Pi Party

It’s Pi Day, everyone! I am posting today to tell you that Pi Day doesn’t have to only come once a century. Math geeks and pie lovers unite…Throw a Pi Party!

It was my brother-in-law’s 50th and my sister-in-law wanted to honor him with a big bash. His nickname is “More Pi”, which works on a couple of levels: his wife makes a mean apple pie for which he is known to make frequent requests and he is a big time computer scientist.

While my sister-in-law had her hands full planning the party and baking pies, I wanted to contribute by creating a family t-shirt. Something cool that might even be worn after the birthday party ended.

When playing around with designs on Custom Ink I headed in a happy-hour-1950’s-style direction, to pick up on their Eichler home and since the front for this surprise party was “their turn to host the neighborhood happy hour.” I showed my SIL one of my designs and she politely replied, “It’s not really his style…. but how about this?”

She proceeded to write out pi, highlighting his age and birthdate.

Let me repeat that.

She had found his age and birthdate within pi. Of course, all of our ages and birthdays can be found within pi because it’s infinite, but the fact that she even looked, and the fact that she found it so early on in the number and that it fit perfectly on a t-shirt was a beautiful mathematical miracle.

We joined his closest family members, handed out the party shirts and then proceeded to crash the “neighborhood happy hour”.

He was indeed surprised.

And there was indeed pie.

A friend who couldn’t make it cross country to join the party asked slack key musician Patrick Landeza to surprise Mr. More Pi with a private concert. The two played together for hours. Yet another treat.