Gwyneth Paltrow ski lawsuit at Park City

For eight days, the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, 50, has been fighting at Park City’s court of law over a 2016 collision with a male skier, Terry Sanderson, 76, at Deer Valley, who got injured, and is suing the actress for some $300,000 in damage. 

In court arguments, lawyers for Paltrow, 50, and plaintiff Terry Sanderson, 76, have portrayed their clients as prudent skiers, while exchanging mutual accusations as to was at fault for that crash. 

Not surprisingly, Paltrow’s ski instructor’s Eric Christiansen, just like his famous client, also claimed that Sanderson was responsible for crashing into her on an easy ski run. "I witnessed him coming much faster than anybody else on the slope coming down on the hill," Christiansen said under oath. 

Sanderson sued Paltrow in 2019, claiming she was skiing recklessly and crashed into him from above, causing serious injuries and emotional distress. Paltrow later countersued, claiming it was Sanderson who hit her from behind. According to the National Ski Areas Association's responsibility code, it's always the duty of the uphill skier to beware of the downhill skier. 

Put differently, the downhill skier — the person who is down the slope — has the right of way. So, without any witness, Sanderson says he was the downhill skier and Paltrow ran into him from behind, while she says exactly the opposite.

So, in the end, yesterday, the jury gave Paltrow the victory and the single dollar in damage she was seeking and no one, out of the two protagonists, will ever know what really happened. I guess, being famous helped her a lot! In the meantime, avoid collided with a Hollywood celebrity next time you ski …

Time to remove the snow stakes?

I’m checking my calendar and it says:

“Removes snow stakes by March 30th”. 

I look at the window and I see that the snow level is still slightly above my 5 foot (152 cm) stakes and I say “That’s not the time yet!”. My next move is to check the weather forecast that is promising me almost 20 additional inches of snow between today and April 5th. 

I thought “Let’s postpone by at least a week, by then I’ll check the weather forecast again and decide...”

What inspired me…

Last night, I watched PBS’s American Experience that featured the 1969 showdown between President Nixon and Kissinger against the antiwar movement. 

Told through firsthand accounts, the film revealed how movement leaders mobilized disparate groups to create two massive protests that changed history. This ardent youth activism is in fact what attracted me to the US and inspired me to come and make it my new home. 

More so than its level of comfort of achievement, but the activism and fearlessness of its youth whether it was employed to fight for Civil Rights or against the Vietnam war. 

I wasn’t at all leftist in those day, probably more apolitical than I ever were, but I found a powerful source of inspiration that has all since, but totally disappeared in American Society, being perverted, among other by my own baby boomer generation. 

Where it did it go? That’s what I’m missing today about America... 

The finish line

The English term “Finish Line” is interesting when compared to other meanings for the same idea in different languages. 

The dictionary says that if it’s a verb, “Finish” means to bring a task or an activity to an end. If it’s a noun, “Finish” means an end or final part or stage of something. 

To me it suggest “The End”, the final move, the termination and because of that, has a negative connotation with me.

In contrast, the French say “ligne d'arrivée” which connotes a more positive end of process as in “to arrive”. Spanish is along the same idea “línea de meta” (goal), same thing in German “Ziellinie“ (goal), Italian “arrivo” while Japanese goes for “Gōru” (apex). Only Chinese is less lofty with “Zhōngdiǎn xiàn" (destination terminus). 

Hopefully, you'll see what I mean; now I’m finished!

Learning the right way to tie shoes

A week or so ago, I received that video from David Ingemie, a friend of mine, who just visited an appointment at an orthopedics clinic to get some new insoles and noticed that the doctor tied his shoes differently. 

Wondering why, he found that video that taught him how to tie his shoe laces so they’d never come undone. 

My wife and I walk a lot. I do more than 2,000 miles in a year and she does about 2,300 (she doesn’t ski as much as I do) and we’ve always been bothered by our laces coming undone, to the point that we always did a double knot. 

So we tried that technique and we can guarantee it works perfectly. I you didn’t already know the trick, try it, you’ll love it! 

Tackling uncertainty (Part 3)

Now that we’ve discussed what uncertainty is all about, let’s see how we can mitigate it… Personally, I use the following tools and feel they work well for me. You can try them and if they fail to produce results, do some more research and you will certainly find extra solutions that are more effective for your particular case. 

1. I spend a disproportionate amount of my time and energy on things I can control and do it so much that I have less time to worry about the meteorite that could fall on my head. 

2. I make room for dream and adventure and get used to the fact that there are twists and turns in my life that have been created to break the routine and distract me, so I observe and follow them and this to distract me a great deal from my need for certainty. 

3. I consciously train myself to accept that nothing is certain in life. I don’t recoil from imagining worst-case scenarios, get some specific emotions out of the them and, on the whole, nothing ever come up as badly as I envisioned it, so I feel that I’m coming out okay. 

4. Finally, over the years I have learned how to compartmentalize issues and separate the ones that generate anxiety from the rest and focus more on the latter. Most important though, I find an immense source of relaxation and mental energy through a strict practice of meditation. 

Now, if you want, try one, two or all of these formulas and let me know if they work for you!

Tackling uncertainty (Part 2)

We all react differently to uncertainty. For instance, I enjoy taking risks and have a rather adventurous outlook and don’t suffer too much from it. Yet many of us find the bad surprises of life quite distressing. This is not to say that I don’t have my moments with uncertainty, but it doesn’t poison my life too much. 

When uncertainty and worry overwhelms us, we need to remember that we're not alone; many of us are in that situation. It's also important to realize that no matter how helpless and hopeless we feel, there are steps we can take to better deal with uncontrollable circumstances, alleviate our anxiety, and face the unknown with increased confidence. 

Whether we like it or not, uncertainty is a natural and inescapable part of life. While we have control over some things, we can't control everything that happens to us. Our lives can change quickly and unpredictably. So, in order to cope with uncertainty, many of us use worrying as a tool for trying to read into the future and avoid nasty surprises; to a degree it make us feel like we have some control over an unclear future. 

We sometime believe that it will help us find a solution to our problems or prepare us for the worst. This said, chronic worrying won’t give us more control over events we don’t control; instead, it prevents us from enjoying the present, saps our energy, and keeps us up at night.

The only healthy way to live with uncertainty begins with adjusting our mindset, and this what we’ll explore next. 

To be continued...

Tackling uncertainty…

I’ve never showed much interest for uncertainty as I was probably too busy doing other things that I had thought were more interesting. Yet, like everyone, I have often found myself held hostage by that feeling. 

This said, with the passing of time, and much more than in the past, uncertainty is now creeping up on me with more vigor and more insistence. Obviously, for those of us who are of age, there’s the uncertainty of our death, getting closer. Even though it’s guaranteed to happen, its exact timing remain uncertain.

In addition to that big one, there are a multitude of uncertainties that color each of our waking hours. How do we deal with that sea of uncertainty is the question. 

 Do we thrive in it or do we despair? This is a subject of great interest to me and I intend to address it in my upcoming blogs. 

To be continued...

Behind bars?

In Park City, locals tend not to put down the bar when they ride chairlifts, unless they have a small kid riding with them or a serious case of fear of heights. 

That can be traced to an early time, when I settled in town, close to 40 years ago, when many of the chairlifts weren’t even equipped with safety bars. Since then, we’ve been used to be sitting up in the airs in total freedom, without any physical restraint. 

It’s easy to tell if you ride the lift when the person next to you asks for the bar down (if they’re rude, slam it down on you without warning), it’s probably that they’re not from Park City or the surrounding area. 

Often times, these days, the bars are receptacle for small stickers, most of them cursing Vail Resorts, but from time coming from out-of-state visitors and communicating all kinds of messages. 

 

That’s exactly what happened to me on Tuesday. As I was riding alone, with the bar obviously up, I noticed a sticker on it. Always curious, I pulled it down to discover that sticker unwittingly making a pun on bars of all…

I loved it and in my mind’s eye, it conjured a picture of Donald Trump… incarcerated!

A disappointing evening

On Monday night, we brave the cold and a returning winter to attend a discussion about the state of the local ski industry, with luminaries like our new Park City Mountain Vice President and COO Deirdra Walsh, Deer Valley Resort President and COO Todd Bennett, as well as Ski Utah’s Nathan Rafferty, and travel industry expert Ralf Garrison.

The Santy Auditorium was almost full and the public was eager to participate in and hear a question and answer session promised at the end of the evening. 

That didn’t quite happened as we were all lectured on how well things are going at Deer Valley and Park City and which of our two resorts was closer to claim the 500 inch, Mother Nature had sent us by no merit or no fault of our own. Acting as an MC, Myles Rademan, from Public Services director at Park City, asked the audience to be “civil”, that is, not ruffle feathers, and wanted the discussion to focus on macro issues, not minor details. 

Ms. Walsh who was given 20 minutes ended up spending the double eloquently talking about herself sucking all the oxygen from her Deer Valley counterpart’s, making presentation quite plain, simple and unimpressive. 

Nathan Rafferty brought us to speed on Ski Utah’s efforts to continue attracting more participants into our sport with some up-to-date and interesting facts, while Ralf Garrison reminesced about the good old days in Crested Butte, rambled with a convoluted message lost on most of the attendees. 

Finally, he used up the remainder of the time testing new buzzwords like “equilibrium” and “Covid refugees”, leaving no time for the constructive discussion that everyone expected but obviously wasn’t the goal of that lecture, and might have tarnished its overall happy message. 

In conclusion, this was a waste of our time, but a reminder that it’s always much easier to pontificate than to listen.

Another personal record shattered!

I love to ski Ninety-Nine 90! It’s a high speed quad that serves the highest point in the Canyons and a steep cirque that offers a great variety of terrain and endless options. 

The lift offers a 1,536 ft vertical drop and gets skiers to the top in less than 7 minutes. The run I take is pretty much under the lift line, is very steep, quite athletic and leaves no room for error or lack of concentration. 

In previous years, I had set two equal, personal records for the number of laps skied non stop on that lift, a first one for 25 laps on February 27, 2010 with a total vertical skied for that day 42,450 ft skied for that day, then another one for an equal 25 laps on February 15, 2020, with a total vertical skied of 43,105 ft that I had measured at an average time of 9 min 49 sec per lap. 

This year, as I’m inexorably growing older, I wanted to see if I could at least repeat or do better than that, so I picked Sunday and managed to I skied 27 times non-stop, shattering my former records, for a total vertical of 46,026 at 10 min 27 sec per lap. 

This slower average performance per lap could suggest a certain decline showing my older age (75) and a steady slow-down of my ski functions, but as an excuse for the dip, snow conditions were much more difficult today (hard, re-frozen snow) and I simply didn’t want to fall, get hurt or even die in that quest for performance. 

Besides, I wasn’t that tired after my 27 laps and could have pushed to 30, as I had plenty more reserve to go, but again didn’t want to push my luck either. That will be kept in reserve for a future attempt!

Wildlife scourge

Progressively, a lot of deer have found refuge and settled inside our block that enjoy calm, little vehicular traffic and silence. 

It also have a lot of things to eat that not only have attracted these animals, but sustained them, especially during this very snowy winter. Days in, day out we count no less that 10 of them loitering in that protected space and showing absolutely no desire to move out of that area.

This wildlife is eating all the tree they can reach and are likely to stick around the rest of the year, feeding themselves on nice bushes, grass and whatever looks edible to them. 

I’ve called the Division of Wildlife Resources but it expressed no intention to relocated the animals. 

I have also discussed my concern with the City and asked them to take action about it, but as always, they have no idea and can’t see that it’s a problem for their constituents...

A solution to lessen Epic & Ikon’s impacts

Ask anyone living in a ski town where the lifts are owned or associated to Alterra and Vail Resorts and you hear how the local population has been negatively affected by the invasion of pass-holders usually skiing at their own mountain. 

The multi-resorts Epic and Ikon passes looked like good ideas at first, but have developed scores of unintended consequences by bringing huge numbers of skiers and traffic into ski towns like Park City, altering negatively the lives of its residents, regular visitors, skiers and snowboarder without bringing commensurate benefits to the community, as many of these people make very limited use of services offered by Park City (lodging and restaurant among others) while impacting both heavily and negatively the quality of the experience and life of the rest of us. 

 

This goes for any resort owned or participating in the ski-passes created by Vail Resorts and Alterra. First, there’s the carbon footprint story, on the one hand, Vail Resorts promises to achieve zero net emissions by 2030 by doubling down on energy efficiency, purchasing 100 percent renewable energy and investing in programs such as tree planting. Alterra isn’t as bold with its commitment and only has generalities to share: “We recognize and own the responsibility to develop and nurture initiatives that protect and expand access to the mountains. Our industry’s longevity and expansion depend on these efforts, and I have full confidence in this talented team leading the charge.” 

 

Yet, on the other hand, in spite of their nice environmental talk both companies’ multi-pass program promotes more car usage through North America, not too mention mention gridlock in ski towns defeating their respective environmental pledges. In fact, the “band-aid solution” would be to add more parking space, when in fact we should limit the number of vehicles that don’t contribute to the ski town’s economy. 

 

That problem might seem unsolvable, but yet could be addressed very simply by having both Vail Resorts and Alterra offer full and restricted passes (blacked-out in some versions if they choose) for one specific resort at a price slightly below their current passes and then offer multi-resorts passes a significantly higher prices to weed-out casual visitors on strict budget that typically don’t contribute much to compensating the community they invade in their discovery process. 

 

There might be ways also both both Epic and Ikon passes to contribute through these higher priced passes to in an effort to compensate destination towns that are impacted by the extra traffic. 

 

At any rate, ALL impacted communities, like Park City, need to organize together, and must find ways to convince the two operators to limit the multi-resorts passes they sell and by so doing, put the brakes on trivial travel that contributes to huge lift line, air pollution, gridlock, pot-holes and parking shortages and remediation, but fails to pay for the damages they create.

Is more snow better?

A good snow cover is important for us in Utah as is means a rich and long-lasting snow-pack that may lessen a bit the super drought we’re currently in. There are also two good things going with too much snow: We no longer need “rock skis” and we won’t damage these brand new boards! 

Yet, beyond that, record-breaking snow like this year, brings a series of obvious downsides. The most obvious one is what to do with all the snow, plowing the roads on time and making room for new snow that are a constant nightmare for our municipality. 

Driving conditions get also much trickier and walking along roads and pathways becomes more dangerous as well as the risk of slip and fall increases dramatically. Then there’s lot of wear and tear on roadways and parking lots that need to be addressed in the spring.

Around houses and buildings, things aren’t better. Overloaded roofs risk collapsing, ice dams abound and force homeowners to remove snow on roofs. 

To add insult to injury water problems don’t all originate from overloaded roofs, many come also from melting snow over a frozen ground that can only escape into crawl spaces, basements and lower spaces, requiring sump pumps and the like. 

Finally, far less sunny and pleasant days become hard to endure and end up depressing us all. Did I mention the lack of good visibility when we ski under cloudy skies and in the middle of a snow storm? 

When all is said and done, we might be better of with just half of that snow, but thank God, we don’t control the volume!

Are atmospheric rivers bringing us more snow?

Just like California, Utah has been slammed this winter by a series of snow storms associated with the atmospheric river phenomenon resulting in record accumulation of heavy, dense snow.

These long and wide plumes of water vapor flowing from the tropical Pacific regions are amplified as Earth warms, according to climate scientists. 

 Still, Utah is typically known for its dry environment. But these recent atmospheric rivers have paradoxically brought an influx of rain and snow, creating a buildup of snow-pack that could ease drought conditions. 

According to climate specialist, these massive rivers, which sometimes carry 15 times the water volume of the Mississippi River, deliver half of the western United States’ total precipitation in less than 15 total days. Since pre-industrial times, Earth’s atmosphere has warmed about 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and after observing heavier rain in storms, hurricanes, daily precipitation researching are now focusing on atmospheric rivers. 

This new development might play a critical role in supplying mountain snow-pack, which serves as an important source of freshwater as it melts in the spring and summer. Yet, as global temperatures rise, the snow level is getting higher in altitude and that good trend for skiers might be limited in time. 

We’ll see what happens, but the for the moment we’re seriously snowed in!

US Inflation: One year late, percent points short?

I’m not a fan of the current Fed boss, but must admit that Jerome Powell has been able to get some results since he began to raise the interest rates. 

Sure, he should have begun a year before and be more decisive like Paul Volker was in 1980 These past few months though the rate of decline seems to have slowed down as we appear to have hit a zone of diminishing returns.

How soon can the US return to its target rate of 2 percent? Hard to say. In my view, certainly not before 2023 is over, so the meek Powell will need to keep on raising rate and not get distracted by the recent bank failures that have spooked the financial markets. 

This said I’m afraid he will, and US inflation will continue its long grind in 2024...

Thinking about taxes…

In America, tax season is upon us and with it, family discussions about that government requirement that we must pay taxes to keep our (very expensive) Nation running smoothly. 

I’ve recently read that for the year 2022, the US federal income tax brackets range from 10% to 37%. Back in 2018, the top 50% of taxpayers paid 97.1% of all federal income taxes and among them, the average income tax rate was 14.6% with an average tax paid of $20,663. 

This said, Americans love to “avoid” paying too much taxes. Big corporation lead the way by showing some intricate examples of “engineering” their tax situation by paying nothing. How then can you expect the average American to pay their fair share willingly and happily?

I’ve always said to my family that I wish I paid millions of dollars in taxes every year, as it would indicate that I’m making plenty of money, but no one seems to be moved or inspired by my heartfelt, hypothetical, fiscal generosity. 

Even my own offspring seem to have fallen for that American sport consisting at minimizing their tax bite at any cost. Well, this won’t change my view on the matter as I can proudly proclaim that I’m done with my taxes for 2022. 

I don’t think I’ll pay excessively and I feel quite good about this annual exercise!

JP Chatellard comes to visit…

This past week I dreamed that my old and now deceased friend, Jean-Pierre “JP” Chatellard, had come to visit me. 

The picture was so vivid, real and compelling that I was utterly confused. Even in my dream I remembered that JP had passed away in 2020, but I was so mixed-up and embarrassed that I begun to doubt that he had indeed left us, and wondered if his disappearance was just me being totally wrong. 

I couldn’t address that I knew he had passed away, as he was so lively, smiling and engaging during that encounter that I had to change my belief, thinking he was there for real. 

That disturbing apparition was enough to wake me up. 

What triggered that special dream? Perhaps the fact that Mikaela Shiffrin was about to shatter Ingemar Stenmark’s Ski World Cup victory record, and that JP was working with the Swedish champion in those days, but never had a dream ever appeared to me as so true and emotional as this one.

Gloves, ski poles and chain reaction!

This is the second chain reaction that I have experienced this winter. This one began with good intentions from me, as I was consolidating my glove inventory and attempting to turn two pairs of older ski gloves, with various degrees of wear, into a better one that I immediately stuffed into my ski helmet. 

The gloves were not exactly the same, but they looked close enough to me. This was a great idea until I went skiing with my daughter, got to the ski resort parking lot, and realized that I really had two gloves, but both fitting a same left hand! 

Not to discourage myself, I made the other glove fit my right hand by putting it backwards, with my thumb into the pinky spot, and the rest of my fingers in the remaining cavities. Holding my pole with the right hand fitted that way was quite awkward and extremely uncomfortable but I thought that it would be okay for only 3 to 4 hours of skiing.

I was wrong, it felt terrible and messed up my usually suave, relaxed and smooth skiing. About 30 minutes before the end of the afternoon, the extreme pressure and high tension my right hand exerted on the pole strap caused it to break and here I was with a long piece of that strap dangling aimlessly.

Yet, that wasn’t quite the end of it. As we boarded our last chairlift for the day, my right pole, hanging too low, caught the ground at the loading station and I broke its shaft. A tragic end for my lovely black poles that I adored, upsetting me even more. 

So it’s with the two broken parts of my pole into my right hand that I ended up my ski day, victim of another chain reaction on skis. Poor me!

Daylight saving, where’s Congress?

On March 15, 2022, the US Senate approved a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, starting in 2023, ending the twice-annual changing of clocks to brighten our afternoons and make more money in the process. 

The “Sunshine Protection Act”, as it was called, was unanimously approved by voice vote. Unfortunately, this low-hanging legislative fruit has yet to be approved by our House of Representatives, that once more, is asleep at the wheel.

Because of it, this Sunday morning in America, we begrudgingly had to turn our clocks forward one hour – and in doing so, loose some precious sleep that is going to ruin our week. This show the uselessness of our Chamber of Representatives, more eager to investigate Hunter Biden laptop than doing its job. 

I can’t wait to see America vote these idiots out of office!

Clear skiing vision!

Nothing last forever and in particular the weatherproofing on ski goggle lenses. Not so long ago, I put my goggles gathering snow on the back of global warming when it should have been on that of normal wear and tear. 

In fact it wasn’t, it was just that the silicone coating of my now old goggles was gone and its protection rendered totally ineffective. I realized this when I was skiing with my daughter in a total blizzard. Her more recent and seldom used goggles were just fine while mine were splattered with big snowflake causing me to fall on one occasion! 

That’s when I saw I had a problem with them that I needed to address! That bad situation led me to research its cause and possible remedies. Instead of getting a new lens (hard for an older eye-wear model) or a new pair of goggles, I first zeroed-in on restoring a slick, protective coating. 

I read about using cat crap (yes!) or using baby shampoo and water, but what retained my attention was Rain-X, a synthetic hydrophobic surface-applied concoction that causes water (or wet snow) to bead up and run off automobile windshields, wiper blades and why not, eye-wear and while we’re at it, ski goggles. 

So rather than cheap cat crap, I went for that consumer product and in a few days, after I’ve skied in another blizzard, I’ll let you know if it worked or not and if so, how long it lasts!

Subscription: The new corporate trick

HP sells cheap printers and computers and has long found a way to make up for the low price of its printers by selling ink at exorbitant prices. 

Now, HP wants to hook its users even more by having them subscribe to its ink refill plan. This will create even more dependency, but to work, it relies on its poor WiFi connection protocol between the printers it sells and its users’ computer, tablet or phone. 

After spending far too much of my very precious time in unsuccessfully trying to make their damned wireless work, I opted for a good old cable connection between the printer and my devices, making in the process unusable the “HP Instant Ink Service” it so desperately wanted to sell me. 

Since that time, I’ve been harassed to make my WiFi work so I can take advantage of HP’s addictive service that can only work with a viable wireless connection that the company is not able to guarantee.

So this past Wednesday, I spent another 20 minutes of my precious time with its “nearby” Philippines’ office begging a polite agent to do just that: Leave me alone. He said HP would. 

We’ll see!

Would I like to be black in America?

Last night, at dinner, we were shooting the breeze with my daughter who had come to visit us for a few days. 

Then, as the conversation drifted to racial issues she asked me, “How would you like to be black in America?” I didn’t need much time to think and went: “I wouldn’t like it.” 

Obviously, she followed up and asked me why and I said, “I wouldn’t worry so much about me, but more about my family and wonder what could happen to them in such a racist country and volatile political environment.” 

That’s when she said: “Thing won’t necessarily go that bad, with time, people are likely to open up and become much more inclusive…” 

I responded, “That’s possible as well as unlikely. Even tough, I’m profoundly optimistic, I’d give it a 50-50 chance, and time-wise, if it ever happens, real change will take many generations to shape up…” 

Yes, I wouldn’t want to be black in America.

Skiing, seeing and climate change

If last ski season was the season of the moguls (no new snow to fill up the holes), this one is all about visibility. 

Tons of snow means mostly bad weather and skiing in less than ideal conditions as far as visibility goes. 

Lack of good vision takes different forms. As snow falls on a groomed run, it soon becomes “wavy” with nasty longitudinal bumps that when combined with flat light bounce you right and left, up and down with absolutely no warnings and no control. 

Then there is the omnipresent lack of good relief which also prevents anticipating what’s coming ahead. “Delayed feedback” as I call the problem! 

To make matter worse, there’s also global warming that make our light, legendary, “champagne Utah powder”, more sticky over the goggles, to the point that I sometime could use automatic wipers like on my car. 

So as you (cannot) see, our winter season is chock full of visibility problems that haven’t discouraged me yet to ski. As the saying goes: “What doesn’t kill you make you stronger!”

Bad skiing moves and muscle memory

After watching enough Alpine World Cup ski races, I can see that a great many top athletes forget that turning on the inside ski doesn’t work too well. 

This is the typical element that not just the Olympians fail to remember, but also the rest of us. It shows how hard it is to sear into muscle memory moves that are counter-intuitive. 

Just like pivoting the pelvic bones into a turn, we must constantly make a conscious effort to remind ourselves of these key to functionality and not fall into the lazy, hurry or desperate ways of simply leaning inside to produce a turn. 

This is why, even into my 70th season of skiing, I need to always remember that my moves are technically sound and well prepare, so don’t despair, between the Croatian racer pictured here, you and me, we better keep that in mind in order to stay away form this sneaky skiing epidemic!

That black box called Regrets

Regrets are a feeling that happens in real time and that is based on elements we know. Yet, no situation can ever be the same, especially if circumstances happen to be different. In fact, regret is this powerful negative emotion that makes us believe if we changed our past actions or behaviors, we would have achieved a better outcome. 

Occasionally I question myself and so does my wife about the wisdom about having moved to the United States 46 years ago. I’ve always been a bit split and unclear on that issue. Yet, choosing to stay in France or immigrating to America came with its own set of environmental conditions and interaction, meaning issues like employment, lifestyle, family life, children, interaction with each culture and other people plus a host of unknowns involving, as always, a significant share of good fortune and bad luck. 

What would those elements have been, had we not move to the USA? Very, very hard to say or predict based all the fluctuating conditions I just listed. In fact, such a parallel projection is impossible to make accurately. Our lives could have been much worse, much better or about the same and we might be already gone and unable to tell about it…

All this to say that a choice can’t be regretted because none of the multiple elements surrounding it are constant or can be counted on. Further, regrets are not just useless, they’re also potentially totally meaningless, which behooves us to be constructive in fixing whatever we don’t like about them. 

So next time a choice between two paths anguishes you, take the one that is most pleasant or best fit your fancy and just seize it without ever turning back!

A new flag for Utah

It was not the case that the current flag of the State of Utah was old and decrepit, but let’s be frank, it wasn’t exciting. So our Governor is expected to sign a new flag design into law and replace the old with something new. 

The new design is allegedly the result of a lengthy design process that involved a special committee, the public and several iterations of the design. It features a prominent gold hexagon containing a beehive and a five-pointed star representing Utah’s five traditional indigenous tribes. 

It’s fair to wonder how the beehive design is so iconic to Utah. According to Mormon history, the Bible refers to the Promised Land’ as “land of milk and honey”. Christians and Freemasons also used the bee and beehive as symbols of cooperative work. Many of America’s founding fathers were Masons, and the new country a promised land. 

Further, many early Mormons were also Masons, including Joseph Smith who invented the religion. According to Mormonism, the Jaredites, a tribe from the Tower of Babel’s time, made a 344-day magic voyage across the ocean to North America, bringing with them the “Deseret” which means “Honey bee” in the Book of Mormon’s jargon.

The new flag's fields of blue and white create the outline of five mountain peaks. A red field at the bottom represents Southern Utah's famed red rock. But the old flag isn’t quite dead yet, both flags will be flown together on state holidays and during the legislative session and other special occasions.

According to the bill, citizens may also use the historic flag upon any occasion deemed appropriate. Do I like the new design? Not really. I find it a little simplistic and a repository of everything the designer thought of putting into. Perhaps its a result of involving a “special committee” with its design. 

What about you; do you like it? 

On the plus side, I find it more colorful and can live with it since it’s unlikely to change my life!

 

Precious times, half a century ago!

This picture was taken at the “Pas du Lac” restaurant in March 1973 with some of my best buddies. Just fifty years ago, this was the place where we’d get a boosting morning espresso before our class lessons would start. 

An alternative place would have been the “Café de la Gare”, but we weren’t too eager to give our hard-earned Franc to that establishment! 

We would shoot the breeze, catch up with the latest news, and share our plans for the futures that didn’t go much further than the end of the week. At that moment, I wasn’t sure I’d return to Australia the following summer as I was consumed by the major crisis that was splitting our ski school in two.

From left to right: Jean-Claude, Denys, Blandine, me and Francois. Well we were young, still carefree and life felt good.

Skiing “Eights” at Park City Canyons

It took all the snow we’ve got this year for the Canyons section of Park City Mountain to open up new runs that I had never seen made accessible to skiers. 

I had a chance to sample them early February as they were briefly opened and all the snow we recently received reopened “Eights” (red line), a 45% chute that is just narrow enough to hold a figure eight, hence its name that’s harking back to the times snow was plentiful and that section of the mountain was still named “Park West”. 

A run that means full commitment as soon as you point your skis or your board into it... Consistently super steep, that chute crosses two cat-tracks, adding to the challenge, and end up at the bottom of Spider Monkey for a total vertical drop of 520 feet. 

In addition, skiing “Eights” gives access to “Rock Chute – Roll Chute” (doted line), on skier’s left, slightly less steep, much wider and far less challenging, but still fun. 

If you’re looking to stretch the envelope, look no further than “Eigths!”

Keeping my skiing in focus

This past Friday was another snow day, so after blowing and shoveling my driveway, I went skiing in the afternoon. 

At first, I thought the visibility was terrible, flat light and the like, so while skiing, there was delayed feedback from the terrain, something not pleasant and not so good for my old frame. 

Yet, beyond these poor light conditions, I also couldn’t see skiers very well in the far distance but I thought that my goggles were probably less than crystal clean and left the situation at that. 

So, I skied and skied in 10 to 12 inches of fresh, light powder, into steep couloirs, and in cool spots I’d never skied before, just made possible by of our generous snow cover. At the end of the afternoon the skies cleared up and the experience became just out of this world. I skied aggressively and fast while conveniently forgetting that my vision was far from perfect. 

So I drove back home at the end of a great powder day and it’s only in the evening that, while watching TV, I wondered if I was seeing as sharply as I should. 

I went to the bathroom and there, realized by glancing at the counter that I forgot to put on the contact lens I use for seeing in the distance. 

This speaks volumes about the power of motivation and passion over physical limitations!

Why does Consumer Reports hates Teslas?

I just got the last Consumer Reports (CR) magazine to which we’ve been loyal subscribers for the past 40 years or even more. I looked at the new offering for 2023 and found – once again – Tesla was at, or near the bottom of its ranking, mostly on the account of lack of reliability. 

Conversely, its owners satisfaction is better than average, so something doesn’t seem to add up there. After the Twitter incidents, I no longer like Elon Musk, but I have to admit that I admire what Tesla and SpaceX are doing. 

I’ve owned and driven a Tesla model Y for almost nine month now, including in one of the harshest winter we’ve experienced in recent year and had no problem whatsoever and I still love my car. 

CR doesn’t like the minimalist display that presents a significant learning curve, but do what is needed and more, plus gets updated every now and then. In fact just like a smart phone or tablet it takes a bit of getting used to, but it seems obvious that CR testers are above that kind of effort! 

Finally, for those who don't like the screen there is the voice command option which covers almost all the controls on the screen and works perfectly well. Who needs thousands of dials, switches and indicators crammed into a small car cockpit? 

What I don’t like is that somehow, its aerodynamics make its white body dirty, very fast. Do I need to add that car never went for service or repairs of any kinds during that time period, except for fixing a flat tire I got the very day I bought the car? 

I think, if anything, it’s CR that has a bad case of reliability problem in the way they test their cars!