whom I like on subjects like religion, but do not appreciate his vulgarity. He was saying: “I don’t vote, because like that, I’m not to blame for the lame politicians that get elected”. 

Totally the opposite of what I’m thinking. I value voting, believe that each vote counts, take full responsibility for my choices and wish voting would be mandatory in the US. 

That brings me to today’s subject, the upcoming mid-term election in the US this fall, in which voter turnout is about 40% compared to 60% during presidential elections, even though 2020 and 2018 marked the highest presidential and midterm turnout in over a century. 

To me, if there’s a 50% voter participation it means that my vote counts double and that’s an important consideration that makes me not want to miss it! 

By international standards, voter turnout in the United States is low. In countries with compulsory voting, like Australia, Belgium, and Chile, voter turnout was around 90% in the 2000s. Other countries, like Austria, Sweden, and Italy, enjoy turnout rates near 80%. 

Overall, OECD countries experience turnout rates of about 70% which is close to the last French presidential election that scored 72%. So don’t hesitate one second, vote, your voice is guaranteed to count for much more than one single one!

Returning to Australia

Back in May of 1972, about 50 years ago, I don’t clearly remember how I decided to rejoin Alexis Saudan and his French ski school at Mt. Buller for another ski season. 

Initially, I was supposed to join JP Chatellard at the Orange lifts / Austrian ski school under Walter Frois leadership, but must have gotten cold feet along the way. 

It’s true that my ski season in Avoriaz was a rough, contentious one, and that left me little time to plan ahead for what I would do during the following summer season, but suffice to say that I defaulted to the easy, routine choice of the known element that was Alexis and his team. 

That year, only Gérard Bouvier, Philippe Coutaz and Christophe’s, Saudan’s son would be returning.

One million Covid death in the USA

As the US just past the horrific 1 million death threshold, which in fact is probably an underestimation of the ravages made by the virus, it’s now time to assess God’s preferred country or the “richest (and smartest?) of the planet” compared to other word’s nations. 

It’s not good, especially compared to Canada, its neighbor to the north and its closest culture. Who is at fault for this? To me, that’s crystal clear, it’s both Donald Trump and its Republican supporters. In the US the virus killed almost three times more than in Canada! Explain that one to me? 

Had Trump behaved “normally” he could have easily saved 500,000 to 600,000 lives. Today, we’re horrified at the Buffalo’s white supremacist who just murdered 10 innocent people, but half a million seems no big deal when it comes to Covid-19. Trump ought to be jailed for his cavalier attitude and total incompetence towards that recent health crisis. 

Some European countries like Belgium, Italy and the UK didn’t perform too well either, and France was two-third as bad as the US, but managed to do 25% worse than Germany, its neighbor. True, that was electoral season. 

With it’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic, Sweden scored more than 3 times more casualties than its well-behaved neighbor Norway, and it’s not just because Australia, Japan and New Zealand are island nations that they did so well. 

The take-away from these sad numbers is that government matters and that good, true democratic governance performs much better than authoritarian, narcissist and incompetent leaders.

US skier numbers up!

I just learned that for this past winter, US. ski areas reported a record visitation with 61 million skier visits, a 3.5 percent increase over 59 million for 2020-21. The Rocky Mountain region, that includes Colorado and Utah reported a record high number of skier visits, with 25.2 million. 

This growth is traced to 11 more operating ski areas (473 this past season) and continued capital investment. Next year will see another $728 million invested in the infrastructure. Historically, high skier visits have correlated to high snowfall.

The previous records years were for 60 million in 2010-11 and 2007-08 seasons that enjoyed exceptional snow. Conversely, the worst year, since 1978-79 when these numbers started to be tabulated, was 39.7 million in 1980-81, a lackluster snow year. 

This year, however, the average snowfall was 145” nationally, compared to a 10-year average of 166”. Ski areas experienced huge staffing challenges this season, with approximately 81 percent of them not fully staffed. 

The national ski area association attributes this strong season to a continued interest for outdoor recreation and I would add to that a generalized laziness and hedonism in this post-Covid era. 

For the third season in a row, season passes surpassed day tickets in share of skier visits, with season pass holders comprising 51.9 percent of visits and day tickets accounting for 37.3 percent of visits (the remainder is made up of off-duty employees, free products, etc.). 

In all regions, ski areas of all sizes, from small to large, saw an increase in number of season passes sold. If there are indeed 12 million skiers in the US, this means that they skied an average of 5 days per season. If they were all as passionate as I am, we’d be at 1.2 billion skier days. Thank god, they don’t!

Tesla’s poor salesmanship

Tesla’s sales department reminds me of Apple stores and their young, detached and “cool” staff, not to be bothered by a 74 years old like me that can’t understand anything about technology. There is a subtle message that “I’m far to smart to by annoyed by customers like you”. 

We recently took delivery of a long awaited Tesla (just six months from ordering to delivery time). The young man that was in charge of handling our delivery didn’t seem to enjoy being there. We don’t remember his name and to make that part even easier, he even had no business card to hand out to us. 

He barely just showed me how to open the doors of the car, what was inside the two trunks front and back, how to start the car by pressing the brake pedal, where reverse, drive and park where and that was it. He looked extremely relieved to see us leave his parking lot, there was no way for him to hide it. 

I drove off with the car, my wife was following me to a place where we were trading-in our previous car. Our new Tesla had been sitting in the sun and I couldn’t find a frigging way of adjusting the cabin temperature, it was awful. This car is totally controled by a central screen that, at first, looks forbidding and intimidating. 

When we made it back home, I had to watch countless non-Tesla videos to get a grasp on the best way to adjust the wheel, seat, mirrors, etc. and understand the basic function. 

The overall purchasing experience was awful, yet the car is absolutely wonderful. Instead of wanting to go to Mars or buy Twitter, Elon Musk should fix Tesla customer service and bring it into the 21st century!

A painless way to sell a car

As a segue to Friday’s mishaps as experienced by Charlie and his wife, let me bring some better news. 

Just before he knew the exact date of his Tesla delivery, Charlie brought his old (2012) Subaru Outback with reasonable mileage (83,000) for an oil change at the dealership that originally sold him the car. 

While he was waiting for his vehicle to be ready, he asked for an appraisal and the staff was delighted to get one for him. Charlie thought that it might worth $7 to $8,000 at the very best, and was pleasantly surprised when the appraiser came back with a price of $9,500! 

As the new car’s delivery date got closer, he began to explore all of his options. He could sell the automobile himself, but wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of seeing a multitude of people coming to his home to test drive it and try to beat him on price. 

Charlie first contacted CarMax, a used vehicle retail chain of 225 locations in the US, operating both a sales and financing division. As he contacted CarMax over the internet, Charlie answered the questions he was asked about his car, its condition and mileage, and was given an offer of $12,800, a whopping 35% over Subaru’s!

He also checked with CarVana, a similar outfit, slightly different in the way it operates that offered him even more: $13,416! However, since CarVana doesn’t have a fixed place of business, come to pick up or deliver cars and doesn’t quite enjoy the same reputation as CarMax, he went with the latter. 

After he agreed to the offer, Charlie received an email on his smartphone, got the car out of the garage, snapped about 10 shot of the vehicle from all angles, including exterior, inside the hood, trunk, interior, dashboard and the agreed upon priced was confirmed at once. 

He only had to bring the car to the facility with all the required paperwork ready (keys, title and registration). He parked the car to be inspected, stayed for around 30 minutes in the waiting area before he was called to sign a few papers, was given the agreed upon amount and was on his way! 

Simple, easy and fast. Charlie said he’d never sell another car any other way but with CarMax!

Louis “Loulou” Kneubuhler, 1943-2022

My good friend Loulou Kneubuhler from Spokane passed away on March 31, 2022. Born in France on July 25, 1943, he was 78 years old. He was one of those adventurous Frenchmen who, in the sixties, traveled around the world proselytizing his home country’s ski technique on the heels of the French ski team unstoppable success. 

From his young stomping grounds in St Jean de Maurienne, Savoie (a part of the Alps that isn't really France), where he raced with Jean-Claude Killy as a school boy, Loulou first landed in 1966 at Spout Springs, a tiny Oregon ski area prior to coaching at White Pass near Yakima, and before stopping for good in Spokane during the winter of 1968-69. 

In between, he found time to explore Australia and “sell” a few more turns at Mt. Buffalo in Victoria. Back in Spokane, he eventually opened up a ski repair shop in 1973 that became “Loulou’s of Spokane Ltd”, a trendsetting store featuring the best brands in fashion. 

Obviously, Loulou was also one of my retailers when I was selling ski gear and I'll never forget his inventiveness, wheeling his paperwork and catalogs in carrying box around the Las Vegas ski show, long before luggage on wheels was invented.

After selling his shop a few years ago, Loulou still had the stamina to open up a ski museum at his original ski chalet in Spokane. Around 2014, he would be diagnosed with Parkinson disease that marked the beginning of a long and sad decline. 

I hope there’s plenty of “pow” waiting for you in Heaven, Loulou!

Going electric…

On this Friday the 13th, here’s a true, but fun story. Only the name of the hero has been changed to protect his identity. 

Early November of 2021, Charlie ordered a Tesla model Y. At first he was notified that he would only get his dream car around October of 2022, so he had plenty of time to salivate in view of his prized acquisition. 

Towards the end of the winter, things improved as the delivery date range moved from May 24 to July 3, then July 14 to August 25, before returning to May 25 to July 2 and finally happening this week. So, on Tuesday Charlie and his wife drove in their 10 year old Subaru to take possession of the coveted electrical car and sell their aging automobile. 

Before that, Charlie had forked what he thought was the biggest amount of money he ever paid for a car, but had consoled himself by knowing that, six month later, he had “saved” $7,200 dollars over its new, “current” price! 

This sped-up the normally interminable car buying process, and it was further accelerated by a sales person that didn’t want to help his kind of confused customers, just barely set the navigation system up for their next stop, and sent them on their way without explaining anything about the intricate screen-driven controls on the car. Charlie’s sole and remote experience with it was in fact the test drive he took a year before. 

Yet, he got in the car and went 15 miles down the road to sell the beloved “Subie”, his wife following carefully on a crowded freeway. The car that had sat in the sun at the dealership was hot, and Charlie couldn’t find the climate controls on the car impressive and forbiding screen… 

Once they managed to get there, all was good, but they were missing an important document and told to get it and return to complete the sale. That meant an 80 mile round-trip, but there was no choice. 

As they proceeded together in the new Tesla, Charlie noticed a “Low tire pressure” notice on his screen and soon his wife told him “We must have a flat on the front passenger tire!” The only and next best thing was for Charlie to immediately stop in the front entrance of a large Toyota dealership and realize that the front passenger tire was indeed flat. 

After much fumbling with the Tesla phone app, Charlie was connected to the brand’s roadside assistance and told to wait there for one hour and that a technician would probably mount a spare wheel on the brand new car.

Help arrived 60 minutes or so later in the form of a flatbed truck that took the car back to the Tesla service center as all the spare wheels had already been given out. Furious, sad and exhausted, Charlie and his wife were lucky to get on their (quite luckily) unsold car and drive the Subie back home. 

The following day they had to repeat the same process and uneventfully bring the new car to its final destination and that is the end of this electrifying story...

The 2cv Citroën and Tesla

Back in France in the 1950s, the Citroën 2cv was introduced to a market eager to buy automobiles. 

Just like today, demand was outstripping supply and the rustic and basic vehicle was attractive because of its weird simplicity combined with its low operating costs. 

It wasn’t particularly cheap and one had to be patient between the time the car was ordered and the moment it would be delivered. In 1951, waiting time could reach four years! It would shrink down to 3 years around 1954 and stabilize a bit after that. 

All along, the public was polarized between the car enthusiastic fan base and its vociferous detractors. 

Today, Tesla is experiencing the same iconoclastic destiny with its minimalists cars that it can’t produce fast enough to satisfy a growing demand exacerbated by skyrocketing fuel costs! As of now it takes more than six month to get a car from order to delivery time. 

Tesla also feels the love of its enthusiastic owners and users, while Big Oil is totally mad, the rest of the automobile industry is green with envy, and both are badmouthing the upstart whenever they get a chance. 

Once more, history seems to be repeating itself.

Is dissatisfaction fuel for achievement?

I love to read biographies and particularly those of hard-driven (but not necessarily successful) people. In many instances, what I take away from my reading is that dissatisfaction is a powerful driver in getting people to reaching out for more and achieving much more than individuals that are just content of their station in life. 

I certainly can relate to dissatisfaction. As a child, I was reared poor, I didn’t like it nor did I want to experience that condition for the rest of my life. This unpleasant feeling made me look for ways to escape it and find new avenues that would offer me more opportunities and deliver me from the perceived injustice of my situation, that was mostly related to a much lower position in society.

I don’t know for sure, but can’t say that my two siblings had the same aversion for their personal conditions or were more amenable to accepting their reality than me. What I can say is that, from the get go, my main driver was to escape my condition and improve my material status, because poverty, the alternative, was unacceptable to me. 

It wasn’t about climbing the social ladder, but simply about improving my economic condition. As time passed, markers other than poverty appeared and involved a host of other values that became desirable in comparison to my ways of doing or thinking, whether they were cultural or behavioral. Eventually, when satisfaction has replaced frustration, achievement finds other sources that can be linked to a longing for equity, balance, efficiency or even competitiveness. 

Dissatisfaction was the original trigger but over time lost its importance and eventually faded out altogether...

Have I become a fan of Carlos Ghosn?

I recently watched an interview of Carlos Ghosn, by the CNBC TV channel that was filmed from his Beirut hideout. I never was a fan of the Brazilian born car maverick, but that show moved the needle toward a better appreciation of who he is. 

The current warrant against him by the French government was the first topic covered, about which Ghosn said that currently, the Lebanese government was holding his passport, preventing him from going there. 

He questioned the reasons behind that warrant suspecting some presidential elections maneuvering (he and Macron don’t particularly get along), said that he was willing to face the French justice system and would prevail. 

He talked about the Japanese legal system, stressed that the UN had voiced an unequivocal support against his detention, and once more claimed his total innocence on all counts. He also made some interesting comments about the car industry and Tesla that I thought were totally relevant. 

Sure, Ghosn is a born salesman, storyteller and BS artist overflowing with larceny, but I found some irresistible charm in his character and his French accented account peppered with some good French expression to underscore his unique show…

Accepting imperfection while seeking perfection

As we move on in life, we tend to expect perfection into everything. It becomes our default mode, yet it’s seldom available on the life market. 

We need to train ourselves to accept and live with a host of imperfect situations. This perhaps is what makes us appreciate the holy grail that perfection is or could be. 

So, it works like this: We see what perfection should be, we aim for it, work hard for its attainment and hope for the best. If the outcome isn’t quite there, we’ll be willing and ready to settle for less-than-perfect, but we’ll still keep trying. 

At the same time when we experience or see less than perfect objects or situations, we recognize them for what they are and always see the parts or places that could use some tweaks in the direction of perfection. 

All this is perfectly simple.

Clean cars and sacrifices

Modern electric cars have appeared with the advent of the first Teslas, 13 years ago. 

In fact, Elon Musk’s brand began production of its Roadster sports car, in 2009. It was followed by the Model S sedan in 2012, the Model X SUV in 2015, the Model 3 sedan in 2017, and the Model Y crossover in 2020.

In retrospective, it’s been quite a long time and yet, many folks have stayed on the fence for a few significant reasons. Price was obviously one of them, but the biggest one was the driving range and the seemingly long and frequent recharging times. 

Over these dozen years, other car manufacturers have done little to respond to Tesla challenge and their offering doesn’t come even close to what Tesla has been able to bring to market and steadily improve. 

So between these lackluster models that are very hard to come by, Tesla’s long waiting time and a negative press concocted by its competitors as well as Big Oil, electric vehicles still have a long way to go. 

This said, let’s not forget the most compelling reason the public want them; not just because they’re cool, but because they represent a small, but important step to saving our planet for generations to come. 

Isn’t it worth making some small sacrifices for?

Putin, Trump and the GOP…

Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent the new world order and appear to share the same values: Lies, hypocrisy and fascism. 

They can’t stand democracy because it involves listening, taking many divergent and various points of view in consideration, being patient, looking for the long-term and staying open-minded. 

These skills are beyond the comprehension, skills and willingness of these three entities, that prefer fast moving, unilateral, brutal and easy action. They don’t have time for including everyone or listening to different opinions.

Instead, they prefer expediency and making quick, easy decisions on behalf of everyone, even if it means sacrificing the long-term for a paltry, present gain. Further, they leverage their hypocrisy by leveraging religion and the support of religious fanatics to advance their agenda. 

These entities are sawing the branch they’re sitting on, but are so blindly following their ideology that their ability to realize they’re doing it.

A long Nine Mile Road

The lady at the Moab tourist office is quite knowledgeable and when I asked her to suggest some spots to visit on our return trip to Park City, she suggested that we took the “Nine Mile Road” near Price, Utah. 

The Nine Mile Canyon is a natural conduit through the Book Cliffs shale and sandstone escarpment that stretches 200 miles from Price Canyon into neighboring Colorado to their north side. The Book Cliffs are a massive formation. 

It forms a backdrop to the corridor from Helper, Price and Wellington and on down to Green River and that particular canyon is famous for its well-preserved and abundant collection of prehistoric petroglyphs, constituting a “drive-in” art gallery of sort.

These were the work of the Fremont, whose presence in Nine Mile Canyon goes back from AD 950 to 1250. The “Nine Mile” name is a misnomer in the sense that it stretches up to more than 46 miles long. We did it all, stopping at each marked point of interest, took plenty of pictures and we in awe at the scenery. 

We then took a dusty and steep 6 mile dirt road due north toward Myton, preceding a nice pave road after clearing the pass, into the Uinta plateau and its multitude of active oil wells and returned home via Duchesne on Route 40.

Beating a Dead Horse?

Moab is famous about its two National Parks, but also offers a State Park that is almost every bit as good if not even more impressive and it’s called Dead Horse Point. 

Overlooking both the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park, is represents a 5,362 acres (2,170 ha) expanse of high desert at an altitude of 5,900 feet (1,800 m).

It draws its name from a story that happened in the late 1800’s when the place was used as a corral for wild mustangs roaming the mesa top. 

Cowboys herded them across the narrow neck of land and onto the point. The narrow neck was then fenced off with branches and brush. One time, for some unknown reason, horses were left corralled on a spot without any water where they died of thirst within view of the Colorado River 2,000 feet below. 

This huge drop is what makes the place spectacular and breathtaking. There are also trails for hiking and easy mountain biking. We took a long hike that gave us an expanded view of the pace and its impressive cliffs...

Canyonland National Park

We had visited that Park once before, but not in such detail and by taking so many hikes. What we did for the day, was more than 8 miles hikes around the area, which is a lot, especially factoring some of the rugged terrain we went through. 

That said, the weather was perfect; cool temperatures and beautiful skies as well as reasonable crowds in places that are generally jammed-packed with tourists, with foreign groups conspicuously absent. 

We had a great day, were a bit tired at the end and next time, plan to visit the Needles section of that park. 

We visiter the Shaffer view point, Mesa Arch, Green River Overlook, Grand view point overlook and pushed all the way onto the 1 mile ledge, and finally, hike to Murphy Point.

Back in Moab

It’s been several years now, since we haven't been back to Moab, in beautiful southern Utah. 

The pandemic had its way of messing up everything and I didn’t mind the four hour drive on a cloudy Sunday from Park City and was delighted to see once more the famous red rocks cradling that little tourist town of 5,500 people on the Colorado river.

Not much had chance, not even its infamous Brew Pub, its usual crowd, okay beer and disgusting food. 

On our way down to Moab, I reminded my wife, that the first time I had been made aware of that picturesque desert oasis-town, was in the early eighties, when I was becoming to get restless about living on the East Coast and had come across an ad in the “Business Opportunities” section of the Wall Street journal abou that “Country store for sale in Moab”. 

That ad had made me dream of escaping my job with Lange at the time and moving West to a more colorful and wild place. That germinating dream would continue to grow, shape up and eventually become reality, not in Moab, but in Park City!

Breaking up the routine

Having a routine is useful as it gives us plenty of structure, maintains us on a steady path and doesn’t continually forces us to re-invent ourselves. As we get older, though, routines become much harder to change, break or add-on to. 

I’m not talking about changing elements that are forced on us by age, like “I stop hang-gliding or rock-climbing!” but more by less obvious, destructive habits, like tending a vegetable that has become too much work, living in a house that is now unmanageable or sticking to a dubious hobby that’s a waste of time. 

We become caged-up by them and it helps, from time to time, to review and question everything we do. This, of course, is much easier said than done, as routine is so comfortable that, deep inside, we don’t want to change a bit of it. 

Yet, as we change throughout our lives, we should always check our “operating system”, not so much as a way to improve it, but to see what’s wrong with it, useless, passé or of course detrimental or even dangerous to us. 

How do we start inspecting what populates our days? By taking a critical look at everything we do and ask ourselves, “What am I missing? What do I do wrong? Do I still need doing this or that? Would I be more at peace or relieved without that way of proceeding?” 

Obviously, the list of question we can ask ourselves and the facets of our lives we can change are endless, but unless we consider the process, our entire way of life might slowly become obsolete and unpleasant to manage...

The beauty of Ninety-Nine 90

Of all the lifts and hills around Park City Mountain and Deer Valley Resort, my favorite spot is Ninety-Nine 90, a 1,536 vertical drop, high-speed quad lift where I spend most of my good quality ski time during the winter. 

The name, “9990” stands for the altitude of the ridge above. It’s the best combo of difficult, steep and highly diverse terrain. It’s also a very fast lift (6 min 15 sec ride) with very limited crowds. 

There a lots of nooks and crannies, hard-to-memorize passages, limited-lines spots, plenty of trees to pay attention to, and the best snow quality around. I love to run laps on that lift, staying as close as possible to the chairlift line. 

On two occasions, in 2019 and 2020, I ran 25 laps on that lift non-stop at an average of 9 min 49 sec per lap. This is about 9,389 ft vertical per hour, less than some other lifts, but so difficult that it tend to make the vertical drop number meaningless. 

It keeps me in shape, engages me fully and forces me to pay super attention. I hope I can ski it for many more years to come...