The curse of consumer products

As I was ready to shoot a ski video on a freezing early morning in Deer Valley this past Wednesday, the tiny button that I use to start or stop recording was no longer on my camcorder. Right, an itsy-bitsy button was rendering my camera totally inoperable!

By chance a little voice in the back of my head told me to go the lodge and get a toothpick to make it work and it did, but how impractical this was! Back home, I got on the phone with Sony. I explained the situation. They told me the product has just passed its one-year warranty and is no longer covered. I will have to fork out $192 to get it fixed!

To put things into perspective, I only paid $450 for the camcorder, so the Handycam maker is asking for almost half of the cost of the entire product to replace a basic and minuscule part that came off because it probably was poorly designed and assembled in the first place.

All this to say, that at this point, we can't justify paying the hefty penalty for making a minute repair on a product. We through away the one that's technically still perfectly functional and purchase a new one!

Ready for the end of the world?

Since we're all supposed to vanish tomorrow, I'm going to clean up my desk, pay a few bills and back-up my computer during the few hours that we have left. This way I won't die feeling guilty.

I feel pretty good with the few things I accomplished during my short presence on this planet. I have one brand new pair of skis and boots (my Christmas present) that I won't be able to enjoy, but like the French say: “C'est la vie!”

I also plan to have a beer at 5 pm and watch the local television news for the last time. I hope you enjoyed my ultimate blog and, in parting, let me wish you a pleasant apocalypse!

May I invite myself?

It begins like this: You get a phone call from a person you barely know, who says: “I'm stopping by Park City and would like to ski with you.” You move a few things around to block the day and you answer “why not?”

Then the fellow asks, “any good hotel around?” which translates into “can I sleep in your home?” Over the years and many mistakes later, we have become much smarter and respond “try the Peaks Hotel, next door.”

Relentlessly comes the next question from that semi-stranger: “What about dinner together?” which means “can I have dinner with you?” Once more, I respond perfectly: “impossible on that night, we have other engagements!”

The day arrives, I pick up the impromptu guest at his hotel, drive him to the resort, watch him get shell-shocked when he has to lay down $102 for a one-day lift-ticket. From that point on and until the lift closes at 4:15pm, it's skiing, skiing non-stop; the man wants to get his money worth!

Out, the conditions are great but the weather is cold, I ask: “Do we break for lunch?” My guest responds “No, I have prepared a sandwich, and I always eat on the chairlift!” I oblige, and feel very fortunate that my companion shares his cold sandwich with me. I certainly can appreciate the fact that he didn't want to put himself in a situation in which he would have felt obligated to buy me lunch!

He's a very good skier and I show him the best spots on the mountain, plus even shoot him skiing powder on my GoPro helmet-cam. At the end of day, I take pity on him (huge mistake!) and as my wife had previously suggested, invite the free-loader to dinner at home.

Of course, he shows up empty-handed, talks a lot about himself, drop lots of names, mentions his trips to Europe and St. Moritz, his impressive education, his kids, but shows little, if any interest for us. At 9 pm when we wish he would go, the man pulls up his laptop to bore us with pictures of him with some irrelevant folks. We signify to him that it's late and when he finally leaves us, he forgets to say thanks for the day and the delicious meal he just devoured...

Guess what, we've learned another invaluable lesson: The human specie never ceases to amaze us, we learn something new everyday and in the process are becoming much smarter. These enhanced social skills can always come in handy!

Deer Valley, Canyons, 50% more skiing...

Yesterday, I did a pilgrimage of sort by skiing Park City Mountain Resort. If you know me or read my blog, my two favorite lifts on that mountain are Jupiter and Thaynes. Ask any good skier and their response is likely to be the same.

Yet, this two lifts are from the early 70s. They are desperately slow and by the end of a day, you don't get much ski done. I took the time to measure it and my conclusions are pretty staggering. If you are an extremely good skier and spend your time at Canyons or Deer Valley you'll get an extra 50% more skiing than you would at Park City Mountain Resort.

Or, if you did it in the reverse, that is, if you skied Canyons or Deer Valley and decided to switch to Park City, you'd lose 33% of your total skiing (that's how percentages work...) With this in mind, there is no contest; until Park City speeds up its two best lifts, they won't see much of me on the mountain; my time as a skier is counted and therefore very, very precious!

France, Taxes and Gérard Depardieu...

Okay, I'll make that story short. The famous French movie actor who urinate in commercial airplane main cabin, doesn't want to pay the astronomic tax rate (75%) President Hollande want to extract from his super-rich constituents, so he says that he'll move to Belgium to avoid being fleeced by his country of origin.

Enters Jean-Marc Ayrault, the socialist prime minister into the debate, who qualifies Depardieu's flight for tax shelter as being “pathetic,” and we have a French revolution.

Here's my take on this:

First Hollande and his government are a bunch of idiots; you don't scare off people who have money and can create wealth; you just tax them fairly, not at the senseless rate they're brandishing. Then, Ayrault, could have – perhaps – avoided name-calling, even though “pathetic” would, in many instances, fit Depardieu.

Finally, Depardieu who, like other artist-expatriate, such as Charles Aznavour, Yannick Noah, Johnny Hallyday, to name just a few are... “pathetic” too, because they make their living from the French public and should be boycotted by their audience if it were a tiny bit more thoughtful...

The true sources of evil...

I've remained silent long enough about the school shooting tragedy in Connecticut. What I simply would like to say though, is that the National Rifle Association, its entire membership, a few radical talk-show hosts and our dear member of Congress are collectively responsible for that massacre.

To top it all, I bet you that most of these retrograde folks are at the same time in favor of the death penalty, anti-abortion and anti gay!

Sad update...

On Wednesday, I heard that Dick Needham, who was America's Ski magazine editor for many, many years, died at 73 in Sarasota, Florida. Dick was a wonderful person and I only have very positive memories of him.

He was on my address book and was also my Facebook friend. His Facebook page is still on and only God knows for how long... He is my second Facebook buddy to go, following my countryman Denys Liboz who left us on April 2011.

I just deleted Dick Needham's record from my Gmail address book and I will no longer send him any emails. Just pressing the delete button is, in a way, my manner of mourning him in this digital age. That doesn't feel good and it probably is not, but I guess we better get used to that new way of moving on. RIP, Dick.