So today is SF's official b'day

Since this is the anniversary of SFoT opening, I assume it's SF's official birthday. To clarify, my home park is SFA, and, while I see the park, and the company, has problems, I tend to enjoy my (rather frequent) visits there. PKD and BGE are too far of a drive (for me, anyway), and I plan to hit HP next year, as well as a trip to Coney that's in the planning stages.

My reason for the post is simple- to wish SF a happy birthday without the rather frequent SF-bashing that I hear way too much of. No, they're not perfect (we can't all be Disney, which, for the record, I will not go to, for personal reasons), and yes, they have a long way to go, but I'm willing to give 'em a chance.

*must... resist... SF... bashing...*

An email from Six Flags (and also on their website) is offering free admission for the rest of the season who purchases a regular one-day admission ticket...they can then upgrade it (or something like that) for free to the special 45th anniversary pass and come back for free for the rest of the season. I think it's a decent enough idea...but that means you have one full month of daily operations to use it in, and then the weekend only operations in September and Frightfest after that, and that's it.

What do you all think about it?

Six Flags Over Texas did not officially open until August 5, 1961; there were test/preview openings for a few days before this, but it's grand opening date is tomorrow (date was a Saturday in 1961).

*** Edited 8/5/2006 12:58:04 AM UTC by SFZIP***

^LOL & what are the odds of the anniversary of the official opening of SFOT falling on the same day of the week 45 years later?

I hate how everybody hates Six Flags. They have some good parks like SFMM, SFOG, and SFFT.

---

BATWING FAN SFA said:
^LOL & what are the odds of the anniversary of the official opening of SFOT falling on the same day of the week 45 years later?

---

Actually, really good. Figure in a normal 365-day year, all your dates shift one day (so if August 5, 1961 was a Saturday, August 5, 1962 was a Sunday). So in 45 years, your dates "shift" 45 times.

BUT, between 1961 and 2006, you had 11 leap years, which shifts dates by an extra day. Your total number of shifts is 56 (45+11) which is evenly divisible by 7. And that puts you back on the date being the same day of the week.

I must be really bored (or boring) to go through all that. :)

I'd say the odds are about 1 in 7. Just a wild guess though.

Surprise! Its about 3 chances out of 4. All of the 45 years have at least one day in excess of 52 weeks. The leap years have two excess days.

Three times out of 4 there are 11 leap years in 45 years (assuming tht we are staying in the period from 1901 to 2099) This gives 56 excess days in 45 years. 56 can be divided by seven so the anniversary will be on the same day of the week. One time in four there are 12 leap years giving 57 excess days in 45 years.

If the park started any time except between March 1 of the year before a leap year andl Feb 29 of the leap year, its 45th anniversary will be on the same day of the week as the original opening.

It really depends on what "that" (what're the chances of that) is. What is the event that we are calculating the probability of?

Because the chances that both August 5th 1961 and August 5th 2006 are on a Sat. is....100%.

Nice, Andy. :)

I think what 'that' is in this case is the chance of today's date falling on the same day of the week in exactly 45 years.

I actually know of a chrome shop around here that has a 1950 calendar that they use and the days are identical to 2006. Kind of neat to see that.

~Rob Willi

Did you know there are only 14 possible variations of the yearly calendar?

One for January 1st landing on each day of the week and then one for each leap year with January 1st landing on each day of the week.

The only reason I know this is that when growing up our phone book had a page that listed the 14 possible variations and had them labeled 'A' through 'N' and then on the opposite page a list of years from something ridiculous like 1800 to 2050 (basically more years than you needed to know dates for) and the corresponding calendar letter beside each year.

That's all you need. Two standard sized sheets can show you the correct date for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I remember those. I actually miss them. I remember thinking how far away those years with 20- in them seemed to be.

You can do the same thing now on Microsoft Outlook, but you just have to keep scrolling and scrolling on your calendar.

Next discussion, When Is Easter? :)

What day is easter

It'll be quite a few years before it falls on my Birthday again. :)

I don't know which is dorkier - admitting I know there's only 14 calendar variations or that I used to read the phone book as a kid.

.

*** Edited 8/7/2006 5:44:32 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

^ At least they follow "both" calendars. (Yeah I can see everyone reading this saying WTF is he talking about?)

OK Gonch, you made me check it... IF I am alive the next time my birthday would fall on easter I would be 93. The last time it happened I was...20.

That's too long of a length between it happening I would think...since the time it happened before I was 8. *** Edited 8/7/2006 6:41:20 PM UTC by dragonoffrost***

See, that's interesting.

My B-day has landed on Easter 3 times in my life (once every 10 or 11 years) and it won't happen again, ironically, until I'm 93.

Does it really work out that way or is that tool inaccurate?

Yes, it really works that way. My dad is an astronomer and has explaind how exactly this works. Please see this page (I do not know the author) for a full explaination and links to very accurate sites. http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/easter.htm

My birthday has fallen on Easter twice in my lifetime and will happen two more times by 2025 (it doesn't necessarily happen that year, to protect my birthdate), and then I have an over 50 year wait until the next time.

---

BigJim4Life said:
An email from Six Flags (and also on their website) is offering free admission for the rest of the season who purchases a regular one-day admission ticket...they can then upgrade it (or something like that) for free to the special 45th anniversary pass and come back for free for the rest of the season.

---

SFKK has been doing this since June 20. We called it a "Play Pass" and advertised it as being like a season pass, but only for SFKK, and not for other SFs. I just noticed SF has started doing this chain-wide, just renaming it "Aniversary Pass" *** Edited 8/13/2006 5:53:40 AM UTC by ClarkKentuckyKingdom***