Moab, toy town

We spent the last three days in Moab, southern Utah, a remarkable little town. Situated four hour drive from Park City, on the Colorado River, it was discovered by the Spaniards in the mid 1700s, settled by the Mormons a century later and became famous for uranium mining in the 1950s. Today, it’s become a “toy town” with crowds of all-terrain vehicle riders. It’s also a great place for river running and it has become the de-factor mountain bike capital of North America - if not the world (Moab is famous for its “slick-rock” riding). To top it off, Moab is adjacent to two National Parks, Arches and Canyonland, and we just visited the latter Monday and Tuesday. Tourist season runs pretty much from spring to fall, even though temperatures can get very, very hot in summer. There are basically three types of visitors who come to that desert wonderland: Rednecks that ride motorized vehicles on dirt roads and slick rock (Jeeps, four-wheelers and dirt bikes), adrenaline junkies that raft, kayak and mountain bike, and pseudo-intellectuals like us – with many foreigners among them – who just visit the Parks…

Poor reaction to bad journalism

Sunday night, the French president went on the “60 minutes” news show, with Lesley Stahl, just long enough before he brutally put and end to the session and abruptly left the room, following a question on his private life. “An unpredictable and ill-tempered head of state” is probably the image that will remain with the American public. CBS’s “60 Minutes” newsmagazine was featuring a piece called “Sarko the American” in which Nicolas Sarkozy lost his cool, rolled up his eyes before he screamed at his press secretary and called him an “imbecile” among other expletives. Moments later, still under Stahl’s incredulous eyes, Sarkozy suddenly rips off his mike and leaves the room after one question too many about Cecilia, still his spouse when the piece was produced. It’s pretty obvious that Lesley Stahl was pushing the envelope in asking such a personal question at that moment, at any rate the botched interview showed the confluence of three factors: First, Sarkozy doesn't have a good grasp of the American culture to make jokes on the fly like he did and should have stuck to speaking French all along instead of showing off at times a marginal command of English. Second, his lack of self-control including the terrible manner in which he insulted his assistant is a telltale sign that the man is a "loose canon". Third, and finally, "60 Minutes" which used to be a good news show has fallen into the abyss of low-life “tabloid” gossip, which obviously is CBS’s problem, but seems the kind of media Sarkozy is ready to go after...

Unilateral time change

This morning I was reminded of my unilateral-thinking president and his unique hour change to combat terrorism, global warming and low-mileage SUVs - one week after the rest of the industrialized world - when I glanced at my bedroom clock while hearing the noise of our central heating kicking in at 5 am instead of 6. You see, our night table clock is only half-way smart by nowadays standards. It was programmed like your ordinary robot to tell the time changes for years to come before George W. Bush would screw it all up. Our kitchen atomic clock – which is a lot smarter - knew that and didn’t over-react by still showing the correct 6 am time. Perhaps, because it’s “atomic”, it heeded the influence of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who, thanks to G.W. is now the authority in the nuclear matter, and by extension, more in the know when it comes to telling the right time than our "nukular" very own…

The lure of mountain biking

In a previous post, I was talking about addiction to mountain biking. It’s a hard but quite complete activity and if you want to give it all, this sport certainly extends you a long rope to hang yourself; when the slope gets steep, it will suck all the energy out of you and then some. Without question, it “separates the men from the boys,” demands an excellent physical condition, and regular practice will definitely make you much better at it. At the beginning of the season, little hills are daunting; a few weeks later they lose their sting and almost become a walk in the park! Mountain biking finds a way to pummel and exercise the entire body, from shoulders to feet… Compared to golfing or skiing, you don’t need to spend a day on your bike; a good hour of riding can drain the most aggressive and getting to sleep that night is absolutely guaranteed and instant. Downhill of course is the reward for all the grinding work that climbing demands. It’s both exhilarating and dangerous. Riding single track requires your utmost attention, full participation and your ability to anticipate. There’s absolutely no reason or need to chat or listen to music. Unlike snow sports, where falling may occasionally happen, you don’t want to do that when riding your mountain bike and must pay constant and serious attention to your trajectory, your surroundings and your technique. In the course of any session, miracles never stop to happen as you dodge obstacles, improvise more often than not and seem to forever get lucky. Few other sports are as fun!

Little women phoning in huge SUV

These days, it seems that the smaller the lady driver, the larger the SUV and the most cell phone chatter. When I get on the road, less than two minutes pass before I spot a minuscule woman all alone in a huge SUV, spilling her soul on a cell phone. Would these charming motorists even use a hand-free device? Not on your life and those of their past or future road kills. In fact, they had a phone clamped in their hand and stuck to their ear long before they climbed on their monster truck.
What does that tell me? That the larger the vehicle, the best calls it must make, the safer it may seem, the most powerful it probably is, the greatest contribution it makes to pollution and global warming as well as to middle-eastern terrorism. Way to go tiny ladies! By the way mam, while using your moving phone booth don’t forget to keep an eye on the road…

A "one-company" town?

Let me quickly set the stage for you. Park City has three ski resorts that are all different entities and are not interconnected (yet.) Park City Mountain Resort and Deer Valley Resort are leasing their land from Talisker, a Canadian-based real estate company. That same Talisker is about to purchase and operate The Canyons, our third ski mountain that sits just next to Park City. Since the landlord for the two first resorts will now be operating the third one, one could speculate that Park City resorts now have a common denominator, which would make it the de-facto dominating economic force in the community. How should our city engage that 800 pound gorilla? What should we expect from them? Should we instead, as many advocate, roll over and play dead under the behemoth? This certainly is not my opinion. The silver lining of that consolidation could be that, with a single underlying player, we might get closer to interconnecting our resorts and offer a much enhanced skiing and snowboarding experience.

Municipal Elections

Last night we attended a neighborhood meeting in which we had a chance to meet with, and ask questions to, six candidates vying for three city council seats up for grabs at this November 6 election. It was the first time we attended that kind of assembly and it revealed a lot about the candidates, their body language, the articulation of their program and the way they answered questions. We could only find two candidates who were worthy of our votes and could not help but wonder what makes these guys and girls run. Is it to satisfy their egos, get out of their homes, make useful business connections, get a few perks along the way, or is it pure idealism and a deep desire to serve? I sincerely doubt that it’s often the later two. I for one, have no interest in spending my evenings in city council meetings. I’m not suggesting that no one serves to serve, but those must be few and far between…