62 Days Before Closing (The time that remains before we have to get out of this house)

33 Days Before Closing (The time that remains before we can move into the new house)

It's Leap Year! We've got a 366 day year! A leap year is any year that can be divided by the number 4...except if it can be divided by 100. Were you born in a leap year? Happy Birthday to any of you out there who were born on February 29th! I don't actually know anyone who was born on February 29th but I think it's worth a mention. If I had been born on February 29th, I'd only be celebrating my 12th birthday right now. Actually...I don't suppose it works that way. If you only get to celebrate every 4th year, it seems to me that even if I don't know you, everyone should wish you a Happy Birthday! Go out and party enough to last until the next time.

I found the following "funny" on the net and thought I'd share.

Leap Year Internet Shutdown


*** Attention ***

It's that time again!

As many of you know, each leap year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email and inactive ftp, www and gopher sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet.

This year, the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on Feb. 29 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on March 1. During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.

In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following:

1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.

2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet.

3. Disconnect all disks and hardrives from any connections to the Internet.

4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.

We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam.

We thank you for your cooperation.

Today's Little Bit of Trivia

I couldn't resist adding this little "funny" as my Trivia section today in honor of Leap Year. Please note that I cannot verify the veracity of any of the following data.

The Calendar

If you want to know what day it is, you won't even come close with the Gregorian Calendar. It's arbitrary and accumulates lost time rapidly!

The Babylonians introduced the 60-minute hour.

The Egyptians added 24-hour days...

The Hebrews recorded 7-day weeks, although the names are pagan...

The year used to begin in March

In fact, it still does.

The astrological year begins in Aries. But sometime around 700 B.C. the Romans rolled back the New Year to January.

Take a look at what happened to these months:

The 7th month, September, became the 9th month


The 8th month, October, became the 10th month


The 9th month, November, became the 11th month


The 10th month, December, became the 12th month

It's Emperor Julius Caesar who really got the most mileage out of this calendar. He invented leap year and named a month after himself, July.

He also removed a day from February and added it to July, making July the longest month of the year.

Well, February running on only 29 days made things fall apart fast, so Julius added a leap year every four years. It worked so well that July got to keep the extra day... poor February.

Not to be outdone, Emperor Augustus, successor to Julius Caesar, also named a month after himself, August. He removed an additional day from February and placed it at the end of August, a first-place tie with July. He had to stop there because February would just not work on 27 days...

Then .....

The Europeans discovered 11 days of error after the Dark Ages because even with leap year, the solar year is still a little over 9 minutes longer than the calendar year.

In 1582 A.D. Pope Gregory XIII noticed that this added up to 11 days of lost time, so on October 5 he removed the next 11 days (Poof!)

After this band-aid, the Julian Calendar became known as the Gregorian Calendar, and guess what, it's off by 2 1/2 days again...

and if that isn't unsettling enough, it wasn't until 180 years (and 11 days in error) later that the British adopted the revised calendar. They dropped all the dates between September 2 and September 16.

These dates don't exist in British or American history!