9 August 26

Wearing festive paisleys on navy blue to celebrate our 51st anniversary! The pin on my pocket says "I'm in love with my wife."

1 September 22

To honor the birthday on 1 September of Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), I thought about the tunes in his most famous composition, "Canon in D." Their circular/elliptical flow reminded me of paisleys, and this tie's distinctive contrast of light, medium and dark colors captures the counterpoint of the three themes!

28 February 21

On Friday I celebrated today's anniversary of the announcement of the structure of DNA (in 1953), so I'm wearing these topsy-turvy paisleys now to honor a mixture of events: Yesterday (27 February) marks the birthday of Emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), singer Marian Anderson (1897-1993), medical scientist Charles Best (1899-1978), writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968), actor Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011), consumer activist Ralph Nader (1934), NBA Basketball great James Worthy (1961) and singer Josh Groban (1981).  And today marks the birthday of chemistry hero Linus Pauling (1901-1994), and it's also National Public Sleeping Day.

12 May 19

For Mother's Day I asked Beth to choose a tie. She visited my tie blog to see the full set of choices, and the first six she looked at had already been worn this year -- and then she found this one!

.

31 October 17

For the sheer length of name and title, it's hard to beat Sir Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, Lord of Nyenhuis, Peckedam and Gellicum, born on this date in 1761. (His surname has 12 consonants and (only) 4 vowels!) He rose to official prominence under Napoleon's rule, becoming Grand Pensionary of the Batavian Republic from 1805 to 1806. I'm quite sure my paisley tie is suitable for this most auspicious occasion!

3 January 17

This tie with paisleys was chosen by my brother (-in-law) Mark Wollenweber for me to wear to honor his 54th birthday today! This is also the 10th Day of Christmas, and the first day I've been to work since Thanksgiving! Of special note among the "holidays" for today are Drinking Straw Day and Fruit Cake Toss Day. Two other notable humans born on this date are Millard Fuller (founder of Habitat for Humanity, 1935-2009) and J. R. R. Tolkien (chronicler of Middle Earth and biographer of hobbits, 1892-1973).

3 May 16

Special occasions for today include birthdays for Pete Seeger (1919), Frankie Valli (1934), Marcel Dupre (1886), and Bing Crosby (1903). It is also World Press Freedom Day, proclaimed annually by the United Nations. And then there's this list of "holidays" for 3 May (from the National Day Calendar site): NATIONAL TEXTILES DAY – NATIONAL SANS ARCHITECTS DAY – NATIONAL CHOCOLATE CUSTARD DAY – NATIONAL GARDEN MEDITATION DAY – NATIONAL RASPBERRY POPOVER DAY – NATIONAL PARANORMAL DAY – NATIONAL LUMPY RUG DAY – NATIONAL TEACHER APPRECIATION DAY – NATIONAL TWO DIFFERENT COLORED SHOE DAY – NATIONAL SPECIALLY-ABLED PETS DAY.

I'm surprised I didn't already know about National Paranormal Day, and I don't have shoes in different colors. I'm not going to wear a lumpy rug. So I'll say that (1) these paisleys are for the birthdays of those musicians, (2) the pure silk fabric celebrates National Textiles Day, and (3) my tie blog always celebrates the freedom of the press!

18 September 14

Today marks the birthdays of mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752) and physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819). The swirling paisleys on my tie are reminders of Legendre's famous  polynomials and Foucault's investigations into the effects of earth's rotation on swinging pendulums. And today Mallie Jayden Elizabeth Kleppinger had lots of fun with pendulum swinging under our large willow tree!

16 April 13

Today I'm dressed more formally than usual because I'm attending a funeral service for the mother of a very special family friend (David).

13 July 11

July 13 is "Embrace Your Geekiness Day," also called "Embrace Your Inner Geek Day." Today's paisley tie on a lilac-purple shirt is intended to leave you guessing whether I am secretly embracing myself about being a geek or simply refusing to acknowledge it.

19 May 11

Beth's brother Mark (Wollenweber) has come from Rhode Island to visit us! He was willing to select my tie for today, and when he saw paisleys in my collection he quickly chose this one. I like it too!

03 June 10

I chose this tie to celebrate Amy Graham's birthday! She has worked with me at EKU for a long time. But she wasn't at work today to see the tie; I hope she enjoys knowing about it anyway. (And I left some chocolates at her desk.)

12 August 09

Today marks the birthday of Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961), who formulated the basic principles of quantum mechanics. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933. Many physics and chemistry students sigh (that's a pun for those who know) heavily when they have to learn how to normalize wave functions. The paisleys on my tie for today are reminders of the curves in space and time that are fundamental to the quantum theory.

18 September 08

Today has tripartite significance in curvy math/geophysics. You may not see the connection as I do, but the ideas of a swinging pendulum, a swirl of polynomial expansions and an exponential curve all come together on September 18 to mark the birthdays of Leon Foucault (1819) and Adrien-Marie Legendre (1752) and the death of Leonhard Euler (1783). So it's a paisley day.