Thank God for Leap Day

This is kind of a throw-away post. I really just wanted an excuse to write something with the date of February 29 on it.

Speaking of Leap Day, and God, does anyone else find it strange that the earth takes 365.242189 days to revolve around the sun? I mean… we couldn’t get that to a round number? It’s basic math, people. Measure twice, cut once. Am I right? Who came up with this? Was there some Gregorian monk who’d had a little too much mead who was like, “Let’s just add a day every four years.” Then some guy named Julian was like, “we already tried that you drunk bastard!”

Gregorian and Julian monks debating calendars circa 1500. (Photo credit: Luis Davilla/Getty Images)

The whole calendar really doesn’t make sense. It’s not just Leap Day, but the “Thirty days has November, August, March and September” thing (is that right?). We’re expected to remember some children’s rhyme to know how many days are in a month? You shouldn’t need a grade school degree to know what day it is. It would be so much easier if a year was 1,000 days, with 10 months, each with 100 days and ten 10-day weeks? It’s so simple. To be fair, I guess this was all pre Metric system.

Anyway, I say ‘Thank God’ because this year’s Leap Day came at a great time for me. That extra day enabled me to (mostly) reach my goal of finishing the third revision of my book, Bit Flip, in February. This was an amended goal, originally in December, then January. That extra day in February was key. For those of you who have volunteered to read the next revision, I’ll be sending it out to you separately this week. Thanks for your support!