Irritation, the step-child of emotions

When we discuss emotions, we often overlook irritation and it’s never something people like to talk about it because of its insidious, unpleasant and indirect nature. 

It’s generally defined as “a state of excessive, easily provoked anger, annoyance, or impatience.” In other words a full package of emotions unleashing on us. 

When we feel irritated, we aren’t our usual selves. We’re on edge, we get upset as the slightest thing can set us off at any moment. It can make us snappy, rude and hard to be around. At least this is pretty much how I feel. 

It generally happens to me when everything is going smoothly for me, and then, all of a sudden, boom! Something comes out of nowhere to mess up my well-organized routine and God, I hate it! Well, that’s my reality and I’ve looking at some remedies to deal with it. 

Experts mention meditation, muscle relaxation, writing our thoughts down, getting support from others or finding a positive distraction, which all sound good, but not really effective, except for meditation. 

So, with not so many tools available my best course of action seems to have the courage of facing it and dealing with it.

Gun-crazy America

Almost 50 mass shootings already and the first month of 2023 is not even over... 

With more guns than there are people in the United States, there is no shortage of firearm. Add to this a national culture of violence and seemingly more people with mental issues, we have everything it takes to see more of it. 

This grotesque situation was punctuated a few days by the absurd death of a hunter shot by his own dog, which contradicts what the pro-gun lobby that “Only people kill people, not guns”. Well not it this case, that theory is going to the... dogs. 

When will come the day when America becomes both smarter and finally civilized to realize that its blind faith of the 2nd Amendment is archaic and begins cleaning up its demented arsenal?

Finally, time to be grateful!

Until recently, I never thought about gratefulness in general and was placing the good experiences of my life on the account of luck, like the chance resulting from certain encounters or just being in a good spot at the right time.

Yet, gratefulness wasn’t not necessarily on my daily radar and this is something I tend to regret today because I missed that opportunity for too long. 

Now that I’m with my two feet well planted in the midst of old age, it finally dawns on me that being grateful at each and every moment of my life is something that must become part of me like the simple act of breathing. 

That’s exactly right, from that point forward, I’m bathing in a sea of gratefulness and this is becoming the backdrop of my remaining years, no matter what happens to me and how my future turns out. Grateful I feel and I hope I shall remain!

After the Davos World Economic Forum

In reading what happened at the 2023 Forum in Davos, I wanted to compile how the world intend to tackle its biggest issues this year so we can compare with reality a year from now... 

The economy we are told is not as bad as thought before the forum and the global outlook will in fact be better than feared, but of course, no one want to spook the planet with bad news and create a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Ukraine, the second topic of importance, was all about getting the invaded country weapons to defend itself, but no one has the foggiest idea how long the conflict will last and what kind of outcome we are likely to see. No one voiced my opinion that the only solution resides in getting rid of Putin. 

On trade, we seem to go away from globalism and wealthy groups nations like the US, Europe and China are defending and pushing their industrial policies, seemingly at the expense of weaker nations. 

After having a good, super profitable year, oil and fossil fuel producers are still counting on wealthy countries to pay for the climate destruction in non-polluting countries when they should be the ones to foot the bill, as the UN General Secretary discovered a few days ago. 

As far as the Tech industry goes, the big topic was the importance of artificial intelligence in a background of layoffs of tens of thousands of employees globally, as the industry is under enormous cost pressure and needs to find ways to do things cheaper. 

China for its part declared that it was open again for business with a growth forecast of 4.5% according to Crédit Suisse. We’ll see… 

Fighting inflation worldwide is another challenge that also takes place in the context of open competition between Europe and America and that has lagging economic effects... 

Finally the anticipated financial slowdown has global financial institutions grappling with how to right-size for a slowdown, while dealing with a host of other challenges, including financing the global transition to a greener future much faster than has happened so far. Other events related to geopolitics and cybersecurity risks are further adding to the complexity. 

Overall, consensus was hard to reach at the Forum and it will be interesting to see, in a year, how close reality these vague, general directions will be…

Finally, one step forward in ski boots!

Attempts to create a cable closure system in ski boots are not really new. Raichle had it in the late 60s, improved it a bit on its plastic boots and later, Ed Chalmers’ Osprey boot based its lower shell closure on it, but never reach market. 

As the rear-entry boot design was sent to ski industry’s hell, most cable closure systems pretty much disappeared from ski boots and it was the return to the antique four-buckle closure system. 

In 2001, Gary Hammerslag, a snowboarder and surfer entrepreneur who had moved to Steamboat, Colorado, envisioned to dramatically improve the snowboard boot lacing systems by creating BOA, a micro-adjustable, precision fit that would ultimately equip K2 and Vans in 2001. 

The two brand partners that took a chance have now become over 300 snowboarding brand partners using BOA. The system was later applied to trail running, bike shoes, randonnée boots and next season it will be transferred to alpine ski boots made by Atomic, Fischer, K2 et Salomon.

Will the system be strong enough for stiffer, lower shells? How hard will they be to tighten manually? Will it last as least as long as the venerable buckles harking back to the 60s? 

Many questions that remain to be answered, but for once, a tiny bit of innovation in a product that has seen no major breakthrough in more than half a century!

Bear thieves do it again!

On October 1st 2018, a bear sculpture showing the animal sipping its morning coffee was stolen from a house in our neighborhood and was never recovered. 

After being replaced 18 month later, we learned three days ago that it had been, once more, stolen. 

This time, the Park City Police Department is asking for the public’s help in recovering that unique artwork. “We are asking for the public’s help in finding a missing bear,” said a statement from the PCPD. “The bear is 3 to 4 feet tall, weighs about 60 pounds, likes to drink coffee and is loved by family and neighbors alike.”

The owners paid a local artist $8,000 to create a new one and secured the statue to a boulder with bolts and adhesive, but it didn’t resist the robbers’ brute force. 

If you happen to see that bear around your friend or neighbor’s house, call our police department at 435-615-5500. I’m not certain, but I assume there will be a reward between $1 and $8,000!

Our 2023 Sundance movie

The Sundance Film Festival happens once a year at Park City and Covid cancelled it for the past two winters, so it was only right that we attended at least one movie to mark the return of the event. 

The one we picked was the premiere of “La Pecera” (The Fishbowl), a dark movie about a woman suffering from cancer, which not only was hard to watch, but also, in our opinion, whose story was poorly told. 

Yeah, we weren’t happy about our choice, not to mention the fact that it took a long time to get there and back home with our complicated transit system, jammed up buses, traffic gridlock and freezing temperatures. But we soldiered on and did it. 

One should make a (good) movie out of that story!