Irritation, the step-child of emotions

When we discuss emotions, we often overlook irritation and it’s never something people like to talk about it because of its insidious, unpleasant and indirect nature. 

It’s generally defined as “a state of excessive, easily provoked anger, annoyance, or impatience.” In other words a full package of emotions unleashing on us. 

When we feel irritated, we aren’t our usual selves. We’re on edge, we get upset as the slightest thing can set us off at any moment. It can make us snappy, rude and hard to be around. At least this is pretty much how I feel. 

It generally happens to me when everything is going smoothly for me, and then, all of a sudden, boom! Something comes out of nowhere to mess up my well-organized routine and God, I hate it! Well, that’s my reality and I’ve looking at some remedies to deal with it. 

Experts mention meditation, muscle relaxation, writing our thoughts down, getting support from others or finding a positive distraction, which all sound good, but not really effective, except for meditation. 

So, with not so many tools available my best course of action seems to have the courage of facing it and dealing with it.

Gun-crazy America

Almost 50 mass shootings already and the first month of 2023 is not even over... 

With more guns than there are people in the United States, there is no shortage of firearm. Add to this a national culture of violence and seemingly more people with mental issues, we have everything it takes to see more of it. 

This grotesque situation was punctuated a few days by the absurd death of a hunter shot by his own dog, which contradicts what the pro-gun lobby that “Only people kill people, not guns”. Well not it this case, that theory is going to the... dogs. 

When will come the day when America becomes both smarter and finally civilized to realize that its blind faith of the 2nd Amendment is archaic and begins cleaning up its demented arsenal?

Finally, time to be grateful!

Until recently, I never thought about gratefulness in general and was placing the good experiences of my life on the account of luck, like the chance resulting from certain encounters or just being in a good spot at the right time.

Yet, gratefulness wasn’t not necessarily on my daily radar and this is something I tend to regret today because I missed that opportunity for too long. 

Now that I’m with my two feet well planted in the midst of old age, it finally dawns on me that being grateful at each and every moment of my life is something that must become part of me like the simple act of breathing. 

That’s exactly right, from that point forward, I’m bathing in a sea of gratefulness and this is becoming the backdrop of my remaining years, no matter what happens to me and how my future turns out. Grateful I feel and I hope I shall remain!

After the Davos World Economic Forum

In reading what happened at the 2023 Forum in Davos, I wanted to compile how the world intend to tackle its biggest issues this year so we can compare with reality a year from now... 

The economy we are told is not as bad as thought before the forum and the global outlook will in fact be better than feared, but of course, no one want to spook the planet with bad news and create a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Ukraine, the second topic of importance, was all about getting the invaded country weapons to defend itself, but no one has the foggiest idea how long the conflict will last and what kind of outcome we are likely to see. No one voiced my opinion that the only solution resides in getting rid of Putin. 

On trade, we seem to go away from globalism and wealthy groups nations like the US, Europe and China are defending and pushing their industrial policies, seemingly at the expense of weaker nations. 

After having a good, super profitable year, oil and fossil fuel producers are still counting on wealthy countries to pay for the climate destruction in non-polluting countries when they should be the ones to foot the bill, as the UN General Secretary discovered a few days ago. 

As far as the Tech industry goes, the big topic was the importance of artificial intelligence in a background of layoffs of tens of thousands of employees globally, as the industry is under enormous cost pressure and needs to find ways to do things cheaper. 

China for its part declared that it was open again for business with a growth forecast of 4.5% according to Crédit Suisse. We’ll see… 

Fighting inflation worldwide is another challenge that also takes place in the context of open competition between Europe and America and that has lagging economic effects... 

Finally the anticipated financial slowdown has global financial institutions grappling with how to right-size for a slowdown, while dealing with a host of other challenges, including financing the global transition to a greener future much faster than has happened so far. Other events related to geopolitics and cybersecurity risks are further adding to the complexity. 

Overall, consensus was hard to reach at the Forum and it will be interesting to see, in a year, how close reality these vague, general directions will be…

Finally, one step forward in ski boots!

Attempts to create a cable closure system in ski boots are not really new. Raichle had it in the late 60s, improved it a bit on its plastic boots and later, Ed Chalmers’ Osprey boot based its lower shell closure on it, but never reach market. 

As the rear-entry boot design was sent to ski industry’s hell, most cable closure systems pretty much disappeared from ski boots and it was the return to the antique four-buckle closure system. 

In 2001, Gary Hammerslag, a snowboarder and surfer entrepreneur who had moved to Steamboat, Colorado, envisioned to dramatically improve the snowboard boot lacing systems by creating BOA, a micro-adjustable, precision fit that would ultimately equip K2 and Vans in 2001. 

The two brand partners that took a chance have now become over 300 snowboarding brand partners using BOA. The system was later applied to trail running, bike shoes, randonnée boots and next season it will be transferred to alpine ski boots made by Atomic, Fischer, K2 et Salomon.

Will the system be strong enough for stiffer, lower shells? How hard will they be to tighten manually? Will it last as least as long as the venerable buckles harking back to the 60s? 

Many questions that remain to be answered, but for once, a tiny bit of innovation in a product that has seen no major breakthrough in more than half a century!

Bear thieves do it again!

On October 1st 2018, a bear sculpture showing the animal sipping its morning coffee was stolen from a house in our neighborhood and was never recovered. 

After being replaced 18 month later, we learned three days ago that it had been, once more, stolen. 

This time, the Park City Police Department is asking for the public’s help in recovering that unique artwork. “We are asking for the public’s help in finding a missing bear,” said a statement from the PCPD. “The bear is 3 to 4 feet tall, weighs about 60 pounds, likes to drink coffee and is loved by family and neighbors alike.”

The owners paid a local artist $8,000 to create a new one and secured the statue to a boulder with bolts and adhesive, but it didn’t resist the robbers’ brute force. 

If you happen to see that bear around your friend or neighbor’s house, call our police department at 435-615-5500. I’m not certain, but I assume there will be a reward between $1 and $8,000!

Our 2023 Sundance movie

The Sundance Film Festival happens once a year at Park City and Covid cancelled it for the past two winters, so it was only right that we attended at least one movie to mark the return of the event. 

The one we picked was the premiere of “La Pecera” (The Fishbowl), a dark movie about a woman suffering from cancer, which not only was hard to watch, but also, in our opinion, whose story was poorly told. 

Yeah, we weren’t happy about our choice, not to mention the fact that it took a long time to get there and back home with our complicated transit system, jammed up buses, traffic gridlock and freezing temperatures. But we soldiered on and did it. 

One should make a (good) movie out of that story!

Want to ski comfortably for a long time?

My hero, Klaus Obermeyer is quoted to have said that “The longer you ski, the longer you live.” Whether you buy this argument or not, if you want to ski comfortably for a very long time, I will share with you some of my personal rules for getting there. 

1. First, you need to more than like skiing, you must be passionate about it. If you are, you will want to ski for a very long time, no matter what happens along the way. How do you get to that state? Perhaps by doing it a lot (mileage) and getting improving along the way. 
   
2. Prior to this however, my rules requires a regular, year-round exercise regimen that can include walking, hiking, running or cycling, all leg-oriented activities and also assume that your joints are strong and in good condition. 
3. Continue working on refining your ski technique. Not for the gallery's sake (there’s none of that in skiing, as most people are too concerned by surviving on their skis instead of watching other practitioners. You will need that if you want to become more efficient as you age and compensate for a crumbling physical body. 
4. Understand how to harness speed variations to your advantage. Ski instruction is very deficient in recognizing and discussing the importance of speed management and, has a skier grows older, speed allied with good technique often compensate for weaker muscles and dwindling physical strength. 
5. Develop muscle-memory at every occasions. To attain this, do uninterrupted runs, even if you must feel lactic acid hurting your thighs. Try new runs, new itineraries to enrich your skills and your mountain knowledge; don’t ever settle into a routine or a rut. 
6. Also, remember to remember the elements of ski technique that for strange reasons never want to belong to muscle-memory by making a conscious effort to include them when the going gets tough. 
7. Keep on going! Go out no matter the weather conditions; thin snow, deep powder, icy runs, difficult, rotten snows, poor visibility or very cold weather. always make the effort to get out and in 95% of the cases you’ll end up having a much better experience that you thought you would, and in the process, you’ll have added more to your quiver of skills. 
8. Always push the envelope of technical difficulty while remaining prudent. Embrace mistakes, incident or even accidents as you’ll learn much from each of them. Don’t let them then down you. I you have a bad run, do it again to exorcise its negative impression! 
9. Don’t take unnecessary risks, always remain prudent, make room for some reasonable margin of safety and think self-preservation. 
10. Share what you know with others, technique, good spots, powder stashes. The more you’ll do it, the more it will return dividends to you… 

Always keep smiling, but obviously, if you do all the above you can only smile as you grow into the old and capable skier you wanted to become in the first place!

Parking, skiing hardest part

It used to be that skiing difficulties had to do with snow quality, coverage, slopes difficulties, crowding and affordability, but today in Park City, it’s become finding a place to park one’s car. 

I know, I should carpool or take mass-transit, but I still don’t and it’s not unusual for me to spend 15 to 30 minutes looking for a parking spot, or more often, waiting patiently for one to get free as I mostly ski in the afternoon and a few skiers that have been making turns since 9 am are ready to head back home.

So, as I cruise the large parking lot I not only look for the extremely rare vacant slot, but scan the best I can to the left and the right to see a skier and his party loading their skis, taking off their boots and extra clothing before returning home. 

Talk about a totally new set of skills I’m adding to my quiver, which goes to say that I never stop learning!

Can we boost our brain power?

While we’re talking about the brain, let’s continue (see yesterday’s blog)… 

The next logical question is, can we exercise our brain to work harder and produce more, or is it already working overtime for us that there’s no room for improvement? Some people disagree and believe there is, in fact, a way to increase its power, which is exactly what I hope... 

Sure, it’s hard to believe, yet alone think, that we can train our brain to do more, but with “neuroplasticity”, the theory that claims that our brains have the ability to change, we can train them to do more and better. 

There are – according to some experts - seven simple methods to boost our brain capacity and improve intelligence. 

• Meditation is one of them, I’m sold on it, having been a practitioner for more than three years. 
• Exercising physically is another one and I’m fortunate to have it part of my lifetime habits. 
• Writing, is a good method of telling the memory what's important, clarifying our thoughts, and helping us remember things more easily in the future while exercising our analytical ability and creativity. 
• Listening to some Mozart. This may sound strange, but a study at University of California, scientists discovered that kids who sang daily in chorus and studied piano, were a lot better at solving puzzles, and scored 80 percent better in spatial intelligence than a non-musical group. I should do it! 
• Laughing releases endorphins that reduce stress levels. I should do more of it! 
• Eating healthy is said to have a massive impact on our brain function. Feed it right and it’ll work better! 
• Finally, sleeping is like a mini-detoxification for our brain. I do it regularly every night and it’s another one of my lifetime habits. 

So, if I were to fully adopt and maintain these seven habits, why in the world would I need more brain power?

Life energy management

Yesterday, I was saying that I had found a way to “tap” into some extra source of energy and after thinking about what I wrote, I asked myself “How much could that amount to?” or “How much force or energy do we need to go through a typical day?” 

That question brought me back to our brains and made me realize that this organ of ours that represents just 2% of out body weight, consumes 20% of our body's energy. This means that during a typical day, we use about 320 calories just to think.

That’s right, our brain runs continuously, whether awake or sleeping, on only about 12 watts of power. For comparison, a typical desktop computer draws around 175 watts, and a laptop less than half of that at 60 watts, so our thinking organ is very efficient. 

So back to what I was saying yesterday, if my brain power is maxed out, why not use some extra help (or watts) from the cosmic forces it have a way to tap into it? No, I haven’t measured how much energy I was borrowing from the universe, but that will be the subject of an upcoming blog!

Cosmic fuel for you and me...

We can all use some magic or secret fuel to take us to go farther, reach higher, do things more efficiently and feel more secure about ourselves. 

The question of course is, where can we find such a potent fuel? If it can’t be found in foods, drinks or drugs that we can access fairly easily, so where can it be? 

For the past three years, I’ve been bringing myself closer and closer to this magic source of energy that stimulates my life. It was in fact more an accident than a determined quest. No, it’s not edible or drinkable and it’s not drug, pharmaceutical or illegal.

Mystical or unexplored scientifically? Probably. Yet, when you know how to tap into it, it’s free, abundant, and just requires steady work and solid concentration. 

t’s not an exaggeration to say that it has changed my life and make it more pleasurable and exciting if I’m will to put forth the effort it requires. The hard part is to explain how I actually got there. 

When I will, I’ll let you and the world know...

Is the Davos World Economic Forum useful?

For the first time since 2020, the Davos meeting is back in session. From January 16 to January 20, top decision-makers from government, business, and civil society (let’s call them “celebrities”) are supposed to address major global issues and priorities for the year ahead.

That’s the idea, but the reality is that the 2.500 to 3,000 people making that trip are primarily flocking to the Swiss resort to promote themselves and their self-interests. I wasn’t invited, so I didn’t go, besides I prefer skiing Park City over Davos! 

Yet, it’s useful to remember that the get-together was founded in 1971 as the European Management Forum by Klaus Schwab, a business professor at the University of Geneva. In 1987 it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in an effort to broaden its scope. 

Today, the forum’s goal is to improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Since the last get-together, much has happened in the world; relations between the US and China are worse than they were then. The pandemic has made countries much weaker and nervous and the golden age of globalization is now under siege. So what we expect this summit to accomplish, if anything? 

With no executive power whatsoever it’s more of a gigantic global talking shop at which world leaders take the opportunity to rub shoulders with each other and industry leaders can make deals behind closed doors. Just don’t count on it to improve your daily lives...

Unique in Utah: skiing in the fog

If there’s one thing I’d never done in Park City in almost 40 years, was ski in a thick fog. This just happened yesterday as I was planning to enjoy some great snow and trying to make the best out of 3 hours of afternoon skiing at Ninety-nine-90, my favorite spot. 

The last time I remember skiing in that delirious substance was back in the days when I was instructing in Avoriaz, France, a place often shrouded by fog because of a perfect combination of altitude and high humidity. 

I quickly remembered that skiing in the fog is no fun, especially in fairly deep snow and steep terrain, you get that “sinking feeling” and you don’t know where you’ll stop or what will swallow you alive. 

This could be compared to “white knuckle driving”, but that instantly took care of my speed, my assurance and my fluidity, but in spite of that I stuck around till closing time, when of course, the fog cleared and made room for more snow.

Thanks again, global warming!

Snow and solar panels…

My solar panels have been totally snow-covered in 2023 and with it, I get no power from the sky. Like the rest, this will pass and eventually the snow will slide when the load is heavy enough for that. 

Granted, my roof pitch is not very steep, just 4:12, meaning an angle of about 18.4°, so the snow is more likely to linger for a while. 

Of course, I’d like to find a solution to that problem, but my initial research has shown that the best way to do it would be to ignore it, simply because it just won’t stay there forever and risking my life to climb on the roof and pushing the snow off the panels isn’t quite worth it. 

Obviously, if the distance allow it, one might try a squeegee or a rake at the end of a long pole, but here again, it’s asking for trouble as 100 pounds or more of hard, frozen snow might fall on the operator. Finally, all these attempts of removing forcibly the snow might simply damage the panels. 

This said, I have thought of using some electric air blower or water spray to remove the snow, but I don’t want to add more gizmos on my roof, so I’m still scratching my head for a revolutionary solution!

Discovering ChatGPT

One month or so ago, I heard from the first time about ChatGPT, a language processing tool that was launched on November 30, 2022, by San Francisco-based OpenAI. 

ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence technology that allows you to have human-like conversations and much more with a chatbot, a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users. 

The language model can answer questions, assist you with tasks such as composing emails, essays and code. 

The use of ChatGPT is currently made available to the public free of charge as ChatGPT is still being developed and looking for feedback. 

OpenAI is also responsible for creating DALLE•2, a popular AI art generator, and Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system. 

Upon its release, ChatGPT made a big splash. Less than two months after it was released, ChatGPT already has millions of users. I’m just at the exploratory stage and when I have done something worthwhile with it, if I ever succeed, I’ll chime in!

Switching to qualitative skiing

Not so long ago I announced that my skiing would evolve from a quantitative focus into a qualitative one. I’m now ready to turn on the switch, but I want to explain what it’s all about. 

Since I’m no longer a young buck, I think it time to think in accordance with my age and keep up, if not with its growing number, but the growing limitations it might soon impose on me. 

It’s also more than timely to worry about my safety and that of others as well as my longevity. I don’t wish to die on skis, even though many might say “I wish I could die doing something I love, like skiing!” 

This means taking my foot of the gas pedal, avoiding collisions and abstaining from skiing under bad conditions (poor visibility, terrible snow, dense trees). 

The next objective, obviously is to remain-super efficient and why not, chase even more efficacy while I ski to make up with my dwindling force and my diminishing VO2 max. With this quest for efficiency comes a bonus, and it’s grace or good form on ski. 

The less we do with anything that has nothing to do with a skier’s legs, the better the overall impression, even though I’m no longer worried about skiing for the gallery. 

Since I ski a lot alone, too much perhaps, I’ll also try to be more social, less of curmudgeon and invite my good neighbors to ski with me and share my wisdom on snow. 

Finally, when I ski by myself, I’m not going to take the easy way out. Instead, I’ll continue to seek difficulty in everything lines I take and I will endeavor to complete all of my runs non-stop.

News-proofing myself

No matter where one’s gets their news, they are negative in their majority and after a while, that flood of negativity impregnate us to the point that we all go south mentally. 

This is why I try to watch my consumption of news, first by being picky with the media I watch (as neutral and balanced as possible) and by the frequency of my exposure to it. 

Giving up social media has been a godsend and finally, when I get exposed to news, I always asked myself the question: “What can I do about it?” If there is something I can do based on my current ability and disposition, I will. It will also enrich and firm up my opinion. 

Also, while I acknowledge my emotions (anger, frustration, fear, culpability), I try my best not to let them cloud my views, I move on to other things and as time goes by, I get better at it everyday!

Is belief in life after death fueled by greed?

The Pew Research Center reported last year that 73% of adults in America believe in heaven while 62% also believe in hell. While more than 25% don’t seem to believe in either heaven or hell this only leave 16% of Americans that don’t believe in any kind of afterlife. 

So why did religions invent life after death, as an unparalleled incentive program? What was the most powerful motivator for humans? What it sex? Power? No, it was simply Greed. Because the more possessions you have, the more you want, still. 

Greed is obviously at the center of human nature and is something I believe that can’t be fully satisfied during a lifetime, so what does greed make us do? Simply forget about being grateful about the miracle of life we were privileged to live, refuse to accept any form of loss, but look for something totally guaranteed, unlimited in time and even better after the day we cease to exist. 

This was the incentive religions were looking after and found immediately when they needed to control humans, make them build temples or cathedral, or exploited them to no end for their institutional benefits. 

The attraction for greed sells to the point it fills mosques, churches and other houses of cult with some promise of some fabulous jackpot. Is it possible that greedy folks are so blinded by their trait that they forget to think a tiny bit intelligently? 

Let’s simply remember that if something is “too good to be true” it’s probably false!

How good is our new transit system?

In November, I had explained our upgraded transit system, including on-demand microbus. 

Yesterday, I tested it and, as I feared, it wasn’t that simple. In the afternoon, I got dressed, put my ski boots on and dialed my ride at 1:11pm, using the phone app. 

My ride supposed to show up in 10 minutes made it in 15 and dropped me by a bus stop, but very close to the ski lifts, so I decided to walk and not take the bus. I arrived at the lift at 1:44 pm. No bad, but not great. My car would had taken me there in 7 minutes. 

On the way back home, it got more complicated. I took off my skis at 4:14 pm and walk to the bus loading area. There was none going to my subdivision, so I jumped in the next best vehicle that took me to the Park City High School. 

When I got there however, the app told me to take a bus back to the one going to MY neighborhood, so I took a half a mile shortcut and got there, hopped in the next bus, called a microbus and was home by 5:00 pm. In both cases, I had a hell of a time fitting my skis in the minivan ski rack. 

So, all in all, a long time on the road plus a two times half a mile hike, so long in fact, that next time, I might continue taking my car!

Skiing “Pinapple Express” snow

On Tuesday, I went skiing in the afternoon and after a sunny morning snow returned with a vengeance as we were under an additional “Atmospheric River” that was sent to us from Hawaii. 

The snow was super-wet, stuck to my goggles and I couldn’t see a things. 

I took three runs on my favorite, as high as I could get and then threw the towel and went home. I was wondering “What happened to the Greatest Snow on Earth?” That super-dry snow that Utah is internationally famous for… 

Always nostalgic, I had not experience such a wet snow since my days at Avoriaz in the early seventies. Well some of that experience is simply global warming and that kind of wet stuff might be encountered more frequently in the upcoming winters. 

We’ll see, but that day, I went home all wet and totally despondent...

Annie Lanvers, 1943-2013

My sister-in-law, Annie passed away this Sunday. She and my brother Gaston had met during the winter of 1973, when she came as a teacher with her elementary class from Paris, for a month in Morzine, as this was customary in France back in those days. 

They got married in September 1973 and Annie got a job as a teacher in the newly created, tiny school at the nascent Avoriaz ski resort, catering to a handful of kids, before being appointed later on at Morzine, a well established community down valley. 

Annie was a city girl who had to adapt to the rough, rural lifestyle of my home village of Montriond. I never really had a chance to know her well enough since I left the family home in 1974 and France in 1977. 

As a result our relationship was always cordial but not really close. In recent years, Annie ran into some terrible health problems as she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, had lung cancer and suffered from some horrible pains attributable to a fall in her kitchen. 

In addition, she had to accompany her husband Gaston through his very long and harrowing lung disease, until his death in August 2020.

My last communication with her was a call for help; at the end of December she fell on the floor, was alone, and needed assistance. Some unfortunate circumstances will prevent me to attend her funerals scheduled for Friday, bu I will very much be there in thoughts thinking how her grand-daughter Victoria, her son Yves and all of us will miss her.

Ready for “quality skiing”?

After a personal lifetime record in 2022, (a total 2,340,302 vertical feet descended for 122 days of skiing) in my 75th year, I think it’s about time I began taking the foot off the pedal and usher a more qualitative skiing era. 

A slower pace might be fun though, still educational for me, less dangerous to others, and also enable me to fine tune my skiing finesse and my overall efficiency as I advance in age. 

Obviously, most of it is about refining my technique and never taking anything (or any turn) for granted, so this might be very interesting to watch. 

Less speed will also demand more attention as momentum is no longer present to forgive sloppy skiing and get me through (almost anything). 

So with that in mind, don’t expect hair-raising velocities from me anyomore, just smell the surrounding pine trees and appreciate a smoother ride. I can always speed up my videos...

Adelboden’s snow ribbon

The Adelboden Giant Slalom that took place yesterday is among the classic Alpine ski races no ski racing enthusiast want to miss. 

For many years, my imagination was telling me that, like racers dancing on its famous GS run, the name came from Adele’s dance floor (which could be “boden” in German). 

Yet, I was wrong, Adelboden has a rich and long history and was first mentioned 614 years ago in 1409 as “valle Adelboden” in which the first part of the name comes from the plant name “Adelgras” that is an Alpine meadow grass and was combined with the generic name “boden” that suggested a lower-lying, flat mountain meadow. 

So sorry, no dancing ski racers, just dancing cows in the summer! 

More seriously, the lack of snow has made this year’s giant slalom a challenge and a highly uncertain event with a thin snow ribbon, high temperatures and soft snow.

Still, the very best were present at the finish line and on the podium with Odermatt winning at home before Kristofferson who really is on a roll this winter and his countrymate Meillard! Hopefully, next year will be better and skiers will be dancing on better snow, instead of just letting the Adelbodenese cows do it in summer!

Record snow falls and atmospheric river

Our record breaking current snow has been caused by another “Pineapple Express”, the name for an atmospheric river that forms near Hawaii, pineapple’country. 

That kind of precipitation carries warm, moist air north to the West Coast of North America, where it can drop up to 5 inches of rain a day. 

This large, narrow stream of water vapor up in the sky can stretch to 1,000 miles long and more than 400 miles wide, and on average, carries an amount of water equivalent to 25 Mississippi Rivers, according to Marty Ralph, a researcher and director at the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

The term atmospheric river was first coined in 1998 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Yong Zhu and Richard Newell, but ARs had been observed before then. They usually begin life in the tropical ocean regions near the equator, and can bring large masses of warm air and water to areas like North America's west coast. 

As the rivers cross from the ocean to the land and then to the Rocky Mountains, the vapor condenses into precipitation, sometimes dumping a month's worth of rain or snow in a matter of days. In altitude, where snow normally starts falling at 36-37 degrees F, it will still be rain at 30 degrees F as it did few days ago in Park City when that atmospheric river reached us...

Vail Resorts poor tree management

Ever since Vail Resorts purchased Park City Mountain (PCM), I noticed that the resort stopped cutting bushes and so-called whippers on most ski runs that had been gladed, even though I begged Mike Goar, the former general manager to do something about it, thing he royally ignored. 

I’ve also noticed that unlike its neighbor and competitor Deer Valley, PCM doesn’t seem to care about fallen trees on ski runs and other spaces open to skiers and snowboarders. They just ski on them or avoid them in order not to impale themselves into their roots or branches sticking out. 

I’ve also see a widow-maker (detached tree top) hanging and waiting to fall on users on skier’s right next to Silverlode lift. Recently, I saw several fallen tree obstructing ski run or areas that weren’t closed to users’ traffic. 

Yes, a behavior of neglect that amounts to a total disregard for safety! 

It is in this context that a 29 years old PCM employee riding a lift was kicked out of his chair and send 25 foot below to his death when a tree fell on the chairlift cable. 

Hopefully this needless tragedy will serve as a lesson to PCM and force them to pay attention to the health and the danger some of their trees and other vegetation pose to skiers and snowboarders...

The French and Retirement

This January, there will be plenty of strikes in France to protest the change in retirement age that president Macron wants to implement. He’d like push up the retirement age by three years to 65, making younger generations work longer.  

The minimum retirement age would be gradually increased from 62 now to 65 by 2031. This would apply to people who worked enough to qualify. Those who do not fulfill the conditions, like many women who interrupt their career to raise their children, must currently work until 67. 

Pensions and vacations are very important to my countrymen and changing it will be tough, but doing nothing would force the government to decrease the size of pensions.

Further, among the OECD nations French are the ones who retire among the earliest, so someone if not Macron should diplomatically remind them about that “French exception!”

Getting used to “2023”

When we used to write checks to pay for everything, it was always difficult not to write the date of the previous year for the first payments made in January, and as we write a lot less of them, this simple act becomes even more difficult to achieve correctly.

I personally have a hard time realizing that I’m living into a brand new year. Further, since 2022 was pretty good to me, why should I take a chance and bet everything I have on a totally unknown entity like 2023? Well, it’s the same old duality between the devil we know and the one we don’t. 

How can we trust change when the usual routine felt so nice and when there’s no guarantee whatsoever that things won’t be at least as good and not worse than the year before? Well, I think I won’t have many other choices but accept my fate and embrace the uncertainty and the mixture of fear and positive expectations. 

If we’re often lucky to be afforded many options, we have none in this particular case, so better say: “Welcome 2023!” and shut up.

Once-a-year re-connection

I enjoyed this Holiday Season a lot, because I finally turned 75 years old and think I got a bit more wiser in the process. 

We also got together and had fun as a small family, and I got in touch with all my friends the world over and most of them showed up for that once-a-year reunion, whether it was on the phone, via video, email or text messaging and all of this it made me feel extremely good.

Staying connected takes a small effort from all of us, and I wish most of my friends whom I’ve not yet heard from would sample the pleasure of showing up in taking just a few moments to express that they’re still there and value our special connection, wherever they might be on our open and so well connected planet!

Communication ski instructor’s style

A few days ago, as I was riding a lift with my daughter, the four other passengers were a ski instructor (male) and his three students. From bottom to top, he was preaching his view of the ski technique by using words and explanations that made not much sense in English.

He was talking about “transition” instead of turn and of “long legs” vs. “short legs” instead of bending one’s knees and there was a multitude of other arcane and senseless words that I cannot remember, but that were peppering his entire spiel.

The students were two mature parents and their teenage daughter, and while the mom seemed enthralled by the senseless explanations, asking follow-up question, the instructor had long lost the two others. 

Unfortunately, this instructor isn’t alone and I suspect some of that techno-gobbledygook is the product of how instructors are taught instructing skiing without even for a moment trying to record themselves, put themselves inside their student helmets and listen to what their complicated assembled words sound like...

Leaping forward into 2023!

The first thought that come to my mind as we begin a new year is how grateful I am to still participate in that magical world and to remain in good health. 

I still see my life beautiful in spite of the multiple wars tearing the planet apart, the dangers of overpopulation and global warming and our delinquent political system. 

We were so lucky to exist and be part of what we know as life that there is nothing we can complain about. Nonexistence doesn’t compare to life, period. 

So, as we start 2023, our common challenge is to find a way to make a difference towards improving brotherhood in this world and taking better care of our delicate and wonderful planet. 

There’s no excuse for not impacting these area positively.

Happy New Year!