Rude folks that ignore messages

People who use a computer, a tablet or a smart phone, sooner or later learn how to send an email or just perhaps a text. With that power come a few responsibilities. 

When a message is received from someone you know or respect a tiny bit, I think you should respond to it. I’m not talking about junk, promotional or solicitation messages. Just established person-to-person communication. In a way something like answering a letter received via snail-mail or otherwise. 

Sure, if someone can’t or absolutely won’t compose a typed message and respond in that manner there’s the good, old telephone that someone can use. 

Example? This summer I notice the obituary of the mother of what I thought was a good friend of mine and I immediately sent a message of condolences; did I get an acknowledgment in the form of a reply or a phone call? Not at all. 

A majority of my French friends are the worst offenders; is it in their DNA? So, you see, there’s absolutely no excuse for being a jerk and ignoring emails.

How bad is this snow season?

This early part of the ski season has been dismal in terms of natural snow cover. Only runs covered with man-made snow are skiable and in spite of some attempts of opening up the upper terrain, there’s simply not enough snow to allow for good and safe skiing.

If one is audacious enough to venture into wild, natural terrain, the accident is lurking around and makes it not worth to even pursue. 

I went a couple of times, with my daughter, to ski 9990, our iconic playground, and the terrain is peppered with rocks, stumps and bushes that makes it more of a trap than a joy. 

A few days ago, they closed the hill, probably after logging too many accidents. What’s needed is between two and four feet of snow, but our skies continue to be hopelessly constipated.

Trump’s upcoming Coup?

As Trump is losing battles and coup attempts, he becomes increasingly desperate and ready for anything really bad. If he could, he would begin a real Coup d’État as a way to become a de-facto American dictator, change the rules, the constitution, and stay in power for as long as he lives, Mugabe-style. 

Several scenario comes to mind, some in which he could commandeer the military between now and January 20 and try to call on his supporters, or any alt-right armed insurgents to secure him inside the White House for as long as he breathes. 

Since we all think conventionally and follow the lanes, it’s hard for us to imagine what Adolf Trump has in the deep bottom of his nefarious mind, but it certainly isn’t nice and could surprise the most dystopian minds among us. 

With Trump, expect the unexpected!

How do chairlift seats get heated up?

My grandson is interested by technology and when he skis with me, by all the ski lifts we ride. One day, he asked me how the heating system on one of the chairlift we regularly use, works. 

The one in question is at Canyons, in Park City, and has been in operation since 2010. It is also equipped with a protection bubble that can further protect skiers against cold winds, frequent in that area. 

Made by Doppelmayr, this chairlift with heated seats has been launched in 2004 and is now in service on over 225 lifts worldwide. 

When the chair gets to the bottom station, two power rails bring the electrical current for 15 to 20 seconds, through friction, into the detachable grip assembly, and then to resistances placed inside the seat to warm it temporarily as skiers take place on the chair. 

The power flow stops once the chair leaves the station and dissipates into heat through the seating pad that’s heated enough (420 W per seat) to provide the passengers with some comforting warmth through the first few minutes of their trip. 

 

In terms of reliability, we can generously say that the one we regularly ride works 60% of the time, which is better than nothing, but probably not worth the enormous extra expense involved!

New year’s yucky skiing day…

The first ski day of the year was looking promising and my daughter and I were looking forward to ski around two new lifts that just opened. 

With bluebird skies, everything looked great, until we got to the resort and realized that the lines were out of this world. Something we had rarely seen in Park City! 

Brave as always, we managed to stay and went from lift to lift in search of better conditions, but this wasn’t a great ski day. 

Concrete-like man-made snow, insufficient natural snow and crowded slopes, that first day of the year was as bad as it could get, but hope is eternal and things will get better from there...

Looking forward to 2021

If 2020 didn’t kill us, it sure made us stronger and prepared us well for 2021, no matter what happens next. 

We re-learned to be patient, to accept what was presented to u, and adjust our expectations based on what we could control. 

With this in mind and strong from this experience, we’ll be better prepared to handle a new year guaranteed to be filled with even more surprises. 

Let’s remain positive as we are optimistic and never forget for a moment that we are lucky to be alive and to be part of this planet’s fascinating life! 

So, let’s do everything we can to live this New Year to the fullest!

It’s nice to be important…

As we leave a challenging and painful 2020, let’s begin 2021 with the quote “It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice.” 

This line which says a lot about how we should behave and treat people, is also called an “antimetabole”, a clever literary technique in which a phrase is repeated, but key words are reversed to produce a deeper sense. 

It’s been attributed to a lot a famous persons, from tennis champion Roger Federer to the famous investor John Templeton. 

Yet, it seems that the guy who invented is is no other than Walter Winchell, a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator, who crafted the expression using “swell” instead of “nice” in 1937. 

Our modern society in general, and Trump in particular, overly promotes the value of being important, but when all is said and done, people are remembered for the way they treat others. 

What we do everyday to make a difference in someone else's life can add up to huge differences in their lives, whether it’s big or small. It is a truism that helping others makes us feel so much better!