The value of our time

How do we value our time ? How do we even begin pricing it?
When there’s an annual income to start with, all seem easy; we take the whole amount, divide it by 2,080 hours and obtain our hourly rate. How do we proceed when we’re self-employed or retired? Not easy indeed. One way is to take the total number of hours during which we're awake. If we agree that we rest (read sleep) one-third of the time, a full year of activity represents some 5,840 “billable” hours. If, for sake of simplicity, our total annual revenue is $58,400.00, the hourly value of our time is $10. This further means that if we decide to play a round of golf and be gone for six hours, it actually costs us our green fee, transportation costs, plus $60. Along the same lines of thought, if we want to repaint a room in our home and spend 20 hours doing it ourself, our cost will be $200 plus supplies (a bargain compared to what a professional painter would charge.) A two-week vacation would add $2,240 to our transportation, lodging, food and sundry expenses. All of this assumes that we carry-out these activities outside of our working hours. When we look at things this way, we might think twice before we allocate any second of our precious time, unless we really can't resist repainting that old bedroom!

A new day

As time goes by, I gain more appreciation for simple things ; like waking up in the morning and anticipating the day’s projects. There’s never a dull moment if you look at things that way. A new day is a blank page, a blank canvass where you can write or draw whatever you want. Life is precious and each new day is the same. No matter how bad things are, or how bleak the future appears, a new day is always a chance to somehow affect things for the best. Even in the worst situation there’s always a way to tweak things and make them a little bit better. A new beginning is a malleable blank that is ours to shape the best we can. This is why I guess I love mornings. They don’t have to be sunny either to be grand. They can be rainy, snowy or the wind may blow hard; it doesn’t matter, it’s still a new day carrying a bounty of promises and opportunities.

My buddy Denys...

I met Denys Liboz when we both worked for Look ski bindings. He was a tech rep for the U.S. Ski Team and was taking care, among others, of the Mahre twin brothers. Denys is a great athlete who’s also very competitive; I remember running with him in the morning near San Francisco and race him down Ajax, in Aspen, Colorado. A well-rounded sportsman, he more recently went into cross-country skiing and road biking. Through time, we’ve always stayed in contact, and a few years ago Denys was diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare sickness that’s also very difficult to treat. Thanks to his grit and combative spirit he was able to beat it and continues today the struggle for regaining a decent quality of life. Another remarkable trait of my friend is to have remained positive and to have kept his sense of humor in spite of all the blows that live has served him. Keep on fighting Denys!

Back in the saddle

Now that my Achilles’ tendon injury is already a distant memory, we’re back on our mountain bikes. After a refresher outing last week, we started yesterday to return to our favorite “single track” trails. The weather was just perfect, a bit breezy and cool. If these great conditions hold, September and October are the perfect months for mountain biking on Park City’s 500 miles trail network…

Under the influence?

In spite of a summer as dry as a bone, we’ve never had geraniums that look so good as this year. They’re big, colorful and super-healthy. On countless occasions Evelyne has pointed to her flowers as her very special pride and joy; she was so insistent on it, that one day I asked, “so what so special about them?” She said, "These guys are doing so well because I only fertilize them with coffee grounds." So that’s the secret to our geranium health in a high-desert environment; getting high on caffeine! I must say that we drink LOTS of coffee; glad there’s no anti-doping control yet…

Sundance documentary series

Robert Redford Sundance Institute's programs include the annual Sundance Film Festival held in Park City each January and widely regarded as the premier U.S. showcase for American and international independent film. Through the year, the Institute also sponsors free public screenings, like outdoor shows in the summer and starting last night a free documentary series. Last night we went to see (for the second time), “Manda Bala” a film documenting Brazil’s crime and corruption. A definite “must-see!”

Like Michelangelo...

This week we started repainting some of the rooms in our house. We’ve started with our guestroom, used more recently by our daughter Charlotte before she moved to California. I have been commissioned to do the work, just like Michelangelo who was once asked to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The job is about the same except that we decided not to paint any religious scenes on the ceiling and that my wife Evelyne also asked me to paint the walls. Anyone likes to paint ceilings? Yuck!
In spite of all this I’m almost done with that first room and now feel like a true renaissance man.