Goines On: Casting out 9s

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In the hours after Goines’ muse reminded him of the “casting out 9s” method of double-checking arithmetic calculations, he remembered where and when he had first heard of the method. Because Goines had been his high school’s “bright boy,” his math teacher (and the schools future principal), Mr. Loren Court, invited him to attend a teachers’ retreat in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas during the summer break of 1959.

Goines On: For the whiz-kids

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A not-so-simple formula…

Even after Goines realized that he had been drawing figures and assembling tables of yearly cyclical calendar patterns only to satisfy some obsession or compulsion within his own self, he continued working at it. But when he got done – or done enough, because more could be done – he decided to set that aside and be done with it. He’d wrap it all up by specifying the steps that a computer program could take to find the day of the week for any given date within the period covered by the Gregorian Calendar.

Goines On: Raging

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Goines’ bedtime thoughts for two nights were topsy-turvy and frustrating, owing mainly to his inability to hold intermediary thoughts in short-term memory.

    “Frustrating” hardly captured it. During the second night (after the incident of the empty sheriff’s car with its engine running) he groggily thought he had pieced together the characteristics of the 2200 bumped cycle, but he wasn’t sure, because it apparently wasn’t 40 years long (like the 2100 bump). 

    The morning after that second night, now awake and able to jot done stuff, he went over (and over) his nighttime finding for the 2200 bumped cycle and found that it was 28 years long, which seemed odd, because that was the same number of years as the standard 28-year cycle. Goines slogged on to the end of the 2001–2400 calendar period, taking notes as he went.

Goines On: 2021 or 2001?

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Goines thought he should first explain to the prospective 12-year-old programming whiz that his personal mnemonic

        “Mi Ki Ko Ranch” rattles Miquel

had been chosen for practical reasons, because it represented Goines’ present year, 2021. The kid might think it made more sense for a program to use the year 2001 – it seemed cleaner somehow... unless he or she chose to use 2021 as a way of attributing Goines – which Goines would have to agree would be nice.

Goines On: The bumps

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Over several days, Goines further cogitated the “bump problem” that arose when a 00 non-leap year came along and interrupted the standard 28-year cycle, with its pattern of 6₁-11-6₂-5 sub-cycles. He believed he could specify a pattern for the 400-year stretches as well, each one comprising three 00-years that aren’t leap years.
    He had already traced the 6₁-11-6₂-5 sub-cycles back to 1909, within 8 years of the 1900 non-leap year, and up to 2099, where the 6₁-11-6₂ portion of 28-year cycle butted up against the 2100 non-leap year. He now needed to examine that bump at 2100, and the bumps at 2200 & 2300 as well.

Goines On: Before 1901, after 2099?

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Goines looked at his archives and discovered that he had years ago pieced together more about calendar recycling than he was currently re-piecing together. He had tackled the subject in some depth eight years earlier, even written a sestina about it for the Goineses’ 47^th wedding anniversary.
    While he didn’t think he still had the brain power those earlier investigations required, he was pleased that he was managing to re-tool a thing or two for his “parlor trick.”

Goines On: Shortcut to 1976

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The night following Goines’ successful experiments with shifting to past years from the 2021 calendar, his thoughts were troubled. Why was he even thinking about this? What did it gain him – or anyone else? As a painter had said to him when he touted his calendar mnemonic to her, “Just consult a calendar for the year in question!”
    And anyway, when did anyone even need to know what day of the week a date in some other year fell on? Wasn’t this mnemonic thing just a parlor trick? Poets – like that painter who hadn’t been impressed – concerned themselves with trees and flowers, light and shade, human and geological history, man’s failings and successes, life and death. 

Goines On: Those elusive leap years

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In the few days remaining before their flight to California, Goines wondered whether the solution to the problem of calculating the day of the week for dates in past or future years might be a lot simpler than he had been imagining. What if he just used his mnemonic for the current year (“Mi Ki Ko Ranch” rattles Miquel) and then “shifted” to the year of the date in question?
    The calendar for next year varies from this year’s calendar by starting either 1 day or 2 days later in January, depending on whether this year is, or is not, a leap year (2021 is not). Leap years have 366 days, or 35 weeks plus 2 days. Last year’s calendar starts a day or two earlier in the week for the same reasons. Goines wasn’t going to solve this before they left, so he tried to stop thinking about it and finish packing.

Goines On: Stress junkie

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Goines told Bic he needed to finish the flyer that he was helping Bic with because the Goineses were going out of town for a week. Bic told him not to “stress himself” – if he didn’t finish before they left, it was okay. But the phrase brought Goines the realization that he wanted to get the job done before they left. Bic had just triggered the insight that when it comes to positive, creative stress, Goines was a junkie. He loved creative stress, he needed it!

Highways and Byways: A Cold and Less Significant Pizza (My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nothing)

By Maik Strosahl

Yes, I am a rebel. Striking out at the windmills that still haunt me. Today, that windmill is change. Specifically facts I was taught as a child that fallen by the wayside.
    For example, I was very good at math. Yet, when I try to explain to my kids how to figure out equations, it becomes an effort of futility as my math has become a foreign language.

Independence from procrastination, or what?

And does writing this take care of it?

By Moristotle

Months ago (a year?) I told colleague Bob Boldt and others that I planned to write a sestina on the theme of my being discovered dead under the persimmon tree (near our bird feeders). I’ve been saddened to discover a few dead birds there, and I identify with birds (and many individual creatures generally). And we are all mortal....
​    But I have not yet written this sestina....

Ask Wednesday: How can I know what day it is?

Use a memory device

By Morris Dean

Today's Q & A follows up on previous columns about calendar patterns. On May 15, for example, we explained in verse why we need only fourteen calendars.
    Thanks to the anonymous person who provided today's questions. [His or her questions are set in italics.]