Welcome the warmth with Wind Down Wednesdays

May marks the return of Wind Down Wednesdays, a free monthly event featuring family fun, live music, and a selection of no-host food trucks and beverages at Heritage Park from 4-8 p.m.  

The first WDW of 2025 takes place May 7. Additional dates are June 25, July 23, Aug. 27, Sept. 24, and Oct. 15.

CV Flyte (cvflyte.com) mobile bar owners and sisters-in-law Kylie Wentz and Shannon Wentz spearheaded WDW in 2022 to provide a fun way to invite the community together during the week. Last year, they joined forces with the Cultural Arts Foundation of Douglas County (cafdc.com/) to bring live music to each gathering, and Stor-All (storall.biz) is helping support the musical performances during this year’s events.

There’s a focus on incorporating new, local food truck vendors and restaurants with returning favorites from years past, and each Wednesday will feature a different band playing from 4:30-7:30 p.m. High Octane, “a 4-piece classic rock band soaked in energy and good times,” is the headliner on May 7 (highoctane.band).

Organizers invite everyone out next Wednesday to join them for “the unofficial kickoff to summer.” Anyone interested in becoming a vendor can submit an application at cvflyte.com/vendors/.

May is a month of palindromes

A palindrome is a phrase or a sequence of letters, words, or numbers that reads the same forward and backward. Next month brings a bevy of palindromic dates; eleven to be exact.

May has a number of palindrome dates because it’s the fifth month of the year, and we are in a year that ends in 5. April had eleven palindrome dates in 2024, and another series of palindrome dates will occur in June 2026.

The first palindrome date in May is this Friday: 5/2/25. Later in the month, there will be a 10-day run of palindromes dates following the m/dd/yy format starting May 20: 5/20/25, 5/21/25, 5/22/25, 5/23/25, 5/24/25, 5/25/25, 5/26/25, 5/27/25, 5/28/25, and 5/29/25.

Several years ago, I came across an article about palindromes authored by Dr. Aziz Inan, Ph.D., an electrical engineering professor at the University of Portland. Inspired by an interest in mathematics and numerical math puzzles, Dr. Inan writes informative articles about number patterns, puzzles, and palindrome dates. He often shares his discoveries with his students, which can lead to lively discussions and explorations of these number wonders.

I reached out to inquire further about Dr. Inan’s writings, and we’ve kept in touch since that initial correspondence. He occasionally sends me interesting facts or something number-related that he’s written. If number patterns and puzzles are your kind of thing, check out the listing of Dr. Inan’s selective publications at faculty.up.edu/ainan/publications.html.