The Traveling Headcase

June 13, 2023

A Long Weekend in Vienna!

M and I are just back from our first trip to Vienna. For those of you who may not remember anything about World Geography, Vienna is the largest city in Austria, which is quite different from Venice, which is a city on a peninsula in Italy. I want to begin by stating that our trip to Vienna was one of the best we have ever taken. Once we had sort of figured out how to get around using public transport, it was very easy to get where we wanted to go. We heard the most fantastic music we’ve ever heard and had some wonderful meals as well. And now for the details…

Our trip began on a Friday morning with a leisurely wake-up time of 3 a.m. in order to ensure our on-time arrival at Geneva airport for a 7 a.m. flight to Vienna. We chose to drive ourselves to the airport for this trip because there are no shuttles quite so early in the morning. Some of you will contend, and rightly so, that we could have taken the train to Geneva the day before and spent the night in the conveniently located Ibis hotel located a mere 10 minute walk from the airport. Since this would have added several hundred more euro to our trip, we chose the early drive instead. We also felt that we needed more practice in driving ourselves to the airport because it is something we rarely attempt.
Like most good 21st century humans, we put the address of the airport parking lot into our car’s GPS system. Since we also put the address into Google Maps on M’s phone, this meant that I, as the driver, had access to 3 different guidance systems. The car GPS, Google Maps on M’s phone, and the GIANT GREEN SIGNS ALONG THE HIGHWAY THAT SAY, “AIRPORT”.

The easiest method of getting to the airport is to follow the giant green signs. In order to avoid any controversy, I highly suggest using this method. Not knowing any better at the time, I chose to follow the directions of Gemma, which is the name M and I have given to the GPS system in our car. As it turns out, Gemma does not know the best, or more importantly, least controversial way to get to the airport. After we passed the giant green sign that directed us to the airport, M informed me that according to google maps, we should have followed the sign. In order to make this blog reasonably short, I will now give a small bit of M’s commentary from the time we missed the turn and during the time we circled the entirety of Geneva while following Gemma’s instructions on how to get to the airport. Since this blog is family friendly, I have chosen to lightly edit some of M’s commentary:
“Oh bleep!” “You’ve got to be bleeping kidding me!” “Bleeppity bleep bleeping bleep!” “Bleep!” “You should’ve bleep the bleeping bleep sign!” “Gemma doesn’t bleeping bleep bleep!” “Bleeeeeeepppp!”
That was all before we reached the bleeping parking garage.

Once safely in the Geneva airport, like all good trail runners, we immediately sought out a water fountain with which to fill our water bottles. Actually, we first tried to get someone at one of the many cafes to fill our water bottle for us. However, since we didn’t want to buy any of their expensive drinks or food, they would not give us any free water from their taps. I am not sure how they justify this attitude towards something that saves the world from having 2 less plastic bottles to recycle. The workers did direct us to the nearest bathroom where we could get the same water, also for free. We ended up using the bathroom faucets because finding a water fountain in Geneva airport is like looking for a water fountain in the desert. So far as we can tell, there is one water fountain in the whole Geneva airport. It does at least put out an extremely puny stream of water that is so small you can’t get your water bottle under it in order to fill it with water. So, the best advice is to use the sink in the bathroom.

Once we reached the Vienna airport, we sought out how to buy tickets for the train that takes you into the city. It is very easy to buy tickets and also very easy to overspend on said tickets. You can spend about 15-20 euros on the speedy train that takes you directly into the city with what I assume is few or even no stops along the way. You can also do what M and I did and spend about 4 euros and take the normal train which does have some stops along the way and takes probably twice as long, but still is only around 30 minutes or so. Or, your best option is to just go and get on the train because there is no place for any ticket checking and no person on the train to check if you bought a ticket. Meaning that your trip is free.

M and I rode the train into Vienna and got off at one of the larger stations, which happened to be a short walk from our hotel. Along the way to our hotel, I happened to notice that there was a business with a sign that said “Dance”, and I commented to M that it must be a studio where they teach various forms of dance. M said that she didn’t think it was a “Dance Studio”. Apparently the drawings of voluptuous female forms on the outside of the building convinced her it was some other type of “Dance Studio”.

After dropping off our luggage, we spent the rest of the day walking around Vienna and scouting out the locations of the various events we had chosen to attend. Vienna is a beautiful city, with lots of very nice architecture including the obligatory massive Catholic church. In this case, St. Stephen’s. It is very impressive, especially considering it was built over several centuries, starting around 1135 AD.

We quickly noticed that there are 3 separate lanes for moving about Vienna, depending on one’s mode of transportation. There is a pedestrian lane, a bike lane, and of course, a street for cars and buses. The really cool thing is that each lane has it’s own stop light! We did take note of one thing that we think is peculiar to Austrian cyclists. In most places, if there is a bike lane at all, the cyclists tend to congregate in clumps at the stop lights. Not so in Vienna! They all line up single file, just like cars. Very orderly.

After exhausting our fit, trail running, mountain climbing selves by walking around completely flat Vienna for hours on end, we made it back to the hotel for check-in. Since we were going to be attending events which required slightly more formal attire than our normal formal Chamonix attire of running shorts and t-shirts, M and I had purchased some new clothes. After being packed in our bags, our new clothes needed to be ironed, and the hotel had an iron and ironing board available in the storage locker area.

I hauled my exhausted self and the clothes that needed ironing down to the storage locker area and proceeded to set up my clothes for ironing. I fumbled around for a few minutes with the iron, trying to figure out which setting would be best for my clothes. Luckily, there was a young girl who spoke German also in the locker area with her father. I say luckily because I would have been trying for ages to iron my clothes with a cold iron if not for some advice, in German, from the young girl. I don’t speak German, but fortunately the girl also pointed to the plug when she said that the iron would probably work better if it were plugged in.

Our first event in Vienna was an opera by Shostakovich. It was Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, and the spelling apparently varies depending on where you look. The opera was held in, of all places, the Vienna State Opera House. Unlike some Vienna businesses, (see “Dance” studio above) they do have opera in the Vienna opera house and no false advertisement drawn on the outside of the building to sucker you in and present you with something totally different from what you thought based on their signage. Anyway, the opera was in Russian but there were little screens in front of our seats where you could read a translation of what was being sung. The music and singing was very impressive, but admittedly for us opera newbies, it was a lot to take in all at once.

Our next event was a Catholic Mass featuring singing by the Vienna Boys Choir. The mass was in Latin and therefore totally incomprehensible to anyone not born several hundred years ago. The Vienna Boys Choir was wonderful and sounded like you would expect a world famous boy’s choir to sound, which is to say fantastic.

The last event we had tickets for was at the Musikverein, a concert hall that typically features the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, which is itself famous around the world. However, somehow M managed to get tickets to see the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which is like an All-Star orchestra made up of the best musicians from around the world. To top that, the orchestra was being conducted by Andris Nelsons, who has won multiple Grammy awards and is currently the conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The cherry on top of it all was a piano performance by Lang Lang, who is considered by many to currently be the world’s greatest pianist. For American sports fans, the only comparison I can come up with is that this concert was like showing up to a Yankees game and instead of the current Yankees lineup, somehow the Yankees lineup from 1929 featuring Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig was playing. Even if someone didn’t know anything about music at all, they would have easily recognized that they were amidst greatness. Every note was perfect, and the sound was amazing. There is really no way for me to describe how spectacular this concert was. One simply had to be there.

Beethoven concert at the Musikverein with Lang Lang playing the piano.

I would like to take a moment and thank Michael Walter for his recommendations of the various events we saw and his skill and dedication to Scrabble.

Now, go out and be consistent.

December 28, 2021

You Could Fall Down!

Recently I watched the YouTube film, Long Shorts.

The story in the film follows the 2021 season of two professional ultra runners, Francois D’haene and Courtney Dauwalter. They are two of the best ultra runners in the history of the sport.

Part of the film covers the biggest and most famous ultra race in the world, the Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc. UTMB, as it is known, begins and ends in Chamonix, France. Beginning in downtown Chamonix, the race then goes over a lot of big mountain trails to Courmayeur, Italy. From Courmayeur, the race goes over more big mountain trails to Champex Lac, Switzerland. In keeping with the theme, the race then goes over even more big mountain trails back to Chamonix. The circle route is about 106 miles and has about 33,000 feet of climbing and 33,000 feet of descending. UTMB is the biggest and most famous ultra race in the world because it generally has the deepest and most competitive field among pro runners. It is not known for being the hardest race in the world from a physical standpoint, although it is certainly one of the most difficult. It is however, probably the most difficult race for the pros because of the depth and quality of the field.

For the sake of clarity, an ultra running race is any race that is greater than the marathon distance of 26.2 miles. The categories of ultra are generally, 50 kilometers (31 miles), 50 miles, 100 kilometers (63 miles), and 100+ miles. There are any number of ranges in the ultra category, so not all races fall into the above categories. Some races might be 28 miles, or for the truly umm, inquisitive runner, 200+ miles.

In order to enter the UTMB, a person must first prove themselves in a number of other races, some of which also have to be 100 miles or more. Once a person has accumulated enough qualifying points, they can then enter the lottery for a slot in the UTMB. Nearly 20,000 people each year enter the lottery for one of 2,500 slots. Professional runners also need to have a certain number of qualifying points, but they do not have to enter the lottery and can generally be in the race as long as they have qualified.

After watching the film, I decided it would be a good method for showing my relatives a small part of the area where M and I live, as well as some of the trails where we typically run. In the process of watching the film with my relatives, it became very clear that they had no idea what UTMB was, or any concept of the type of trails which are considered normal for running. As far as I could tell, the only thing any of my family members got out of the film was that mountain trails are dangerous, scary, and full of all manner of obstacles waiting to cause bodily harm.

A common refrain among my relatives upon seeing one of the trails featured in the UTMB was, “Wow! Look at those rocks!”. Other common phrases from family members were, “you could break an ankle!” and “that looks dangerous!”. Little did they know that ankles are not at the top of the list of concerns when trail running. How to survive to the top of the next hill without experiencing cardiac arrest is more of a concern.

Though the particular trail that my family members saw and thought of as dangerous is rather rocky, and therefore difficult, it is not uncommon amongst trails in the mountains. In fact, thousands of people, from little kids to people 70+ years old, climb the same trail featured near the end of the film every day during the summer. I think that people who are completely unfamiliar with trail running believe that trail runners are happily frolicking about on grassy hills like those seen in the movie, The Sound of Music. If that were the case, we’d all be professionals. Instead of happily frolicking, most trail runners typically look like they can barely put one foot in front of the other and are wondering if they have enough strength to breath in and out one more time. Or they are wondering how far they have to go to the nearest toilet.

Compared to road running, where stepping in a pot hole because you weren’t paying attention is among the greatest dangers, trail running is a minefield. Not paying attention while trail running could mean falling off a cliff, tripping on a rock, twisting an ankle, scraping your hands and knees, running into a tree, running into a tourist, pushing said tourist off a cliff, being bitten by a dog, snake, bear, tourist, trampled by a moose, or horde of tourists. In fact, it is fairly normal to come back from any trail run with blood on yourself or some other injury. I won’t even get started on trail running during the winter, which can involve post holing up to your waist, avalanches and tourists on skis.

I was hoping that my family members would see the film and remark about how beautiful the area is, or make a comment about what an amazing accomplishment it is for the people running UTMB. No. Instead, I got questions about running in the dark, running in the wind, running in the rain, running in the cold, running in the morning, running on a Saturday, running with other people, running with the bulls, running next to the cows, sheep, sheepdogs, shepherds, cow poop, sheep poop, dog poop, and poop poop. The answer to all those questions is, yes, you run with, or during, or through, all those things. Except the bulls because that is for crazy people.

None of my family members are runners, so maybe that is why they didn’t quite understand the film I showed them, or why it is that I and so many others run. Running makes you feel good. Running a lot and running a really long way can make you feel even better. Even if you don’t feel better, at least you’ve accomplished something real by moving yourself, under your own power, from one place to another. Accomplishing something real always makes you feel good.

My family members were not wrong in their assessments that trail running can be dangerous. It certainly can be if one is not present, particularly on the more technical trails. As long as you are cautious though, and remain present and aware of your surroundings, trail running is fun and beautiful.

As for M and I, we are getting ready to run during the most dangerous time of year…tourist season.

Go out and be consistent.

April 6, 2021

Learning about Aire’s

If you read the title and pronounced the last word “air,” congratulations, you can now speak a bit of French. If you tried to pronounce the “e” at the end of the word, you have failed and the French will treat you like a moron for thinking that any letter at the end of a word should be pronounced. Once you have learned not to pronounce most of the letters in any French word, you will be speaking French like a native. If you pronounced the word aire with some extra rrrr at the end, then bonus points for you and you must be French.

Now that you know how to pronounce the word, “aire,” you can learn what it means. The French definition means area, but for our purposes we will use the French road side sign definition which means, “toilet facilities, and possibly gas station/restaurant/charging port for your electric car, and/or all of the above.”

In the U.S., a rest area off of an interstate highway is typically a simple road side pull off that may or may not have a toilet facility. In France, an aire can also be a simple road side pull off, but it will typically have a gas station as well as some sort of restaurant facility along with a large parking area. Toilet facilities are always available and some aire’s even have showers available.

As you can see in the above picture, the signs in this French aire leave no doubt as to what happens here. You might also find things that you absolutely would not expect to see, for example, an Amazon Locker. Yes, a place where you can have your Amazon order delivered and then pick it up when you happen to be at a road side aire in the middle of nowhere.

For Amazon delivery when you are on the go! Photo Credit: Emily

As far as I could tell, when Emily and I pulled over at the above pictured aire, we were not near any town or village. Yet there was this Amazon locker waiting for whomever chose to have their stuff delivered to a random aire parking lot.

Since you started reading this particular post, you have probably been thinking that I was writing about French aires because they are quite different from the simple rest areas in the U.S. That is partly true. The French aires seem to be a bit more high tech, with hands-free everything in the toilet wash area.

As you can see in the above picture, things are pretty fancy in some of the aires. However, the comparison to U.S. rest areas is not the real reason I am writing this post.

The real reason for writing this post is to try and explain the mind numbing pressure, the gut-wrenching tension, the sweaty palms and teeth grinding madness that comes when one tries to figure out how to drive into the car parking area at the aire. I know what you are all thinking: “Gee whiz Chris, you just drive in and follow the sign with the big “P” and a little car on it”. I used to think the same way until I encountered the minimum 47 signs with a big “P” and little car on them that are at all French aires.

What anyone traveling to a French aire for the first time does not realize, is that all but one of those 47 signs do nothing except lead back out onto the interstate, without having found the actual parking area. This is especially true when one or both passengers have to pee. If you are fortunate when you inexplicably find yourself back on the interstate, the next aire will only be 10k away. If you are not so fortunate, the next aire sign you see will say, “Aire For People Who Have No Gas and Really Have to Pee, 50km.”

Emily and I had our first experience trying to find the aire parking area on a recent road trip. Fortunately we were not in dire straits when after following the signs that indicated the place to park your car, we suddenly found ourselves with no option but to continue back on to the main highway. Confusion reigned as we tried to figure out what had just happened. Emily of course accused me of missing the sign. I informed her that this was impossible as there were at least 47 signs. We agreed that Emily would help at the next aire.

After a couple of hours we were 1 for 3 in actually getting to the parking area of the aire. By this time, Emily had also realized that things were not as simple as they seemed and that each aire entry would require a carefully laid out plan of attack. I would slow the car down to the pace of a sleepy snail, and Emily and I both would scan the various signs to try and ascertain which one actually led to the car park area.

After several more aire stops, we finally became more confident in our ability to follow the correct sign and not end up back on the interstate. We did encounter one final challenge though, and it was the biggest one of all.

You can see the big sign on the right, but do not let it fool you! Photo Credit: Emily

The biggest challenge we faced came on our way home. We had to stop for gas. This meant that we had to make sure we found an aire that had a gas station. It also meant that once we found an aire with a gas station, we had to navigate our way through 38 different signs indicating how to get to the gas pumps. Those were but minor inconveniences however, compared to finding a place to park the car after getting gas without accidentally ending up back on the interstate, without Emily, who was inside the store getting coffee. You can feel the tension now can’t you? Everyone knows, you CAN NOT LEAVE YOUR WINGMAN!

I had determined that I would drive over curbs or go off road if I had to, but I was not going to leave Emily at the aire. Also, I figured that if I did, she would quickly realize that I had tried to park the car after getting gas and was then helplessly jettisoned back out onto the interstate where I would quickly make my way to the next exit and come back for her. Or so I hoped.

Having learned my lesson about the dangers of French aire parking areas, I carefully made my way over to a parking spot with no problems. I went into the store and found Emily who was duly impressed and noticeably relieved when I told her I had moved the car with no issues.

I am happy to report that we have since done a second road trip and had no issues finding the car parking area and no one was left behind. We consider ourselves fully educated regarding French aires now. Feel free to ask for advice if you are considering a French road trip.

Go out and be consistent.

January 2, 2021

Sally

There are times in life when we are fortunate to meet people who affect us in a way that makes us want to spend more time with them. If I had known when we moved to France that our neighbor Sally was going to be one of those people, I would have done all I could to get to know Sally right away.

One of the first things I learned about Sally, was that she and I liked the same type of books and many of the same authors. Sally and I were also able to introduce one another to new authors, which I greatly appreciated.

I also learned fairly quickly that Sally had a rapier wit. She was very quiet, but more often than not, when she spoke it was to say something that made those around her laugh out loud. As an example of Sally’s sense of humor, one day, Sally’s husband Clive came by our place to ask if we had a small screwdriver. I told Clive that I did and that I would be down to help him. I grabbed our tool box, which actually contained not one tool other than eight various screwdrivers, and headed down to help Clive. I knocked on the door of Clive and Sally’s flat and went inside toting my toolbox. Sally was standing in the kitchen cooking, and the second she saw me, she feigned palpitations with her hand on her chest and said dramatically, “Ohhh, a man with a toolbox!” as if I were the sexiest man she’d ever seen. I almost dropped the toolbox because I was laughing so hard.

Sally appreciated a good joke as well, even if she was somehow intertwined with the joke. At one of our neighborhood gatherings, I told a joke about a woman who went to a finishing school. Sally laughed as hard as anyone else and had Clive not alerted us, we never would have known that Sally had actually gone to a finishing school!

Besides her sense of humor, I also appreciated Sally’s toughness. She battled cancer for over twenty years. Though she had numerous health problems associated with cancer and its accompanying treatments and often times was in a great deal of pain, I never heard her complain. In my mind I picture her waking each day and telling her various ailments to “bugger off!” and getting on with her day.

The time I got to spend with Sally enriched my life more than she could have imagined, and I will be forever grateful. I only wish she had more time to give. I am proud to have been able to call Sally a friend even though it was only for a short while.

Go out and be consistent.

October 16, 2020

Unexpected music in unexpected places.

One of the great philosophers of our time, Forrest Gump, once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what yur goan git.” (Misspelling used for quotation accuracy.) This piece of wisdom applies to many different life scenarios, but for the purposes of this blog, I am going to apply the quote to music heard while in a store or business. Specifically, music in French grocery stores.

In the United States of America (USA), people can generally expect to go into a grocery store and hear one of two types of music. One will hear elevator music, which generally consists of songs one recognizes but horribly rendered on an electric piano keyboard and without vocals. Or one will hear what is generally termed, easy listening, or soft rock. Basically music that would not be considered controversial in any mix of people. A person may not like the music they are hearing, and they may even think it is boring or not something they would normally listen to if given a choice. In fact, after a couple of minutes in the store, most people have stopped hearing the music as anything other than background noise. This is less likely to occur in French grocery stores.

In French grocery stores, our Forrest Gump quote becomes applicable because you never know what you are going to hear while checking the ripeness of your peaches. One would naturally expect to hear the French version of elevator music or soft rock. Native French music is heard in the grocery store, but it is exceedingly rare. Typically if you do hear native French music, it is some French pop song in it’s original form, not stripped down and turned into elevator music. More often than not, you will hear music that even if you do not recognize the tune, you will certainly recognize that the person is singing in English. More probably you will recognize and be able to sing along with the music.

I will use today’s grocery trip as an example. Not long after entering the store it was hard not to add a little groove to my grocery shopping step with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic playing, “We Want the Funk.” I thought this was an apt song when one is searching for just the right French cheese. Immediately after George Clinton, none other than Marvin Gaye was needing some, “Sexual Healing.” I am not certain Marvin’s song can be applied to shopping as was, “We Want the Funk,” but the quality of the tunes certainly made searching for my gluten-free bread more entertaining.

I have also heard the following in the local grocery store: Eminem, Survivor, Snoop Dogg, The Temptations, the Stones, the Beatles, Sting, Springsteen, Elvis, Gun’s N’ Roses, Van Halen, Louis Armstrong, Salt N’ Peppa, and the list goes on. One of my favorites that is frequently played is Michael Jackson.

As some reading this will no doubt know, some of the artists listed above tend to have lyrics that would never be played over a PA system in a grocery store in the USA because someone would no doubt be offended. Not so in French grocery stores, where the songs are played regardless of the lyrics. I am eagerly awaiting the day when I see an elderly French lady mouthing the words to Snoop’s “Gin and Juice” while perusing the juice aisle. I can also imagine old Francise (around here better known as, “The Grumpy Butcher”) making up his own lyrics to Eminem’s, “Without Me.” Something along the lines of, “ham and prosciutto, get all you can see, but there is no beef, without me!”

I have used the grocery store as an example for this blog, but this unexpected music happens in other French businesses as well. Take for example a recent trip to the doctor’s office where the receptionist was actually singing along with the music coming over the speakers in the waiting area. What artist was she singing along with you ask? None other than the aforementioned, Snoop Dogg. It should not have been too surprising, considering the doc has a Metallica poster on the wall of his office.

Possibly the most unexpected place I have heard music here in France was in a place that I now believe should always have music, considering these particular places are typically gloomy. Parking garages. It is a most pleasant experience to get out of your car in a dark and dreary multi-story parking garage and hear Mozart. The concrete acoustics somehow work well with the strings of a Mozart symphony.

Go out and be consistent.

*If anyone would like to get a better sense of France, I highly recommend reading any of Peter Mayle’s non-fiction books, such as “A Year in Provence.”

September 10, 2020

Things overheard regarding Covid19

Since the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic I have heard various rumors regarding the virus. Most all of these rumors have come from people who read that bastion of knowledge, that haven of academia, that font of truth, Facebook.

I do not know why people have not yet realized that any information reported by their “friends”, on Facebook is not necessarily accurate and likely false. I think it has something to do with the fact that people can no longer tolerate uncertainty. When they see something that conforms to the way they think, even if it is ridiculous, they jump on the bandwagon and repeat whatever backs up their perspective. With so much information readily available, people do not bother to ask themselves whether or not something makes any sense or is logical. After first being frustrated at people’s lack of logic regarding these rumors, I realized how comical the rumors were and decided to do a little analysis.

THERE IS A CURE!
THERE ARE ONLY MORE CASES BECAUSE THERE IS MORE TESTING!
HOSPITALS GET PAID!
THE VIRUS CAN’T SURVIVE IN THE HEAT!
MASK WEARING TECHNIQUE!
MASK WEARING IS SIMPLY A WAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO CONTROL EVERYONE.

Number 1 above refers to the rumor that there is actually a “cure” for COVID-19, but the pharmaceutical companies are not willing to let the public have this cure because the price the pharmaceutical companies get for the cure is too cheap. Therefore the pharmaceutical companies are secretly hoarding this cure until the price they can get for it goes up and they can make more money.

There are so many things wrong with this idea, it is hard to know where to begin. Let me start with the most obvious problem which is that this rumor does not have a single specific piece of evidence. It simply lumps all pharmaceutical companies together as if they are all one company rather than competing businesses.

Speaking of business, this leads to another thing wrong with this rumor. Let us say that a company could get $1 for every dose of their miracle cure. Assuming that at least 1/7 of the people in the world would want this cure and there are 7 Billion plus people in the world, that equals a minimum 1 Billion dollars. There simply are not any companies that I know of that would say, “No, we don’t want a billion dollars and the possibility of being the company known for creating this cure and thereby creating multiple other business opportunities for ourselves”. I could go on about this one, but let us keep moving forward.

Rumor number 2 above absolutely begs for the still popular elementary and teenage phrase of the century, “DUH!” Stating that there are more positive cases because there is more testing is like saying, “If you have one basket of apples and you add another basket of apples, you have…TWO BASKETS OF APPLES.” I am not sure what people were trying to prove with this statement. For some reason, I think people thought this was a bad thing, instead of realizing that finding out more people were sick is one of the only ways to actually help those sick people.

Rumor number 3, “Hospitals get paid when they say people died of Covid” is one of my favorites. This rumor is accusing hospitals and furthermore, doctors, of falsifying information regarding causes of death, as well as accusing hospitals and doctors of letting people die so that the hospital can get more government money.

First of all, I am not sure from which government program this money is coming, as the rumor of course does not specify. Personally, I think it comes from the cabal of Jews who secretly control the world financial industry.

Secondly, this rumor accuses doctors and hospitals of going against the Hippocratic oath. “First, do no harm.” I think letting people die for the sake of monetary gain goes against this oath. Not to mention the fact that falsifying causes of death is most likely a crime.

Rumor number 4 that the virus can’t survive in the heat was proven false when most of Africa and India got sick. For those that do not know, those places are hot basically all the time. As if that were not enough, when colleges and universities began letting their athletes return to practice, one of the first places to have to shut down their return to play program because of an increase in positive tests was the University of Houston where it is hot most of the time as well.

Number 5 above isn’t a rumor so much as it is a critique of mask wearing technique. We have all seen, and possibly been guilty of this ourselves as well, people walking around with the mask under their nose or down around their chin or one of my personal favorites, over the nose but having the bottom somehow flopping around instead of form fitting around the mouth. A recent guest on the Rich Roll podcast had the best comment (if a little off-color) which I will paraphrase here. Wearing your mask with your nose uncovered is like walking around with your dick hanging out. Why even wear pants? The masks are at best a stop-gap measure so wearing them incorrectly utterly defeats the purpose. It is a simple thing to have a care for your fellow human beings and wear your mask over your nose and mouth.

Number 6 above is an argument that I have only recently come across. For some reason, some people have decided that wearing a mask is a way for the government to exert more control over their citizenry. Well, okay, or it could just be a very simple thing to do that might save someone’s life.

When the Chinese invented Covid-19 in a secret lab in order to kill off a large majority of the world’s population, I do not think they anticipated the further benefit of creating an increasing number of dumb people.

Go out and be consistent!

March 30, 2020March 30, 2020

What Happened to the Skier?

For those who may not know, there is a virus going around. I know this will come as a shock to most of you because you do not watch the news or look at any sort of social media.

A couple of weeks ago, M and I took a trip down to a lovely place called Annecy. We went there to take advantage of their much drier and snow free trails and get in a longer run. Annecy is a town near Switzerland that has been around since the 1300’s. According to what I have read, beginning in the 1400’s, Swiss royalty used Annecy as a vacation spot. Like Kennebunkport, or Mar-a-Lago but with history. The older part of Annecy has cobbled streets and a Venice-like canal (only with clean water) running through the middle of the village.

There are also some churches featuring beautiful stained glass, cool architecture and an M, although that last feature was only temporary.

Church! (Snoop says that a lot and I thought it was funny.)

M and I had a wonderful time running in Annecy. We even managed to bump into Hillary Allen, a famous American trail runner, while we were out on the trails. M and I were taking a break (that means trying to figure out where we were and where we were going) when I looked up and saw Hillary coming down the trail toward us. I said, “Here comes Hillary Allen,” rather loudly so she would know that we recognized her. Her response was typical of Americans on European mountain trails. “YOU SPEAK ENGLISH!” For Americans who do not speak French, it is always a treat to come upon a fellow countryman and not have to worry about how to communicate.

While M and I were in Annecy, the virus shutdown was instituted here in France. Since Le Tour, where we live, is a ski area, and all ski areas were closed, M and I expected the ski area parking lot to be empty when we arrived home Sunday afternoon. As we drove up the hill towards our village, we could see that not only was the parking lot not empty, it was jam packed! People were skinning and hiking up the mountain and enjoying a beautiful spring day. French authorities quickly realized this could be a problem. The authorities worried, and rightly so, that people could get hurt on the mountain and require emergency services that were needed to aid sick people. French authorities then put out a new rule that forbid any activities at the ski areas. At first, many people ignored this order and were still skinning up the various ski areas.

In order to prevent people from disobeying the new rules, police were stationed at the base of the mountain to prevent people from going up. The police presence began to work and people were staying off the mountain. However, the police cannot be stationed at the base of the mountain all day, every day. Therefore, not everyone heeded the new rules. A few people were sneaking up the mountain when the police were not around. This leads to the title of this blog.

About one week ago, M and I were in our apartment, following our normal quarantine routine. This means that M was working, and I was focused on my most demanding task of the day, breathing regularly. Sometime in the afternoon, we noticed that a helicopter was flying endless laps across our valley. Picture Le Tour as a big upside down “U” with the village being at the open end and mountains making up the straight parts and curve of the “U”. The helicopter was flying back and forth, back and forth, for quite a long time. It is not unusual to hear helicopters in the Chamonix valley as they are used for lots of jobs in the mountains. It is unusual to hear one doing laps above our village when the ski area is closed and there are no tourists about as there are in the summer. M and I decided to go for a walk to see if we could determine what the helicopter was up to.

As we ascended the hill towards the base of the lift station, we noted that there were no police present at the base of the ski area to prevent rebellious skiers. M and I made our way up to the base of the lift station and stood looking up at the mountain. We watched the helicopter fly back and forth for a bit and noted the large amount of melting that had taken place on the ski runs. Suddenly, M and I noticed a lone skier coming down the mountain. We watched him descend for a few minutes, noting that he eventually skied very fast across the mountain towards the Vormaine. The Vormaine is directly behind our apartment and is what Americans would call a bunny slope. It is used for beginner skiers and boarders and ski school classes during the ski season. During the winter, M and I would typically access the main ski area by starting at the Vormaine and skinning across from the Vormaine over to the main ski area. Access to the Vormaine is well away from the base of the main ski area lift station. I describe all of this so you can now picture how the skier got away from the police.

As it turns out, the helicopter was doing a random flyover of the mountain to check for skiers out having illegal fun. When M and I walked back down to the parking lot from the base of the lift station, two policeman were walking up towards the base of the lift station because that is where skiers typically end their ski. The police had been called by the helicopter pilot to come and catch the evil skier! Due to the lack of urgency in the policemen’s walk, M and I determined that they were not excited about busting the rabbel-rouser. Even if the police had been more willing to catch the skier, it would not have mattered. The skier’s clever plan to ski across the Vormaine meant that he was at least a quarter of a mile away and possibly already back in his home, if he lives in Le Tour.

So to answer the question in the title of this blog, the skier got away. Since that time, there has been no more high adventure here in the village, although we did see three local teenagers sledding at the Vormaine the other day. Rebels.

M and I hope you are all in good health.

Don’t let the virus stop you from going out and being consistent, in a socially distanced manner.

January 15, 2020

Winter thus far…

Having lived in Summit County for the last 14 years, M and I had become accustomed to the way things work there in all the different seasons. For instance, we knew that within 5 minutes of the first snowflake falling in September, I-70 would be closed due to multiple auto accidents. M and I have also become accustomed to being in the Chamonix area during the summer over the last few years. Summer in Chamonix means lots of tourists from various places becoming lost on the many trails around the valley. Winter however, is a different hairball of wax. (Insert your own mixed up metaphor here.)

The buses are an excellent example of the above mentioned winter hairball. The signs in the buses indicate that the bus can hold around 80 people when full. Typically during the Christmas break, I would estimate that number goes up to at least 90, plus skis, snowboards, backpacks, and poles. Recently I rode the bus from Chamonix to the Le Tour bus stop where at least 150 people were waiting to get on the bus. Oddly, no matter where the tourists are from, none of them have learned that it is better to let people get off the bus before trying to squeeze themselves on to the bus.

Tourist country of origin also seems to be more concentrated in winter, at least during Christmas time. In the 2 weeks surrounding Christmas, it was Brits. They were everywhere, and they wore every single article of warm clothing they owned, even though it is not very cold here. After the new year, the Brits vanished into thin air, only to be replaced by Russians. Our neighbor Janet had warned us that this would happen. One day you are on the bus and can sort of understand that people are speaking some form of English. “Butte-ful daiye innit?” (For our American English speaking readers, that means, “Beautiful day isn’t it?”). The next day the Russians arrive and it sounds like someone put a bunch of consonants in a blender and poured them out, having forgotten to add any vowels to the mix. “Syrtdpwqvbx?” (“Beautiful day isn’t it?” in Russian.) I breathe a sigh of relief when people on the bus are just speaking French.

The winter weather here is also quite different than what M and I were accustomed to in Colorado. In Summit County Colorado, which sits at 9,000 feet in altitude, when the snow falls, it tends to stick around until sometime in July, because it is cold all winter. In Le Tour, which sits at about 5,000 feet in altitude, the snow begins falling around the same time as it does in Summit County, so snow in late August or early September is common. However, here in Le Tour, the first snow tends to melt quickly.

What M and I were not prepared for, was when the real snow started here in Le Tour in December. One day, M and I were running up the Le Tour ski slopes on a dry ski area access road. The next day, people were skinning up and skiing down the same ski slopes because 3 feet of snow had fallen over night. The most surprising thing to us was that so many people were so prepared to go skiing!

For the uninformed out there, here is a quick primer on the sport of ski mountaineering, also known as skimo. You put what is called a skin, generally made of mohair and other synthetic materials on the bottom of your skis. These skins allow a person to travel up the mountain without sliding backwards. Special bindings on the skis allow the boot heels to be disconnected from the ski binding, enabling a walking motion up the mountain. When ready to descend, the skins are taken off and the boot heels are locked into the ski bindings as normal and the person skis back down the mountain. “But why do this when you can take a lift up the mountain much more easily?”, someone asks. Because it is good for you, and it is fun, you lazy slob.

Discouragingly, the initial large dump of snow melted a lot over the next few days, especially on the lower slopes. That did not stop the dedicated skiers though. They simply hiked up the mountain a little further to where the snow hadn’t melted, put their skis and skins on and up the mountain they went.

After a few days of warm temperatures and no new snow, the mountain began to look rather bleak to M and I. We should not have worried. One Saturday evening it began to snow again, and by Monday morning, a fresh 5 feet of snow covered everything.

Snow adds up quick around here. This lady is actually 7’2″ tall, we asked. Photo credit: Emily

The issue we had to deal with when the snow came was the fact that, particularly higher on the mountain where there are no trees, visibility was about 3 feet due to the snow clouds being so low. Each day, M and I would set out to skin up to the top lift on the mountain, only to reach the top of the first lift and have to turn around because we couldn’t see anything. Finally, Christmas morning arrived and the sun came out to reveal the scenery we had been missing. It was not disappointing.

Me after a day of skimo. Photo credit: Emily

Sun and our fresh skin track. Photo credit: Emily

We have since had very few snow days but lots of sun and warm temperatures in the 40º Fahrenheit range. The mountain here at Le Tour is beginning to look rather sad again and in need of new snow. However, thanks to all the tourists, the trails around the valley have been really well packed down and are very suitable for running, so M and I have been taking advantage while we can.

Hopefully, the snow will come again soon so we can have some more new adventures in our backyard.

Go out and be consistent.

December 20, 2019

Sam

Since the first day of first grade when I was six years old, I have had a friend called Sam. It is safe to say that he has been a best friend for the last forty years. We went to the same school through the ninth grade. We played various sports together, went to dinner and the movies together and spent many nights at each other’s homes.

I remember our dinner and movie nights being remarkable for the amount of food we would consume. Typically we would start out at Pizza Hut beforehand, where we each consumed our own medium pizza. Of course, by the end of the movie we were hungry again and would typically go to Burger King for another meal before heading home.

Sam is known for having played football during high school, but what I remember was playing basketball with him in elementary and junior high school. I remember those basketball times with a laugh because Sam was terrible at basketball. He would throw up the worst bricks anybody had ever seen, with the ball smacking loudly off the backboard. It didn’t matter to Sam or hurt his feelings when the rest of us would give him flack about being a bit too strong with the ball. Sam was just happy to be playing with his friends.

During our sophomore year of high school, I moved away. Being hundreds, or thousands of miles away from Sam did not diminish our friendship. Each time I made the trip back to Mississippi over the years, I always spent a majority of my time with Sam. All of those times with Sam involved watching sports, hunting or fishing. Sometimes all three in the same day.

Our fishing trips usually involved Sam baiting my hook for me and then getting the fish off the hook when I caught one. We never failed to catch lots of fish, which made the fishing more exciting. I remember one fishing trip we caught over a hundred fish! Fishing with Sam should have been called Catching instead of Fishing. All the catching of the fish led to us eating lots of fish as prepared by Mavis Byrd, Sam’s mom. That was certainly the best part of fishing with Sam.

Hunting with Sam was also lots of fun, but not because we got a deer every time we went out. Most of the time we never saw any deer. Hunting was fun because of all the things that happened while we were hunting, or at least supposed to be hunting. Sam would wake me up about 3 am so we could get ready and be at the hunting site before the sun rose at 6:30. We would get dressed and have breakfast. Next we would gather all our hunting supplies and put them in the truck. Then we would drive to the gas station and fill the truck with gas. After filling up with gas, we would finally drive out to the hunting site. The hunting site was typically in a wooded area in the middle of some large property. Getting to the site meant we had to drive through pastures where barbed wire fences sectioned off various areas of the property. When we came to a gate in the fence, I would jump out of the truck and open the gate so Sam could drive the truck through. I would then shut the gate after Sam drove the truck through, only to realize that I had shut the gate with myself on the wrong side while Sam sat in the truck watching me in his rear view mirror, laughing heartily. I would then open the gate again and put myself on the correct side, re-close the gate and get back in the truck. The funny part is that I would do the exact same thing at the next gate, and Sam would sit there in the truck and watch me the whole time without saying a word just so he could laugh again. I blame it on the fact that it was early in the morning.

Finally, Sam and I would arrive wherever it was we were going to park the truck so we could head into the woods and begin hunting. The only problem was that it was now about 3:45 am and too dark to hunt. Daylight being a scant 2 hours away, we passed the time by singing, “Killing Time”, the country song by Clint Black. After a while we would both fall asleep, only to wake up just in time to see that we now had plenty of light because it was about 7:30 in the morning.

In later years, I would sometimes call Sam when he was sitting in the woods hunting. The conversation would go something like this:

Sam (whispering): “Hello”

Me: “What are you doing?”

Sam: “Killin’ time.”

Me: “Oh, so you are hunting?”

Sam: “Yep.”

Me: “Seen anything?”

Sam: “Naw.”

Me: “Ok, well, I’ll talk to you later.”

Sam: “Alright, be good buddy.”

Be good. Sam lived his life being good. Other people have been described as having lived a life of service to others, but I have never met another person who lived that way as much as Sam. When my grand-parents were still alive, they moved residences constantly. Coincidentally, they also moved nearly every time I came to Mississippi for a visit. In other words, I was always around to help when my grand-parents needed to move. Sam being Sam, he was also there, picking up all the heavy stuff and putting it in the truck.

At a time when I was living in Colorado, I called my grand-parents to say hello and update them on whatever was happening in my world. My grandfather said his car was broken, so I told him to call Sam. He called Sam and of course, my grandfather’s car was fixed the next day, Sam having taken care of everything.

When Sam took a job coaching football and teaching at a small school in South Mississippi, about 5 hours away from our hometown of Starkville, I was certain the town of Starkville was going to fall apart because Sam had left. Proving that miracles do still happen, the town still exists, but that is probably because Sam eventually came back to the area.

Sam always put others before himself because that was the essence of Sam. It never occurred to Sam to live in any other manner.

It was ever my privilege to have known Sam. I am certain that anyone who knew him would say the same. Sam passed away on Wednesday, December 18, 2019.

Thank you Sam, now go up there and be good buddy.

October 6, 2019

Battle of Kings and Hot Water Heaters!

Ok so there was not an actual battle of kings versus hot water heaters. However there was a battle of the kings, and M and I did battle our hot water heater, which put up a surprisingly good fight.

A few weeks ago I went into our little storage closet to get the old vacuum cleaner that had been left here by the previous owners. I was retrieving the vacuum cleaner in order to take it down to the city dump because the vacuum cleaner was no longer functioning. The little storage closet is also where the hot water heater lurks, plotting nasty deeds. In the process of getting the vacuum out of the closet, I noticed that the floor beneath the vacuum was wet. And now everyone reading this can sense the impending doom. Fear not dear reader! We dried up the floor and searched for the source of the leak. A steady drip was quickly found and contained with a handy bucket.

After some sleepless nights for M, in which she was up at all hours checking to make sure the leak wasn’t getting worse, a plumber finally arrived to fix the problem. A recommendation from saviors Pierre and Janet led us to Zermatten plumbers, who came and stopped the leak. Or so it appeared…

After a couple of nights filled with actual sleep, our electricity went out about 2 am. Somehow M got the electricity going again after fiddling with the circuit breakers. Accountant extraordinaire, master plumber and now certified electrician. There is no end to M’s talents. This fix lasted about a day until the same thing happened again the next night. This time, it was master electrician Chris who saved the day and got the electrons flowing once more. Those electrons flowed until the next morning.

“Wait a minute, how did we get on to the topic of circuit breakers?” some of you readers are asking. “I thought you were writing about the hot water heater!” others of you are pointing out. Little did we know the deviousness of the hot water heater. At this point, the hot water heater appeared to be behaving itself. As it turned out, the hot water heater was doing an excellent job of disguising it’s true scheme.

When the electricity kept going off because of the circuit breaker, I played around with the circuit breaker box until I figured out that the hot water heater circuit was causing all the other breakers to be thrown off. I called Pierre who came up and decided that we should unscrew the electrical panel on the hot water heater in order to see what was happening. A leak is what was happening – from somewhere in the hot water heater down through the electrical wiring. The leak caused the circuit breaker to shut everything off whenever the hot water heater felt it was most inconvenient.

The plumbers came again and after we heard them use the words, “merde” and “putain” a few times, the plumbers decided we needed a new hot water heater. (I’ll leave you to figure out the meaning of those french curse words, this is a family program after all!) A new hot water heater was eventually installed and all was right with the world. Until a different leak started from our new hot water heater. On instruction from the old hot water heater no doubt.

It turned out that one of our pipes is particularly small and did not properly fit the new hot water heater. The plumbers came again and patched up the new leak, and as of this writing, there are no more leaks. We hope that continues for another 25 years or so.

Now, on to battling kings! The battle of the kings, or possibly queens, is a head butting battle of bulls and/or cows that happens in various places around Europe. I do not know the history of this event, nor do I know the rules. The reason I mentioned the possibility of queens is that there are female cows over here in Europe with horns, so you can see where the confusion might arise. I will use the word “cow” as a catchall term henceforth. What happens though is as follows. There is a large ring where usually about 6 cows are brought in at the same time, two by two. An announcer calls out the numbers which are painted on the sides of the cows. Those two cows then proceed to battle each other by butting their heads and pushing one another around the ring. When one cow had shoved the other cow hard enough to make it turn around, the match was over and the hardest shoving cow was deemed the winner.

It appeared as though there were about 100 or more cows in Le Tour for the battle. We think it was a winner moves on to the next round sort of battle, and we didn’t have all day to watch so we do not know who won. The event was quite popular however, as there were at least 1,000 people in attendance. Oddly enough, they even played American country music during the times when the cows were not battling.

Following are some links to short videos taken during the event. One video shows the cows being led to the arena. Right down our street no less! A different video shows the cows doing battle. The final link shows what happens when the cows decide the battle should continue after the contest was over.

Obviously, things have gotten a little crazy around here in Le Tour! We have had some adventures since those mentioned in this blog that I will hopefully write about soon.

Go out and be consistent!