The shortest month of the year seems to have gone by in a flash which always kills me in the pocket. Why does February have only 28 days?

It’s the Romans’ fault.

Our modern calendar is loosely based on their old, confusing one. Though records on the Roman calendar are sparse and sketchy, legend has it that Romulus, the first king of Rome, devised a 10-month lunar calendar that began at the spring equinox in March and ended with December. It is unclear whether there were any official months between December and March, but it’s likely they were left off because the wintertime wasn’t important for the harvest.

The second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, decided to make the calendar more accurate by syncing it up with the actual lunar year—which is about 354 days long. Numa tacked on two months—January and February—after December to account for the new days.

The new months each had 28 days. But that didn’t sit well with Numa because even numbers were considered bad luck at the time. So, he added a day on to January, giving the year an odd-numbered 355 days.

No one knows why February was left with 28 and remained an unlucky month. It may be related to the fact that Romans honored the dead and performed rites of purification in February. (The word februare means “to purify” in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe.)

The 355-day calendar couldn’t stay in sync with the seasons because it didn’t account for the amount of time it took for the Earth to orbit the sun. So, an extra “intercalary” month of 27 days was inserted after February 23 every couple of years or so to even things out. The pontiffs who were in charge of calendar upkeep didn’t always add the extra month on schedule. (Some officials took advantage of the system to extend their time in office, for example.)

In around 45 B.C., Julius Caesar commissioned an expert to put aside the lunar origins of the Roman calendar and make it sun-based, like the Egyptian one. Caesar added 10 days to the calendar year and an extra day in February every four years. (The leap-year day was inserted after the 23rd, the same time as the old intercalary month.) Now, the year averaged out to 365.25 days, very close to the actual average length of a year: 365.2425 days (and even that varies).

Some have speculated that Caesar added a day to February when he reformed the calendar—making it 29 days long. The story goes that when the Senate renamed the month of Sextilis to honor the emperor Augustus, that day was subtracted from February and added to August in order to make it equal in number to July—the month named for Caesar. But this theory is now believed to be bunk; it’s likely that Julius never even added a day to February.

Have you ever noticed that every child you meet nowadays is special and unique?
Annoying you yet?

I believe that when you start telling kids from a young age that they are special and that everything will go there way if they have a positive attitude, you will develop a narcissistic culture.

Narcissism describes the character trait of self love and how do you get self love? By people telling you how special and wonderful they are.
I think it’s good for kids to have self confidence but too much of a good thing is always bad. So much so that confidence can and will develop into an attitude that says “I am too above that,” and the competition begins.

I believe fully that our (my) next generation will be one of narcissism. Don’t believe me? A Historian and social critic Christopher Lasch (1932—1994) described this topic in his book, “The Culture of Narcissism”,[3] published in 1979.

He claims that, in such a society of constant competition, there can be no allies, and little simplicity. The intimidations to achievement of social symbols are so numerous, varied and frequently incomprehensible, that defensiveness, as well as competitiveness, becomes a way of life. Any real sense of community is undermined — or even destroyed — to be replaced by virtual equivalents that strive, unsuccessfully, to synthesize a sense of community.

Basically what he is saying is that we are so scared to fail, consumed with competition to excel past your neighbor, that one cannot have a proper friendship or be in community with them. The thought of helping others or putting yourself out is a bad quality because it can and will get in the way of your personal gain.

Being better is the name of the game.
Sounds like a culture you know and see?
This scares me.

I wasn’t raised in the praise game but I noticed when I got to school it was the norm to be deemed “special” and education is all about showing how special you are. I think when we go around telling kids how special and unique they are, they will believe it. I don’t think this is a bad thing if you are planning on keeping your kid in a bubble their entire life.

The truth is, this life is hard; it’s not kind and it doesn’t think you are “special.” I think the only way were going to make it in this world is by investing in each other and focusing on community and compassion for those around us.

This sign, is brought to your courtesy of Church sign generator

And if he did come down, he would have a whole can of whoop ass for some of our “christian friends.”

We have some pretty stupid ignorant signs in Sarnia as well but some of these signs take the bisket.

# Free Trip to heaven. Details Inside!
# Try our Sundays. They are better than Baskin-Robbins.
# Searching for a new look? Have your faith lifted here!
# Have trouble sleeping? We have sermons – come hear one!
# People are like tea bags – you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they are.

# God so loved the world that He did not send a committee.
# Come in and pray today. Beat the Christmas rush!
# When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right.
# Sign broken. Message inside this Sunday.
# Fight truth decay – study the Bible daily.

# How will you spend eternity – Smoking or Non-smoking?
# Dusty Bibles lead to Dirty Lives:
# Come work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world.

# It is unlikely there’ll be a reduction in the wages of sin.
# Do not wait for the hearse to take you to church.
# If you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns.
# If you don’t like the way you were born, try being born again.
# Looking at the way some people live, they ought to obtain eternal fire insurance soon.

# This is a ch_ _ ch. What is missing? ——— (U R)
# Forbidden fruit creates many jams.
# In the dark? Follow the Son.
# Running low on faith? Stop in for a fill-up.
# If you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep. Talk to the Shepherd.

# An ad for St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church has a picture of two hands holding stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed and a headline that reads, For fast, fast, fast relief relief, take two tablets.

# When the restaurant next to the Lutheran Church put out a big sign with red letters that said, Open Sundays, the church reciprocated with its own message: We are Open on Sundays, too.

The pursuit, the quest, the hunger of happiness.

Happiness means a lot of things to different people. Snowboarding down a mountain with your music blaring while you mock gravity and cheat death. Playing music, getting that riff just right and feeling like one of your favorite musicians as you pay respect by perfecting their notes.

There are so many things that bring happiness to people. The possibilities are endless but what about those who seek happiness in none-society accepted ventures? What about those avenues that hurt the person pursuing them?

I have a friend who seeks pleasure in drugs and I’m not talking about casual weekend stints either. Drugs that when taken in quantity can leave you addicted and, or cause death.

Is it wrong to offer help and assistance?

What if this person refuses the help, insisting that the assistance your offering isn’t required be cause there isn’t a problem? Have the drugs griped this person in such a way that they believe they are alright?

What if they want the drugs and the life style? What if, their pursuit of happiness is the drugs? Maybe their dream of owning a brick house with a picket fence was not what they had intended like we are all told to believe. Maybe this person believes that the drugs are their picket fence?

Would it be wrong of me or anyone to intervene?

A lot of people tell me “addicts have to want to help themselves.” How can you help someone who doesn’t know they are sick? Are we to let these people fall to there own demise? You can’t just force yourself on people and its not very good to sit by and watch either.

Last weekend I was at a party and there was a Jedi there. You know how that goes, one Jedi gets drunk and starts talking smack about someones girl and some other Jedi feels obligated to be a hero.
Those guys need to learn when to quit.

I love this video. Shot in Sarnia and on location at the Coffee Lodge; it really says alot about coffee places.
Enjoy!

Tonight I attended a benefit for Karla Lopez. If you haven’t heard, she has cancer and is currently in the hospital. I know Karla from high school, more of an acquaintance but I know her all the same.

My sister Debbie also has cancer; she is currently undergoing chemotherapy and hopes to be fully recovered in the near future…….

This cancer thing really gets me. So many factors play into getting cancer and no matter how well of a life you live you can still fall victim to it. Am I not alone when I say I think this sucks?

Is cancer random?

In the Christian world you hear a lot of crap about “Gods plan” which is all find and dandy when things are going well. Comments like “it was Gods will that I met this beautiful girl” or “it was Gods doing that I got this awesome job.” I am sure you have heard someone say this in your life.

But now, facing cancer, we don’t hear too many people spurting off things like “it was Gods will (insert suffering persons name here) got cancer.” And if you have heard someone say that God let, allowed or gave someone cancer, I would think them an asshole just like you did.

Is it ok to have two sets of rules? Gods blessing can be his will and his doing when it’s good but when bad things happen…. Well that’s just tough shit isn’t it?

When Good things happen people give praise to God. When bad things happen, people have hope in God that He will correct things or make them better.

No one ever questions God about him doing a bad thing.

My leg is doing much better.
I went and had a back massage; the guy almost killed me! It was an interesting experience. My work was very gracious in allowing me to work from home. Tomorrow I am off to see the doctor for some well deserved anti-inflammatory and pain killers.

It’s too earlier to say the magnitude of my injury so all I can do is stay off it as much as possible and hope it does the rest.

My violin lesion went alright this week. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, my instructor tells me I now have to play the notes without writing down the key notes first. For those of you that know anything about music, this is a huge pain in the ass.

Tonight, after taking a beating from Amanda in poker I turned my attention into getting the slot machine working. With the help of Bruce, we were able to get it open, tinker around with it and find the cause of the problem.
I would give us a week or so until we get that bad-boy up and running.