When Wall Street judges Trump...

Today, the stock market staged a huge rally as it appeared that Trump may not win the election, as Wall Street had feared just a few days earlier.

Analysts at Citibank have said that if Donald Trump were to win, this could spark an immediate sell-off of up to 5 percent for the S&P 500, along with a probable slower growth or even a full-blown recession for the American economy.

With Donald Trump's across-the-board tax cuts, his retrograde views on trade and lack of a credible economic plan, the financial community was far smarter than the 30 to 40 million Trump followers that rallied under the hollow and simplistic “Make American Great Again” slogan.

Let's hope today's stock market rebound is a reliable confirmation of tomorrow's defeat of Donald the Bully!

Ski-swap, Park City style

This weekend's highlight was the annual Park City Ski Swap, allegedly one of the largest and oldest ski swaps in the U.S.A. offering a large selection of ski gear under one single roof.

I went there on Friday night, which was a big mistake, as the place was mobbed and browsing almost impossible. That night, I picked one pair of 180 cm Dynastar – I'm going shorter these days - complete with bindings for less than $400. Most of the product offering was brand-new and the majority of shoppers came from the Salt Lake Valley. The locals are probably too snob for shopping at a ski swap...

The selection was excellent, the help terrible (just not trained as it should have) and it took some good equipment knowledge to navigate the range of equipment. The next day, I returned to select a pair of ski boots. They were much fewer people and I had all the time in the world to try on ski boots and make my choice.

I picked a pair of Nordica after trying DalBello, Rossignol and Lange. The fit was good and the flex much gentler to match my growing number of years...

Recovering my old, good (?) grades

Yesterday, I received a letter from France along with my High-School grades that I garnered between 1961 and 1966. I had totally forgotten about them and in reality – they were not quite as good – as I had pictured them in my evolving memories.

I could always “photoshop” them so they look a bit more flattering, but I'm too lazy to go that far! Yet, seeing them evoked a certain slice of my life, when things were more “black and white” and certain than they are today.

At least they were quantified in the form of grades and comments from my teachers. I've always thought that in math and science, I had to play catch-up and my grades confirmed it.

School then, just like today, was adapted to the “average student”, which is a minority entity, while we were all different, with different learning speeds and styles.

Sure I learned a lot of stuff during these years, but in retrospect, the efficiency of my education was perhaps just 15 to 20% of what it could have been and I'm afraid that this process hasn't evolved much...

A ski binding protecting the knee?

If you're a serious skier, you may have noticed ads from the KneeBinding or may have seen it on the slopes.

This device, that differs from traditional bindings in the fact that the heel unit can rotate laterally on one side as well as vertically (as all others do) claims to free the foot during rear-twisting falls that are said to hurt a skier's knee.

The problem with that is that no one knows for sure. Intuitively, a simple backward release mechanism in the toe-unit would seem a much simpler way to address that theory, since the KneeBinding dual function heel piece is not attached very securely on its base and may create some obvious retention problems...

If the product really worked as it claims you would see most world cup skiers on it and the manufacturer would sell them like hot-cakes or would have licensed the technology a long time age. Of course, a much better (and sci-fi) way would be to place a sensor on the threatened ligaments and when a certain threshold of tension is reached, release open the binding.

Naturally, I must be – once more - getting ahead of myself.

Value of electoral polls?

Ever since that presidential campaign began in earnest, we've been deluged with polling calls. Until now, we've bravely ignored them all and it's only last night that I picked one up. Boy, things have changed since 2012!

Today, we're talking about fully automatized phone calls. A robot talks to you and for each question asks you only have to press on 1, 2, 3, etc. and cast your answer. There's no human involved in the interaction; just a machine, and because of that, one feels much freer to say what one's want, and why not, make stories up!

This dawned on me as I was progressing in the questionnaire. Why would I say for whom I exactly voted in 2012? None of this pollsters business, right? Also, the annoyance of these incessant polling calls has been taking their toll, making us angry at that system of prying into our plans.

At the end, this made me think very seriously about the reliability of the new electoral poll we read every morning...

A mean Facebook “friend”

I know a guy who had purportedly invented a ski binding that might protect against knee ACL injuries. In 2008, he was kicked out of the company he founded (KneeBinding) and has since being embroiled in law suit against that company while trying to develop and market his own version of the product. 

An artist rendering of the piece of hardware has appeared on line. What's remarkable is that he's trying to sell his ski binding today for 2018 delivery and against a $100 deposit, customers will “only have to pay” $600 instead of the $880, hefty sticker price.

When I saw that posted on Facebook, I commented that he was borrowing a page from Tesla that is selling its Model 3 the same way or even Richard Brandson selling his Virgin Galactic spacial excursion. In that context, my comment was rather complimentary.

That Facebook “friend” of mine didn't appreciate it though, and concluded that I must have been jealous; he added that when we were competitors – he, with the new defunct Geze bindings and me with Look – his market share in America had gone from 2 to 20% while mine went from 20 down to 2%; a patently false and egregious statement.

I think this mad ski binding inventor mentally “pre-released” and needs some TLC...

Annual Halloween Stats

This year's number of visitors for Halloween, at our home, jumped up an impressive 47%! Of course, it was so low the year before that we could only do better.

Among the notable (and "deplorable") visitors, were a neighbor of ours, his wife and their three cute kids. He, a staunch Republican, was sporting a “Trump-Pence” shirt and pouring a drink from a “High West” whiskey bottle to us, almost as a way to making us forgive him for wearing such a disgusting garment.

Even though our visitor numbers were up, we still don't come close to Main Street and are a long way of being mobbed in our very quiet and sleepy street!