leap year!

Aguirus, a mutated ankylosaur and the second
Kaiju (Japanese monster) to appear after Godzilla.

The story goes like this: our calendars have 365 days in them, but it takes more than 365 days for the sun to orbit around the earth (whoops, went all pre-Copernicus there; let's flip that). On average it takes the earth about 365.25 days to make a complete orbit. Those extra quarter days tack on, and given enough time without any intervention, we'd be having winter in the summer and summer in the winter. Our seasons would be all messed up. So we of the Gregorian Calendar add an extra day about every four years. I say "about" because it actually takes a little less than 365.25 days for the earth to orbit the sun, and so down the line there are little tweaks of this Leap Year business to keep things on track. Taking all this into account, the average year will have 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds (according, of course, to Wikipedia). 

Blake and I smoked out on the porch today, enjoying the spring-like weather that's become oddly commonplace this winter, and I suggested that instead of having a leap day every four years, every four years we should have a global four-day "re:calibration party". It'd be a sort of Jubilee, only the secular and Copernican version. Oh, and regarding the picture: this is the only interesting thing a Google Earth search of "Leap Year" brought up. The other choice was a movie poster featuring Matthew Goode and Amy Adams, and Kaiju are just cool. I used to have them all as figurines when I was a kid, but I couldn't tell you anything more about the Japanese franchise (but I do know how it took a turn for the worse with a jet-pack and a certain Mr. F some time ago).