IR Open Mic - 26-04 - Magic Mirror - Craig Richmond (Season 1, Episode 7)

In this IR Open Mic Magic Mirror snip-it, Curtis askes Craig Richmond, former President and CEO of Vancouver Airport Authority and global airport executive, to peer into the looking glass and bear his soul!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're now down to the the final segment, Craig. And this is what we call the magic mirror. It's peering into the heart of your being, for lack of a better word. It's 15 very carefully selected scientific, pseudoscientific uh questions. Start with one that I, well, especially for you, I'd love to hear the answer. Favorite aircraft, civilian or military, current or historical?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Well, the aircraft is a uh is a uh plural. So I would say personally, although the F-18 was amazing, and I love the F-18. You uh Hemingway said you know, you you can only lose your heart once to an airplane uh and it was a star fighter. So it was uh the F-104. I flew, it was uh one of the last courses on the Canadian F-104, second last. And uh when you lose your heart to an airplane like that, it was amazing for its day. The F-18 was amazing. Historically, and again as a fighter pilot, the Hawker Hurricane, the super the uh Spitfire, Supermarine Spitfire gets all the glory, but the Hawker Hurricane was there in in uh numbers uh when it was needed, and I've always wanted to fly that airplane. So there's there's three.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Well, I'll I'll give you my three. The Mustang, the Spitfire, and I never got to never got to ride on the Concorde.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

So uh yeah. I had a ticket once and it got yanked and I got put on uh 747 and I was pretty disappointed.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Well, I I hope we live to see the moon base, and I also hope to see a return of supersonic commercial flight again, but uh let's see, right? Lots of lots of advances and all that, so uh all we can do is be hopeful. So how about apples or oranges? Oranges coffee or tea? Coffee and flat or sparkling.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Flat.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Oh wow. Okay, so the Europeans didn't have too much influence on you. That's good. No uh preference cats or dogs?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Dogs.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

100% scariest animal.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Polar bear.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And for good reason, especially when they're hungry. Favorite classic car.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Aston Martin.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yes. Particular model or just in general? James Bond. Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

I don't know what the model number is, but I want to take the seats.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, yeah. Famous. Well, here's a good one. Famous person, living or dead, you'd like to have dinner with.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Oh, that's a good one. Jacqueline Cochran. A lot of people don't know of her. Female test pilot, should have been an astronaut, but you know, just wasn't possible due to uh the the time she was living in. But uh, I've always thought she would have been a fascinating to talk to.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Well, I think they might have used her and and that program uh where they were training female astronauts back in the 60s in this for all mankind, because they in in the series they do send them and it changes everything, right? So I won't give away the rest of that plot. How about greatest fear?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Oh, that's a good one. You know, um I fear the voice in me that sometimes counsels surrender. But you know, that sometimes that little voice says, No, you can't do this, give up, you know. That's I it I don't want to, but every once in a while everybody has that little voice saying, you know, should back off, shouldn't do that. So that's probably it. I don't I'm not really afraid of any uh I mean I have I have a healthy respect for rattlesnakes, bears where I live on a mountain in the soy, you know, I have a healthy respect for them, but I'm not afraid of them, and and I don't get icked out by by spiders. I I would say the closest thing, maybe and you've you've uh been in the tropics, centipedes, not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We they call them 40 leggers in Jamaica, the crimson red, you know, man. So yeah, but that little voice you were talking about, that it it the problem is it gets louder as you get older, too, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:58

But yeah, well, that's because you're smarter, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, you start to learn a few things along the way, thank God.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

You can't do this, old man. Oh, yeah, that's always a dangerous combination when you're skiing or something. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Favorite dessert?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Oh, I certainly do like a good rum cake. That would be a Bahamian uh thing, but also key lime pie.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Oh, yes, two very good choices. I'll take you up on the next dinner together. Earliest memory.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Oh, that's a good one. You mean today or in general? I think in general was the intent. This is gonna sound funny uh or odd, I guess, given that I love dogs, but I do have a memory of a dog biting me when I was about four. So there you go.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

No, um that that would stick in your mind.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

You can get past these things, you can get past things.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Absolutely. Most used app on your phone, excluding WhatsApp or Outlook.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

It's a uh weather app called Windy. And I find it it's really good. It combines a lot of things, and because I live not in a town, I live up on a mountain, it combines a lot of different things to give you a really good forecast, um, which is not easy to forecast weather. You know, I'm at like uh what 1200 meters. So um, you know, people around here say it's foggy. I'm going, that's not fog, that's cloud.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So in the clouds, absolutely. Yeah, there's another one that I've been using a fair bit. It's a star tracker map, and it there's a couple different ones out there, but yeah, they're really good.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah, you should see the stars up here at 1200 meters with no light noise, you know, from the city, and a clear on a clear night. It is uh I've never seen the Milky Way like this.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Absolutely. No, it's uh when you get away from the city and all that light pollution, it's it's got to be amazing. So favorite movie of all time.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Blade Runner.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

That's come up before with with one of my other guests, and it's it's one of the ones my wife and I, it's it's something we go back to every three or four years. It's brilliant and it's really well done.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

And you know, the sequel was really good. You know, that you you worry about sequels, and just like Dune 1 and 2, I was not disappointed. Uh, I was not disappointed by the Blade Runner sequel, and uh hats off to Ryan Gosling. He did a great job.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Now, here's the difficult one. You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life. What is it?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

You know what? Probably uh it's gotta be classical, but I would say a new classic would be Rhapsody and Blue by Gershwin.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Okay, okay, yeah. Yeah, that uh that would work. Now, the impossible question. I'm thinking of a number between one and one hundred, and it has some relevance to what we talked about today.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Six. Oh, you were so close. It was seven.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Because because you had two runs in and out of of Vancouver of seven years, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Oh, there you go. I was thinking of you and I both had it off in 06. You just yeah, well, that was a good guess as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

But um, yeah, but yeah, a couple people have guessed it right so far. Elizabeth Brown being the first. She guessed 67 because that happens to be the same year we were both born. So that was that was a pretty good shot in the dark.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Uh, you know what? Uh I'll have to uh give her a heck about it next time I see her. Thanks for making it look bad.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

Okay, second to last question favorite place you've ever visited, and the top bucket list destination you'd like to see.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

The I'll do the bucket list first. Wendy and I are gonna go to Japan for a good long holiday. I've always I've been there many times on business, but not enough time to really enjoy it. And uh so probably gonna do a three-week met my brother and my son ski up in in Hokkaido. You've never seen snow like that. I've never seen snow like that. So I'm really keen just to uh to explore Japan. You know, um so many favorite places, uh and it it's like it's like seeing a favorite food because you know it's so good. But I have to say, one of the most stunningly beautiful places I've ever been. It's like uh Okanagan Lake, for those of you who understand Canada, but in in Italy, Lake Como. Lake Como is just gorgeous. You know, I was there with uh seven other people, we were renting a villa, and we get up in the morning with a coffee, sitting about a hundred meters up from the you know, from the the water, and everybody sit there with a coffee, and nobody would say anything, just staring at this beautiful lake with the villas and the little you know the little villages dotted along the lake and the Alps in the background. Oh man, it uh it's just literally you can see why for thousands of years the Roman emperors would go there just to chill out.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Literally, literally awestruck, right? Yeah, uh I have not made it there, but uh that should be on the list. Although Hokkaido will be heading there in October for Gad Asia. So um fantastic. Let's meet up in Hokkaido. Okay, so uh final question: your personal mantra in 10 words or less.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Uh La Das, La Das, toujours la das. Audacity, audacity, always audacity. Uh, I think that was Charlemagne's uh uh motto.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Okay, well, I I do not have that history committed to memory, but I'll take your word for it. But it's you know, you need a good dose of that to get through life, so I I think it served you well.