You know how you anticipate the odometer rolling over to a bunch of zeros? You watch, perhaps for months. You get down to just a few dozen more miles and then you look and you missed it — damn!

So it is with a couple of numbers on Flickr, my photoblog. For all I know, both numbers rolled over at the same moment — I missed them both. One is the number of photos I’ve uploaded, now beyond the 666 I was watching for. Fittingly, though unintentionally, this was #666. The other flickr count is the number of views, now over 10,000 (which is certainly not the number of people who have seen my photos). I have two pictures that have been viewed more than 400 times, but most garner 3-5 views by themselves (as opposed to viewing on a page with others). Posting to the The Duke City Fix Pool usually pulls in 30 to 50 views.

Meanwhile, the other number I watch far too closely — my book’s rank on Amazon — lurched above 100,000 yesterday (not a good thing). I need more reviews, perhaps.

Don’t ask me about my cholesterol or blood pressure. I’ve got other numbers on my mind.

For some, math is a religion. There is no better tool for measuring reality while looking for the truth, the grail of science. But if humans didn’t exist, math wouldn’t either. (Leaving aside speculation about how other intelligent lifeforms measure the Universe.) And while I hesitate to suggest 47 is as important as pi, the appreciation of any number is subjective and arbitrary. In that weird way, all numbers are equal. mjh