Synchronicity with Death of Colin Powell

In 2003, while Colin Powell was still serving as Secretary of State, I was a young, wandering 18-year-old who was already a grizzled veteran of competitive gaming. Before we could sit at home and play anyone in the world in almost any video game we want, we had to actually gather at someone’s house (or one of these bright, loud places called an arcade) to be able to play. It’s something I actually wish all of today’s younger kids also had to do, since some of my best friends to this day came from that crowd.

To help make multiplayer console gaming easier, my brother quit his job and opened up a cozy little shop where gamers could get together and play XBox or Playstation games on LAN. It was pretty legit, to us anyway…we had four 36″ CRT televisions, a fusbol table, a ping-pong table, a fridge with treats, and a nice little lounge area with another television for hanging out.

To help take advantage of the excitement, he decided to start a Halo league, where 3-on-3 teams would get together every Monday night and play through a full regular season, with playoffs to cap it off. It worked like gold – I don’t think anybody on any of the eight teams missed a single night.

For my team, we decided to use the name The Bush Administration, where we all used names of Bush cabinet members. I ended up using Colin Powell, but it was too many letters, so I shortened it to Colon Bowel. Maybe it says something about me that just typing that out still makes me chuckle out loud.

By stamping myself with a name based on Colin Powell’s, I figured there’s probably some numerical connection to the date he is being reported to have died. Naturally, there is. First consider how Halo has Ordinal gematria of 36.

“Wow Derek…do you really look at your age and connect yourself to every story?” No, in fact, the longer I do this, the less I find myself checking my own numbers. At this point, I have no desire to continue finding all the riddles for everything that develops in my life. I know it will be “by the numbers.”

But, given I had this kind of link with his name, as ridiculous as it is, my gut told me something would pop, and of course, there you go. Over time, I think we can just build a bit of instinct for this stuff.

It’s also interesting that Colin’s middle name was Luther. I went to Lutheran school from Kindergarten through 3rd Grade. Martin Luther is known for posting the 95 Theses. Colin was born on the 95th day of the year, connecting to my name: