A little bit of everything

Perfection isn't what makes life fun; in fact it's the exact opposite. I believe that, deep inside, we all have ingredients of all kinds, from sugar, to sirup, salt and vinegar, that all contribute to make us chaotic and extraordinary at the same time. I like to think about a dashboard for each one of us that has a bunch of controls and dials.

For instance, one's for craziness (we're all more or less insane, right?) another is for creativity, another one for knowledge, yet another for kindness, meanness (why not?) special skills, memory (to try to match that of elephants) and many more traits that don't come to my mind right at this moment. Then the controls change and the dials go crazy, up, down, and sideways to give us an everyday life full of variety, stuffed with difference and peppered with unpredictability...

Solid vs. Liquid

I'll never be a sailor, I can't swim and can only tolerate the seaside for about five days. I like to see water, but don't play much in it; in fact, I almost drowned when I was a little boy. I can remember being sea-sick non-stop on some ocean liner between Tenerife and Durban. I love to drink it and that's about it. Now turn it into snow and ice and my attitude flips.

I know all the nuances of snow and can almost tell from looking at it how it will respond to my step or under my skis. I can walk and run on icy roads without batting an eye and love to drive my car in treacherous snowy roads. The more, the merrier, it seems. When it becomes liquid, huge bodies of water can scare me to no end, rain often depresses me, but water in its solid form is always my friend. I guess that's why I always will be a mountain lover...

Ski conditions are what they are!

I have always liked to say that “there isn't a bad day skiing” and have for the most part meant it. True, there are days when the conditions could be better, but in those circumstances, I always try to look at the better side of the situation and ask myself “what could I learn out of it?” and then I make a genuine effort to enjoy the experience, push myself as much as I can, and the dividends I receive generally accrue in favor of my skiing technique.

Skiing rough terrain, bad snow and less than idyllic visibility all contribute to strengthening our on-snow performance. Another way to confirm Friedrich Nietzsche's saying: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger...”

Revisiting the Measure of Skiing (Part 2)

This is the second part of my January 13 blog in which we discussed sport watches that can measure vertical drop.

I knew that GPS was a great tool for tracking someone’s travel, including time, distance and elevation and had considered buying a portable device for sometime. I had seen a few wrist versions, but found them too bulky to wear. During this past summer, I was introduced to the latest in personal GPS technology: Garmin, well-known for its navigation and communication devices had the perfect replacement for my aging Sunnto, and this past Christmas I received the ultimate ski-geek present, a Garmin Forerunner watch, that could precisely measure my skiing and provide me with lasting memories of my on-hill adventures. I should say that besides being a skier, I’m also a road runner, a mountain biker and a hiker, so this watch would be used in all of my other outdoors endeavors.

Upon familiarizing myself with the new toy and installing the software, I tested it early January on my daily jogging course and discovered how easy it was to operate. Upon returning home, I just had to download the data on my computer before discovering in graphic details what I had done. Measuring my skiing would be the same and I couldn’t wait to testing it. This rather small watch only shows the time elapsed, the distance covered and the pace or speed per lap, while it’s worn; you must therefore download the complete data into a computer at the end of the day, and only then, do you get the full picture. To get started with recording a typical skiing day, you first need to get a satellite signal, then just pressing “start” gets you going and you don’t have to worry about anything until you take a break, have lunch or get to the end of the day. At that point, just pressing “stop” ends the recording session.

As my next test was skiing at Deer Valley Resort, I choose to sample most of its ski runs. As I was ready to board Carpenter Express, I located the satellite, pressed the “start” button and was on my way to a three-and-a-half hour adventure that would take me to Empire Canyon, Bald Mountain and Deer Crest.

When I returned home, I downloaded my ski day and could see right away that I had skied for 3 hour 28 minute, covered more than 36 miles (riding lifts and actual skiing,) reached a maximum speed of 47.2 mph near the base of the Deer Crest Gondola, skied a total vertical of 24,809 ft and reached an elevation of 9,553 ft at the top of Empire. Most telling however was the graph of my itinerary showing all the territory covered in just a few hours.

Another interesting graph was the one showing the vertical drop for each one of the runs taken that illustrated multiple laps, and steep as well as flat sections encountered along the way.

As an option, all this data can be put together in an animated format that shows the entire travel during the time my skiing was recorded. In that animated “Player” view, I can actually re-live my skiing in accelerated time, showing all the ups and downs and the choreography of time, distance, elevation and speed. So with these results in hand, it’s impossible not to love this new Garmin. I plan to use it most of the time I ski Deer Valley this winter and do the same this summer when I ride my mountain bike or just go hiking. This by far is the best outdoors and fitness monitoring tool I’ve ever owned, and priced like a good quality watch, I don’t see why you should deprive yourself either!

The best and most visually rewarding feature is that it’s possible to integrate your entire course into Google Earth and discover each one of your runs in a vibrant, three-dimensional format (too bad Google Earth only renders a green, summer view!)

Finally, if some of your friends are equipped with other Garmin products that are ready for the special software, you’ll be able – if you so choose – to be seen by them and they may also share their on-snow exploits as well, making you all a very happy, busy and accountable family of skiers!

Quality vs. Quantity

Would you prefer to live until you're 50 and have a fun, rewarding and fulfilled life or last to the mature age of 90 and endure a mediocre existence? On paper, I'd say that I prefer the former, but since I'm well beyond my 60 year mark I still have no desire to exit the scene, so this might be just a rethorical question, but when some days ago, an acquaintance from many years ago passed a way after a 36 year career as an helicopter skiing guide, I assumed that he had the chance of living a dream life and in spite of passing rather young, his existence might have been fulfilled.

What did I know to even think that? This probably is a way of jumping to conclusions and it's like saying that an attorney's life should be fulfilled by being a top lawyer when in fact she would want to be a congresswoman and later the nation's president. So who knows? Who is there to peg achievement levels on lives and aspirations we don't even know. One thing seems sure to me however; whatever time we've got left should be put to very good use. Yes, it should be put to the highest and best use possible.

Learning a new skill

For almost one year, I've been shooting videos and most importantly learning to edit them. With that, of course, there's a software to learn and since I'm a good grownup I don't read instructions and as a result the learning process is never dull and always filled with pain, frustration and disgust.

I keep on trying however because I love the medium and have so much to learn. If there is anyone among my readers who has mastered the rudiments of video-editing, something like video 101, I sure would love to hear from you...

Just about okay or perfect?

As Steve Jobs takes a leave from his job, yet another time, I am thinking about what goes into making exceptional people like him. Exceptional and not perfect of course, but individuals who can be agents of change, of advancement and who – more than anyone else – are obsessed with perfection. I have spent the last few days editing home videos (I know, my “passion du jour”) and have accomplished an okay job.

A perfect job, that is the very best work I could have done with the material and the tools I had, would have taken me perhaps twice longer. Few might have seen the minute differences, but there is no doubt in my mind that they would have appreciated a slightly, better product. So here we are; perfection always demands more time, more attention, more love in order to provide minute improvements. That's right, putting out twice the amount of resources for a two-percent difference. That's however why the same horses win races, over and over, by the same, hair-splitting advantage...