The Beatles – When I’m Sixty-Four

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Be forewarned. This is a geeky post. And on that note, I’ve got to say I’m more than a little disappointed at the utter lack of birthday gifts and cards I received this past Sunday. None. Zero. Where are you people? Seriously?

Well, to be perfectly honest, this past Sunday (May 17, 2009) came and went without so much as a flicker of awareness of the milestone I had reached, the knowledge of which only arrived Monday morning as I explored a new quantitative search engine, Wolfram Alpha. As it turns out, this past Sunday, I turned exactly 10,000 days old (the picture below is the screenshot I took Monday morning).

I’ve got to say that at first I was excited, but then was a little bit floored at the following realization. Measuring in powers of ten, I’ve officially entered the very last phase of my life! 10^0 marked my first diaversary, 10^1 came quickly after when I was scarecely more than a week old, followed three months later with 10^2. During my final year of being an only child (September 25, 1984) I celebrated my first 1000 (10^3) days in utter ignorance. An enormously huge gap then began and ended Sunday, as I passed the 10^4 = 10 000 day mark!

But this celebration (or lack thereof) is bittersweet, knowing that it is unlikely that I will survive until the next exponential milestone, 10^5 = 100 000 days old. Let’s see, I wonder if on October 15, 2255 (when I am a sprite 273 years old) the Cubs will be wrapping up their first World Series championship in over 300 years.