Get Your Geek On!

Life is funny.  

I was just saying to my wife that I need to make some time to write this week, but it just hasn't been there.  No time.  It's not a new problem, we all have it.  Life gets in the way and can distract you from something important. Like this silly little blog.  It has become important to me and it was bothering me that I had not made time to come up with some good stuff and I didn't want to half ass something.  

I had decided that I would get recharged after this weekend.  I'll be back home for the first time since this idea launched and I'll get to see the Super Six in person.  I was sure I would have something good after that.  But still, there would be no new reading this week for the Questers (that's the name I just came up with to call fans of this blog.  You are Questers!)

Just then, Mike sends me a txt saying he has another blog to donate to the cause.  Right when we needed it. Perfect timing.  Well played, Universe.  Well played.

Take it away, Mike.

I am a numbers guy.  I have always liked math and there is a reason I am an actuary and not an English teacher.  Sometimes you just go with your strengths and don’t paddle against the current (Like that canoeing analogy?).  Today’s blog is about numbers so let’s get to them.

I recently read an article where the author asked, “How old would you be if you did not know your age?”  In other words, how old do you feel? I thought back to this question recently after attending Greg’s 30^th birthday party.  As we talked about the upcoming adventure we realized that our youngest member (Greg) is older than our predecessor’s oldest member (Dad at 29).  I am not sure if this means anything, but where did the time go and how did we get around to embarking on this adventure 20 years later than we should have?

Sometime during my youth I saw an article in the Sunday paper’s Parade Magazine about a method of approximating some unknown number.  I wish I could remember the name of the man or his theory but time and/or bourbon have taken those from me.  Anyway, he theorized that you could derive a fairly good estimate by making several assumptions and his premise was that the bad assumptions would cancel each other out. The example he used was a determination of the number of piano tuners in Chicago.  He started with the population of Chicago then made assumptions such as, what percentage of the population owned a piano, how often does a piano need to be tuned, what does it cost to tune a piano, how much must a piano tuner make in a year to survive, and so on.  Don’t recall his answer (probably the bourbon again) but he counted the number of piano tuners listed in the Yellow Pages and found that he was fairly close.

I have undertaken a similar estimate for our upcoming trip.  We figure that we have 120 - 130 miles to cover.  If we can paddle in a straight line it will be closer to 120.  If our tracking looks like Billy Joel and Lindsay Lohan trying to drive Mark’s 72 Datsun pickup then the distance will be closer to 130 miles.  Using some estimates of travel speed, paddling rate, and time on the river I believe that we are going to paddle approximately 130,000 times during the trip.  This is not a combined figure, it is 130,000 each.  

I don’t know how many numbers there are in the universe, but I am sure it is a lot.  So how do we get to know the number 130,000?  I will try to quantify it.  For example, it would take a person almost 356 years to see 130,000 sunsets.  If you eat 3 times a day it would take you almost 119 years to enjoy 130,000 meals.  A few blogs ago we learned that Greg’s primary concern for the trip is beer.  If Greg were to drink a six-pack of beer every day it would take him over 59 years to drink 130,000 beers.  Then, if Greg decided to stack his empty cans on top of each other the tower would be over 10 miles high.

So, I am not sure if 130,000 is a big number but I am pretty positive it is.  To answer the question I opened with, my guess is that we will all feel like we are 25 years old when we start our journey and feel like 75 when we finish.  All we can do is pack the Icy-Hot and Advil and hope we don’t complete the trip as Grumpy Old Men.