2 January 26

By special request (at my suggestion) I'm wearing this tie to help celebrate the 16th anniversary of the marriage of Jonathan and Courtney Kleppinger! We remember (very happily) a cold and snowy day in Hyden, Kentucky. We love them and their five children!

2 January 25

Fifteen years ago today we proudly witnessed the wedding of Jonathan and Courtney, in snowy Hyden, KY. This is the tie (and suit) I wore that day. Happy Anniversary, Jonathan and Courtney!

5 March 23

I've had this tie with black circles on silver for at least 15 years and I like it a lot! Today's occasion is the patenting of the hula hoop 60 years ago (1963). Among the world records for hula hooping: 100 hours (with brief rest breaks) by Jenny Doan of Austria, November 2019; 280 hoops at one time, for at least 3 revolutions, by Linlin Jin of China, on a German TV show, June 2009; using a giant hoop 18 feet across (56 foot circumference), by Yuya Yamada of Japan, November 2019; hooping while running a marathon (in 5:06 hours), by Sasha Kenney of Great Britaiin, April 2012.

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2 January 22

For my first post in 2022, and for the second Sunday in Christmas, I'm wearing the tie I wore twelve years ago on this date (in 2010) for Jonathan-and-Courtney's wedding! We all had a wonderful, snowy day in Hyden, Kentucky.

2 November 20

 Look what's come around again! It's "Looking for Circles Day"! So my tie has lots of circles, and Marvin K. Mooney wants you to see his circle badge before he GOES NOW (PLEASE!). You may claim victory today as soon as you count 200 circles.

3 November 19

I like to celebrate “Looking For Circles Day,” every year on 2 November. This time that was on Saturday, so I’ve shifted it to today — which is appropriate for the day when we shift to Standard Time! (And just for fun for circles today, my socks are covered with multicolor polka dots!

10 September 18

If you can't find something today, you can Blame It On The Large Hadron Collider. The LHC, which is the largest machine in the whole world, opened on this date in 2008, and is located near Geneva, Switzerland. Since it can create miniature black holes, it makes a handy excuse when anything disappears without a trace. My tie's circles represent the underground ring for the LHC, which has a diameter of almost 4 miles.

2 November 17

It's that time of year -- "Looking For Circles Day" has come around again. Perhaps you remember the definition of a circle -- the locus of points equidistant from another point, called the center. My advice for today is to eat some π and avoid going off on tangents.

6 September 16

Friedrich August Kekulé was born on 7 September 1829, in Darmstadt, Germany (which happens to be quite close to Pfungstadt, the city where Johann Georg Klöppinger grew up before emigrating to Philadelphia in 1737). Kekulé is regarded as one of the founders of organic chemistry, in the mid-nineteenth century. He is most famous for discovering the "ring" structure of the benzene molecule. The reactions between benzene and nitric acid, and between benzene and halogens (such as chlorine and bromine), gave products whose properties just could not be explained through the ordinary models of carbon atoms bonded in long chains. But August Kekulé reasoned that the carbon atoms might be bonded in a circle or ring, and he gave credit for this fundamental idea in organic chemistry to a dream experience of seeing a snake biting its own tail. So I'm wearing a tie today featuring black and silver circles to honor Kekulé's work!

2 November 15

Looking for Circles Day has come around again!

2 November 14

Wearing RED for the color of saints, for All Saints' Sunday. Wearing CIRCLES for "Look for Circles Day."

4 November 13

Saturday (2 November) was "Looking for Circles Day." But this year I'm celebrating it today, because I get to look for circles with Mallie Jayden Elizabeth Kleppinger (who will be 4 months old at the end of this week).

2 January 13

For my first posting in 2013 I'm happily celebrating Jonathan and Courtney's third anniversary! This is the tie I wore for their wedding in Hyden, Kentucky, on 01/02/2010. Today is also the eighth day of Christmas.

22 July 12

July 22 is "Pi Approximation Day," because 22/7 is close to the true value of π. I think blueberries on some English muffins makes a close approximation to pie.

26 April 11

Today marks the birthday of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), a "language analysis" philosopher. I chose my tie to signify the idea of "logical atoms." Wittgenstein's early work succeeded in showing how the principles of mathematical proofs could be applied directly to logical arguments. Here is the opening page of his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," first published in German in 1921. The first and seventh propositions are particularly wonder-ful and awe-ful.

1

The world is everything that is the case.

2

What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

3

The logical picture of the facts is the thought.

4

The thought is the significant proposition.

5

Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.)

6

The general form of truth-function is: [, , N()]. This is the general form of proposition.

7

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

30 September 10

September is "Subliminal Communications Month," a time designated to consider how many "hidden messages" there might be around us. Circles make a good focal point for wondering if there's something meaningful behind the pattern.









More revealing about today's wardrobe selection: The photograph does not give you sufficient "depth of vision" to see the message that lies beneath . . .

22 July 10

This is "∏ Appreciation Day," because 22/7 comes close to the true value of π. I wore my cherry-pie tie earlier this month, so today we'll focus instead on circles (because π is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter).

02 January 10

Saturday -- A wonderful wedding!

02 December 08

Today marks the anniversary of the 1942 experiment in Chicago that resulted in the world's first sustained nuclear chain reaction. My wife agreed that this was an appropriate tie because the silver circles remind her of the "liquid drop" model of the atomic nucleus, but she also contributed the silver chain in honor of the nuclear reaction!

19 June 08 (Juneteenth)

Today is a remarkable day for "civil rights." Juneteenth (from June nineteenth) is celebrated in 26 states to remember the day in 1865 when Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. This event marks the official ending of slavery throughout the United States. Ninety-nine years later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens, regardless of race.