Twenty Eight

Viente y ocho, hai mui tam, er shu ba, however you say it, I have that many of them in years. To mark the occasion I thought I'd research the number. Google returns 28 million results.

Wikipedia is the first hit on the search and has some great info. For example, it is a Keith number, because it recurs in a Fibonacci-like sequence started from its base 10 digits: 2, 8, 10, 18, 28... Also, it's a happy number, which only 12% of all integers are (considering numbers up to 10^20). A happy number is any number that eventually reduces to 1 when the following process is used: take the sum of the squares of its digits, and continue iterating this process until it yields 1, or produces an infinite loop. AWESOME!! This is gonna be a great year.

Years normally follow a 28-year cycle, since there are seven days in a week and leap year occurs every four years; a calendar from 28 years ago is the same as this year's. This is the first time (of several, hopefully) that I'll get to relive a year exactly as it was the year I was born. Need to break out the almanac.

It's the atomic number of nickel, and the number of dominoes in a standard dominoes set. There's also a band called twenty eight out of Cape Cod. I wonder if they are good. One album that people apparently think is great is one that I picked up in college called The Great 28, by Chuck Berry. I never knew it was so well regarded, I thought is was like a greatest hits.

Other people also blog about turning 28, but this guy is not as excited as me. And some people receive bills from their fathers when they turn 28. Like this guy whose dad sent him an itemized invoice for his life to that point totaling $2 million. Thanks mom and dad for the millions you've put into me.

When I think about the years... the number, I guess actually last year was a happy number year and maybe I should be researching 29 now...