Our calendar has 365 days in a year, because that’s pretty much how long it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. The problem is that in reality it takes the Earth around 365 ¼ days (actually 365.24219 days) to circle the Sun (that’s a solar year), which means our calendar is out by around a quarter of a day a year.
That discrepancy was spotted a while back.
In 45 B.C. a decree by Julius Caesar began the practice of adding an extra day every four years, with the creation of the Julian calendar — making up for those quarter days.
Stella's Place 
What a fabulous photo of such a strange but delightfuly colored little froglet.
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Its where Leap Year bacon comes from.
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The older I get the harder it is to remember how old I am, it would really be hard if I was born on Feb. 29.
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Yippee!
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Don’t forget to turn all your non-Year2K complient computers back to 1994 at midnight tonight for the correct calender.
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So that was the issue!!! That’s why I was always 2* off on my flight computer! Thought I had entered the wrong GPS coordinates………
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TX I never knew that.
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Thank you Stella! Also one must consider the equation of time. Basically the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Also the tilt of the Earth on its ecliptic plane. Just don’t ask me Math questions!!!!!!!
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Today is the second anniversary of my wife’s father’s death. He died eight years ago today.
We laugh about it a lot. He made sure to die in a way that we could only be sad about it once every four years.
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That’s another side of it that I had not considered. After a while – at least for me – there are more happy memories than sad. I hope that’s how it is for you when you think of your father-in-law.
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Very much so. Actually, he had a very happy death, and it was emotional, but still mostly positive.
He had made a lot of really bad mistakes in his life, and he worked very diligently at the end to make amends and atone for them.
He moved to Denver just a couple of years before he passed, and lived in a nursing home. There wasn’t a week that went by that my wife didn’t spend several days with him, and once a week, we would eat dinner with him and watch an episode of Star Trek together.
He was in really bad health. He had terrible COPD from years of smoking. He had bladder cancer, and had been in remission, but it had recurred. When he was in the hospital the last time, it had spread to his lungs (ironic, he never got lung cancer from smoking, but did get bladder cancer in his lungs). He also had a collapsed lung, and his stents from his heart surgery 13 years ago were going. But he died with his children at his side, and having seen his grandchildren recently. Most positively, he apologized to everyone.
The military funeral was amazing. He was army intelligence in Laos, and served in the army as a medical tech all over the place. They were in Germany when my wife was born. When they folded the flag on his casket, and presented it to my wife, with the quiet, but intensely serious speech on how the flag was presented on behalf of a grateful nation, it was one of the most reverential moments I’ve ever witnessed.
Art was a unique guy. He was Messianic Jewish, and had a very deep respect for a lot of Catholic theology. A good portion of his family was lost in the holocaust in WW2. He was basically an only-child growing up, and his parents died when he was very young. He grew up in Brooklyn, of course, and loved baseball.
I didn’t know him that much. I only met him when he came to Denver, and most of my memories of him are positive. He was a pain in the butt, and very cantankerous, but mostly in a good way. He is missed, but I know we’ll see him again.
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Thanks for sharing that. He had the one thing that we all secretly desire as we grow old – a family who loved and will remember him. As my mother once wrote,
Then, at the end when strength of mind and body go from me, there will only be that which money cannot buy, drawing dividends in lives that I have never known.
We humans need to leave our mark. Your father-in-law has left his in the hearts and minds of his children and grandchildren.
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One of my Lenten reflections today said “pray for someone who needs forgiveness.” I have been pondering on that, and yes, praying.
It is nice to read your story of repentance and forgiveness. Thank you for sharing.
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Cetera, today is also bittersweet for me.
Four years ago, half of my best friend finally succumbed to cancer. He would say his better half. She and God gave us all a small mercy when they finished it on Leap Day.
Today I epoxy-painted another floor, in a bar, after clearing and scraping and scrubbing and mopping and all the prep that goes into it, and she was right there beside me, kicking me in the rear, the whole time. Git ‘er done! That’s what she did for me when she was here on Earth.
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My friend and his two adult daughters called me at 8:xx AM, to tell me to get down there.
Her last words were yelled at my bro: Pray to Jesus.
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Yelled. And that was it.
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Mods can see I’m not pretending.
I was ranting about it, then.
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I’m not following you, Taqi. You OK?
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