13

I was born on the 13h day of the month of Janus.

January is the 1st month of the year. And it is the 13th month of any previous year.

At age 13 I grew by 13 centimeters and I remember it was my best year at school probably, acing all my courses and topping all 6 sections of the 9th grade. It’s also the year I lost all the excess weight I accumulated on my lazy body between ages 8 and 11.

I wrote my first novel at age 13, and finished at age 14 when it had 103 pages.

I wore the number 13 on my basket ball team in high school.

I took my driving license on the 13 of January 2000 – just as I turned 18.

My passport number starts with the number 13.. RL01317XX...

I once fell in love with a girl that was born on a January 13. It was the highlight of my life. Yet, it ended pretty shamefully and did not last as long as I thought it would. It lasted as long as it could though, and that was enough.

And the day I got my French driving license… exchanging it for my Lebanese license to be exchanged by this one. The date is the 13th of February.

I only noticed that… as I sat in the Turkish embassy while I was getting my visa to go to Istambul, when I realized my number in the line.. was 13. That was so funny.

When I came back to take my Turkish Visa 15 days later, I also took a number. 13.

Then I stepped back and started seeing this number more frequently.
13...

Youngest a minor can watch a PG-13 rated movie by the MPAA without the recommendation of parental guidance or parental consent.

Jesus and his apostoles. 13. The number of participants in the Last Supper.

On the periodic table of elements, aluminum has an atomic number of 13.
Al (13, 27).

In 1782, Congress appointed a design artist, William Barton , to bring a proposal for the US national seal. For the reverse, Barton suggested a 13 layered pyramid underneath the Eye of Providence. The motto which Barton chose to accompany the design was, Deo Favente Perennis, "Enduring by the Favor of God". It is a 13 letter latin expression. It was later changed to Annuit cœptis.

Today, the Great Seal of the United States has an eagle with 13 arrows representing the unity of the original 13 colonies. E pluribus unum is the motto found on the seal, along with Annuit cœptis and Novus ordo seclorum, and adopted by an Act of Congress in 1782. E pluribus unum -- Out of many one. 13 letters.

13. It is the smallest integer with eight letters in its spelled out name in English. It is also the age at which children become teenagers.

13 is also the second happy prime, following 7, and the rethorical 1.

There are 13 Archimedean solids.

In Judaism, 13 signifies the age at which a boy matures and becomes a Bar Mitzvah.

The number of principles of Jewish faith according to Maimonides. 13.

According to the Torah, God has 13 Attributes of Mercy.

In Mesoamerican Divination, 13 is the number of important cycles of fortune/misfortune.

It gets more interesting...

13 goes into 999,999 exactly 76,923 times, so vulgar fractions with 13 in the denominator have six digit repeating sequences in their decimal expansions. It is thus the smallest half period prime.

13 is the largest number whose factorial is less than 10¹⁰. This means 13 is often the largest factorial a pocket calculator can represent without scientific notation.

13 is the only positive integer that is the fourth root of the sum of the squares of two successive positive integers (119 and 120).

The number of circles, or "nodes", that make up Metatron's Cube: 13.

The 13th root is the most famous integer root calculation record, because it is the first prime number over 10 such that the last digit of a 13th integer power is the same as the last digit of its 13th root!

In base 10, the smallest prime with a composite sum of digits is 13.

13 is a repdigit in base 3 (111).

There exists an aperiodic set of 13 Wang tiles.

Fear of the number 13 is termed triskaidekaphobia. The 13th of a month is likewise ominous, particularly when it falls on a Friday in some English-speaking cultures, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Belgium and Germany (see Friday the 13th) or a Tuesday in the Greek and Spanish-speaking world.

13 was once associated with the Epiphany by Christians, as it is said the child Jesus received Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar, the three Magi on the 13th day of his life.

When a group of 13 objects or people is divided into two, three, four or six equal groups, there is always one leftover, or "unlucky", object or person.

According to another interpretation, the number 13 is unlucky because it is the number of full moons in a contemporary year, but two full moons in a single calendar month (mistakenly referred to as a blue moon in a magazine article of the 1940s) only happens about every 5 years.

Inside of a Lufthansa plane, row numbers go straight from 12 to 14. Where is the 13th?

The day that the Knights Templar were slaughtered in a collaboration between King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V finishing with the burning at the stake of Grand Master, the prince Jacques De Molay: Friday the 13th.

The legion with which Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon was the Legio XIII Gemina -- the 13th legion.

The Apollo 13 spacecraft malfunctioned after being launched on April 11th at 13:13 CST, forcing it to return to Earth without a landing on the moon and imperiling its crew.

After 13 years of being the richest man in the world, Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates lost this title, according to Forbes magazine's 2008 list of the world's billionaires--to a Mexican of Lebanese origin: Carlos Slim Helu.

According to the ancient Mayan culture, it is foretold that when these 13 crystal skulls are reunited, they have the power to save humanity from a horrible catastrophe. All 13 skulls must be reunited by December 21, 2012, which is the marked as Doomsday--the last day recorded on the Mayan calendar. There are supposedly 4 of the 13 ancient quartz skulls found thus far.

If you play too much with the number 13, some odd things could fall into your hands...

Things Could Get Kruel.

Lady Diana died when her car hit the 13th pillar of a tunnel in Paris, on August 31, 1997.

August 31, 2008:
Exactly 11 years later, it happens to be my last day on this job in Paris.

Tomorrow, I will be on a new adventure.
Oh.. and my full name has 11 letters -- when written in Latin letters.
This post has 43 facts. A prime number. My address in Paris was 43 Avenue de Versailles.

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Brainscapes

There is a lot of progress and daring innovations waiting to happen..

1- iTV : on the regression of television and its use, with respect to the advancements made in the mobile and computer industries.

2- iWeb : the web is becoming crowded. I think the whole approach of web browsing is become quite blurry. There needs to be a new protocole to help people "navigate" the web. More free and less biased (by commercial search engines)
* Google are heading in that direction: www.panoramio.com is just the dawn of that era.
They understand there is something unreal .. elusive about the internet. The web needs to look like our world.. just like programming took a turn towards the Object Oriented..

3- Green Energy: oil producing countries should take on the next generation of green energey. As the oil reserves dry out, the OPEC countries will be dethroned from their global role as energy providers to the world. In less than 25 years, the countries that take on the green challenge and find an efficient and sustainable way to replace oil with a cleaner substitute will be the next OGEEC (.Green Energy..)...
Syriana (2005)

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Of lost personal marks and shaken comfort zones

In 1987, my dad looked at me and said.. "there she goes, and my heart goes with her"... I looked at his sad almost teary eyes, standing with him in the empty parking space that used to be occupied for years by the same car. Then I looked at his old white shaky Renault 12, '79 model, being driven away by some buyer who had taken it, I remember very well, for 600 USD--for whatever that was worth then. I felt really sad for my old man.

I couldn't explain it. I was only 5. Real cars were not my favorite toys then.
Back then I thought, "why is dad so sad? I thought he was happy to know that since the old clunky Renault 12 is gone, he can now go and pick up his new swanky red Renault 18! I don't get it..."

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The year is 2008. I am in Paris where, amongst other things, almost anything can be shipped--except your mother, as the Shanghighlanders would have had it.

In the process of selling out my belongings here in Paris to move across the Atlantic, I put up for sale my dear 32" LCD TV. Ten days later, sitting in the Business Center of the New Barrière Golf Hotel on a warm June Saturday night on the hills of Deauville, I clicked on "Accept Purchase" on PriceMinister.com. My TV was officially sold and.. well .. not mine anymore. That was a tiny moment of triumph.

Monday morning, I started packing my TV to take it to the post and send it. It was not a heavy piece of hi-tech: just 13.5 Kgs, mentionned its original cardbox which I had kept all along. Tuesday night, the TV was all nicely wrapped in its 10 x 40 x 60 inch orignal box, original wrapping et al. I was there looking at it almost not believing I was giving it away. For a moment before carrying it down my building, I looked at the empty desk where it used to stand.. the empty white spot it is going to leave behind it.. I stared at this place that a friend was subletting me for some months now. My place was calm and it felt cold in there.

What was wrong with me? I was going to sell my TV for a bit more than half of its original price. I had to do it because I lived in a country where I didn't own a square inch to store a nail. I shut down my emotional senses and focused on the job at hand. I had gotten early from work, around 6:30 PM - but the post office was only going to be open for another 30 minutes, and not a second more.

I carried the box and was down a minute later. 15 floors in a new highrise wind down like 4 floors in my old 30's building elevator. I was out and my Velib bike was there waiting for me. I had the idea of rolling the large rectangular crate on the bike instead of carrying it on my back over to the La Poste office which was some 4 blocks down from where I lived. The time is 6:45. I should be able to make it on time, I thought.

I untied the Velib from the post. Lifted the TV swiftly and placed it on the seat from one side and the steering rod from another. It looked steady. I smiled at my ingenious idea. And rolling I started. A few feet.. I stopped. The leather bike seat was slippery and the TV was not going to stay there for long unless I did something. Then I noticed the steering rod is metal slippery as well ! I was just realizing that what sounded like a perfectly logical plan in my mind, was much harder to accomplish in real life. Damn it!

I cooled down, because it was so hot and I was in my suit, minus the jacket of course. I felt my face turn tomato red.. and I froze there for some seconds. Looked at my watch again. 6:49. OK. Calm down. Concentrate, analyze, move slowly, correct, move again, stay slow and don't rush it. The office is close but I can't roll as fast I think I can. And so I started my slow march, leaning the bike slowly against me and with my shoulder and head, giving the big thin box a couple of support points against me, while with one shaky hand, I was holding the crate's lower corner and the seat together, and the other corner and the steering rod at the same time. I went slowly not thinking about my speed nor the time. I had to focus on this new movement I was barely mastering. Balance, steadiness, pace, breathing, load balancing and just keep pushing slowly.

I felt like a 5 year old. In my mind, I could only envision that it should have been such an easy process,.. and in reality I was realizing how much it could turn out into a failed mission. But I shut the horns of doubt and kept going.. half way through I realized I was also watching out from people, bikers and cars around me.. I was after all on the street. I looked at my watch.. it was 6:53. I felt I was going a bit faster. My hands were more shaky and my nerves were on guard to keep the whole trapezian balance. I kept going, feeling I was just a hair faster every minute. I was starting to actually master this movement, and without intentionally wanting to go faster, I actually was.

I crossed three lights and turned left down rue Linois off Rue Robert de Flers, and the post was there. Another 100 meters. I was walking faster now, reminding me of the last meters of Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights before he crossed the frontiers and was freed! It was those last meters that were shaky and that I amazingly feared most actually.

So there I was, from a simple practical plan in my mind to transport the "light" TV crate on a bike, to finding myself faced with an exercise my body was totally uncomfortable with, to a corrective technique of mind alertness and body adaptation, to sufficient mastering of what I was doing.. to.. most dangerously, an irresoponsible, yet unvoluntary out-of-control precipitation that could have plunged me in my own demise. And then, I slowed down again. It seemed to me like the materialisation of the way I did things in life.. I start off lento and grasp the whole thing, and then, sadly, I get anxious to finish a now-mastered action and start burning the stages and rushing to the finishline remarkably bored. So I slowed even more, knowing that I wanted to avoid looking at my watch and feeling the meters wind down as I approached the office's main entrance.

A few minutes later, I touched base. The door was open, a clerc was free and another busy; I look at the watch on the wall, standing there all sweaty and just as physically and mentally exhausted from the 12 minute concentration exercise, TV leaning on my shoulder, head and hands while lying on the bike. It was 6:59. I rolled with the bike inside the office slowly, and the clerc smiled and shouted a welcome that seemed half french humour, half french obtuseness: "Les vélos sont interdits ici monsieur!" (Bikes aren't allowed here sir). I smiled and kept walking towards his desk, making sure he understands that I prefered he help me instead of throwing sermons. Near his desk I leaned the big box to the other side and pushed the TV slowly onto the desk.


- C'est lourd monsieur? (is it heavy sir?)
- Non.. 13 kilo et demie (no, 13 and a half kilos)
He lifts the box with pain and goes to the back. He comes back.
- 19 kilos monsieur. (19 KG sir)
- Quoi? vraiment.. 19! (what? really.. 19)


That was a good thing though. My mind thought it was moving a 13 kilogram box on a bycicle. My body was actually doing that with practically twice the weight. How amusing the treachery of the mind.. How pitiful the submissiveness of the body.

I am going to miss that thing. My view of the internet and the way I interacted with it daily will surely never be same again. And without all the colors and motion it used to fill my small flat with, it is sad to say it is really lonely without that thing. Typical material human nature. Typical attachment to places, people and marks that bring new satisfactory equilibriums to our existence. I think that forced change is good. It helps us stay new, and prevents us from sinking into the dullness of habit and comfort.

On I move.

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