Leap Day

Happy Leap Day! According to Wikipedia.com: February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years, in years evenly divisible by 4, such as 1988, 1996, 2008 or 2016 (with the exception of century years not divisible by 400, such as 1900) for the Gregorian calendar, which is most widely used in the world today. These are called leap years, and February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year. February 29 is also known as bissextile day or Leap Day.

What a fancy way of saying. . every four years - we get an extra day!

"Leaplings" are the affectionate name for those born on leap days... they put up with only celebrating their real birthday once every four years, and have to constantly fight with web sites telling them that Feb 29 isn’t a valid birth date. But on the bright side, if you’re the one in 1500 of us that was born on Feb 29, you can get a free lunch at Boston Market… as long as it’s under $10.

Speaking of marriage… if you’re a single man and want to remain that way, beware of women wearing scarlet petticoats on Feb 29 – or you could be taking a lover’s leap. Traditionally dating back to 5th century Ireland, leap years were the only times that women could legally propose marriage to men. In the 1200s, fines were introduced for men that refused such proposals – such as a kiss or a silk dress - to soften the blow on any distraught women. In many places, women on the hunt for a husband would signal their intentions by sporting scarlet petticoats (a type of underskirt).

Take lots of pics to record your Leap Day adventures... sh1ft.org is running their "A Day in the Life" photography project, which invites anyone with a camera to take a photo an hour to document their extra special extra day in photo form. Good for not only sharing your day with other photog geeks, this serves as an hourly reminder to make sure you make the most of February 29th... or else you're going to have a pretty lame set of pictures posted for posterity.

Or maybe you just want to watch a re-run of Quantum Leap?