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The Spectacle Blog
Should I be sad that I’m getting old or happy that I get one day of wonderful attention from my wife and kids, perhaps the best part being my kids’ home-made birthday cards?
I think I’ll go with the latter.
I really am torn on my birthday: On the one hand, it’s nice to be treated especially well for a few hours. On the other hand, it’s hard to think of the occasion as particularly special, not least as it means I’ve moved one year closer to my eventual (but hopefully still distant) demise.
I’m glad that my wife and I have reached a sort-of agreement to keep our birthdays, gifts, etc., low-key and low-cost.
I’m sure the highlight of the day will be hearing my 6-year old daughter sing after three days of after-school “choir camp.” She simply loves singing, and I love hearing her. Here’s a lullaby, or rather a Lili-by, which she recorded of herself on her iPad about 10 months ago. If you listen to it, I’m sure you’ll agree that my best birthday present will be seeing and hearing her up on stage, singing with her first grade friends classmates.
Indeed, that reminds me of the really good thing about getting older: I get to watch my kids develop into (hopefully) quality, smart, funny, ethical, productive, fun human beings.
By the way, here’s a trivia question for you: How many (randomly selected) people do you have to have in a room to have a 50% chance that two (or more) of those people share a birthday (month/day, not year)? And how about to have a 99% chance?
The answers are perhaps surprisingly low:
You need 23 people in a room to have a 50% chance that two share a birthday, and 57 in a room to reach a 99% chance.
For those of you who want to dig into the nuts and bolts of the math, see this link.
Happy Birthday also to Brett Favre, David Lee Roth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., among many others, and I hope you’ll all offer a thought or prayer in memory of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was brutally murdered in Pakistan a decade ago for being (like me) an American Jew. Daniel Pearl would have been 49 years old today.
View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Ross Kaminsky
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/10/10/happy-birthday-to-me
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Al Adab| 10.10.12 @ 12:34PM
More than 23 of us online right now I suspect, but today is my youngest sons' birthday as well. My best to you.
RJ| 10.10.12 @ 12:50PM
Happy Birthday, Ross. Fathers of six year olds are young, although they may make you feel old when they are teenagers.
JmsA| 10.10.12 @ 1:41PM
Happy Birthday, Mr. Kaminsky, and thank you, for I very much enjoyed your wonderful child's singing.
rightasrain| 10.10.12 @ 2:02PM
Happy birthday, Ross. Here's to many more years of excellent writing. And I've known for a while about the birthday statistic. When I went away to college, my first year roomate and I had the same birthday.Thereafter, whenever the subject of birthdays comes up, my date is invariably someone's daughter's, mother's, spouse's etc. birthday as well.
Butch| 10.10.12 @ 2:32PM
Happy birthday to you, Sir. You are right in there with my family, including my wife (Oct 7), and my number one daughter (Oct 9).
Ross Kaminsky| 10.10.12 @ 3:16PM
Butch, I guess we know what people find to do in the dead of winter...
Butch| 10.10.12 @ 7:30PM
Heh, I've had that same thought. I'm working from memory here, but I read an article once that said that birthdays aren't evenly distributed, as a statician would assume with no other information. If I remember halfway correctly, October was a disproportionate month, and I thought at the time, uh-huh, what else is there to do in January/February.
Butch| 10.10.12 @ 7:31PM
statistician.
TinaB| 10.11.12 @ 7:25AM
You guys on TAS are always educating me, Ross and Butch, I am mother of an October 9th, September 30' and I was born the 6th of October. So it's generational. Love you guys, and, Ross, you have given me an idea with my iPad and grand babies, especially the little girls. God bless and keep you men strong and supportive of your loved ones, it is so heartening to this widow who was blessed with a hubby like you.
mike 3/505| 10.10.12 @ 3:47PM
Happy birthday Ross...you guns are great at that age....speaking from experience, when they become teenagers, volunteer for a 5 year tour overseas! Co e home when they've growed up.
mike 3/505| 10.10.12 @ 3:48PM
Young'uns are great
Oldefarte| 10.10.12 @ 4:02PM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY and many more!!!!! Enjoy your youth now, cause one day you'll be like us old folks whose bones creek when they roll out of bed every morning, struggle into the bathroom without aid of their contacts and try to navigate their false teeth into their pie-hole. Now that I've got you thoroughly depressed, HAPPY BIRTHDAY once again!!!!!
Ross Kaminsky| 10.10.12 @ 4:40PM
I hope you're at least slightly exaggerating!
TinaB| 10.11.12 @ 7:29AM
He is, Ross. May you have a very happy birthday and may you stay forever young. Children can certainly help that. I have discovered grandkids do a good job of that also.
chriser| 10.10.12 @ 5:25PM
Ross, As they say down under after blowing out the candles "Hip-Hip-Hooray"! Hope you got at least a few good pressies too. BTW, enjoy every minute of your kids when they're young because believe me, before you know it, they're grown and gone. Happy birdthday.
Ross Kaminsky| 10.10.12 @ 6:13PM
Thanks, Chris. Pressies to be opened this evening after hearing Lili's choir.
Tafuna| 10.10.12 @ 7:21PM
This summer while touring Tangiers in Morocco it turned out that my guide was born on exactly the same date as was I and just one year off. At the time I thought this was quite a coincidence. As we had more than 23 people in our party I guess it wasn't all that unusual-- two of us were 50% certain to share the same date.
Happy birthday, Ross.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.10.12 @ 11:06PM
Happy Birthday Mr. Kaminsky. I've saved this observation until the end of the day, so as not to put a damper on your celebration if you disagree, but it occurred to me when looking at the inset photo next to this and other blog posts (as opposed to the one at the bottom of your regular articles where more of the top of your head and hair there is showing) that without hair on the top of your head, you bear a resemblance to the actor (Michael Marisi Ornstein) who plays Chuck Marstein (the four fingered money launderer and toady) from Sons of Anarchy.