Parasailing, Skiing and Fondue For Free - What A Bet To Win!
Chamonix, France - January 2001

( = photo available in gallery)
Alone on a ski lift when I was 14, watching the sun rise over the hills of Bogus, I started dreaming of taking a trip to ski in the Alps. Once in High School I even had a pipe dream of finding some way to pay for a trip, but I found early that a job at McDonald's doesn't easily lend itself to financing ski trips to France so this dream lay dormant on the windowsill for quite a few years. Of course winter in Asia doesn't lend itself to wonderful ski trips, especially for a snow snob from the Rockies so I'd spend many winters quickly changing the channel when skiing came on the TV.

This long standing dream is what caused me to choose a trip to be the prize in a random bet with my partner, Jim Chu , in the internet startup I founded. This bet also turned out to be an interesting study on human nature. Toward the end of 2000, one of the employees of this startup, Cece Lee called with a reminder that a bit more then 5 years back, Jim and I had made a bet on where fate would take us in 5 years, (talk about betting on the unforeseeable!). The prize for the winner was an all expenses paid trip to France for a week of skiing. Cece had also happened to keep the napkin that Jim and I had written the terms on. Cece scanned the napkin and sent it over to me and sure enough, there were the terms we shook hands on in some forgotten cafe.

Now here's a question in human character! Would you honor a bet scribbled on the back of a napkin with some guy you hadn't seen in 4 years? In a time we idealize as having honor being the definition of a man, perhaps this question wouldn't be asked...though in truth, I suspect that people a hundred years ago were just a likely to hang up the phone on a call like this as people are today. Anyway, I called Jim, wondering what his response would be. Admittedly, at first he was a bit caught off guard, but considering I hadn't remembered the bet either, that wasn't surprising, and of course listening to the silence was a bit of fun from my end. Jim however isn't one to be a welcher and it probably only took him 30 seconds to remember the bet and come back with, "Well, hey that's what we agreed! When do we go?!!?" So Jim brings me over from Taiwan and proving himself a hell of a sport, he even brought Cece into the deal bringing her over from the US.

The trip started in Paris with Cece and I flying in and having just enough time to get over our jet lag a bit and do the obligatory number of coffee's in sidewalk cafe's. Jim's apartment facing Notre Dame seemed to have at least a hundred scattered Champagne bottles lying around, most yet unopened so set the perfect stage for the start of the trip with the constant flow of Kir Royals easing us into the French lifestyle.

So we set off for Chamonix after a slight mishap with getting the snow chains stolen from out from under our nose in the parking lot, in high spirits and looking forward to the week of skiing to come. I'd never experienced the dual combination of large uncrowded European roads and a car like the BMW 320i before and finally was able to understand why the moniker of "Ultimate Driving Machine" is so well deserved. While Taiwan is littered with BMW's and Mercedes, I've always felt that driving those cars was equivalent to keeping a dog in a wire mesh cage with the traffic and road conditions that abound. After these few hours I found that to these cars, Taiwan is probably even worse then a wire mesh cage and more like an airline shipping crate in terms of being confined and not being able to stretch and perform as designed.

The few hours drive was also a wonderful way to catch up on Jim's adventures gallivanting over Europe for Cisco which he joined after leaving our startup. Both of us being caught right in the middle of the dot-com industry downturn, there was quite a bit of moaning about the pain of the crash and its impact. Its amusing in that we didn't know that there were two more years of even worse pain still to come (to date ...) Another lesson on never complaining about how bad it is, the Fates can always find a way to twist the screws a little bit more!

Jim had rented a wonderful three floor chalet in Argentiere just outside Chamonix which was pleasantly surrounded by trees and a full blanket of snow . Jim's plan was to have some 20 friends flowing in an out over the week we were there, so you know that there was always going to be something going on, a pot of Vin Chaud on the burner at all times and a fire in the fireplace.

The first morning, the only one as it turns out, not to have clear sunny skies but that didn't dampen the excitement of going out and getting the week long lift pass. From the first ride up Les Grands Monetets to the last run down Flegere five days later, just managing to outrun a avalanche started by snow patrol explosions, I had a trip of simply wonderful skiing! Between the fresh powder that managed to start at 5pm every night of the week and fall until about 7am, and Raf who was a very accomplished skier and did his very best to make sure I was not getting past him on any runs, it was simply a perfect week!

We had not been very lucky in getting up to one of the big attractions of Chamonix, the Vallee Blanche, a 20km long run over a glacier, as wind and fresh snow had kept the tram closed. Toward the middle of the week on the day we planned to make the run the tram was still closed, Jim decided to introduce me to parasailing. He'd been flying for years and had brought his own wing with him to Chamonix. We drove up the Chamonix valley to a spot below Mont Blanc known for its favorable conditions for flying and found a trainer to take me and Laurence up for our first flights. I took a video which is probably the best way to get a feeling for that flight and the beauty of the parasailing below the French Alps, check it out! The wings themselves are amazing items. Jim for example ran and took off in front of Laurence and I as we were sitting down to drink a chocolate. 45 min later he came down and landed in the same place he took off from as he was getting board sailing around above the slopes and looking out over the Alps!

The only regrets from the trip is missing the chance to take a run down the Vallee Blanche glacier. The 20km run was something I was certainly looking forward as have never had a chance to make a run of that length, but we just had too much snow and the lifts couldn't open... sometimes things just happen that way, too much of a good things spoils the show. The other thing is on the last night I was there, some more people showed up and in a pattern I've seen so many times before, those ships just passed in the night. Unfortunate because sometimes things just click.

Overall an amazing trip and the original dream of just a ski trip has now expanded to become not just a dream of a week of skiing but has turned into a season or a year in Chamonix, sometimes fulfilling dreams ends up having the blow up like balloons! I must say I'm very impressed by Jim in his living up to his word and this I a show of character that many would not have matched. However, we did leave the trip with another bet, this one I admit I'm likely to lose. The payoff for this next bet is a trip to Papua New Guinea which does up the stakes a bit! I certainly hope Nasdaq climbs a bit before I'm asked to cough up! All in all a wonderful trip! Thanks Jim!