International Pi Day

Well, yes, I am a geek. Thanks for asking. Seriously though, I've just been informed that today is indeed International Pi Day. For those not quite getting the reference, today is March 14, or 3.14. The Greek letter Pi is the symbol used to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi is approximately 22/7, and is often written in decimal form as 3.14. The actual decimal value of Pi continues into infinity without repeating.

Apparently there are quite a few people out there obsessed with Pi. The U.S. record for Pi memorization is 12,887 digits, and is held by Marc Umile, a Medicare biller from Philadelphia. The world record for Pi memoriztion is 67,890 digits and is held by Chao Lu, a chemistry student from China. At the height of my geekdom I only knew Pi to about 10 places.

In celebration of Pi Day, here's some Pi trivia

• Pi Day, 3/14, is also the birthday of Albert Einstein
• On Kate Bush's 2005 album Aerial, there is a song titled 'Pi' in which she sings Pi to the 137th decimal place.
• In 1897, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill from which it could be deduced that pi was equal to 3.2 or other incorrect values, including at one point 4. The Indiana Senate postponed the bill indefinitely, preventing it from becoming law.
• In the movie Scarface, the character Frank Lopez wears a necklace with the pi symbol.

And now I think it's time to celebrate this fine day by having some pie. I think pumpkin sounds good.

Freakin' Winter

So, the last couple of weeks have been pretty snowy here in Northern VT. What can I say, winte always seems to have this way of sneaking in one more suckerpunch just when we start to think that the weather's warming up. 'Fooled you!'

Below, is a picture of the antenna ball on my car, after Friday's snow/rain storm. Mr. Pirate is looking awfully cold. Also not that I had been driving around for a while Friday evening before I noticed the little guy was carrying around some extra weight.