THANKS for stopping by, I do my best to acknowledge when someone leaves a comment,you do not have to be a member here & everyone is welcome. Ps: This site is monitored but not actively posting on a regular basis. Mostly these are stories & some photos saved from a defunct site known as Verdun Connections which was on MSN Groups initially then on a social network called Multiply.
Today is Leap Day, the extra day that we tack on to February every four years to keep the calendar in time with the seasons. We do this because the Earth does not orbit the sun in a nice round 365 days, but rather in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 45 seconds.
Ancient peoples based their calendars on many things, from the movements of the stars to the activities of plants and animals. The Greek poet Hesiod told farmers to begin the harvest when the constellation Pleiades was rising and to begin plowing when it was setting, and to sharpen their farming tools when snails began climbing up plants. Most early calendars were based on the stages of the moon, with lunar months of about 29 days each. But the problem with the lunar calendar is that it's about 11 days short of the actual year, so instead of having to add a leap day every few years, you have to add a leap month. The Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to develop a calendar with 12 months and 365 days. When Julius Caesar rose to power, the Romans were using a calendar that was so faulty they often had to add an extra 80 days to the year. In 46 B.C., after his affair with Cleopatra, Caesar chose to adopt the superior Egyptian calendar, and this became known as the Julian calendar. In the first version of the Julian calendar, February had 29 days most years and 30 days in leap years. Caesar named the month of July after himself, so when Augustus came to power, he decided he needed a month too. He named August after himself, but he had to steal a day from February in order to make August as long as July.
The Julian calendar worked well for a while, but in the 13 century, a sick old friar named Roger Bacon sent a letter to the Pope. He had calculated the actual length of the solar year as slightly less than 365.25 days, and he pointed out that the Julian calendar was adding one leap day too many for every 125 years. The result was that Christians were celebrating holy days on the wrong dates. Bacon wrote, "The calendar is intolerable to all wisdom, the horror of astronomy, and a laughing-stock from a mathematician's point of view." Bacon was eventually imprisoned for implying that the pope had been fallible, and his writings were censored. It wasn't until 1582 that Pope Gregory XIII hired a group of Jesuits to fix the calendar, and they came up with the complicated system of omitting the leap day at the beginning of each century, except for those centuries divisible by 400. When Pope Gregory made the change, the calendar was about 10 days off, so Gregory deleted 10 days from the year. People went to sleep on Thursday, Oct. 4 and woke up on Friday, Oct. 15.
At first, the Gregorian calendar was only accepted in Catholic countries, and even there people were uncomfortable about losing 10 days of their lives. It led to protests and financial uncertainty, since people weren't sure how to calculate interest or taxes or rent for a 21-day month. Protestant countries didn't adopt the new calendar until much later, and this meant that for a long time, if you crossed the border of certain European countries, you had to set your clock back or forward by at least 10 days. When Great Britain finally accepted the Gregorian calendar in 1751, 11 days had to be deleted from the year. The change led to antipapal riots, because people believed the pope had shortened their lives. Mobs gathered in the streets, chanting, "Give us back our 11 days!" When the British colonies in America made the change the following year, Ben Franklin wrote in an editorial, "Be not astonished, nor look with scorn, dear reader, at ... the loss of so much time. ... What an indulgence is here, for those who love their pillow, to lie down in peace on the second [day] of this month and not awake till the morning of the fourteenth."
The Gregorian calendar has since been accepted everywhere as the standard. It is so accurate that we will have to wait until the year 4909 before our dates become out of step with the Earth's orbit by a full day.
Actually the program was called "Lunchtime Little Theatre" and I and thousands of other grade school children were devoted to watching Johnnie Jellybean during our lunch hour at home. He was the wackiest, most imaginative person and had a great crew to support him. Another character on the show was Toomie the Duck played by Bill Merrill, who later became Vice-President of Programming at CFCF TV in Montreal. There was the "Squawk Box" that Johnnie would whack with a wooden mallet and most days destroy. He would receive mail that sometimes would get thrown at him and one day unknown and unseen by the viewers when he opened the door there was a woman without a top on. We only ever saw his expressions which were a riot ( and now we know why ). My favorite part of the show ( besides him ) was when he had these contraptions where he would drop a ball bearing and it would go through flippers and sand buckets etc. to get to the bottom of the maze. They were fascinating. We all loved Johnnie Jellybean and his whirly hat and striped jacket. We wish now that the TV station had saved the episodes so that we could have enjoyed them in later years. I was very saddened to hear of his passing and still wish that I could have thanked him for the many hours of enjoyment he gave to us over the years!!
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:24:38 -0800
From: blockwd@telus.net
To: goldentip12@hotmail.com; shelley@scamfreesuccess.com; tygh13@shaw.ca; catherine_wiedmann@hotmail.com; gmoutal@telus.net; jaynorman66@hotmail.com
Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: FW: water &wine]
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: FW: water &wine Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:54:07 -0800 From: Sandi Jaeger To: Sandi Jaeger References: <001001c872a5$dc79f6d0$6400a8c0@DCHRJL91> I almost never forward these, but this one made me lough out loud.Cheers,
Subject: water &wine
> 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 liter 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 feces. 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 shit.
>
> There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it
> as a public service.
>
>
>
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Thousands of couples will exchange gifts signifying their affection for one another, including chocolate, flowers, and of course, greeting cards. One hundred eighty-eight million Valentine's Day cards will be given today, making February 14 the second most popular card-giving day of the calendar year, finishing right behind Christmas.
The tradition of exchanging love notes on Valentine's Day originates from the martyr Valentine himself. The legend maintains that due to a shortage of enlistments, Emperor Claudius II forbade single men to get married in an effort to bolster his struggling army. Seeing this act as a grave injustice, Valentine performed clandestine wedding rituals in defiance of the emperor. Valentine was discovered, imprisoned, and sentenced to death by beheading. While awaiting his fate in his cell, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard, who would come and visit him. On the day of his death, Valentine left a note for the young woman professing his undying devotion signed "Love from your Valentine."
Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade.
The Chinese calendar is based on a combination of lunar and solar movements. The lunar cycle is about 29.5 days. In order to "catch up" with the solar calendar the Chinese insert an extra month once every few years (seven years out of a 19-yearcycle). This is the same as adding an extra day on leap year. This is why, according to the solar calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors.
The sacrifice to the ancestors, the most vital of all the rituals, united the living members with those who had passed away. Departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family.
The presence of the ancestors is acknowledged on New Year's Eve with a dinner arranged for them at the family banquet table. The spirits of the ancestors, together with the living, celebrate the onset of the New Year as one great community. The communal feast called "surrounding the stove" or weilu. It symbolizes family unity and honors the past and present generations
From: pmanns22@rogers.com
To: mwilliam@rogers.com; celtic.1@rogers.com; treid@usw.ca; rozpotts@rogers.com; 9scotia@rogers.com; chrisrogmartin@hotmail.com; keeperingo@rogers.com; desmond_2@sympatico.ca; bkennedy@eaglept.com; jaynorman66@hotmail.com; johnheron@rogers.com; barbara.finch@xtra.co.nz; dougmanns2@tiscali.co.uk; davedodds@rogers.com; andyclark@sympatico.ca; chateauvert@sympatico.ca; BKIRK@mississaug.faurecia.com
Subject: Fw: Duelling pianos.Ray Charles/Jerry Lee Lewis/Fats Dominio
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 06:10:45 -0500
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{page:Section1;}Lewis/Fats DominioSubject: Fw: Duelling pianos.Ray Charles/Jerry Lee Lewis/Fats Dominio
THIS WILL REALLY GET YOU MOVING, ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC HAVE BEEN TWISTING AWAY.....Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino all playing pianos and singing.........WOW.....Maureen
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