16 March 25

Happy National Panda Day! It's also Freedom of Information Day (honoring the birthday of James Madison, 1751) and Lips Appreciation Day.

9 November 22

In my Beginning Ethics class this week's topic is Animal Ethics -- how we judge our decisions and behaviors about the animals in our world. I'm wearing my pandas tie to help us think about threatened species and wildlife conservation! Pandas are in the category of "vulnerable" species, meaning that they are at high risk of extinction in the wild.

16 March 21

 Today is National Panda Day! See the live cameras and recorded videos from the National Zoo. The live camera views change frequently.

16 March 20

Today is National Panda Day! My tie's label says "Panda Repeat," which is true for the panda heads, while the bamboo background is irregular. Watch the panda-cams at the National Zoo (Smithsonian).

23 July 19

These pandas were hiding out in my closet. I missed wearing them back in March for National Panda Day, so I'm letting them peer through the bamboo today!

18 March 18

Friday (a no-tie day) was National Panda Day, so mine came peeking out today.

3-4 April 17

Today, P is for Pandas and Paul! I missed celebrating National Panda Day, on 16 March, so I'm making up for that today. But yesterday we had a wonderful surprise with the arrival of Paul Robert Wallace Kleppinger, so these pandas are also peeking out at him. I met him when he was about 5 hours old. His sister Mallie and brother Nate will welcome him home tomorrow (with parents Jonathan and Courtney Kleppinger).

17 February 16

Today's tie simply celebrates giant pandas, peering out through bamboo. There are several calendar dates suggested for "Panda Day," but I'm choosing today. If you haven't watched a panda video recently, see these from the National Zoo: http://goo.gl/j7wNU5.

21 July 14

I know that today is National Junk Food Day. But this is National Zoo Keeper Week, so you should find your local zoo keeper and treat her/him to some junk food! My tie for today features pandas hiding among bamboo; I have no idea what kind of food would be "junk" for them. Our daughter Amanda Wheeler hopes to visit the pandas at the National Zoo later this week.

2 June 13

Today is (really) St. Eugene's Day! So I chose my "Pandas" tie, because I get to pick Eugene's tie. Today also marks what would have been my father's 97th birthday!

21 April 11

Today's tie with pandas honors the birthday of John Muir (4/21/1838 - 12/24/1914), known widely as the father of environmentalism.

11 April 10

No special occasion today; it's just time to let the pandas peek out from the bamboo.

08 June 09

Today is the 52nd birthday for Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert®. It is also the first day of workshops I am leading to acquaint our instructors with the next version of the Blackboard® software. So I wore a Dilbert tie, but I also covered it with an appropriate t-shirt during the workshops.





















By the way, I wore my "pandas" tie yesterday. June 7 has a great occasion--National Chocolate Ice Cream Day--but I had no suitable tie for that.

11 February 09

February 11 is designated as Inventor's Day, honoring the 1847 birthday of Thomas Edison. So I'm inventing that as my reason for wearing my "pandas" tie. The label on the back of the tie says Panda Repeat, which makes no sense, because then it should simply say Panda Panda. Given the pattern it would be OK to call it Pandamonium, but I prefer the alternatives based on polymer science nomenclature, either Polypanda or (panda)n (where the subscript "n" refers to the continuing repeating pattern of the monomer "panda"). Today also marks the 1839 birthday of Josiah Willard Gibbs, memorable to students in chemistry and physics as the "father of thermodynamics" and as the honoree of the quantity named "Gibbs free energy" (symbolized ΔG as in the equation ΔG = ΔH - TΔS). As far as I know, Gibbs had nothing to do with pandas.

10 September 08

I just obtained this tie at a very special price from Wild Ties. It's a great tribute to a giant animal.