Isn’t YouTube a good tool?

Last weekend, I repaired the gas pilot light on my living room fireplace. 

Three days before, it had stopped working and I didn’t feel like taking the glass door and putting it back in (a real practical challenge!), so I called the company that had installed it 9 years ago to come and fix it. 

The girl I spoke to told me two startling things: First a tech couldn’t come before March 31 and it was cost me $215 for the visit, not including any part needed or overtime. This in itself was a sobering thought. Not only the service would be delayed, but to add insult to injury, likely to cost me an arm and a leg. 

So, after a brief pause I took my usual education trip into YouTube, found several possible solutions for solving the problem and decided not to go skiing Saturday and resolve the problem myself. I did what I thought I should do and it worked. 

Putting back the glass door was entirely another awful story that took me more than an hour, but I finally succeed and saved myself plenty of waiting time and good money. 

Thanks YouTube! 

When is my solar production returning?

Just last week, big chunks of snow had finally slid off some of my solar panels and, miracle! We were producing electricity again. 

Half of our panels were still covered, but we were hopeful, and then midweek, we were hit with almost 25 inches of new snow that set us back in the heart of winter. 

Yesterday, when I check my solar phone app, I realized we only had produced in a couple of days 5.69 kwh for… the 2023 year! To put things into perspective, our solar system’s annual output is around 4,000 kwh. 

So, at this point we can only hope that no matter how thick the snow is on our panels it will slide or melt faster now that we approach March and the days are getting longer. If death and taxes are a certainty, solar production is definitely not!

The FIS still doesn’t get it…

At times the FIS acts like a totally dumb organization. Why fly technical ski racers (slalom and GS) for just one weekend of races from the Alps to California, to ski on snow far too soft for racing? 

There is the toll it takes on the athletes bodies (round-trip length plus 9 hours jet-lag), plus the cost to the environment estimated to be in the order of 1,500 tons of carbon emissions.

Just like FIFA, this Swiss-based organization remains stiff, conservative, tax-avoiding, slow to adapt and woefully unable to innovate. 

But in all frankness, and without generalizing too much, these are solid Swiss values. Perhaps, most sports federations, including the International Olympic Committee, might benefit greatly from being moved out of this iconic fiscal paradise?

A lot of snow…

This winter snow cover in Park City is headed for the record books. 

Not only the season started early with perfect show conditions, but this winter of 2022-2023 is the season that keeps on giving. 

With even more snow on the way in the next few days, everyone is wondering “Where are we going to do with all of this snow?” 

Roofs are overloaded and must be relieved, parking is shrinking, our solar panels that were on their way to resume production last weekend are shrouded again. 

I wish we could divert some of the next snowfalls to my friends and family in the Alp who could use it, but that’s unfortunately impossible. 

We prayed for snow and we got it. 

Now, at the very least, let’s enjoy it!

The two sides of growing old

My wife always complains about the physical downsides of old age like wrinkles, waning beauty of our youth, stiff joints and gradual loss of perfect health. 

These of course are elements we can’t totally dismiss, that we cannot totally control, that are left to mother nature and yet that we must accept. Sure, we can work harder and more diligently at controlling that loss of personal assets by exercising more, eating healthy, sleeping well and remaining mentally active, but no matter what we do a certain amount of decline is unavoidable. 

Yet, I tend to believe that what we lose on that physical realm can be largely compensating by what we can install – gradually as well – inside our brains and minds. We can become better, much, much better people, if we pay attention to it, are convinced that it’s possible and apply ourselves to that task on a daily basis. 

The tools for doing it are obvious, simple and can be activated during everyone of our waking hours. We simply need to invest into them relentlessly. Simple things that training ourselves at controlling our emotions, at thinking positively, becoming more grateful, generous, humble, open-minded, loving, emphatic and compassionate are ours to adopt among many others. 

Likewise, we should kick out fear, jealousy, envy, greed, vanity and any other negative feelings. When you look at aging this way it’s not just a great deal, it got everything to become the best time and the culmination of our lives!

When FOMO meets FOBO

I knew FOMO (fear of missing out) quite well as I had experienced it many, many times, but I until a few days back, had never seen FOBO and didn’t know what it meant. So, let me introduce you to that new acronym and see how it compare to what could be its pretty nasty cousin. 

Well, FOBO, that means “Fear of a Better Option” reminds me of FOMO, but unlike the fear of missing out on events, people, opportunities, etc., FOMO meant to keep all of us from committing to any choice whenever a choice is presented to us, under the form of some alternatives, that seems better ever and could potentially come along.

This way of stopping an individual’s decision making process (for decisions big or small) can delay that operation for as indefinite amount of time. Then, quite often, at the very last minute, that same individual picks whatever option works best, without considering the effects this kind of wishy-washy behavior has on those who are impacted by that painful form of indecision. 

Have I been victim of FOBO? You bet, when I have interviewed for jobs I didn’t get and was told “We’ll get back to you!”, never to hear anything back. Conversely, have I used FOBO for my own convenience? Yes, I had a few experiences with that practice many years ago, I found it convenient at the time, but it also made me look very bad, unreliable and didn’t help my reputation. 

This is why, very quickly, I refrained from using that tactic. While FOMO is the result of events we don’t quite control, FOBO is something that is well under our own mastery, so a chronic and continued case of FOBO can turn whoever uses that into a pretty rotten friend, colleague, business partner, and all-around person!

My dreams and my reality

We all have dreams and we all have a reality to contend with. As a result, there’s often a disconnect between our dreams and our reality, and often the former runs a step ahead in overall quality over the latter. I believe that happens with most people, but what do I know? 

This said, I must confess that for as long as I can remember and that runs at least a couple of decades (the double couple of decades before are, I must admit, is a total blur as my overstuffed memory can handle so much), a tiny number of my dreams have been pleasant, all the rest that made some impression on me were depressing, scary and amounted always to a lot of unpleasant work. 

Something most reasonable people would call nightmares. Perhaps is it due to the fact that bad dreams woke me up, while good ones let me sleep like a baby? That’s a fair possibility. 

At any rate, that observation leads me to say that if to most people their dreams are better than their reality, my dreaming condition runs exactly the opposite: My daily reality is way better than my dreams, I love it and I sincerely hope this status will remain the same for as long as I live. 

That, we’ll see!

Competition and me

I've never really enjoyed participating in races of any kind (running, cycling or skiing) as they never fail to bring out the competitor in me by stressing me too much, making me feel uncomfortable and often sick. It's not a situation that I particularly like. 

That said, I always remain in competition with myself. That's it, I am in competition between what I am able to provide and what I consider to be my potential. This is called self-competition. Is it good or bad? In fact, self-competition is simply pursuing one's own unrealized potential. 

When we find ourselves in competition with people, we have to follow rules invented by others instead of creating the ones that suit us perfectly. This brings additional stress by letting other individuals define our own performance criteria.

In a way, it forces us to compromise and even give up what suits us better, to satisfy other people's preferences. This is a bit why I am convinced that self-competition contributes even more to our personal development. 

We just have to set ourselves ambitious and exciting goals that are also useful and traceable, and by integrating our own values. When we are in competition with others, we leave it up to someone to define our objectives and that’s too bad.

The deer ate our trees!

We planted two small Rocky Mountain bristlecone pines on the street side of our home just after we built it in 2014 and over the years they had grown slowly but nicely. 

That particular species of pine tree (Pinus aristata)is long-lived and highly resilient to harsh weather and poor soils. In the family, one species, Pinus longaeva, is among the longest-lived life forms on Earth with some trees more than 4,800 years old, making it the oldest known tree of any species.

We appreciated them a lot in our high-desert environment. This was until yesterday when the deer that have invaded our neighborhood looking for food had both of them for lunch. 

We were angry and disappointed, but could only accept that sad situation. I’ll cut the remnants of both when the snow is gone...

Park City’s mid season report

As we’ve well hit past midpoint in our ski season, let me admit that it’s been a great one so far, skiing-wise. What has made all the positive difference over last year and many of the previous past season was the abundant snow cover since opening day on November 16. 

This said, the generous snow cover didn’t totally hide Vail Resorts (VR) shortcomings (the company owns and operates Park City Mountain) that are not as obvious as they exploded into view last year, but somehow still linger. 

Lots of elements are still spoiling the experience. If we start with parking, the advent of the paid parking at the Park City side of the mountain has been bad for Park City residents, as public transportation has woefully failed to pick up the slack. 

Parking at Canyon Village is okay if skiers come with the most rugged version of the Hummer, otherwise it’s just a matter of time before they’ll destroy their cars in the multitude of potholes that pepper the entire area. 

The disappearance of tissues for skiers in the corrals is badly missed and while it save VR money, it says to its clients “We don’t care about you!” Same things for chairlifts seats that are not broomed on snowy days and get our asses wet for the rest of the day. The heated seats at OBX are a fast vanishing species. 

Why are those not maintained in good order? Wait, this brings me to the lack of maintenance for the many Red Pine gondola cabins and their “Out of service sign”, the sheaves on chairlift that make funny noises and unlike Deer Valley’s denote a serious disregard maintenance. 

Same thing for bush and tree care (lost of fallen trees waiting to impale skiers or widow making trees hanging precariously. Nothing is happening there as it should PRIOR to the season and the chronic traffic jam and long lines at Silverlode. 

Will VR ever consider my proposal of upgrading MotherLode to help that situation? The unhappy stickers keep on multiplying and yet, VR doesn’t seem to care at all. Just money, money and more money.

Can we age and still progress?

Is age-related decline unavoidable, whether it’s physical and intellectual? I don’t think so, because I’m one who believes that there’s no good reason for accepting this and throwing the towel. 

On the contrary, fiercely fighting for maintaining what we still have is critical, and if done well, this will even improve upon a current condition. Of this I’m convinced as I have observed the results in real time.

The only difficulty that we all face is to fold, listen to conventional wisdom, consider any further effort futile and accept the arrival of old age as a fatalistic signal that it’s time to stop, take an extended vacation and a well deserve rest. 

That’s not for me and neither should it be your choice. Life is just like a bicycle. In order to stay on it, you must keep on pedaling!

HP’s Filipino support team

This morning my printer is finally working in unison with my computer thanks to a simple cable that unites the two. Just a simple USB 2.0 cable; what a concept! At least something similar to what I used back in 1983 with my first computer. Yeah, return to basics 40 years later, forgetting about wireless, Ethernet cable and the rest. 

The HP Filipino support team that whispered that solution to me wasn’t really supposed to share it, because without a WiFi connection, HP loses control upon what I do and in particularly ceases to know about my ink consumption, the company’s real gold mine. Now, as a result, they don’t even ship their new printers with a USB cable! 

Finally, after spending these many hours with their support team, I’ve learned a lot about them. HP uses girls mostly, they are obsequiously polite, but don’t show a common and consistent approach in handling customers problems and attempting to solving them.

 Their approach is notoriously piece-meal, for the exact same problem, as each call is treated differently, a bit by improvising. Their skill levels differ immensely between the various persons as well as their ability to speak an understandable English.

Then, as they try to help, they constantly interact with what seems to me supervisors with more knowledge, but since these folks aren’t directly invested into the process, they don’t really care. These IT service individuals are paid less than $300 a month, so HP is giving its customer what they paid for their (cheap) printers in terms of support. 

Had they been a bit better trained, they would have told me not to bother with their notoriously unstable WiFi to connect my printer to a USB cable and saved me one week and more than 24 hours of my precious time, but that’s something that was conveniently omitted from their script...

The recurring tech nightmare

This week hasn’t been good to me as far as home technology was concerned. It began when I had to change my 6 year old printer for a new one and, at about the same time, my internet gateway had to be replaced too. 

What created a huge problem is that I don’t get internet by cable, DSL or satellite, but by what amounts to 5G cell phone technology, and with it come huge compatibility problems with my printer or any printing device. I pretty much followed the HP’s instruction for wirelessly connecting their printer to my network as I had done in the past, enough cables everywhere, right?

Not counting the T-Mobile technicians that dealt with my in internet service that were quite proficient, I ended up on the phone for more with 24 hours with various agents of HP in the Philippines. 

So you can imagine the exchange of balls, or I should say blame, between the 2 companies and my being stuck in between. I think I spend more than 24 hours trying to make that marriage work, but as of now, I still have not succeeded but will still persevere and will let you know if I can make it work!

Another ski resorts rankings

Tripadvisor operates online travel agencies, make comparison between shopping websites and mobile apps with user-generated content. 

Based in Massachusetts, it operates in 40 countries and 20 languages and features around 1 billion reviews and opinions on approximately 8 million establishments. 

Recently it ranked the twenty top places to ski around the world (there are more than 6,000 ski resorts on the planet) and its reviews mixes apples and oranges, like real ski towns like Whistler-Blackcomb and metropolitan area like Sapporo. 

Aside from Whistler being number one not much makes any sense on that hit-parade. What I like is that the places that I’ve called home during my lifetime (Morzine and Park City), made it to that silly list!

Skiing and Super Bowl Sunday

The Super Bowl is a big deal in America and even the most avid skiers pay their respect to that yearly festivity by watching it in a social setting with friends and family at a bar or at home. 

It’s estimated that more than 100 million people (mostly North Americans) will watch the event. 

When we took our morning walk, we noticed less cars parked at weekend the overflow lot located at the Park City High School and when I went skiing, there were definitely less skiers, particularly at Ninety-nine-90, my favorite spot. 

By mid afternoon, skiers were thinning out and when I quit, few were left on the hill. 

I got home and I watch the first 45 minutes of the game that was drowning into commercial and it didn't take me too long before I had enough, and moved on.

As for me I had a great Sunday skiing with blue-bird skies and excellent snow, thank you Super Bowl for the crowd-control!

Is the meaning of near-death-experience religious or neurological?

While we’re on the subject of dying, let’s talk about near-death-experience (NDE), a subject popularized after the publication of Life After Life, by Dr. Moody, in 1975. 

The strange aspects of NDE accounts are not new, though, as they have been heard for centuries. Generally, after an NDE, there’s a surge in spirituality in individuals characterized with a reduction of fear of death. 

Explanations range from scientific to religious; neuroscience believes that an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from "disturbed bodily multi-sensory integration" that occurs during life-threatening events. It is also true that Patients of theistic religions (Christianity, Islam and Hinduism) reported significantly more NDEs compared to patients from the non-theistic religious group lie Buddhism. 

At any rate, new research shows that these seemingly otherworldly sensations may actually be rooted in brain activity associated with psychedelics. A study conducted at Imperial College London, shows that the potent psychedelic, N,N-Dimethyltriptamine – commonly known as DMT – can elicit experiences rooted in physical brain processes, that strongly overlap with those described as NDE. DMT produces its psychedelic effects largely via neural pathways involving the neurotransmitter serotonin. 

In a manner similar to near-death experiences, DMT elicits mystical happenings described as “realer than real”. Generally speaking, science defines the time of death as a chain reaction to existential changes, in order to maintain a balance in times of crisis, as we all have an implicit need for stability. As we get closer to death, scientists say that our brain may process sensory information (hearing, smell, etc.) differently from the way we used to. 

For instance, a sound that once seemed normal may seem scary or threatening. It’s possible mistake one person for another or to perceive things that people around don’t seem to notice. These differences in perception may be more noticeable at night than during the day. Some studies have shown that the brain releases a surge of chemicals as death approaches that may heighten senses into a state of awareness or even hyper-reality. 

People who are dying, often speak of seeing that famous bright light at the end of a tunnel. They may see themselves going on a journey where they’ll reunite with a deceased loved one. When all is said and done, that phenomenon might be an ultimate bodily reaction that ease dying people into the end of their existence in a pleasant, instead of a traumatic way, and barring the possibility of an eternal life, it’s a good way to end it all!

The best way to die?

I’ve a friend who always says that the best way to die is to do it why we are in full health, and I agree with him with this caveat: “As late as possible, without suffering and ideally doing something we enjoy doing”. 

This is exactly what happened to someone I know, who was my age, and went skiing on Wednesday in my Alpine home valley of Morzine, France, in the company of his 9 year old grand son. He was struck by a massive heart attack and died on the spot.

While this must have been traumatic for the little boy and the entire family, the death happened fast, unexpectedly (he apparently had no clue he had a potentially lethal health problem), doing something he truly enjoyed and without much suffering. 

In theory, dying on skis might be ideal for a skier, as long as the cause of death is natural and not accidental, but I don’t know if I’m quite ready for such an abrupt and cold exit.

Learning from (original) mistakes

As we grow older and if our lives are active and interesting enough, we’ll continue to accumulate errors and mistakes. 

I’m hopefully talking about new ones and not a repeat performance the ones we’ve made previously, but this would be a totally different topic of conversation. 

While new errors or mistakes generally bring their share of hurt and pain, they also get our attention and, in the process, teach us an additional lesson that, with the emotions they carry, will hopefully make a permanent imprint on our memory. 

Painful stuff often get our full attention and when provoked by self-errors are part of our continued education. 

So in spite of all the suffering they involve, I welcome mistakes because they’re also my teachers and the importance of the new knowledge they impart on me is often enough to soften or totally eliminate the blow!

Biden’s state of the Union

I had no great expectations before our President’s speech on Tuesday night, but at the end, after listening to his entire presentation, I was nicely surprised and quite pleased with its content and delivery.

 

Joe Biden was able to make it lively, energetic, fun and didn’t hesitate to ad lib when he had to, with positive results. He also offered a plan and real solutions to real problems. 

I don’t like the fact he’s eighty years old, but he still sounds much better than Trump, DeSantis and Pence, and if I had to make a choice for 2024 among these players, I’d still vote for him. 

As for the Republican response by Arkansas’ new minted governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it was bitchy, dystopian, heavy on ideology but devoid of solutions. She’d be a perfect running mate for the demented Trump if he ever get to be a candidate this time around. 

I hope the GOP realizes, before it’s too late for them, that Americans want practical solutions and not a ban on Woke and CRT ideas...

Dick Cutler, 1929-2023

Dick was among the first “ski industry people” I met when I came to America, more than 46 years ago. 

He was the advertising salesman for Skiing Magazine. Back then, both Skiing and Ski were battling hard for ad monies and while Harry Kaiser, Cutler’s boss was a bit aloof, the ball was clearly in the camp of George Bauer, his counterpart at Ski that also had a hold on the ski business with its yearly “Ski Industry Ski Week” convention at Vail. 

So, Dick Cutler’s quintessential good salesmanship was making up for that. He knew how to naturally take interest in other people lives. The man was a true bridge-builder among people and was also the de facto job placement guru for industry executives, and helped me immeasurably when I needed help. Many years ago, he taught me the meaning of “serendipity.” I never forgot that word. 

The success of his business and personal life got measured by his numerous friends across the country. Dick would pepper any correspondence with a cheeky New Yorker comic (he kept files of these). He’d also save pages of notes with friends anniversaries, birthdays, special events and leave 5-second voice messages starting with, “Cutler here…” 

Later, he worked for Warren Miller Entertainment and we always stayed in touch until then, sharing jokes, wishes, and keeping in touch regularly. He passed away on January 30, at age 93. We will all miss him.

Our wildlife's existential quandary

This winter our local wildlife has a very tough time with feeding itself, as snow keeps on accumulating. On Monday, my wife counted 12 deer in our neighbor's yard, over the 3 foot wooden fence, and these guys seem to have established their winter quarters between our two homes munching on pine tree branches, the only “edible” stuff left for them. 

It’s not that as a community, Park City disregards the welfare of our four-legged friends. In late 2018, a $5 million overpass was completed, crossing over the Interstate 80 at Parleys summit, about 10 miles from our home, to let wildlife through the busy highway and limit vehicle collisions. 

Its camera went viral in 2020 when footage from the bridge was viewed over 3 million times. The clip below highlights just some of the animals that crossed in front of the cameras including moose, pumas, bobcats, bears, porcupines, mule deer, and coyotes. 

This of course is more variety than we see from our window that’s limited to moose, deer, squirrels, rabbit and the occasional grouse, but who know really which critter roams there? 

Checking out the Grammy’s…

Since we are a bit out of the loop when it comes to popular music, we decided to take a peek at the 65th Grammy Awards on Sunday night. 

We watched the ceremony for a little over one hour and after being served with a wide variety of demented Mardi-Gras or Halloween (?) costumes, a retrospective on Hip-Hop to marked its fiftieth anniversary we had enough of fancy celebrities competing for the evening’s limelight but not much good music that could sooth our hearts and souls and decided to call it a night. 

It’s incredible how the public has become attracted to the celebrity status over what it can produce and what the real needs and problems are on the planet. I even thought that instead of parading in a Los Angeles arena, all of these beautiful people should be sent for a full week to Ukraine, Somalia, Afghanistan or anywhere they could help out, clean up and make themselves useful! 

Well, thinking that way probably shows that I’m now too old for watching the people and the Grammy’s when there is so little good music to hear...

What’s in name ?

Ski runs are named after a variety of things, events, animals or people. Most of the Park City ski trails are named after mine claims since many of our runs are on, or near, old silver mines. 

There are however exceptions to that, like Stein Way at Deer Valley, named after Stein Eriksen or Ligety Split, after our very own Ted Ligety and many runs at Canyon named after animals.

There are some names though, that remain hard to relate to, like on the Canyons side of Park City a run named “STH” next to “Spider Monkey”. It’s not actually a run, it’s more of a crazy steep spot that’s very hard to ski when snow is thin, but that’s quite fun this season as long as you don’t make a mistake and fall. 

So, as I’ve skied that run a lot so far this season, I wondered what does that acronym STH stands for? I did some research and found that STH could be an accepted abbreviation for “something” or even “sthenic” which means having a high or excessive level of strength and energy. 

That could have made some sense, but I was still not satisfied, so one day as I was riding the chairlift, I asked a female ski patrol who had no clue whatsoever, but another passenger said: “It means ‘Steeper than hell’, and Snowbird has a run named just like that. 

I was relieved and satisfied as I had finally solved a bothersome mystery!

The Killy I used to like…

To prepare for the upcoming Alpine world ski championships in Courchevel-Meribel, the “Dauphiné Libéré”, my hometown daily newspaper, has been publishing a series of video interviews of former French world champions, and the last one I saw was Killy’s. 

I used to like Jean-Claude Killy until he fell under the nefarious spell of Vladimir Putin. He was a clear, no-nonsense individual that in fact I admired tremendously to that point that he became my lifetime hero until he fell for the Russian dictator. 

Some say that through his KGB indoctrination, Putin became gifted at playing people, finding their soft spots to lead them to his views and ideas. To me, Killy seemed to smart to fall into that trap, unless his interaction with Putin prior, and doing the Sochi Olympics, made him a much richer man. 

That no one will ever know, so for the time being enjoy watching that video that shows the side of Killy that I used to appreciate so much, that of course, if you understand French! 

FAQ about Putin’s nuclear threats…

During most interview or news shows about the Ukraine war, the constant question we hear is that one: “If Putin uses nuclear tactical, or even larger weapons out of desperation, what should the US response be?” 

No one seems able, imaginative or daring enough to voice a sound answer capable of addressing the danger packaged with a nuclear response or the absence of one as a tit for tat reaction. 

Without pretending to be a political expert, I think I know the best answer to Putin resorting to the use of any kind of nuclear warhead again Ukraine or its allies. The best would be to immediately “neutralize” Putin, Lavrov and Army General Gerasimov.

These three characters should be geo-localized in permanence to allow for such a swift, surgical and effective action. 

That’s right, the logical course of action would be to “neutralized” this troika for good and then, and immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine should precede any disarmament of Russia and repair or restitution for Ukraine. 

Absent that action from Russia, strike its strategic assets. This strategy would offer a swift and definite response to Putin’s demented plans. I hope Biden does just this when and if he must address this issue.

The Boeing 747 finally bows out

At the end of January, the last 747 rolled of the assembly line at Boeing Everett’s plant near Seattle after more than half a century since the original jumbo jet was introduced to the world, contributing in a great way to change the way we travel, not to mention the cost for doing so to passengers.

I remember flying for the first time inside that giant airplane between Montreal and Paris on a brand new Air France 747 in October of 1971. 

I have lost count on how many times I had a good night sleep, fully stretched out on the plane center row. Since that time, I must have flown hundreds of time in that remarkable aircraft. 

In total, Boeing has built 1547 model 747 and there are still more than 400 in service (mostly to carry air cargo like the very last delivered to Atlas Air) including 44 still transporting passengers. 

As always, when a page is being turned, it’s easy to feel a bit nostalgic. I won’t. This is just the march of progress and history in the making...

New ski runs just for me!

Because we got so much snow, we’ve been able to ski the southeast side of Super Condor at Canyons without touching a single rock or stump on many occasion, which in of itself is a very rare occurrence. 

In fact, recently, I have left my favorite, Ninety-nine 90 to spend more time skiing on both sides of that ridge. More exciting though, a few day ago, Ski Patrol opened passages A and B (see photo) that I’ve seen open before.

This was short live though as these two fine runs were closed again yesterday as temperatures were on the rise. I managed to ski A (the most interesting of the two) twice. 

It’s very steep and quite challenging, at least the sunny exposure and very few skier passages make it so. The first time I did it, one of my ski got stuck and I got ejected far below and had to climb back precariously and with much difficulties to get my board back. 

I also skied C, finally under good conditions, but I had done it a few time before with less than ideal coverage. Hopefully, A and B with re-open as we get more snow and I’ll have a chance to enjoy skiing them again. 

By the way, I’ll need to ask Ski Patrol for the name of A, B and C!

My shoulder, seven weeks later...

On December 15, I badly hurt my left shoulder following a hit and run ski accident in Park City. 

For reasons that are just tied to my stubborn and macho attitudes, I didn’t go to see a doctor, refused to ice the injured area, even took an extra run after the accident. 

That’s how I paid the price of not being able to put and take off my ski boots by myself at first, and suffered sort of a martyr in bed for at least five weeks. 

This is not the first time I act like this and I sincerely hope it will be the very last. By the way, I’m only starting to feel much better now, but still stand at 90% of full recovery…

A harsh winter doesn’t negate global warming!

Yesterday was a very cold morning at -11 degree Fahrenheit (-24 C). It was in fact our coldest morning in decades. Should I mention that we’ve got a record snow year too?

So, at a time when global warming is solidly settled into our common beliefs, it’s sometime hard for us not to get confused between weather and climate, or between one specific moment and the long term. 

This said, I do believe that the earth is heating up, its glaciers are melting and the snow line is climbing all over the world, but that obviously leaves room for exception that don’t even make a dent into long-term trends. We just need to be able to differentiate the daily conditions from the yearly statistics. 

We’ve been living in a long term drought in Utah, and meteorologists claim that it would take four of five seasons just like this one to turn the situation around and replenish our water reserves. 

I hope it happens, but doubt it seriously. All this to say that I will enjoy this season’s superb snow while I go skiing and abstain for hoping a repeat performance next winter!