Let me revel “The Secret” to you!

I’ve been so much influenced by one positive-thinking book, “Think and Grow Rich”, back in the days, that I wanted to read “The Secret”, the updated standard bearer of that life philosophy. 

From the get go, the fancy presentation of the book, its questionable rooster of so-called experts, as well as the professed belief that eyesight or health problems could easily be fixed by the “Law of Attraction”, rang warning bells in my mind! 

In fact, the few good advice contained in the book could be dispensed by a short, 25 page outline, and the rest is all marketing fluff, feel-good prose and borderline fraudulent. 

And where is the “secret” in all this? The good advice is just common sense and isn’t locked inside some remote vault! 

This book is totally forgettable and some research on Wikipedia about Positive Thinking, or the New Thought Movement, and its beneficial effects as well as its pitfalls might be a good alternative primer...

Want to ski more smoothly?

While riding the chairlift with my wife and observing the skiers below, I pointed to her a seemingly good skier looking down on his skis. 

I critiqued that visual fixation to the immediate perimeter along the ski tips as a way to blind skiers to their immediate surroundings and chart their itinerary in a smooth, continued and much more efficient way. 

This leads to skiers stopping to often instead of benefiting from the continuum of linked turns and steady momentum. 

Sure when the skier’s ability, the run, the terrain or the snow bring challenges, the natural reaction is to fall back to one’s immediate surroundings and obliterate the big, more essential picture.

As a way to train for looking ahead I suggest that skiers, on easy terrain, train themselves how not to see their ski tips at all and trust that they’re in fact an extension of their feet. 

They’ll soon realize they don’t have to see them and will get used to glancing away and continuously plan their evolution down the slope for a smoother, much effortless skiing...

A solution to French teenage murderers?

Recently, a 14-year-old girl was found dead on in Paris, after being thrown into the Seine river. She was the victim of an ambush organized by two 15-year-old classmates. 

This sad event had a huge impact all over France with Social Media being designated as the obvious and largest culprit. 

From a distance and common-sense perspective though, this terrible tragedy puts most of the responsibility squarely on those parents who have long given up raising their off-springs. Instead, they’ve let school, media or technology assume their parental role. 

Under French law, the culprits, being minors, can’t be locked up for more than 20 years. Shouldn’t the parents face the music too and assume partial penal responsibility for the act of their kids by being locked up for a matching number of years, not to mention the assumption of civil liability arising in such situations. 

If the law was changed in that direction, behaviors would change drastically the concept of parenting and its responsibilities.

Vail Resorts’ good deed

A good deed from that mega-ski resort may sound like an oxymoron, but it appears that Park City Mountain, through Vail Resorts, its parent company, will extent our ski season by one week from April 4 to April 11.

The resort said that it was a way of saying thank you to its pass holders and guests for their continued support, for following safety protocols and showing personal responsibility during this unprecedented season, and for helping them open and stay open. 

I am very appreciative of the gesture, and you guessed it, intend to take full advantage of it. 

In recent past, I have prayed, burned incense, sacrificed a stray deer or limping squirrel, but none of my efforts worked, while just doing nothing produced a real miracle. 

A technique to remember for creating future dreams that must come true!

Five weeks in Chamonix…

Fifty years ago, I was packing my bags to go to Chamonix and attend the “Auxilliaire’s”, five-week training session at the old ENSA (Ecole Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme), to get my second-stage ski instructor certification and the cool pin that came with it. 

I didn’t know anyone there and never stayed much in touch with my new-found colleagues. I got to ski le Brévent, la Flégère, les Houches and les Grands Montets, learned about technique, avalanches and managed to graduate under the guidance of Professeur Martinal. 

This was an easy rite of passage, a pleasant learning experience and a major step into my nascent ski industry career. Five weeks I’ll never forget…

My take on the Meghan & Harry's saga

On Sunday night, like millions of others, I invested two hours of my time, including one hour of commercials, to learn that Millennial and Monarchy don’t mix well. I know, Meghan Markle isn’t quite a true Millennial, but if you average her age and that of Prince Harry it works. 

So, I found out that Monarchy, that also is the torch bearer for colonialism is also still a hotbed for racism. I’m not surprised and while I feel sorry for Meghan to have been railroaded into that rotten deal by Prince Harry. That said, I’m confident they’ll survive the break with the Royals and will have a good life playing in their Santa Barbara chicken coop. 

This sad show showed me once more that the British Monarchy, like the Church of England it represents, are now obsolete and irrational institutions, that there is no “firm” or institution, but an old Queen and her stupid son who are marooned in tradition with their head stuck in the sand for lack of a better descriptor.

What was funny in the interview though, was the royal, if not godly role played by Oprah, the pope of pop culture, who unfortunately failed to ask Harry the quintessential question: “Do you see any future in the British Monarchy?”

Folks who love their cars

When it comes to automobiles, there seems to be a huge gap between driver’s satisfaction (a very subjective notion) and objective, technical ranking of cars. 

In a recent Consumer Reports’ article, the magazine was comparing how it rates car against how users perceive their auto, and the results were pretty striking. 

Tesla clearly came on top of that ranking while the magazine’s testers were far from being enthusiastic about the brand. Are Tesla owner fanatical about their brand or is there something that testers have missed? 

Other surprises, Lincoln and Ram/Chrysler were immediately following the electric car company, while they are not trending on the market. Both Subaru and Hyundai were most in keeping with the magazine’s ratings. 

Yet, so-called “luxury brands” like Lexus and Infiniti ranked below their standard, parent brands (Toyota and Nissan)! 

Just to say that what people perceive to be right can be faraway from what well-meaning engineers and professional testers determine. This said, I would tend to believe the actual users!