Beating the Odds

Let's talk about beating the odds.

Alrica, I realized today, is a rare and unusual woman. Yes, you are all saying "obviously, Erich" and you all have a variety of reasons. But let me explain my reason: If we let C(X) be the number of countries that person X has been in and we let Y(x) be the person's age (the number of years they have lived, rounded down,) for most X, we have C(X) < Y(X). However, C(Alrica) > Y(Alrica). Saying this in a less mathy way, though why would anyone want less mathy when more mathy is an option, the number of countries that Alrica has been in is greater than her age.

The next time you want to say Alrica has a big head, note, it is still not big enough to fill her big hat

This came up today because today is Alrica's fiftieth birthday. She had previously set a goal she called "Fifty By Fifty". As you might have guessed, this meant she hoped to have visited her fiftieth country before she reached her fiftieth birthday. She accomplished that goal when we arrived in Costa Rica.

The birthday girl buying from a peddler

Since then, we have added three new countries: the Philippines, Taiwan, and Cambodia. So on the day Alrica turns 50, she has been 53 countries. Her number of countries exceeds her age.

Even on her birthday, she goes out of her way to give the gift of her help

But this is rare, I think. Consider the example of me. I have not yet reached that milestone except trivially. What do I mean by trivially? I mean, it has only happened in the uninteresting edge case that is true for almost everyone.

Alrica (and the other thinkers) are pondering my premise

When we are born, we have suddenly visited one country, yet our age is zero. So almost everyone on Earth spends at least the first year of their lives having visited more countries than their age. I was thinking it was true of everyone, but then exceptions occurred to me. What about people born on a vessel in international waters? Or flying in international airspace? Those people will have been in zero countries and also have an age of zero. But I would think all of them have to arrive in a country before their first birthday, so they are also in the trivial case, just they get there a bit later.

After thinking it through, Alrica decided to sit out the rest of my mathy diatribe

For me, since I turned one, I have never again been in the situation where C(Erich) > Y(Erich). Though I suspect I will get there sometime in 2026. I wonder at what age most people get there. If they get there.

All of this, thus far, is just a rambling preamble (dare I say preambling) to the point of the post: what did we do to celebrate Alrica's birthday?

Not counting our recent trip to Pattaya, which was in celebration of her birthday, but wasn't on her birthday, we still did a few things on the day itself. And I should point out that when I say "on the day itself" I refer to the day on the calendar in our current location. So, for example, when we went to a bakery today and bought her a birthday cake, it was not yet her birthday in the United States. But it was her birthday in Thailand. I consider that to be "on the day itself". Alrica feels that not only should all day today be her birthday, but it should extend to 3 PM tomorrow. You see, she was born in Pacific Time, and it won't be until 3 PM in Thailand that Pacific Time will pass out of her birthday. I'm reasonably okay with this idea, though I have some fear that Alrica will later suggest that since we added an extra 15 hours to her birthday, we have to balance things out by taking away 15 hours from mine. (I'm not that afraid. My birthday is over seven months away. Most likely when it comes she won't even remember that any balancing is necessary.)

The birthday cake

In addition to buying a birthday cake, we headed into Bangkok today. We got lunch and used buses to reach a shopping area called Asiatique. The shopping area (also full of entertainment) wasn't our true goal. That was the pier that is at Asiatique. You see Asiatique is on the Chao Phraya River, the main river of Bangkok. And tonight we took a sunset cruise on the river that came with dinner and performers.

A bit off topic, just a funny sign we saw today (not on the cruise.) The illiterate do not drink tea.

We had fun with both our exploration of Asiatique and the sunset cruise. It was hot today, but beautifully sunny. The sunset was magnificent from the boat. We also got to see bridges up close. We had to stay seated and lean as we passed under one of the bridges. You probably think I'm exaggerating, but this I mean literally. The boats haven't been allowed to go under that bridge for awhile. Today was the first day that the river was running low enough that the government allowed it. And it was barely low enough. In the States, there is no way a river cruise company would have done it. If some idiot had thrust up his hand or his head, it would have been badly damaged, and then the cruise company would get sued. They would have been way too afraid of litigation to go under that bridge. But in Thailand, well, I can only say we did go under it. And no one on the ship was stupid enough to thrust up hand or head.

This is us approaching that crazy low bridge

We got to see amazing sites. The Wat Arun is perhaps the most spectacular. We saw it twice, going upriver with the sun setting behind it. and going downriver under the night sky, but the wat is well lit and equally splendid as in the day.

I can't capture the full majesty of the Wat Arun in a picture

Alrica was given a birthday cake (which was 12% cake and 82% icing and 6% mini cookies set into the icing.) She wasn't alone. There were over a dozen people who were celebrating their birthday on the cruise. That seems weird, right? (WARNING: I'm getting mathy again.) Let's talk about beating the odds. You would think only one out of every 365 people on the boat would have a birthday today. That's probably about true in the population as a whole. But not on a sunset cruise. Why? Well, because if it is your birthday on some Wednesday, you want to do something to celebrate it, right? That's exactly the kind of reason you take a sunset cruise. Hence, (using all my best math words,) there is a higher proportion of people who have their birthday on that day on the cruise than you find in the population.

Alrica with her other birthday cake

So today was a celebration of Alrica. But it reminded me of how lucky I am. I get to share the adventures of this rare and unusual woman.

Talk about beating the odds!

The rare and unusual woman with her adventure partner