15 November 2025

“How many birthday calls do you make?”

Once in a while, I face that question, and I usually respond with “I probably average about 9-10 calls a day.”

This morning, curiosity got the better of me, and I sat down to try to figure that out. Additionally, to identify any interesting patterns in the distribution of calls.

Extracting information from macOS Contacts proved to be more challenging than I anticipated. I had to use Google Contacts, Text files, Numbers, and finally Excel to get to it.

Turns out I have 3,235 birthdays in my calendar. However, 58 of them are no more. So, I make 3,177 wishes every year, averaging just under 9 a day.

Some interesting statistics…

(*) There is no day that I do not have a birthday wish to make. The least is 2 (on Mar 23).

(*) The highest is 19 on three different dates: Jan 22, Sep 9, and Nov 14 (which was yesterday).

(*) Aug and Sep are the months with the highest number of birthdays (over 300 each).

I feel I am well prepared to answer the question next time 🙂

Category: Musings | 2 Comments on “How many birthday calls do you make?”
10 November 2025

Whoa! I was not expecting that!

We were driving back from Los Angeles. It was a bit of a drive. Made longer by the infamous LA traffic snarls. We were very close to Riverside when I casually looked up to the mountains and was immediately hit by a very unfamiliar sight. There seemed to be an elephant on the edge of the hill!

Go figure!!

After some internet research, I realized that it is a giant, 30-foot-tall statue of a mammoth made of rusted iron. It was installed there in 2003 as a billboard for the Jurupa Mountains Discovery Center.

Category: Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT