Some obsessions are healthy. That’s what we re-assure ourselves. Thanks of course to the King of the Blog Jim Groom for posting today a photo to jump started this post.
Sometimes it’s just right in front of you. #ds106
If you are confused, well, better just stay that way. But Jim shows the ds106 call sign but noting where it lives in the world.
Since 2011 I have been tuning my senses to finding the numbers 106 out in the world… 411 times says my flickr tag. Just a quick scan:
It was December 2010 this affliction started, in the incubation time of the first open version of the course Jim had taught (openly) earlier in the year at University of Mary Washington as a course named DS106 (see my take Spiraling Down Minuscule DS106 History Details). Ideas were hatched in a Skype call, Jim ran off to Italy for a vacation, Martha Burtis was building the first DS106 Assignment Bank. I am pretty sure Tom Woodward tossed out the first call to Say it Like Peanut Butter.
And for some stupid reason, I was running. Literally. I was in training for the Phoenix Rock and Roll Marathon. On December 18 I was running on a canal path in Mesa Arizona and noticed a number on trail post. I stopped. It was THE number. This is my first 106 photo, insanely edited to make it psychedelic.
And thus it became my thing to always have 106 in my mind out in the world, like a back ground whisper, and to seek all the places I could see it. Road signs. License plates. Numbers on a scale. Store labels. On clocks. Room numbers. And then go farther or weirder, arrange it out of snow or dog bones, or juniper berries. Nabbing it on an odometer. Wrangle it out of a car with two number 53s on it. Stretch it as seeing 10-6. Finding it backwards. Or clockwise. Or done wrong. Or through math.
It’s endless.
And it too made it into the assignment bank as CogDog’s Illustrate 106.
Yeah, it’s a weird obsession, but I find it’s also a fantastic incentive to spend some time noticing details in the world. Heck I already wrote this blog post before (and yes, there is some numerical discrepancies in the count, sue me)
And I am not alone! In her own episode of the Teaching in Higher Education podcastm Bonni Stachowiak talsk about her fascination with the number 208… in episode 208. I still regret the day I narrowly missed catching a 208208 on the odometer of Red Dog the truck.
I have no real rationale way to explain it, but it means much to me, that I wont’s stop. The first 106 spotted in December 2010 is booked at the most recent one form January 17, 2026, a hotel room sign in Regina, the night Cori and I got stranded there in an ice storm.
With some help, that is a span of 5509 days or 132,216 hours or 475,977,600 seconds.
I bet I could find a 106 in there 😉
Thanks Jim, for the nudge to think about my 106 mania.
Featured Image: Room #ds106 flickr photo by cogdogblog shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license.
@barking 411 #ds106 photos is pretty darn impressive.
But, three 106s ?
My one good one!
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@toddconaway
This is spectacular.
@barking
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@bonni208 Alan is the king but I am trying. My phone has a few good ones. My favorite is my grandfather’s blue book notes from Philosophy 106 he took at UCLA in 1929. Crazy. @barking
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@toddconaway @barking
1929? Incredible. Thanks for sharing these.
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I didn’t realize that my reply to Todd (on Mastodon) would show up here. Must have been the @barking mention or something. At any rate, I was so relating to your post in ways most people wouldn’t understand and then saw mention of another great number (208). I see 106s and 208s everywhere. The best 106 I ever saw was when we were at a campground and our spot/lodge was 106. I hoped we would get it the next time we stayed there. Alas, we were not that fortunate.