We’ve made it! After the long and grey winter months spring officially starts on March 20th! The Seattle area starts to get greener and greener, and everyone’s mood starts to improve. Here are two more things to brighten up your March:
Pi Day;
What started as a fun office event in 1988 at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco has since evolved into a worldwide celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). People have come up with all kinds of ways to celebrate: pie bake offs, pi digit memorization competitions, singing happy birthday to Albert Einstein who was also born on March 14th. However, those who know me would not be surprised to find my favorite way to celebrate would be to consume large amounts of pie. Chances are you will either find me one of three places: the Pie Bar in Ballard, enjoying their ridiculously delicious Banana Cream Pie with Monkey Nuts, at Tom Douglas’ Dahlia Bakery wolfing down Tom’s Famous Triple Coconut Cream Pie, or the Snohomish Pie Co. gobbling up their sweet and tart cherry pie. Regardless of what you do, enjoy the day because less than a week later, the madness begins.
March Madness;
Those of you who religiously follow March Madness already know most of what I am going to say! For those who aren’t sure what all the craziness is about, March Madness is a men’s collegiate basketball tournament held every year. Beginning on March 19th this year, 68 Division-I college teams battle it out in a single elimination tournament that has been held annually since 1939. It’s not as high caliber basketball as you would expect in the NBA, and in many cases your alma mater might not even have been selected for the tournament. But it’s worth it because of the non-stop unpredictable basketball.
In professional basketball, teams that are expected to do well usually do well. Teams like the Golden State Warriors will likely win a large majority of their games and make the playoffs without much fuss. But as history has shown, even the best teams can have an off not and drop a game to a lesser team. A single loss isn’t a big deal in a seven month season with 80+ games, but in a single elimination tournament you can definitely expect major upsets. In fact, in 22 of the past 25 years a team seeded in the 2-4 has also fallen in the first round to a lower seeded team! The only thing you can accurately predict from March Madness is that March Madness is unpredictable.
(Pro tip for those who don’t follow March Madness: The Championship game is actually held in beginning of April so if you are only interested in seeing the finals, tune in on Monday April 8th so you’ll be able to participate in the water cooler talk the next morning!)
- Ryan