Two of every set…

My youngest brother and I have birthdays with a difference of 18 months and 14 days. While that’s not a mathematical marvel in any way it’s been interesting in finding pairs of famous people that either share exactly or are close to our birthdays.

The birthday problem asks for the probability that, in a set of n randomly chosen people, at least two will share a birthday. The birthday paradox refers to the counterintuitive fact that only 23 people are needed for that probability to exceed 50%. This isn’t representative of anyone having my exact birthday which is 1 in 365, but also my brothers birthday which is also 1 in 365. Combining those odds (1 in 133,225) and finding a pair of people considered famous or well-known in some way makes the odds out of this world.

Except the odds seem to favor our pairing, and thus the following…

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Quotes that peek into the void…

Feelings aren’t real. Feelings are a reaction to a perceived wound that’s never been healed.

https://youtu.be/lIuxQ18AZCo?t=818

What does it mean to live a finite fragile life in an infinite eternal universe?

https://youtu.be/i4MY4_u6R-E

It’s so much better to be alone than to be with someone who makes you feel alone.

https://www.lifehack.org/445083/why-its-much-better-to-be-alone-than-to-be-with-someone-who-makes-you-feel-lonely

I Envy You, Alan Rickman

I recently learned about a book of Alan Rickman’s diaries that was published after his death titled “Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman“.

I, like many others, used to have a diary as a child. Mine started around 1995 when I was in 8th grade. I used to write 2-3 times a week in my 4″x6″ 3-ring bound diary, and there always seemed to be pages begging for more of my life to be etched into the pages. My later months when I was 16 found me burning the book and throwing it and the seared pages into a fast-flowing brook in Kennedy, New York. All those memories, committed to pages and easily referenceable now gone like the leaf travelling down the stream.

Alan Rickman, born 1946, started to keep a detailed progress of his day-to-day starting in 1992. He was 46 at the time. I’m 41, with a slap-in-the-face-2-weeks until I’m 42, and I’ve decided to begin to keep a diary as well. I’m not going to go buy journals with intricate designs from shops, no. I’m going to do it my own way.

https://github.com/mjheick/diary is my project, and it’ll be hosted. It’s currently in the infant stages of development, but I do have the database mockup done and I can add to that as frequently as I’d like to until the frontend is done.

I feel I have to do this, in my own way, in the style of how Alan Rickman detailed his life. The fact that he did it from 46 to his final breaths amazes me. My Grandfather did this as well until his last breaths, and then my Grandmother continued it on.

I feel nothing of value can be acquired of my legacy except by the people that stumble across it and find value for themselves in it, and that’s enough of a driver to do something as simple as this.

A quote from Alans diary sits with me:

14 September

11am Three minutes’ silence which we shared with Kiss Me Kate cast.

Supper at home. Watching more coverage. Still trying to understand something. Cannot remove the fact of 4 million starving in Afghanistan not to mention the innocents in Iraq. There is such political naivety in the US that it only takes one image of five Palestinians dancing in the street to obliterate the bigger picture.

Madly Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman

Audrey Everson McCool Shelgren, b.24/Feb/1940, d.21/Nov/2022

Audrey Everson McCool Shelgren, 82, of Kennedy, N.Y., passed away on Nov. 21, 2022 of complications of respiratory failure with family by her side. She was born Feb. 24, 1940, to William and Pearl Everson in Buffalo, N.Y.

Audrey graduated from Falconer High School in 1958. She married John Rolland McCool in 1958, and later Milton Shelgren in 1999.

She is survived by her sons: Jeffrey McCool (JoEllen), Michael McCool, and Kevin McCool; as well as seven grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her husbands: John McCool and Milton Shelgren; her brothers: Richard Everson, William Everson and Grant Everson: and her, daughter Nancy McCool-LaMantia.

Audrey was employed by AJ’s on Foote for 11 years when she left to work in dietary at WCA. In 1977 she and her family left New York for southern California, settling in Costa Mesa, Calif. At that time she served as a dietary supervisor at Costa Mesa Memorial Hospital and then as a physical education teacher at Page School in Costa Mesa. In 1995 she returned to Jamestown, New York and was a dietary sSupervisor at Lutheran Social Services in Jamestown prior to retiring at age 70.

Audrey served as a Cub Scouts den mother during her children’s younger years. She also worked on many local political campaigns including chairing a neighborhood group to remove a chemical company from residential areas. She attended and contributed to the trial of the company responsible for chemicals flooding local residential areas. She loved the study of history, and spent many years working on genealogy of her family line. Audrey was a frequent contributor of political opinion pieces to the local newspaper, she loved political discourse, God and this country above all else.

Arrangements entrusted to Riccardi’s Hubert Funeral Home.

According to Audrey’s wishes there will not be services for her death. She will be interred at Myrtle Cemetery in Poland, N.Y. Instead of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the local ASP-CA.

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