Grateful to be alive...

The most important thing that can happen to us is to be alive and able to somehow participate in a world populated with another 6.8 billion people. Call it the ultimate social network, the real Facebook friends! We all take that for granted and I do to, but when I make the effort to focus on it, this is by far the element I treasure the most.

This morning, as I woke up, I first made sure I was well alive before I began to process my daily thoughts. Every element in my body was working fine, I was grateful no new pain had emerged and I said to myself, let's make darn sure I make the best out of this brand new day. I have lots to do; clean up my office, begin drawing a holiday postcard, shovel some snow, finish writing a piece that I've been working on for a while and pack a Christmas present I recently completed.

Let me put it this way; if I weren't alive I would really terribly miss all these things that occupy my daily existence. I'd miss being in touch with the rest of the world, I'd miss doing my contribution, whatever it's supposed to be. Right, I think I'd feel terrible, but then I wouldn't, because I would not longer hold a membership in our “planetary club.” This bring me to another thought that we never take really seriously and seldom do something with. If every one of us – I mean the same 6.8 billion folks that share this little ball shared some common-sense vision and pulled in the same direction, we could finally get rid of our corrupt politicians that are only skilled at poisoning our lives. Another good reason to be alive and initiate a wonderful revolution while it's still time!

Owing my livelihood to tourism

That's it; this weekend saw our first, big snowfall of the early winter and everything is now white and ready for another new ski season. As I always say without thinking too much about it, “snow is our bread and butter” and as I thought a little bit deeper than usual about that comment, I came to realize that basically all my life, I have had jobs and made my living more or less directly, through tourism. I've not participated into building a better world, inventing new technologies or contributing significantly to the betterment of the human condition.

I've simply earned a living though channeling fun and entertainment to visiting tourists and sportsmen. Was it a hollow contribution, a waste of my talent, or was it somehow useful? I'm not ready to answer that, but suffice to say that I owe everything I have - and continue to get - to the leisure and tourism industry. The immediate takeaway is that I should be very, very nice to visiting tourists and probably should look for

a way to give back even more to that industry. As for re-inventing myself into something more serious and more useful to society, even when I tried it very hard, I wasn't able to make it click. This must be fate...

Technical mix-up...

Early this week, our cordless phone died on us and we had to purchase a new one. I did some research and focused on the system and the brand that were receiving the highest consumer reviews. I purchased it, brought it home and set it up. All went well and aside from a few differences with our preview system, I was quite satisfied. Later on, I wanted to show my wife how to use the voice mail feature, and more particularly how to retrieve messages and erase them. She told me that she was doing that from her computer.

I said that's impossible; I can't do it, therefore you can't either. I was absolutely certain of what I was saying, was suspecting that my spouse was beginning to “lose it” and by looking at her, I can guarantee that she also felt absolutely the same towards me! We've had voice over IP service for a more than four years now and I had set it up so we'd receive an email notification each time we got a voice message, but had never paid attention that we could listen to them right on the computer. I felt really stupid and for a moment, wondered if I had even missed seeing a possible audio message attached to the email notifying me someone called in our absence. To prevent further escalation, I looked a my wife's computer and realized that she was indeed getting an audio file with her notification.

I then check my machine and couldn't see any audible attachment. It felt like a comedy of errors as neither one of us could figure out who still was “sane” among us. I tried to figure my broadband provider setup but couldn't and had to call its customer service; a technician was nice enough to walk through a not so complicated procedure and that I had messed up when I originally installed my system. Now, if I want, I can also listen to our voice messages right from my computer. We learn something new everyday, don't we?

The “Man in black” is back!

Since we're now the “dead of the season,” we can't expect to see any big artist in Park City, and last night we felt really fortunate to have a Johnny Cash impersonator performing most of the famous songs of the artist that left us seven years ago, just minutes from our home at the Park City Egyptian Theater. Jackson Cash who is 56 looks the part and has begun his impersonation act in Branson, Missouri, the rock-a-billy heartland. The first portion of the show only involved our guy singing along a soundtrack, which disappointed us a bit, but a three man band appeared during the other half and made up for it. We had a fun time, got our money worth, felt deep sympathy for the singer and decided we were glad we'd never started a career in the showbiz...

Excellent book about the “Stones”

I just finished reading “Life,” by Keith Richards and James Fox . This is an interesting account of the Rolling Stones' life and tribulations seen by one of its original founding members. If you like rock and roll and remember life in the late 60s and early 70s, the 550 pages of this book are another account about these crazy times well worth reading. The book sheds an interesting light on Richards who attempts to prove his key influence on the band's success, tries to hoist himself to Mick Jagger's level, his even more flamboyant and highly visible sidekick, without convincing me entirely, on the accounts of a musical career deeply marked with excessive drug use and countless erratic moves. What's remarkable is that Keith Richards manage to survive the very harsh treatment he imposed upon his body. Quite a statement about the quality of his own genes! A well written book and a page-turner if you appreciate the Rolling Stones and their seemingly endless saga...

Continuing ed

Is expensive education better than cheap or perhaps free one? Maybe, at least when it involves what we learn beyond secondary school. American colleges are the most expensive in the world, and seem to stay at the very top. Recently, the Brits were up in arms about a meteoric raise in university tuition fees. It very well might be that something that costs us might receive more attention and more respect than the freebies we've learned to love.

If we expand that theory into our daily lives, the best lessons are often the one that cost us in some way; whether it's under the form of time, effort, suffering, creative work, emotional pain or opening our pocket book. These experiences tend to leave both a long-lasting and deeper imprint as they've come from us and often represent a real sacrifice. Which leads me to the next thought that is pretty much a confirmation of the precept “no pain, no gain,” and a life lead in a sea of tranquility probably

won't get us to reaching our full potential. Some hurdles and hardships, here and there, might be the foundation to our continuing education program, whether we are aware of it, or we learn from it - or not.

The Pope approves of skiing

Two days ago, our Pope Benedict XVI welcomed a delegation of Italian ski instructors (see video) and told them that they were on the right track with their sport as long as they did not take steroids and made enough turns to control their speed. He also warned all these “turn merchants” not to be too narcissistic, refrain from considering their bodies as material objects and begin “worshiping” them. I think it was a wise advice, because it always is a good idea to pay attention to where you're going while skiing and a little bit of selflessness goes a long way if you don't want to end up wrapped against a tree.

This said, the ski instructors led by Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, himself a certified instructor, gave the pope a nice ski jacket and a pair of skis that looked like they were models from two years ago (he declined to get a pair of “rocker skis” as the papal Thule box couldn't accommodate them and as he himself confessed, “these funny looking boards might cramp my style.”) I'm finally happy that the Holy See finally approves of my favorite sport (I know Jean-Paul II was a bit of ski bum, but he never revealed his passion as overtly as Benedict did this past Monday.) This way, when I ski too much this season, I won't have to feel guilty at all, will find salvation in all of my turns and may see a heavenly path at the end of each one of my schusses.