What's that smell?

Last night when we got to Pagosa Springs, in Southwestern Colorado, we were welcome by a pungent smell that we first couldn't identify.

Very soon, we remembered that this town is in fact centered around some mineral hot springs that have made it famous and when we ran in the morning we couldn't miss the many fumaroles that came up all along the San Juan river; that morning was so cold at some 22 degrees (6) that the plumes were spectacular in the cold morning air.

The day drive that followed was most picturesque and never boring until perhaps we got north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. We stopped in that so old and so beautiful city, went up to the Plaza and marveled at the wonderful architecture. Our daily drive came to a close, in bizarre Tucumcari, New Mexico, where we watched anxiously the 2012 election returns...

Looking for a unique dwelling?

If you like architecture or great design, you must make sure to visit, at least once in your life, Mesa Verde National Park.

This very special place tells the story of American architectural design from its very basic beginning to the city inside a cliff complete with the best urban design that takes care of storage galore and great social life.

In the 1970 and 1980, American urban planners re-invented the Anasazi wheel and often time their design didn't quite match their fore-bearers in functionality and timelessness!

Back in Moab, Utah

Utah is a great tourist town that is to Park City what Provence near the French Riviera might be to Chamonix, in the Alps. With few arguments, this desert town is the US capital of mountain biking and four-wheeling fun, not to mention the two incredible National Park it cradles in its neighboring mountains.

A great place, quite funky and while not perhaps as polished as Park City, so visually taking. Today, Moab is merely a first stop on a 2,500 miles road-trip, but  that will I want to return there, many, many times!

Reading through the polls

This election year, polls have been all over the places and frankly haven't help much in understanding what was going. They are more like reading through tea leaves... Are polls being manipulated? Quite possibly, when they come from partisan sources, but I think more importantly, they're just tools that are less than perfect, especially when the contest is so tight and when events such as the first debate or hurricane Sandy can have enormous impact on the mood of the Nation.

What's been helpful to me during this election thought has been "FiveThirtyEight," a polling aggregation website by Nate Silver. Established on March 7, 2008, the site compiles polling data through a methodology derived from Silver's experience in baseball sabermetrics balancing out the polls with comparative demographic data and weighting each poll based on the pollster's historical track record, sample size, and recentness of the poll.

During the 2008 election, Silver projected a popular vote victory by 6.1 percentage points for Obama and an electoral vote total of 353. Reality was respectively 7.2 and 365. This year, Nate Silver projects 309 electoral votes for Obama when just 270 are required.  Hopefully, this will work once more!

Tired of “truth stretchers...”

I'm glad that this horrendous, endless and mind-numbing electoral campaign is coming to a close in less than 4 days. It's been sterile, depressing and hasn't given the American people an opportunity to hear the real issues discussed in any mature way.

Both my prediction and my wishes are that, as far a the presidential contest goes, the biggest liar, namely Mr. Romney will lose. Likewise, if as I hope Obama wins, he'll display some admirable skills and some great intelligence in talking to, and convincing the Congress that they must act boldly.

If he fails to achieve it, we'll have wasted another 4 years. Since my time on this planet is running out, I'm quickly losing patience with incompetent individuals.

When Facebook friends support the opposition...

What can you do when your Facebook friends support the other presidential candidate? Do you just ignore it or do you “unfriend” them? Have we become so polarized as a Nation that we become irritated when we see, what we assume are logical, intelligent people cross the line of reason and support those we despise or think nothing of them?

This certainly is a measure of how extreme our positions have become and how the political machine is slowly be surely destroying communities and building a wall of resentment between folks who normally co-exist in peace. The debate is getting so nasty that we end up being engulfed into the toxic rhetoric and see more what divides us instead of what unites us.

This election cycle has been far too long, too negative and too costly. It's estimated that overall, $5 billion will have been wasted to make us mad at each other with borrowed money! Until New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought up the subject to the fore, global warming had been largely ignored during the two-year bickering process...

Perhaps our country pressing financial clean-up first begins with a change of legislation paving the way to true financial campaign reform?

Halloween by the numbers

Halloween is big business in the USA: American spend $3 billion in costume alone for adult, kids and pets, while more than 40 million kids go trick-or-treating and close to 90 million household give away candies.

Park City is no exception to that trend and for the first time ever, I went out of my routine to document on video what was going on in Park City's Main Street at about 4 pm. The street, closed to traffic, was literally mobbed with kids, their parents and dogs in wonderful costumes. An impressive sight that I must revisit next year!

When I returned home, the atmosphere was much more quiet and we even managed to eat dinner very quietly. After that it was a trickle-in of little groups of costumed kids and we welcomed what I would term was an average number of visitors seeking-out the traditional candies...