Another special birthday

My 72nd birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day this year, as it does every six or so. I have taken to celebrating all week, along with everyone else. This year is particularly interesting from a mathematical POV. Its prime decomposition is

72 = 8*9 = 2³ x 3²,

a pattern that won't occur again in my lifetime, at least if m,n > 1 and prime. The next candidate would be

2⁵ x 5² = 32 x 25 = 800.

Moreover, this birthday comes between two twin primes (71 and 73), so we have a nice series of interesting birthdays before we hit the doldrums at 74.

Birding milestones

Linda and I just returned from a trip to #Japan, a private tour with #MarkBrazil and some friends. In #Hokkaido, we both saw our 5000th world bird. Mine was a typical brown bird that I seem to have for milestones: several Eurasian Woodcocks displaying overhead while we waited for the Blakiston's Fish Owl to show up. (That would have been a spectacular bird for a milestone, and my companions suggested I fudge the numbers. I prefer my brown nondescripts.)

Linda hit 5000 on a stunning view of a singing male Siberian Rubythroat that used a nearby post as a perch for the display.

I have posted some photos at https://goo.gl/photos/EyhEvUGDRXzuZrf57, including the owl and rubythroat.

Coincidentally, Mark Brazil showed me my 4000th world bird on a trip to India a few years ago, a delightfully nondescript Blyth's Reed Warbler.

Comments are welcome.

Another Milestone

No, not a birding milestone this time. That we can expect later this year as we [finally] tally our 5000th species. We have 4915 species on our shared sightings list.

No, this is somewhat more mundane: Today Linda and I have been married for an amazing 50 years!

Claire, our daughter, who has some skin in the game, figured it out sometime ago, "It's lucky that you two found each other. No one else would put up with either one of you."

Au contraire, I think that almost everyone loves Linda, with the possible exception of her two sisters.

After thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one good explanation: good sex.

Well, maybe birding figures in there somewhere. We've been doing it together for most of those 50 years.