They Say It's My Birthday

Many happy returns of the day to my fellow June tenthians: Maurice Sendak, Judy Garland, Saul Bellow, Prince Phillip, Frederick Lowe (of Lerner and), and John Edwards. (There are others but these seem the most auspicious). And, a moment of silence for those whose lives were lost on this day: Alexander the Great, Marcus Garvey, Spencer Tracy, Louis L'Amour, and Ray Charles.

Some fascinating facts from the mind that likes to imagine vast quantities of bizarre items:

First, the basic calculations: 36 years = 432 months = 13,140 days = 315,360 hours = 18,921,600 minutes. (No I am not quoting Rent. Just doing math). I have known Erik for more than half my life at this point! I have been called Elee for 22 years. Been driving for 19 years and wearing glasses for 30.

Using Forks: Let us presume that I use an average of 1.8 forks per day, and adjusting for the earlier years of my life, let's presume that I have used this average of forkage since age 5. That would mean in my current life time, I have used 20, 367 forks.

Handling pieces of paper: A very challenging figure. Let's estimate that on average in an office-oriented position, such that I have had in my last twelve years of such work, I handle roughly 150 pieces of paper a day (including mail, articles, documents, etc.). When I was more of the student type this might have been roughly 50 pages more. As a younger person this was probably just about 50 pages, give or take.

I then calculate: Ages 5-18= 13 years at 50 pages per day = 237,250 pages
Ages 18-24= 7 years at 200 pages per day = 511,000
Ages 24-36 = 12 years at 150 pages per day=657,000

that would give a grand total of 1, 405,250 pieces of paper handled in my lifetime. It represents approximately 2,810.5 reams. Since one ream uses about 6% of total tree, it takes roughly 17 reams for one tree. That means that I've killed about 165 trees, roughly 4.5 trees per year of life. And in reality, I probably should add on about 5 more reams for the dissertation. Another half tree. That's a sobering concept. But, I am doing my part to use less paper and recycle it as much as I can.

So as not to end on a low note, here are some interesting random events in history for June 10:

June 10, 1971 44th National Spelling Bee: Jonathan Knisely wins spelling shalloon
June 10, 1902 Patent for window envelope granted to H F Callahan
June 10, 1752 Ben Franklin's kite is struck by lightning-what a shock!