Leap Day!

For those of you like myself living with inquisitive young people who always ask "Why?", feel free to use this information.

Why Leap Years Are Used

1. February 29, 2008 The year 2008 is a leap year. If you look at a 2008 calendar, you will see that February has five Fridays–the month begins and ends on a Friday. Between the years 1904 and 2096, leap years that share the same day of week for each date repeat only every 28 years. The most recent year in which February comprised five Fridays was in 1980, and the next occurrence will be in 2036. Leap Day has been associated with age-old traditions, superstitions and folklore.
2. What is a leap year? A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted, or intercalated, at the end of February. A leap year consists of 366 days, whereas other years, called common years, have 365 days.
3. Which years are leap years? In the Gregorian calendar, the calendar used by most modern countries, the following three criteria determine which years will be leap years:Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year; of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year. According to the above criteria, that means that years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years, while year 2000 and 2400 are leap years.It is interesting to note that 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world.
4. Why are leap years needed? Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun.
5. Other leap years facts: The Gregorian calendar has a 400-year cycle until it repeats the same weekdays for every year–February 29, 2008, is a Friday and February 29, 2408, is a Friday. The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years during those 400 years. The longest time between two leap years is eight years. The last time that occurred was between 1896 and 1904. The next time will be between 2096 and 2104.

Harold is due home late this evening and no one guessed that he was in Iowa (Ames, to be exact). Have to save the fabulous prize for the next trip!

The blog welcomes new readers in Lafayette, LA; Bronx, NY; Gaithersburg, MD; Salisbury, MD; Champaign, IL; Charlotte, NC; Brooklyn, NY; and Pt. Jefferson Station, NY. Sadly, my social experiment of titling a post "Big Boobs" did not encourage a lot of new international readers.

Congratulations to Hannah Helfman, daughter of Sam's customers, Doug and Marcia. Hannah is starring as "Annie" in Catonsville High's musical of the same name. I hope to see the show at 7:30 tomorrow evening. Break a leg, Hannah!

(Submitted by Pat R.)
To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine - and those who don't.
As Ben Franklin said, 'In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.' In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria found in faeces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.
However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor) because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting. Remember: Water = Poop, Wine = Health Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid, than to drink water and be full of ..........
There is no need to thank me for this valuable information:
I'm doing it as a public service.