Today is leap day, an “extra” day that rolls around every four years. Many take this day off from work on the pretext that, because it’s an “extra” day for which they’re not receiving extra pay, it should be used for something special. A few see it as a chance to “stick it to the man” by not showing up for work.

In any event, Happyfeet asked me to explain the illustration in Monday’s Leap Years post and so here’s my “long way around” take on it, with a little history and folklore thrown in for good measure:

Brief History

In ancient Rome, leap day was on February 24 due to February being the last month of the calendar. The original Roman calendar added an extra month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes. The Julian calendar was implemented in 45 BCE, resulting in a leap day being added to the end of February every four years.

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII refined the Julian calendar with a new rule that a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 400. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar was observed in some countries including Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. The conversion took longer for other countries such as Great Britain (1752) and Lithuania (1915).

Tradition and Folklore

A tradition was introduced many centuries ago to allow women to propose to men during a leap year. This privilege of proposing was restricted to leap day in some areas. Leap day was sometimes known as “Bachelors’ Day”. A man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage offer from a woman. Sadie Hawkins Day, from the old Li’l Abner comic strip, was loosely based on leap day.

The tradition’s origin stemmed from an old Irish tale referring to St Bridget striking a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men every four years. This old custom was probably made to balance the traditional roles of men and women in a similar way to how the leap day balances the calendar.

It was also considered to be unlucky for someone to be born on a leap day in Scotland and for couples to marry in a leap year, including on a leap day, in Greece.

So here’s that explanation, Happyfeet. The illustration depicts a woman offering her heart in marriage on a leap day. She’s apparently received a refusal or two since she’s carrying a bag of money and may be wearing a new gown. But the day’s not over and she’s still “on the job”. Work for you? Works for me.

Observances

Leap day is also St Oswald’s Day, named after a 10th century archbishop of York who died on February 29, 992. The feast is celebrated on February 29 during leap years and on February 28 in other years. February 29 is one of the days of Ayyám-i-Há (February 26 to March 1) in the Bahá’í calendar. These days are dedicated to fasting preparations, charity, hospitality and gift-giving.

Continuing from yesterday’s post, I also photographed a Eurasian Eagle Owl, a very cool and seemingly aloof bird with a face only a mother could love. (Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge.)

Eurasian Eagle Owl

Eagle owls are the largest owls in the world with an average wingspan of nearly six feet and are best known for their large, striking orange eyes. They are often called the Old World version of America’s widely distributed great horned owl. They have prominent ear tufts and are primarily brown-black and tawny-buff in color.

Found in North Africa, Europe, The Middle East and Asia, Eagle owls are primarily solitary animals except during the mating period. They fiercely defend their territory against other owls and will only overlap territories slightly if food is sparse. Despite their large size, they are very elusive creatures, spending most of their days roosting high in trees and remaining relatively inactive. They are nocturnal and become active at dusk and remain so throughout the night.

At the top of the food chain, Eagle owls are carnivores. They are primarily nocturnal hunters and have various hunting techniques. They take their prey in flight or on the ground. They prefer to hunt in open spacious locations rather than forests. Most owls are very capable hunters and the eagle owl is no exception. Owl wings have evolved to make very little noise when flapping. With their night vision, advanced hearing, and silent flight they are the hit men of their territory. Their prey usually has no idea they were being stalked. They feed on almost anything they can catch including rats, mice, voles, beetles and even large prey like deer fawns and foxes.

Eagle owls are considered rare but not yet threatened. Their numbers are steadily declining due to habitat loss from human encroachment.

Next: Great Horned Owl

Sometimes a photo op presents itself when you least expect it.

Dawn and I had just finished a jog a couple weekends ago and were driving home when we came upon a couple walking with an owl and a falcon! You don’t see that every day! To make a long story short, the couple was helping the Folsom Moose Lodge with a membership drive and invited us over to photograph their birds! Didn’t have to ask me twice!  (Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge)

Lanner Falcon

The Lanner Falcon is a native of all of Africa and the southern parts of Italy, Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor. It is essentially a bird of mountainous terrain except in Africa, where it can also be found in savannahs, plains and deserts. A fast-flying raptor, it is well designed for catching birds up to the size of a Guinea Fowl, and bats, especially the larger fruit bats. When prey of this kind is scarce, ground living mammals and lizards are taken. It will also gorge on locusts and flying termites when they are swarming.

Much, but not all of the Lanner Falcon’s prey is taken in the air, when the falcon descends to its prey and binds to it with a smack which can be heard for some distance. It then carries it off. Occasionally, it will strike its prey in the air and allow it to drop to the ground and collect it there, but this is less frequent behavior. When defending its nesting territory, it will often swoop with tremendous force at an animal it cannot hope to kill, which seems, nonetheless, an effective deterrent.

The Lanner Falcon has a shrill, piercing, almost screaming voice, similar in content to that of the Peregrine Falcon, but somewhat higher pitched.

Tomorrow: Eurasian Eagle Owl

The Sacramento Autorama, billed as the largest and second oldest running indoor car show in the world, returned to Cal Expo for its 58th annual exhibition February 8-10. Dawn and I, along with friends Michael and Sisko, went to see the 350 or so custom cars, hot rods, classics, motorcycles, and specialty vehicles from around the county and weren’t disappointed, although we somehow missed Henry Winkler and a couple other “Happy Days” actors that were apparently on hand. I took a camera and my “walk around” lens and snapped some photos.

Photographing an indoor car show, with all its chrome and bright lighting (and crowds!) always presents unique photographic challenges. I think next time I’ll bite the bullet and schlep a tripod and faster lenses. I’m thinking long exposures without flash might yield better results. These images were, in most cases, made using flash, all hand held. Also, here’s a list of show winners.

Teddy and several others sent this in response to this post…

Sadly, there’s a lot of truth in this ‘toon. Many voters are choosing candidates this way, perhaps more than in any previous election, or are what’s become known as “single issue voters” — they vote for whomever is aligned with their pet issue. Iraq and, before that, abortion are good examples. C’mon, people, we’re better than that!

SWEETWATER, Tex. — The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.

“That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.

Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy.

“I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself. …  Article…

Movie theaters are notorious for charging consumers top dollar for concession items such as popcorn, soda, and candy. Are moviegoers just being gouged?

New research from Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggests that there is a method to theaters’ madness — and one that in fact benefits the viewing public. By charging high prices on concessions, exhibition houses are able to keep ticket prices lower, which allows more people to enjoy the silver-screen experience.

The findings empirically answer the age-old question of whether it’s better to charge more for a primary product (in this case, the movie ticket) or a secondary product (the popcorn). Putting the premium on the “frill” items, it turns out, indeed opens up the possibility for price-sensitive people to see films. That means more customers coming to theaters in general, and a nice profit from those who are willing to fork it over for the Gummy Bears.

Indeed, movie exhibition houses rely on concession sales to keep their businesses viable. Although concessions account for only about 20 percent of gross revenues, they represent some 40 percent of theaters’ profits. That’s because while ticket revenues must be shared with movie distributors, 100 percent of concessions go straight into an exhibitor’s coffers. Article…

The Manchester (UK) City Council is advertising an employment position with what may be the best job title ever:

Teenage Pregnancy Implementation Manager.

I’m not kidding! If you think you would qualify and “want to develop your skills and experience in an exciting and supportive environment”, the position pays £29,728 to £33,291 and requires a grueling 35-hour work week. Read the complete job description and details, and if you feel, um, qualified, you’re invited to apply on-line at http://www.manchester.gov.uk/work/jobs. And get this. They “welcome applications from people wishing to job share.”

I can imagine the barrage of applications they are sure to receive for this position, especially from teenage boys…

James sent this great photo of an owl in the hollow of a tree. Unfortunately. he was unable to provide any information about where and when it was taken or by whom. Nonetheless, it’s a great shot worth sharing.

If this is your image or you know who the photographer is, please let me know. I’m sure we’d all like to know the details.

2008 is a leap year, so Friday will be February 29th, a date that rolls around just once every four years. If that’s your birthday, that makes you, what, eight? Ten?

Confused? Well, here’s the short explanation. Our year is measured by how long it takes the Earth to go around the Sun. It doesn’t take 365 days but 365 1/4. Actually… 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds. So, every four years we effectively lose a day. To prevent drift in our calendar we adjust the four year period to be 1,461 instead of 1,460 days. You can read more on The “Straight Dope” website.

Anyway, here are three smart things you should know about leap years in order to impress your friends and maybe win a few beers, compliments of Wired Magazine:

1) A leap year is any year evenly divisible by four — except for century years, which have to be divisible by 400. It’s not a perfect system: The Gregorian year is 27 seconds longer than the astronomical year. By 12008, we’ll be three days off.

2) October 5-14, 1582, never happened in Catholic lands. Brits (and their American subjects) born September 3 to 13 had no birthday in 1752. Those days were dropped when the Western world switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

3) International Atomic Time — kept by ultraprecise clocks — is gradually out-pacing astronomical time, which is determined by our planet’s rotation. (Earth’s spin is slowing — what a drag.) So in 1972, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service began adding occasional leap seconds. They’ve done it 23 times, most recently adding an extra “one-Mississippi” on December 31, 2005.

Michael forwarded this well written article by Gary Hubbell of the Aspen Times Weekly that describes, to a tee, a lot of folks I know. It’s definitely worth a read.

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

Click to read more ...

Use Windows long enough and you’ll recognize that bloated, sinking feeling creeping in. Spyware and viruses pile up, registries get corrupted, drivers stop working or cause conflicts — eventually reaching that point where you want to just erase everything and re-install the entire system. After swearing to pay more attention to the links you follow and the software you install, you find yourself staring at a brand-new-all-over-again Windows desktop.

Your system is fresh and untarnished. Now what? Time to tweak it to your satisfaction! Continue reading…

Did you see it? Night before last, we were witness to one of science’s more fascinating phenomenons — a total lunar eclipse. Dawn and I were driving home and watched it directly in front of us as we made our way up the hill from Sacramento, at least until it became obscured by clouds. It never ceases to amaze us, as I suppose is true for most people since such occurrences are some of the most witnessed and photographed worldwide. This image comes courtesy of Simone Vitale of Tucson, Arizona.

Want to be ready for the next lunar eclipse? Here’s a list through 2020.

This week’s fly-by features a montage of video clips of the F-22 Raptor’s first full tactical air show demonstration, performed at Langley AFB in April 2007 by pilot Major Paul Mogataken. It includes cobras, backflips, super-high-alpha flight, hovering with its nose pointed straight up, super-fast pitch-ups, and some sonic shock condensation cones and wingtip vortex contrails (“vapor”) at the very end.

As you may already know, the F-22 is essentially invisible to the enemy in combat; in simulated war games, its pilots consistently “kill” the enemy while remaining undetected. In addition, the Raptor has the fastest cruise speed of any aircraft currently flying (MACH 1.5 - 1.75, depending on whom you ask). It’s capable of breaking the sound barrier while in a straight up vertical climb, fully loaded, and is highly sophisticated in how it manages, shares and integrates information and presents it to the pilot.

During this exhibition, the USAF allowed one more thing about the F-22 to be shown to the public: its amazing maneuverability. No other American fighter in history has so empowered its pilot and provided such impressive combat performance capabilities.

If you suffer from lower back pain, I don’t have to tell you how debilitating it can be. I’ve suffered with it for years — I bulged or ruptured a lower disk during my reckless younger days — and so I’m usually very careful not to do anything that might aggravate it lest I find myself on my back for days. To me, there are few things worse than having to lay in bed and remain still for more than required sleep.

Well, oops, I’ve done it again. I’m not sure how, but yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work, it hit me. I don’t remember doing anything I would consider strenuous — it could, I suppose, have been something I did a day or two before — but I recognized the old familiar pain immediately. Yet I went to work anyway, I think because I was afraid I would be unable to get up by myself if I went back to bed. So I sat all day at my office computer, probably not my best course of action. Once home last night, I did lay down and, sure enough, I needed help getting back up to answer nature’s call.

So today I vowed to stay in bed and use a heating pad. But I soon became bored and uncomfortable, took an Ibuprofen and have been putzing around the house most of the day doing little things I probably shouldn’t be doing, like trying to resuscitate my inoperative external hard drive. It died a couple weeks ago and, since I use it not only for backup but as primary storage for all my photo and data files, I’m afraid I’m pretty well dead in the water. The thing won’t boot — it just clicks and clacks for a moment, then shuts off. I can’t get to either partition.

So I’m in need of a disk recovery outfit in the Sacramento area to try and salvage the data and transfer it to a new external drive. Damn! This is my second external that’s died! I replaced the first one just before it breathed its last breath with a new WD drive about a year ago! What up with that?

So here I am with, not one, but two disk problems, one in my lower back and the other on my computer desk. And that’s why I didn’t post much else today and, unless I suddenly feel a whole lot better, why I doubt I’ll be up to posting much tomorrow, either.

I’m not complaining, mind you. Well, maybe I am.