Pi R Square

Today is March 14th, or as it is known among nerds of a peculiarly silly bent, Pi Day. And the best time on 3-14 to celebrate Pi Day would be 1:59. My dad was a math major in college of the gentleman’s “C” variety and belonged to a fraternity slightly less prestigious than the Deltas of Animal House. Thus it can be forgiven when he loves to chuckle and say “Pi R Squared? No, pie are round; cake are square.” It is his second favorite joke behind teaching the dog to answer questions like “What’s on top of the house?”, “Who was the greatest baseball player?”, and “How does sandpaper feel?”

Thus when my son decided to make a snack for the math team practice which coincidentally was on Pi Day, it was only fitting to make a square pie. The recipe calls for a 9” diameter pie pan which is 63.6 square inches. Instead we bought an 8” x 8” baking tin which is a much bigger 64 square inches. The pie itself is a no-bake chocolate pie with a peanut butter crust that my son found on the web.

Other people are doing much fancier pies for Pi Day. Fellow boodler Yoki is running a Pi Day contest where seven people sent in pie recipes and you can vote in a bunch of categories. Voting may be closed by the time I post this, but the recipes all look too delicious (except for maybe the mountain oyster pie, which has real oysters, not mountain oysters). While it’s tough to pick favorites among your friends, I am always in search of good apple pie recipes and kbetocci's’s As American As version looks great.

My alma mater also has a long running (no pun intended) road race called the Pi-Miler, which is billed as a 5k charity run. I’m not sure whether the route is really 3.159 miles, which is 56 meters too much or exactly 5 kilometers, in which case the runners are slacking off for 61 yards. Perplexingly, this event is not on Pi Day, but is being run a month later on April 14th. Such are the mysteries of life,

Enjoy Pi Day. I am now very hungry.