[Mill Bay BC 11-22-09] Yesterday I took a plane ride from Calgary to Victoria. Actually it was divided up into two flights, Calgary to Vancouver and Vancouver to Victoria. When I fly a rule of thumb for me is if the person next to me is open to chat and interesting I will engage as it makes the flight way pass more quickly and I definitely enjoy dialog. This was the case on Sat afternoon for both flights.

YYC - YVR (First Leg)
I discover I am sitting next to a brilliant engineer from Toronto. He just sold his company and was disappearing for a while. He was on his way to New Zealand and Australia. We talked about a myriad of subjects and what intrigued me is that he really knew things beyond the technical details to the historical events that led to discoveries or court decisions. He talked about his home as a child in India and some of the projects he worked on over their as an adult. And he talked about his experiences on the ground in Northern Alberta working the oil patch as well as his special with Ontario Hydro in nuclear energy.

So here are a few of the things I caught… the whole corn starch plastic is not the answer, in fact, it is a problem. In Canmore it has become a huge thing at all our events that corn plastic plates and cutlery are used because “it is far more environmentally friendly” (the reason: it will breakdown as opposed to the other plastic that never will.) I discovered it is not friendly because it is still plastic. The corn starch is used as a binding agent to keep the plastic together and ‘if’ this plastic is continually exposed to sunlight it will break down in the sense that it is no longer a recognizable piece of something like a mug, fork or whatever… BUT the plastic still is plastic just in small pieces that can possibly float and be breathed in and cause horrific things like cancer!

The other thing I learned was that synthetic oil that you buy at a typical retail automotive shop is not really synthetic in the full sense of the word. My engineer friend gave me the history of synthetic oils through WWI and WWII re airplanes and how conventional oil wasn’t holding up and the engines were breaking down. So they discovered that sap down in the Brazilian rainforest that was not burning up with the trees and took the properties of this sap to create a synthetic lubricant. Long and short of this is that the current ’synthetic’ oil out there made by a couple of the BIG oil companies actually has mineral oil in it with some synthetic content. He told me the year and location of the court case where one of the big oil companies won the case to use ’synthetic’even though it wasn’t. I actually looked this all up online after the conversation and he nailed it. I am very disappointed as my TDI Jetta has been on a steady diet of ’synthetic’ oil. All that money…

YVR - YYJ (second leg)
On my short haul flight, like 15 min in the air and 15 min taxiing I sat next to a bona fide horticulturist who has retired from his government job. He now chairs different national boards like the farmers’ market board and agricultural tourism board. It was great to hear his journey from Trenton to Victoria when he was a young man in the 70s, a Neil Young-type. He discovered Vancouver Island and could not get it out of his mind’s eye. For eight years after his first visit he looked for the opportunity to find work to justify the move from Ontario. In 1980 he made that move and became a true Islander. He wore a little wool cap/toque, grey hair resting on his neck with a gotee on his face. He told me stories of the first test vineyard on Vancouver Island just a few kilometres from where I am sitting right now. I loved the brief visit hearing his passion for caring for the earth and the need to grow our food from untainted soil… very cool!

It was a very educational journey to say the least. I am looking forward to my time here in Mill Bay and to the flight home. Who will I sit with next time?