It’s 2010, and we’ve all but
given up on driving in the air, ala The
Jetsons. We don’t know anyone who has their own version of Rosie the Robot
to do all of our menial chores, but we do still have sprockets and cogs in our
everyday lives, along with sophisticated devices undreamt of by Hanna-Barbera.
The Chinese are years ahead
of us, at least in terms of the man-made construct of the calendar. They give
their years symbolic meaning; 2010 is the Year of the Tiger, an animal said to
be lucky, lively, brave, honest and kind. So in lieu of our own personal jet
packs, 2001: A Space Odyssey-like
civilian space travel and robot au pairs,
we’ll take the Tiger’s traits. Goodness knows we need them in these strange
times.
1758 – Year the tiger, Panthera tigris, was given its
scientific name. Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy (the science of
finding, categorizing and describing organisms) first called the tiger Felis tigris.
20 – Square kilometers a
tigress may claim as territory. This is over 14 square miles.
113 – Gestation period in
days for tigers. Human beings top out at 294 days.
7 – Number of wins racked up
by Tiger Woods in 2009.
298.4 – Tiger Woods’ average
driving distance, in yards. The PGA Tour average is 287. 9.
2009 – Model year of the
Cadillac Escalade Woods was driving the night he crashed into a hedge, a fire
hydrant and a tree early in the morning on November 28.
31,693 – Average attendance
for Detroit Tigers home games in 2009.
41,255 – Capacity of the
Tigers’ home field, Comerica
Park.
1924 – Year Koshien Stadium,
home of Japan’s
Hanshin Tigers baseball team, was built. It is the oldest ballpark in Japan.
April 7, 2004 – Date of the
last confirmed fatal, unprovoked attack from a Tiger Shark in the United States.
The victim was a surfer who was attacked while off the west coast of Maui.
11 – Total number of fatal,
unprovoked shark attacks (all species) in the United States in the past decade.
6 – Lifespan in years of the
Tiger Barb, a small schooling Asian fish popular in tropical freshwater
aquariums.
__________________________________________________________
Sources: Wikipedia; International Shark
Attack File; Pgatour.com; espn.com; freshwaterhobbyist.com.
