The extinction of snow

I just came back from our last skiing weekend this season. March and April is the best part of the year. Then light is coming back to the north, but we still have winter snow, in the mountains. Long light days and good skiing.

Spring is arriving late this year. Nights are still cold, which slows down the melting of the snow.

Soon spring will take over. There’s no mercy. Sad but rue. It’s the time for the extinction of snow. 

(Picture taken from the chair lift yesterday; one of my last lift rides this season. The yellow and brown grass from last summer reappears. On the slopes there is still plenty of snow, but along the lift, only patches remain.)

Intrinsic motivation

Another nice weekend with sunny spring-winter. This winter have been very good. I fear we have used up all the good weather before the summer.

Today little boy was doing his first freestyle competition. He did the tricks he had planned to do and was satisfied. (Older boy didn't participate. He's injured and and tries to get fit for the national championship next week).

The boys have had kind of the same skiing development. They started with alpine racing at 6-7 yo. For more than 12 years, I've taken kids to the slopes for practice and races. They've always had about 60-80 days of skiing every winter (and me too of course).

The kids have found that freestyle skiing is what they really wanna do. They love it. It's the meaning of life!

It's OK with me. I decided that they should do alpine racing. It was their own choice to swap to freestyle skiing. Motivation is strongest when it comes from inside (the psychologists call it intrinsic motivation).

Alpine racing becomes very expensive if you're serious about it, with 4 pairs of specialized skis (for Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G and Downhill) and lots of training camps.  Freestyle is much cheaper; only one pair of twin-tip skis needed. That's great.

And I don't miss the Friday and Saturday nights spending hours tuning and waxing racing skis >:)

(Picture taken before the competition today. The bibs were somewhat big for the kids.)

30.000 feet

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Don't worry. There are plenty of good blogs around. You don't really need mine. I'm just writing it for my own entertainment.

I do most of my writing when I'm out traveling. This year I haven't been traveling much, so far. Before Easter, I spent a week in Moscow, working long days. Now I'm on the way to Milan, Italy, about to cross the Swiss Alps at 30.000 feet. 

The last three months have been quite busy. Too much to do at work, very interesting and important projects, but intense, and with tight deadlines.

Half a year ago we were reorganized. We've got new bosses, doing administration and micro-management rather than showing leadership. No problem, we get used to it. We just have to make up the visions and grand plans ourselves.

You can't really stop researchers, just slow them down, by setting up weird obstacles. I've come up with a new management model. How to utilize the various facets of corporate management in the optimal way. Maybe I will write a post about it some time.

Winter is the most busy time of year. It's skiing season, and we've been skiing a lot. I've got about 45 days on the slopes so far. The kids have more. The Easter was great, cold nights, sunny days, and great skiing conditions. April is the best part of the season. There's more to come, for another month.

Finally, I've got a new favorite author, the French rebel Michel Houllebecq. He's a very good writer; pessimistic, ironic and provocative, pointing to the sickness of modern society. Accused of being a pornographer, and pulled to court by Islamic organizations for offending their religion. That's a real author, with his mission. Recommended.

I've read four of Houllebecq’s books recently, just started on the fifth. So, I've done a lot of reading, but not much writing, except the science reports at work.

(April is the best time of the year for skiing. It's not me in the picture, but I know the guy quite well. The picture was taken and put together by one of his buddies.)