What do you see?

What do you see? 

A chairlift running with two passengers sitting in a chair? 

How was it filmed? 

What do you really see? 

Write your answers in the comments section, thanks! 

Herding deer in Park City

Like with cats, it’s not easy to herd deer, especially after a long Park City winter. They love to loiter in subdivisions, feast on fancy trees or shrubs and leave the homeowner with the left-overs. 

It takes a special set of skills to send them running in the right direction and my wife has that gift and can direct these four-legged creatures wherever she wants. 

She should probably get a job with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and get involved with managing the Cervidae family in an effort to get them out of our neighborhood and back into nature, where they belong. 

I should probably talk to her before and see if she’d be interested, but she’s a natural for that job! 

Tracking a leak down

This week will have been almost entirely consumed looking for the origin of a leak that has messed up everything contained inside the closet, under our kitchen sink. Nothing glorious or exciting about a quest that almost drove me insane. 

If you see what’s going under our kitchen sink, you would agree; how is it even possible to locate a leak in this confused and cluttered space where a full reverse-osmosis (RO) filtration system has to cohabit with a trash compactor, a pull out faucet and a few other technical accessories. You might be hard pressed to know where to begin.

A bit like opening up a patient’s belly yourself and glancing at the task at hand if you’re not quite a bona fide surgeon. At first, I assumed it was a leak from our RO. I called Paul, our plumber whom we trust and he kindly guided me via texts on how to proceed as I was placed on his waiting list. 

I did what he suggested and then some more, to the point that I learned quickly about servicing and trouble-shooting our RO system. Yet, days went by and the leak was stubbornly still there. It’s only after the 5th day that I had the brilliant idea to film with my phone what was going on inside that closet. 

As we were manually doing the dishes that night, the camera was rolling and when all was said and done, we previewed the video and discovered that the elusive leak was coming from the flexible tube of the pull-out main faucet that was frayed and, when pulled, was spraying water all around the closet and into the various components of our RO. 

When the plumber finally came this afternoon to change the defective hose, he was welcome like a savior. Well, he was our savior!

Jupiter’s skiing nostalgia

At Park City Mountain, Jupiter’s old chairlift and original terrain remain iconic of skiing of the past. The lift is slow, the area isolated and even though it sits at the top of our local resort, very few skiers ever set foot there. 

For many years, I have complained about the two-seat, slow lift and wished it were modern. Now, though, as modern lift infrastructure and too many riders have invaded our mountain space, I surprise myself by drastically changing my tune and seeming to prefer yesteryear’s way. 

Slow, genuine and natural suits me better. Old age, maturity or at long last, better balance… 

Just a (tiny) bit OCD…

Recently, we suffered a leak inside our water purification system that, while being a minor incident, created some major havoc in our household since the time it happened on Saturday when my wife noticed it.

As of today, it hasn’t been resolved yet. Considering the minor aspect of the problem in the grand scheme of things, I blame the upheaval it created on my obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), a behavior characterized by obsessive thoughts and concerns that lead to compulsive behaviors. 

Symptoms for that trait usually begin gradually and vary throughout life. I’m not yet to the point that my condition needs talk therapy, medications, or both, but it makes me restless and needy to keep looking for a solution until I can find it. 

For the moment, our plumber has put us on what I fear is a long wait-list. In the meantime, my mind is boiling with thoughts, ideas or solutions aimed at shortening the wait time this mini-crisis is forcing on us. 

At the very least this situation might presents me with a unique opportunity to successfully manage my compulsion before the pervasive leak is stopped!

Aging: Stiff body, flexible mind?

As people get older, their limbs get much stiffer and for skiers it can be hard to bend over to put on and take off ski boots, not to mention exerting sufficient force to be able to buckle up, at least for me. 

Everything seems to become more difficult. From picking up skis on the ground after skiing and of course getting back up after falling? Past the magic age of 70 it can become an impossible task and many a septuagenarian will cho0se to release from the ski bindings (if they can) before they attempt to raise their old body up. That’s the orthopedic and very physical aspect of aging as it affects skiers. In truth, there isn’t much we can do about it except trying to do some stretching and flexing to slow the damage down. 

Then there’s also our minds that aren’t exempt too from stiffening up, and there, I see more opportunities, as keeping flexible and fluid thoughts as we age requires us to focus some key strategies, like engaging in learning new techniques, like ski carving, taking more challenging runs, still skiing bumps now and then, albeit more slowly. 

 We can also try some new equipment with shorter and wider skis, safer accessories like exchanging a flimsy wool hat for a warm and comfortable helmet, try to stop less often on easy runs, and so on. We also need to keep skiing with younger folks, not pass an invitation to ski with junior family numbers, visit a snow park for beginners and ride a few rolling bumps here and there to keep our brains engaged and adaptable. 

Also, travel to an unknown ski resort and figure out its network of ski runs and lifts to experience something totally new. Obviously, keeping a positive mindset, with an optimistic outlook, a sense of curiosity and an openness to do things we have never done before that may benefit both our physical and mental well-being. 

Appreciate fully what we still can do and by incorporating these simple strategies into our remaining ski lives, we’ll promote mental flexibility, improve cognitive function, and maintain a sharp and adaptable mind as years pile on…

Eclipse Day?

Today was a big day in America with a total eclipse running on a narrow band between Maine and coastal Mexico. 

It attracted thousands of people who traveled to be in its path, contributed to local businesses which was offset by loss of wages and production from those who wanted to see this “one in a lifetime event”. 

I didn’t not. I had a leak related to our water filtration system under the kitchen sink that I had to fix, and besides, Park City was only in the 40% coverage of the sun by our own moon. Too bad. 

I console myself by thinking we’ll have several other total solar eclipses between now and Aug. 12, 2045, which will be the next one visible across most of the contiguous United States if I’m still around! 

For the moment, I missed today’s experience and still couldn’t fix the damned leak!