"Old" Orleans

This past Thursday, I had the bright idea to take my wife to see and hear “Orleans”, that pop and rock band, mostly known for its mid-70s hits like "Dance with Me" and "Still the One".

I used to liked these songs a lot as they reminded me of the first years I emigrated to in the United States. Besides, I also liked the soft rock songs from the related duo Hall & Oates and was looking forward to that evening.

The problem was that the recomposed band didn't sound good (only one surviving member, John Hall, was in, seemed to be out of place and couldn't hold a tune).

With the exception of Lance Hopen, all were shabbily dressed, looked pathetic as well as pitiful and let my wife comment: “To every thing there is a season” meaning that these guys should stay home instead of performing below audiences' expectations.

Something to keep seriously in mind next time we decide to attend a concert...

The video below is much better than what we had to endure... 

Am I a killing machine?

If modern contraception at existed when I was conceived, I certainly would not be here today, as I was an unexpected “surprise” for my parents. Since I owe my life to this, I feel extremely fortunate and thank heavens everyday to be alive and well.

I'm not a killer either. I have never committed murder and I'm against wars and revenge killing. Neither am I a hunter; this said, I realized that I'm a bit compromised by all the meat, fish and poultry,
I have consumed and continue to eat, even though it's no longer what it used to be.

I've only killed three deer with my car; in returns the animals made sure to wreck my autos as a way to say “thank”. I have also killed countless small mammals both with my car and other means. Finally,

I must also be guilty of the death of thousands of insects. I recognize that I'm and remain a human predator that's doing his share of wrecking a little bit more our beloved planet, but console myself by thinking that I'm not the worst one.

Will this suffice to exonerate me?

My take on the Muller report

I'm not a fast reader, so don't expect to jump with both feet into the redacted Muller report and tell you what I think of it.

I would just make one blanket statement: "Not enough evidence to charge someone with a crime" does not mean the person “did not commit a crime."

This said, I will read, listen and watch the news about this event and instead of impeaching the scoundrel, I think the best way to deal with him is to vote him out of office - in a landslide - come November 2020.

Alta devotees

Yesterday we skied Alta, our next-door neighboring resort, that is 4.5 miles over the mountains as the crow flies, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, but still is more than 40 miles away from my home.

As I might have expressed in the past, Alta is to American skiing what Notre-Dame is to Catholicism. It's not just a place and a picturesque setting offering fabulous ski options, it's simply a religion, or perhaps, a sacrament.

As we were riding the chairlift, we talked on two different occasions with two older men.

One appeared to be in his mid-seventies, the other told us he was 85. Both lived in California, but chose to spend their entire winter in Utah, in some pied-à-terre, at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon, and skied literally everyday.

These two guys seemed to enjoy their lot in life and who could blame them?

Long-in-the-tooth President

Arguably, Trump's only great achievement as a president has been to make Americans accept that an old man leading a country isn't a problem.

That could have been until he began to contradict basic common sense when he recently made a bunch of demented suggestions like closing the border, bringing the asylum-seekers to San Francisco and New York or “re-branding” the Boeing 737 Max.

 I am 71, very active, thin, still pretty sharp and quite healthy, but I realize that I'd be far too old for holding such a big job and could only be of use in some kind of advisory role.

The same holds true, of course, for both Democrat Party candidates, Biden (76) and Sanders (77), that ought to take care of their grand-kids and pass the torch to young, energetic, middle-age men and women.

This is symptomatic of too many baby-boomers that won't quit at any cost, and are blocking younger generations for accessing jobs for which they'd be much more qualified, simply because they feel entitled to their post, want to amass even more wealth and are so selfish that it blinds them to nature's reality that there's a time for everything.

Let's quit voting for Trump-old candidates and choose young blood instead!

Powerless witness...

As a Frenchman, and just like the rest of the planet, I observed, in real time, and a world away, the destruction of Notre Dame Cathedral.

I simply felt like a powerless witness, watching the sad spectacle unfold in front of my very eyes.

I wondered if the firefighters intervened early enough and with sufficient means, but I know little about firefighting and the city of Paris.

This is a terribly sad day for France, religion and the world heritage.

The future of multi-resorts ski-passes

There's no question that even more than a great snow year, the flurry of multi-resorts pass visitors have been the subject of animated conversations and bitter resentment among locals, especially.

The real question we might ask, at a time when we're being hit daily with pleas for renewal, is whether that Epic and Ikon fever will last or will it just be “flash in the pan”?

One could speculate that after having “visited” many resorts this winters, a large number of skiers may have found that it costs money to travel from one place to the other, whether by car or plane and that it takes time to get to a new place and come back (make it two days in most cases).

Skiers would also have experienced that it cost even more to find accommodations, that finding food for one person, a family, or a group was never cheap in an unknown ski town, and finally that, unless one is the adventurous type, each new resort takes a lot of time to be explored, understood and start offering as much familiarity as the ski town people are used to.

Then, as resorts want to extract more money each year, their price increase far outpace inflation to the point where the benefits of these passes inevitably come in a collision course with their affordability.

It's true that these multi-use passes are no different than the 500 TV channels we have at our fingertips when we only use, in practice, the same 1 or 2, over and over...

Sure, it's quite likely that sale of these passes and the cross-visitations they engender won't drop like a rock next season, but the novelty will start to wear off and soon, the most adventurous of us may conclude: “been there – done that!”