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Binary Birthday Blast
Christina called me in the morning on my birthday the other day. She asked me if I had any special plans for the day, like eating ice cream. I told her that I was going to go for a run in the morning and in the evening I was going to have the first session of a new Bible study.
New for this year, we were going to meet at a home (instead of at church) about 6 blocks from my home. While I should have arrived earlier, I didn't get there until 6:40 (with starting time at 6:45). I was a bit surprised to see everyone there already, except for a new couple. After finding a chair, Tim T. (one of the participants and a friend) presented me with the following.
A Dutch Letter with candles in it
I didn't have a clue what was happening until Tim said something like "This is your birthday Dutch letter with appropriate candles." Actually, when he first presented it to me, the first candle on the right was also lit. Now, I don't recall at that time if he used the word "binary" or not, but once he told me that it was a birthday Dutch letter and I saw some lit and some not, I already knew it was meant to be a binary representation of my age. To check the calculation, since both the left-most and right-most were lit, I needed to know if I was to read from left-to-right or the other direction. Once I knew it was from left to right, I knew that the right-most candle should not have been lit, and that one was then extinguished.
Recall that in base 10, the number 149 = 100 + 40 + 9 = 1*10^2 + 4*10^1 + 7*10^0. In binary, we use powers of two instead of ten. So what number is represented here and how old was I? Think about this and check yourself here. Did you get it?
Tim then told me that I needed to blow out the candles, so I did. He then looked at me with surprise, and then I realized that he meant AFTER an appropriate song. He relit them, and I followed the script better. I told Tim and others later, that I guessed that it had been close to 60 years since I was responsible for blowing out candles. This is because at a young age, I requested a birthday pie (π?) instead of a cake and candles were not used in the pies (according to my memory). That doesn't excuse my premature blowing them out, but I think Tim didn't think he needed tell me how to behave. I have been to other birthday celebrations, so I should have known.
I was fairly confident that Tim didn't know it was my birthday nor did I expect anyone else in the room to know, so I pressed him on this. Tim finally gave in when I suggested that Christina was involved since she was the only thread that connected my birthday to this Bible study. Indeed, the next day, I called Christina and she had the idea of contacting Tim's daughter (with whom she had been friends in high school), and she knew Tim well enough to think he might be inclined to jump at an opportunity to celebrate. And he did. Thanks, Tim. It was really special to see how the candles could be used as a binary representation of my age. Thanks for the creativity and effort you took in this celebration.
Published 2026-01-24.
If you find any errors in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail.com. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
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