12 July 23

For Simplicity Day, honoring the birthday of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), I'm wearing a simple dark red woolen tie, tied with a simple knot. Keep it simple!

24 June 21

 Happy Birthday to my first nephew, C. Nolan Huizenga! He's been the associate pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, TN, but he and his wife Aimee Moiso are starting a new volume in their lives as they move to Louisville, KY where Aimee will be Associate Director at the Louisville Institute. Nolan asked me to wear this Möbius-themed tie loop "because I love the conjunction (continuity?) of science and art." A Möbius loop is a very simple shape that is a continuous surface with just one side. You can make one yourself from a long strip of paper, attaching the ends with a single twist. When you trace the surface with a pen or your finger, you discover that it has exactly one side (and one edge)!

19 November 18

My tie today is very one-sided. It's a Möbius loop, to honor the birthday (on Saturday, 17 November) of August Ferdinand Möbius (1790-1868). He was a German mathematician who first explored the topology of the loop/strip that bears his name. It's a one-sided loop, meaning that you can travel the entire surface of the loop without ever crossing an edge or "getting to the other side." You can play with one on your computer monitor from this Wikipedia page, but it's even better to make your own from a wide strip of paper that is at least 11 inches long. Tape the ends together to make a loop, but include a single twist in the loop. Drawing a line down the center of the loop (like the center line on a road) will prove that the loop has only one side -- you reach your starting point again without ever turning the paper over. If you cut down that center line, to "cut the loop in half lengthwise," you get a surprise. Besides their interesting topological properties, Möbius loops have become important elements in art, jewelry, molecular synthesis, and mechanical engines and conveyor belts (where a drive belt can have a longer useful life because the friction-wearing surface is twice as long as a conventional flat belt). I Möbius-looped my tie by inserting the tail into the main part, with a single twist.

11 April 17

Today I'm very excited to be re-celebrating The Most Boring Day In The 20th Century. In 2010, Cambridge University computer programmer William Tunstall-Pedoe combed through reports of over 300 million events since 1900, concluding that the number of newsworthy events reached its nadir on 11 April 1954. I chose this tie because it's the one in my collection that I haven't worn since 2014.

10 September 14

September is always Fall Hat Month! Celebrate it with me today or anytime this month. It gave me a good excuse to wear a solid red tie. And you can see some Fall cats-in-hats at this DailyKitten link.

21 March 13

Today is POWER OF MAROON Day at Eastern Kentucky University. The photo shows my tie, shirt, pants and official QEP mug, but you can't see the maroon hair ties, nor the maroon boxer briefs.

13 May 09

This is a day to "make them wonder what's up." Gene with a solid tie?

Also worth noting: Stephen Colbert (of Comedy Central's Colbert Report) was born on May 13, 1964.














Yesterday (12 May) was International Nurses Day. I still have no tie appropriate for that occasion, but I celebrated it anyway with my tie that has brightly-colored stripes and dots.