Things you may not have known about Leap Day

Happy February 29th! It only comes every four years, folks, so enjoy it.

Well, it usually comes every four years. Turns out there are exceptions, and I'm not sure I knew about them.

I give full credit to the folks over at TimeAndDate.com, which is the place from which I stole the following material. I just thought it was too good not to share:

Why do we have Leap Years?

Leap years are needed to keep our modern day Gregorian Calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun. It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days – or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds – to circle once around the Sun. This is called a tropical year.However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every four years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days.

Which Years are Leap Years?

In the Gregorian calendar, three criteria must be taken into account to identify leap years:

• The year is evenly divisible by 4;

• If the year can be evenly divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless;

• The year is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

This means that 2000 and 2400 are leap years, while 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 and 2500 are NOT leap years.

The year 2000 was somewhat special as it was the first instance when the third criterion was used in most parts of the world since the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.

Who invented Leap Years?

Julius Caesar introduced Leap Years in the Roman Empire more than 2000 years ago, but the Julian Calendar had only one rule: any year evenly divisible by 4 would be a leap year. This led to way too many leap years, but it didn't get corrected until the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar more than 1500 years later.

Thirty years is at once a long time and not such a long time

I remember 30 years ago tomorrow like it just happened yesterday.

Why? Because 30 years ago tomorrow, I asked my wife Terry out on our first date. And she said yes. Total relief. I wrote about the experience (the asking and the actual date) here a few years ago.

As with all anniversaries, getting a feel for the events they mark is a matter of perspective. For me, 30 years is a heck of a long time. But for someone who has been married for 60 years, 30 isn't such a huge stretch.

Terry and I have been through a lot in those three decades, not the least of which has been marriage and five kids. And a couple of houses. And several jobs for me. Along with a multitude of pets, Christmas celebrations, movies watched, meals eaten, etc.

Those are the types of things by which we mark the cadence of life. It's not the years that matter so much as the things that fill those years, right? I know that's pretty cliche and all, but it's true.

While I revel in all of the major events in our lives, I derive the most satisfaction from my everyday existence with Terry. We fight the same battles and struggle through the same issues. The fact that we often make the wrong choices is helped greatly by the fact that we do it together. I am blessed beyond words.

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting how you can look at a major chunk of your life (say, 30 years) and simultaneously see it as being a long time AND as having flown by. Because both are true. 1986 doesn't seem like ancient history to me, but in retrospect, the intervening years have been absolutely filled with stuff. That's a lot of days crossed off the calendar, a lot of water under the bridge.

Occasionally it occurs to me that each passing day gets us a tad closer to the inevitable end of things. Not in a morbid way so much as a wistful, reflective way.

Thirty years. That's a "fur piece," as my Pennsylvania-born dad used to say, but it's also the blink of an eye. Pretty cool.

At what point does food in your refrigerator become public domain?

There is an ongoing issue in my house whereby certain members of our family are very reluctant to leave their personal leftovers in the refrigerator, for fear that other members of the family to whom those leftovers do not belong will consume them.

To be fair here, I should mention that the first group consists mainly of my daughters, while the second group comprises mainly my son Jared and occasionally me.

Or at least it used to comprise me. I don't eat other people's refrigerator food anymore. But I used to.

Well, I didn't "eat" it in the sense of "entirely consume" it. But I would take a few bites. Sometimes more than a few bites. All while perfectly aware that the food was not mine to be eating.

This is theft. You can try and dress it up, but in the end, it's theft. It's taking something that belongs to someone else for yourself.

For whatever reason, it took some time before I came to this realization. But now that I'm aware of what I was doing, I don't do it any more.

The same cannot be said for Jared. Jared is a food thief, pure and simple.

I think he's better than he used to be, but my girls are right to be wary of Jared's food-stealing tendencies. If they bring home a styrofoam container of Olive Garden leftovers, for example, there's no doubt that Jared will target those leftovers for personal consumption.

At least now he asks. But his "asking" is more like he's building a legal case. "This food has been in the refrigerator for three days," he'll say. "That means you don't want it. Can I have it?"

And when the food owner in question refuses his request, he will ask again. And again. And again. All in the hopes that his annoying persistence will eventually wear the person down and she will relent.

Which I suppose raises an important question of international household food law: Is there a point at which untouched leftovers, even those that are clearly marked with someone's name, have been neglected for so long that they should be made available to whomever wants them on a first-come, first-served basis?

Most people would probably argue that, no, there is no such statute of limitations. My food is mine now and will still be mine five days from now.

But Jared is one to explore the boundaries of household food rules and regulations. He wants that food. He craves that food, no matter what it is. And if he can get away with having that food, with or without your permission, he's going to take it.

I claim no responsibility for his inevitable death, which will come at the hands of one of his sisters whose Applebee's chicken parm has been raided once too often. When I find Jared lying dead in front of the refrigerator with a plastic fork jammed into the side of his head, I'll know exactly why.

Four things I remember vividly about elementary school

(1) The Smell
It wasn't a bad smell. It was just a smell that you can only experience inside a school. And for whatever reason, it generally can only be found inside an elementary school. Whenever I happen to be inside a school and I get a whiff of that whatever-it-is smell, I am instantly transported back in time to Mapledale Elementary School in the late 70s.

(2) The Chairs
As near as I can tell, all three elementary schools in Wickliffe at that time were stocked with the same hard chairs for students. They were different colors, but it was the same basic, functional 70s design. The grown-ups, meanwhile, got different chairs that were all this pinkish color. And their chairs were bigger because, you know, the adults were bigger.

(3) The Layout
Mapledale no longer exists. The building became a senior center the year after I "graduated" from sixth grade, and a few years ago it was torn down entirely to make way for new houses (or maybe they're condos?) But I can remember every nook and cranny of that school, because I experienced them all at one point or another. Are you like that with your old schools? I spent seven years there from kindergarten through sixth grade, so I guess it stands to reason that I got to know the place pretty well.

(4) The Teachers
In elementary school, you are of course assigned to one teacher. In the early grades, you are with that teacher virtually the entire day, with the exception of special classes like art, gym, music, etc. That teacher becomes a major influence in your life, which is why I will always hold a special place in my heart for Mrs. Janes, Mrs. Lucci, Mrs. Schwarzenberg, Mr. Blough and Mrs. Grabner. Two of them (Schwarzenberg and Grabner) I had twice. They taught me more than they could possibly know, and they whipped me into shape when they needed to. What a great and awesome responsibility you teachers have.

BLOG RERUN: Why crushing your kids in Junior Monopoly is OK

(NOTE: Here's our monthly Blog Rerun, in which we bring back a post from somewhere in the distant and not-so-distant history of this blog. This one originally ran on June 4, 2012.)

Here's the thing with little kids and board games (or card games or sports or any sort of competition): Sooner or later, they're going to have to learn how to lose. And you as a parent are the one who has to teach them.

This isn't as easy as it sounds. Most of us with children have, at one point or another, let our kids win at something without them realizing it. You know what I'm talking about. You reshuffle the cards in Candyland and surreptitiously arrange the deck so that, hey look at that! Junior just drew Queen Frostine and is now 157 spaces ahead of me and thank the Lord this game will finally be over soon!

(NOTE: If you're going to take that particular approach to Candyland, also remember to scan ahead in the deck to make sure there are no impending disasters awaiting Junior. Like two cards later, he picks Mr. Mint and suddenly is way back at the start of the board and you realize the game will never, ever end because you messed with Board Game Karma.)

I've done this a time or two myself over the years. It makes the game a little more enjoyable for the kid and gives them some confidence. I don't know that I have a lot of theories about parenting, but if I do, one of them is the importance of instilling confidence in a child. It does wonders for them simply to know they can succeed at something.

But of course you can only do this so many times. Just as important as gaining confidence is for them to learn the life lesson that we don't always win. Queen Frostine isn't always going to come up on your turn. The other baseball team is sometimes going to be better than yours. We all strike out, fumble, put the cue ball in the corner pocket, or simply fall short at Go Fish from time to time.

Some kids get this right away, and they're totally fine with it. Others don't deal with losing so well. Like, say for instance, my son Jack.

Jack is a very bright little kid, which is both a blessing and a curse. At school, he picks up on things pretty quickly...98% of the time. When he doesn't get something right away, he gets frustrated and sometimes doesn't want to make the effort to learn it.

I will freely admit that he gets this particular trait from his father. When I was in kindergarten, they actually had me see the school psychologist because I would get so mad when I got even a single math problem wrong. They thought my parents were putting pressure on me to be perfect, but the psychologist quickly discovered that my mom and dad were pretty laid back and I was just a neurotic little freak who had to get every single thing right or else I would slash my wrists.

And so I've passed on the perfectionist gene to my little boy, and he's slowly but surely dealing with it. There's no doubt he really likes winning, though, and I imagine that quality will stay with him forever. Which isn't entirely bad. Once Jack learns the value of applying himself to a problem rather than walking away in frustration, he'll have acquired a valuable skill.

A lot of people complain about today's culture of everyone's-a-winner, particularly when it comes to youth sports. They say we're raising a generation of wimps who don't know how to lose when we give everyone a trophy or a ribbon, no matter how unskilled they are.

I guess I come down somewhere in the middle on this. I have no problem keeping score even at the youngest levels of competition, but I also don't think it's a bad thing for a 6-year-old to walk away with a ribbon at the end of the season as an acknowledgment of his/her hard work and participation.

I think I've mentioned before that I do this with my U8 soccer teams, which are made up of kids in kindergarten, first and second grades. At the end of the season, everyone gets some sort of award reflecting their performance, whether it's Most Valuable Offensive Player or simply the Most Improved. The kids like it and, again, it gives them a little confidence and hopefully encourages them to continue playing.

But in the end, relatively few of them will stick with the sport through high school. And obviously, even fewer (if any) will go on to play in college or at the professional level. Which is why they need to learn to handle the disappointment of losing now. And so Coach Scott instills this by scrimmaging against them and absolutely dominating them.

I like to think of it as my little bit of life teaching for the kids...and feeding my lifelong perfectionist competitive ego at the same time. Everybody wins.

Someone you love dies once, but you miss them forever

I feel compelled to say something today about my sister Judi. She would have turned 63 years old yesterday, had she not passed away on May 12, 2009.

That's what happens when someone you love very much dies: You remember the date. It sticks with you. You will never be entirely happy on that day ever again.

Yesterday wasn't all that easy, either. I think of Judi a lot, but more so on her birthday, she and my brother-in-law Jess' wedding anniversary, every May 12th, etc.

It's interesting to me that people still post on Judi's Facebook page, usually on one of the above dates. It's not weird or creepy or anything; as a matter of fact, I think it's beautiful. It's a nice tribute to one of the nicest people you would ever in your life like to meet.

More than anything, I think it's therapeutic. When someone to whom you're very close passes away, the one thing you want more than anything else is one last chance to talk with them. Tell them things you should have told them as a matter of course when they were still around. Just 5 minutes. That's all you ask for, just a few minutes to wrap things up, I guess.

In Judi's case, we didn't get that. Her death was sudden, shocking, and life-altering. Just so tough on everyone involved, from Jess to her daughter Jessica to my mom.

Oh, my poor mom. As she herself said at the time, no parent should ever have to experience the death of a child, but she did. And she's still going strong at 83 years old. God bless her.

Anyway, I'm not sure I have much of a point to make today, other than to acknowledge for you that I used to have a sister named Judi and now she's gone. Life goes on, but it's not the same.

It's never the same.

We're halfway through February, my fellow Northerners. Hang in there!

These are the dark times for those of us who live in cold climates. We are almost uniformly sick of winter, yet it still has several more weeks to go.

But there is light. There is hope. There is something to hang onto.

After today, we are firmly into the second half of February.

Yes! It's a leap year, of course, which means February has one extra excruciating day tacked onto it. But March is in sight. Which means spring is in sight.

Sort of.

I live in Northeast Ohio, where March does not always necessarily equal spring. Some of the worst snowstorms I remember have happened in March.

Regardless, if March is in sight, that means April is also on the horizon. And even in the worst of years, April is when you start to see the temperatures (slowly) rise and the snow fade away.

So this is my rallying cry to all those who are enduring the cold grayness of February: Stay strong. Be positive. There will be an end to this.

And then? This...

No, not bird attacks. Summer! I'm talking about summer! Geez...

My family refers to me as Noo Noo

I know a lot of people are weirded out by the Teletubbies, that British kids TV show starring Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po. And rightly so. They're creepy, no doubt about that. They're meant to be innocent and fun, but whoever created them was clearly under the influence of a substance of questionable legality.

One of the minor characters on the Teletubbies is a little thing called Noo Noo. Or "The" Noo Noo. I'm not sure which. And I do mean "thing," by the way, because that's what Noo Noo is. It's a little living vacuum cleaner that goes around cleaning up messes. The Teletubbies at least speak, even though it's gibberish. Noo Noo just rolls around making sucking and slurping noises.

Noo Noo's sole purpose in life is to clean, but he/she/it sometimes takes things too far, as in this video:

This, I freely admit, is me. I am Noo Noo, and Noo Noo is me. When I am home, my wife and children think the only purpose of my existence is to clean up anything and everything: Stuff on the floor, the dishes, various messes others make, etc.

You would think they would appreciate this penchant of mine. But I will also freely admit that sometimes I clean up stuff that is not at all intended to be cleaned up. Like for example, there will be a glass of water on the kitchen table, and my instinct is to remove it before one of the cats knocks it over. But the person who owns the glass of water has just stepped out of the room, and their cold beverage has now been dumped in the sink and the glass deposited in the dish washer. All in the space of 17 seconds while they were gone.

My bad. Next time don't leave your water glass there.

On Christmas morning, I have one job and one job only: I walk around with a garbage bag and collect all wrapping paper, discarded bows, tissue, packaging, etc. If you don't proactively give me the paper you tear off a gift, I will come over to you and snatch it. THERE WILL BE NO MESSES ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, DO YOU HEAR ME? NO MESSES!

I don't mean to annoy anyone, but I really, really prefer having a clean house whenever I can. It makes me happier. And if you're someone whose mess-making detracts from the cleanliness of the house, I will rectify the situation post-haste.

Compare me to a Teletubbies character if you must. I proudly wear the Noo Noo badge.

10 things I never realized would make me so happy

(1) The first cup of coffee in the morning

(2) Sitting and contentedly watching your child play a sport or engage in a school activity

(3) Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky

(4) My wife's laugh

(5) The second cup of coffee in the morning

(6) Checking off every item on my weekly to-do list

(7) Having a few hours to myself with no appointments or other commitments

(8) A freshly mowed lawn (I'm talking about when it's MY lawn, of course, not someone else's)

(9) Cleaning out the top dresser drawer where I keep a little bit of everything

(10) You're expecting me to say the third cup of coffee in the morning here, aren't you? Well, I'm not going to say it. Because the FOURTH cup of coffee makes me way happier than the third, so I'm going with that. No, I don't know why, but it's my blog and my list, and therefore I reserve the right to throw logic out the window.

My friends and I used to play Kill the Man all the time

I don't consider myself a particularly violent person, but I do enjoy watching hockey fights, and I'm glad I spent a good chunk of my childhood playing a game that goes by various names, but that my friends and I simply called "Kill the Man."

The game itself was simple, if not downright stupid. One kid had a football. He would run around and around someone's backyard while every other kid – it could have been two or three other kids or a dozen other kids...it always varied – tried to tackle him.

And these were not soft tackles, mind you. The game was Kill the Man, not Gently Dispatch the Man. Once you were tackled, you either gave the football to the guy who tackled you and he would then run around and eventually get smeared, or you threw the ball into the air and the guy who caught it would become The Man.

In either case, I'm so glad I spent hours playing this game because it taught me three things:

(1) How to avoid contact when I could and absorb it when I had to

(2) How to act like I wasn't in pain when in fact it felt like my leg had just been broken

(3) How to diffuse the type of tense situation that always arises when you're playing a contact sport and tempers flare

All of these skills have proven to be valuable in life, in football and otherwise.

Do kids still play Kill the Man? I'm not sure they do. They should.

Americans' strange obsession with their cars

I am not a Car Guy.

And by that I mean I am not interested in cars the way that many guys (and women) are really, really interested in cars. There are car magazines and car shows and car clubs where people talk about cars. Incessantly.

God bless them. Many of us have a borderline-unhealthy interest in something or other. For me it's hockey. And increasingly these days, classical music of the type written by now-dead people many centuries ago.

My interest in cars, though, only goes this far:

(1) Is there a car in the driveway I can take every day to get to work and run errands and ferry kids around as needed?

(2) Yes? OK, then is that car in serviceable condition? That is, does it reliably get you from one place to another in the way that any mechanical form of transport should be expected to?

(3) Yes? Fine. Does it need any repairs?

(4) No? Good, because my car maintenance skills extend only to checking/replenishing fluids and maintaining recommended tire pressures. Oh, and I can also replace air filters and burnt-out light bulbs. Beyond that, I'm lost.

If all of those conditions are met, I no longer think about my car. Or any car, for that matter.

A lot of people have a vision of what they call their "dream car." It's the vehicle they would die to have if money were no object.

I do not have a dream car. I never have. Well, actually, I guess you could say my "dream car" is one that runs and has a freshly vacuumed interior.

That's my vehicular fantasy right there.

I almost don't care what color my car is. I don't care what make or model it is. I do not define myself in any way by the car I drive.

That's not to criticize those who do. There's nothing particularly noble about my approach to cars. I'm just telling you, my interest in cars is intensely practical and nothing more.

Which I realize puts me in a distinct minority in the larger context of American society. Americans love their cars.

We all used to love American-made cars, specifically. Then the foreign automakers started putting factories in the U.S. and we figured, "Well, hey, there's a Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio. How bad could it be to buy a Honda?"

It's actually good to buy a Honda, by the way. That's what I drive, and the darn things last forever. They just keep going and going. My friend Bob Jones, who used to sell Hondas, turned me on to them. Kudos to Bob for that guidance.

There, I've just typed/said more about cars in the space of two minutes than I probably have in the last six months combined. I'm now going to stop thinking about cars again, beginning....

Now.

One time I tried to steal fake vampire blood from Medic

You know what I like best about the title of this post? The fact that I felt compelled to call it "fake" vampire blood. As if, you know, there's REAL vampire blood that you can buy online or something, but I found it important to clarify that what I tried to steal was the fake stuff.

Anyway, yeah, I don't know why I'm thinking about this right now, but one time I tried to steal a tube of FAKE vampire blood from Medic, which for those who aren't familiar is/was a chain of drug stores. Or pharmacies, if you prefer. Or chemists, if you're British. You get the idea.

My friend Mike Ostack and I walked into Medic one day, and I guess it must have been around Halloween because they had vampire blood there. Not an item you're likely to find on sale in, say, April.

I had no money with me because I must have been, I don't know, nine years old at the time? It was before Mike moved away to Georgia, so maybe he'll know. We were very young, in any case.

I saw that vampire blood and I wanted it, but I didn't have a cent to my name. So, in a moment of true genius, it occurred to me that I could just TAKE it. That way I could have it but not pay for it. Problem solved!

I was wearing a sweatshirt, and I believe the high-level expert thievery technique I opted to use was to take the vampire blood – which I think was in a cardboard package – and stuff it under my sweatshirt. And then I attempted to walk out of the store. Quickly. With this huge bulge in what before had been a relatively flat abdominal area.

Amazingly, this display of stealth did not fool the Medic cashier, who saw me as I approached the door and said (very sternly), "Young man! Come here! Come here right now!" Or some such thing. I couldn't believe she had foiled my plan.

With knees trembling and a bladder threatening to expel its contents (I was not a kid who got into trouble often...I wasn't sure how to handle this), I walked over to the cashier and produced the vampire blood from under my sweatshirt. She told me to wait there while she walked to the back of the store to get the manager.

That was bad enough. But things got exponentially worse when one of the customers who was waiting to check out – an older gentleman, as I recall – looked at me and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" I was mortified. I will never forget those words or how he said them.

At that moment, I pretty much panicked. There was no way I was waiting for the cashier to return with the store manager, so I made a run for it. I just dashed out the door and ran all the way to Drenik Drive and hid behind some bushes.

Now, you'll recall that I wasn't alone. Mike was with me. I hadn't clued in Mike on my escape plan, and I guess I just assumed that he would take off with me. But only when I jumped behind the bushes did I realize he wasn't there. And that my situation had probably just gone from bad to worse.

I waited a few minutes and then saw Mike coming down the street. I jumped out and asked him what happened. In a trembling voice, he told me he had to give the store manager my name and phone number, Which I totally get. I know he felt bad, but we were nine. What was Mike going to do? You're not smart enough at that age, in that situation, to come up with any sort of elaborate lie.

So that was it. My fate was sealed. I was pretty much dead. No doubt, by the time I got home, the Medic people would have called my mom to tell her what I had done. I honestly don't remember if I went straight home to get it over with or whether I stalled or what.

But I do remember eventually walking in through the back door and seeing my mom sitting at her sewing machine in the living room. And Mom lifting her head and looking at me for a moment. Oh man. That look. It wasn't so much anger as extreme disappointment. That's way, way worse than anger. That's the you-let-me-down-I-thought-you-knew-better face. Agony.

I immediately burst into tears. Mom scolded me for a few minutes. She didn't yell, just...scolded. It was terrible. And then I asked her not to tell my dad, and to my amazement, she said she wouldn't. As far as I know, she may never have told him. I could have hugged her on the spot. And I should have.

Anyway, there is no point to this story other than that I can tell you I never remember trying to steal anything again. The thought of standing there in Medic waiting for the store manager to come, and feeling ashamed just like that old man said, was enough to keep me on the straight and narrow.

And to this day, I've never actually had a tube of vampire blood. I should go out and BUY some, just for the satisfaction of knowing I finally got it the right way.

WHY did you have kids?

No one has ever asked me this, but it only now occurs to me that I have no good answer to the question of why Terry and I had kids in the first place.

Why DID we have kids? And why five? I don't know that there was much conscious thought on either point. There was, frankly, a certain element of, "Well, we're married. We're young. Having kids is what you're supposed to do next."

But who says that's what you're supposed to do next? God, I guess. "Be fruitful and multiply" and all that. But it's certainly not a requirement for living a happy and fulfilling life. Lots and lots of people are childless and perfectly content (or "child-free," as many like to say, as if having kids is some sort of disease...which for them it may well seem to be, and that's fine).

Beyond the "life momentum" thing, though, why have kids? What prompts someone to do that? I think there's a certain level of vanity to it. It's the biological equivalent of saying, "You know what? I'm a pretty good person. The world would be a better place if there were a few more people running around who look and presumably act just like me."

NOTE TO WOULD-BE PARENTS: It doesn't always work that way. Your children may resemble one or both of you, but there's no guarantee they'll act the way you want them to act. I got lucky. Or I should say I was blessed. I happen to have ended up with good kids, due mostly to the tireless efforts of Terry to civilize the little beasts.

There's also probably a degree of curiosity to it. "I wonder what it would be like to have a baby. Or a toddler. Or an adolescent. Or a teenager. Or a young adult. Or all of the above." Unfortunately, the only way to truly answer these questions is actually to experience parenthood. And if you happen to find that you're not particularly good at it, or that it doesn't suit you, you're kind of stuck with the kid. Chalk it up to child protection laws and societal norms and whatnot.

Financially, kids can be a huge drain, though the U.S. tax code is written such that they serve as valuable deductions when you're filling out the ol' Form 1040. In the end, though, you spend far more money on them than you ever get back.

Truly, the payoff to having kids is intangible. I've written about it many times and won't go into it here, but suffice to say that I would never, ever change a thing about the decisions Terry and I have made when it comes to having children. It is an incredible experience that has made me a far better person.

Why did I have kids? I don't know. But the rewards are amazing.