Nature's Bar Graph

I had a "water cooler" conversation the other day with a colleague in the lunchroom. We were talking about how many people we see in a day walking around with head down and thumbs aflutter endlessly updating/ tweeting/ emailing/ surfing.

I was reminded again yesterday morning as I sat in a float plane awaiting take-off from Coal Harbour in Vancouver. I chose the Harbour-to-Harbour service rather than the more traditional ferry for my day-long assignment in Victoria. It was the perfect late summer day for a flight. As we taxied out (for lack of a more appropriate nautical term; I'm sure I'll think of one later) the sun was just cresting the eastern peaks of the valley. It's orange brilliance illuminated the float plane adjacent to us so intently it was as if my whole colour pallette had just been decreased to Hallowe'en primaries; orange and black.

But somehow, several passengers failed to notice, so intently were they absorbed in reading either iPads or newspapers. Electronic choices were somewhat narrowed by this point as the captain had asked that phones be powered down or switched to "aircraft mode".

I guess I've never been wired for business. I can't keep the latest DOW in my head for more than a couple of minutes. The Business section is mostly read (even then only skimmed) second to last, just before Sports. I guess I lean more towards artsy despite being a technologist by profession. I'm attracted to the visual aura surrounding us. I always have been. Even as a small child, if we were traveling home from friends'/ relatives' houses, and I was dead-tired from playing, I never wanted to sleep in the car lest I miss something along the way.

And every time I travel by ferry, I spend most of the time on deck, no matter the weather. Well, OK, if it's pouring rain I decrease my outdoor exposure time, but I still always go out on deck for awhile. And nowadays, with the portability of digital cameras, I never leave home without it; my camera, that is. Even my phone has one, which is about the only reason I'd be focused on my phone on a ferry trip. Last year on a similar work-related trip (on the ferry) I also took a sunrise photo. I think I posted it here probably about 9 months ago.

The odds are greater of getting a window seat on a small single prop sea plane and I took full advantage. We flew over Coal Harbour, the yellow sulphur stacks in North Van, the Lions Gate bridge (oddly enough at about the same time my wife would be driving across it), Stanley Park, UBC. Then for something completely different, the plane traversed directly over the airport at about 3,500 feet. In all my crossings I never flown directly over the airport. How cool is that?

"Tiny" 747s moved along runways as if in slow-motion. It made me want to look around to see who was remotely controlling the whole operation from the sidelines. All the while several fellow passengers were intently engaged in their headlines/ editorials/ gossip columns.

Several  minutes after clearing VYR's airspace, as we crossed Ladner, ironically I viewed nature's own bar graph, illuminated by the low angle of the just-risen sun. A haphazard assortment of trees lining either a road or a property boundary had created the ideal conditions to mimic stats in the Business section. But sadly, the Business Class seats were still engrossed in the their texts.

Of course, don't ask me to interpret Nature's Bar Graph. I'm entirely unqualified for that.