Yesterday Was a Special Day for Me

Blogging, family, humor, lessons learned, retirement, sports, Teaching and Education 2 Minutes

And yet nobody even acknowledged it.

You see, yesterday I became days old.

 (Sorry for the weird formatting, I’ve given up after an hour of trying to fix it.)

For those of you who’ve forgotten their lessons in Roman numerals, that’s 25,000 (don’t worry, I didn’t know how to write it either).

The problem with trying to write such a large number is that the highest number you can actually write with traditional Roman numerals is 3,999  (MMMCMXCIX – fun fact number I).

Adding a line on top of Roman numerals (the line is known as a vinculum) was a way to write larger numbers. The purpose of the line is to multiply the given Roman numerals by 1,000. So, while XXV is equal to 25, putting a vinculum over it makes it equal to 25,000 (fun fact number II). In case you are curious, 25,000 days is equal to 68 years, five months, and 12 days.

Here are some other fun facts about Roman numerals:

  • Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages, using combinations of just seven letters from the Latin alphabet.
  • The Romans lacked a numeral for the number zero itself (that is, what remains after 1 is subtracted from 1). The word nulla (the Latin word meaning “none”) was used to represent 0.
  • What about fractions, you may ask? The base “Roman fraction” is S, indicating 1/2, or more precisely, 6/12. Increments below 6/12 were written with the use of dots, so 2/12 would be written as •• while numbers above 6/12 would be written using S followed by the appropriate number of dots. 9/12 would be S•••
  • There is some flexibility; the number four can be written as IV or IIII (I don’t think my fifth-grade teacher would have allowed IIII).
  • Common uses include
    • year numbers on monuments and buildings, and copyright dates on the title screens of films and television programs.
    • clock faces
    • Names of monarchs and popes, e.g., Pope Leo XIV (where everyone knows the V stands for VILLANOVA!!!)
    • Generational suffixes, e.g., Thurston Howell, III
    • Page numbering of prefaces and introductions of books
    • Sequels to some films, video games, and other works, e.g., Rocky IV
    • Occurrences of a recurring grand event, e.g,  Games of the XXXIV (34th) Olympiad (the 2028 Summer Olympics) or Super Bowl LX (60 – thanks, Clive!), the most recent Super Bowl

I’ve only scratched the surface of the fascinating world of Roman numerals. If you want to read more, good old Wikipedia will do the trick.

But enough about Roman numerals. I wanted to see how many days old I was on other personally historic days:
  • I was 6,574 days old when I became eligible to vote
  • I got married when I was 8,772 days old
  • I’ve been teaching at Villanova for 14,520 days, and I’ve only got 546 days until I retire
  • I was 24,983 days old on the day my blog received 50,290 views (I know, sad, that this is listed as a personally historic day)
  • I reached maturity, well, let’s put it this way – at this point, it’s going to be more than 25,000 days

*image from Wikipedia

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Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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62 thoughts on “Yesterday Was a Special Day for Me”

  1. I’m so so sorry that I didn’t wish you a 🎈Happy Birthday 🎈 yesterday, my good friend!!! I shall give myself 50 lashes for my oversight! I hope you had a great 25,000th and here’s to another 25,000 🎂🎉🥂

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  3. Happy XXV and that funny line thing for yesterday. I hope you found a suitable way to celebrate. Using only Roman numerals, tell us how many people were at your party – I hope it wasn’t nulla!

    And how many Superbowls have there been?

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    1. I spent the day trying to think about how I could write post about my 25,000th day on earth. Thank heaven for Wikipedia and online time and date calculators!

      as to the number of people at my party, counting me, it was I

      we just had our LX, or 60th Super Bowl. I am sure you were glued to the TV for the game, and the halftime show 🙂

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      1. They are always there when you need them!

        My comment on the Super Bowl was nitpicking – you’d said it was #50. For a game that bores me to tears and kicked off at 11.30pm I did the only thing I could – sleep.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. good catch – as I mentioned to Pete, I need to send my drafts out to people to catch my mistakes and to liven things up! am I allowed to fix that post publication? 🙂

        I’m sure you were checking the score on your phone in the middle of the night 🙂

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  4. If it weren’t for spreadsheet programs and calculators, this sort of knowledge would be a lot harder to come by. You might be oblivious to your 25,000th birthday. And that would be a shame.

    Happy birthday, Jim! I hope you can find a cake large enough for all the candles.

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      2. we’re all savants at the age of 50,000 days,

        I have occasionally thought it would be fun to try and remember the order of a randomly arranged deck of 52 cards. Maybe another item for my retirement bucket list.

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  5. as I took a quick glance at that I was thinking you must be 25! snd then, logic kicked in and I knew something might be up with that. yay to your 546 days to go until you are in retirement world! congrats on all the stats.

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  6. I was about your age when I first calculated how many days I had lived. I think I posted about it because I was stunned at how low the number was. I am over 28,000 days old and that is such a finite number. I can visualize it. People buy every-day cars for less dollars than that. Billions and trillions are essentially infinite to me. But our days are truly numbered. Congrats on the milestone by the way.

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    1. I guess we think about these things as we get older. If I had known better, I would have gladly celebrated my 100th day birthday, but I’m sure no one thought to remind me of such a momentous occasion.

      I hope you are planning a big party for your 30,000th.

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  7. I was sure there was going to be a count for how long Borden’s Blather has been going or the number of followers you have in Roman numerals. I would love if you would have requested a birthday cake for your special day in Roman numerals just to see the reaction of the baker.

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    1. dang – I need to send a draft of my posts to you before I publish them. you always have ideas how to make them better!

      I’d be concerned that the baker wouldn’t put the line over top of XXV 🙂

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  10. Did the Romans have a solution for expressing irrational numbers? Or did they leave that to the Greeks? And then there are imaginary numbers, which are real but not on the number line that we know and love.

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  15. Happy birthday, Borden – and this sure was a fun post! I know my math teacher, My Smyth, would not have allowed IIII – and pet peeve is when authors use the roman numerals for the copyright date on the book. Also a pet peeve (less of one) when YouTube videos say “nine years ago” or “13 years ago” – like why not just state the actual year…

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