The “accidental” birth

Right, I'm this kind of kid. I was born long after my sister and brother when my parents thought they were all done. That's when I showed up; I must have been a bittersweet surprise for them and it was shear luck for me. Had modern birth control be popular in those days, my chances of making it on the planet would have been at best, very slim to none.

So here I am and happy to have made it by jumping just through a few feeble hoops. I can also guarantee you that if I had not showed up, humanity wouldn't have miss a beat. My jobs would have gone to others folks, my wife would have married someone else and the only other losers beside me would have been my two children and my grandson.

So once more, I'm delighted I made it on this earth and only regret that I haven't done much, much more with that extraordinary chance that fate gave me, but that's a totally different story!

Is Utah worth dying for?

This morning I received an email from a friend of mine, back in France, who alerted me on a recently published study by Perry Renshaw, a neuroscientist at the University of Utah.

What Mr Renshaw stressed is that despite ranking as America's happiest state, Utah also has a disproportionately high rates of suicide and associated mood disorders compared to the rest of the country. He said that Utah was the No. 1 state for antidepressant use, something I already knew.

This paradox generally attributed to gun use, low population density and the Mormon culture is, according to Renshaw, caused by altitude which impacts our brain chemistry by changing its levels of serotonin and dopamine, that help regulate our feelings of happiness. My immediate reaction is that Colorado, still higher than Utah, should be number one, but of course it has far less Mormons in its population, so in my view, the fault full rests on the state's religious culture.

Do I feel like hanging myself? Absolutely not, especially when skiing season begins just a few days from now!

Skiing the Alps from America

For years, I believed it made sense for Americans to fly over to the Alps and ski. It was before I traveled too much, suffered from all kinds of jet-lag and worked in the hospitality industry.

I learned that what I call “negative-jet-lag” (the one you get when you fly Eastbound) is the worst, and that if a week is a minimum time segment to allocate for a European ski vacation, it's no longer available as skiers come for stays ranging from 3 to 5 days.

This is why, more than ever, the fabled Austrian, French or Swiss ski vacation for Americans who live in the USA is all but a pipe-dream!

Evolving slalom technique?

I'm not sure I'll get up at 5 am every time and watch many ski world cups this winter, but I stumbled out of bed today to watch the 2nd run of the Levi men's slalom. Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen, won magisterially and my take-away, after watching the incredible new breed of Swede and Norwegian slalom specialists, was their peculiar style in which their hands appeared to be totally free in relation to their feet. 

Let me explain; for years, skiers' arms appeared to trigger their foot work and both arms and legs operated in perfect synchronicity. The Scandinavian top slalom racers seem to have broken away from this regimented rhythm and their arms appear clearly free and independent from their feet. A much freer impression emanates from their skiing style, in which the arms are following the motion, when in the past, they seemed to have been the action's catalyst.

Have you noticed it? Do you agree?

So much too learn, so little time!

I'd like to learn something new and with technology, these days, learning is just a few keystrokes away. There's so much on line that there is in fact too much.

So what should I sink my teeth into? Programming, movie-making, political science, architecture or sport psychology? It's pretty embarrassing to admit that I'm literally paralyzed by this plethora of options.

My daughter also directed me to look into MOOC (Massive open online course) and I have just begun to drawn into its super rich content. I better get thinking, organize and going before I have no more available time left!

Early exposure to religion

Seeing an old picture on me on skis, revived memories about my early experience with religion. Should I say that while I got hooked on skiing from the get go, this wasn't the case for the Catholic Faith.

I remember that religion in the family (evening communal prayer) was utterly boring while Catechism, up to a point, was an entertaining story, plus I loved history. I don't remember if I believed in Jesus Christ's miracles that were enumerated all along the course, I just took them as original tidbits.

Obviously the most effective and potent tool used by the church to convince us, little kids, was fear and it certainly worked wonder. So for me religion was extreme boredom, plus a potent “don't do this” list held together by the cement of fear.

Fortunately for me, that temporary bound crumbled before I could find any good reason to become a believer.

Really cold shower!

When we changed planes in Denver, yesterday morning, it was a freezing 1 degree F at the airport. The day before, we enjoyed a balmy 69 degrees in Washington, DC and today our Park City day started at a cold 7 degrees.

Hard to adapt to this drastic changes, but winter is upon us and we must get used to it. Nonetheless, I went running early this morning and we just finished a walk this afternoon. We seemed to have accepted that new state of affair. Just another six short months and we'll shift back to Spring!