The Blog

It’s a beautiful day today and it feels like spring. It’s a miracle to get such good weather on the weekend we moved, alhamdulillah! We’re finally out of the old apartment . I cleaned up and removed the last few things from there, vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. It looks almost new. The new apartment is nicely laid out. I should take some pictures and post them here soon
Today happens to be Feb 29, only occurs every 4 years. Click here to find out what happened on February 29, historically speaking. And here’s some interesting, yet useless, info about TODAY, if ya care:

Februray 29th – Leap Day – 2000
If you’re like most people, you shudder at the thought of one more Y2K
headache, millenium bug, computer glitch, or Spam-storing person camping out
in a makeshift fort waiting for the world to end. The world did not end and
it’s not going to. But this thought was real– just momentarily for some,
yet in others’ minds for years: how to get around potential disasters
resulting from a few misplaced numbers?
———————————-
Which brings us to today, February 29, a day created just to get around
potential disasters. Leap Day, a day born long ago out of calculation
dilemmas similar to those we faced more recently. Despite thousands of
high-paid techies and millions of dollars in innovative software, we were
still left struggling in Y2K with a number crunch equal to the one faced by
team of abacus-toting scientists and mathematicians in 1582. How
far have we come? It took nearly 1600 years of fine-tuning our modern-day
calendar to avoid such disasters as snow falling in July and sunbathing in
November. The flaws encountered within the otherwise ingenious Roman Calendar
make for Leap Day’s unique history.
————————-
The original Roman 355 day calendar had an extra 22-day month every few years
to maintain the correct seasonal changes. By the time Julius Caesar took
reign, the seasons no longer occurred during the same months they once had.
Panicking, he remedied this in 44 B.C. by tossing the extra month and adding
the extra day to a few months instead. He threw in a month in honor of
himself (Julius– July) and died a happy man having solved the calendar woes.
Not quite. Still creating seasonal confusion, the calendar was again changed,
first from an extra day every 3 years, to one every 4 years in 8 A.D. It was
then finally perfected with some complicated logic by Pope Gregory XIII in
1582 (who predicted Easter and Christmas would eventually fall on top of each
other without his divine intervention). He determined that Leap Day should
fall on any year divisible by 4 but not 100 (except when the year is
divisible by 400), setting up a calendar nearly identical to that of Mother
Nature. Thus, today our year is 365.2425 days, off from our solar year by
.00031, or one day’s error over 4,000 years. Not bad. And without this
extra day, who knows of the chaos that might have ensued?
——————————————–
If you’re a “Leaper,” you will celebrate today with passion close to the
fervor of this past New Year’s Eve. Party till you drop; make up for the 3
years you spent watching friends and family hit milestone birthdays on days
that actually exist. Cherish the fact that you have beaten the 1,506 odds
against being born on Leap Day, into this secret society, a parallel universe
that flashes before our eyes every 4 years restoring order to all mankind.
Sigh some relief that you don’t have to spend Birthday 2000 on February 28th
or March 1st, pretending again. If you’re 40, convince yourself you’re 10 and
reconnect with your inner child. Throw a party with Frog Legs, Hops, and
Grasshopper Pie on the menu, and serve Leap Year Cocktails. Join the
Worldwide Leap Year Birthday Club and attend the Worldwide Leap Year
Festival. And buy one of those annoying desktop zodiak calendars you’ve
always wanted, to read your real birthday horoscope!
———————————-
If you’re a woman, wait no longer for that engagement ring– today, Sadie
Hawkins day, is your day to propose marriage. This tradition originates in
Ireland in the 5th century, when St. Bridget convinced St. Patrick to allow
one day that a woman could propose. If the man refused, he was fined
(incidentally, St. Bridget proposed to St. Patrick that day; he said no).
1,600 years later, the fine has been ousted (who’s idea was that?), but women
still have only this one day every 4 years set aside to profess their love
and commitment for the men in their lives. Again, just how far have we come?
——————————————–
For most not fortunate enough to celebrate a birthday today, it may be simply
an extra day we have to trudge to work without getting paid. Even so, it’s
one special day out of every 1,460 that somehow, in the grand scheme of
things, prevents seasons from colliding and keeps life interesting.
by AS Dawson 2/23/2000 �

I need a cup of tea.

It was a beautiful day today – and it was absolutely perfect for moving. We moved into a new apartment today. I’d been dreading the day of the move because I hate moving: it means packing, lifting heavy furniture, stuffing it in the elevator, loading, driving a big freakin’ movers’ truck, unloading and unpacking. Some good friends from work came and helped me move and made the whole task seem effortless, alhamdulillah. I can’t ever thank them enough! The new apartment is actually a townhouse and its much bigger than the apartment we’d been living in so far. Hopefully, living there until we decide to buy a house will turn out to be a pleasant experience, inshaAllah.

Enough is enough, I tell ya: I’ve had it up to here with memory problems man. I keep forgetting stuff regularly, no matter how hard I try to remember to do this or do that. I have come to rely heavily on Outlook reminders for appointments and things to do.
I don’t think I have a poor memory. I can still remember facts and figures and phone numbers, not to mention IP addresses, multiplication tables, names of my friends (hehehe) and what day it is. I think I forget because I try too hard and I forget to focus on the matter at hand and find myself thinking about unrelated stuff.
I think I’m going to pick up a book on training one’s memory to remember stuff, because I think it can be done. I’m not forgetful because I’m old. I’m just forgetful because my wife remembers stuff for me at home. Outlook reminds me of stuff at work. My wife is way better, I didn’t mean to compare her with a software, it just came out that way.

There is nothing quite as wasteful as spam ’cause it wastes the most expensive commodity of all: time. And, to add insult to injury, it causes a major freakin’ headache. I have been getting comment spams like crazy recently. I got close to a hundred spam comments today alone. I am completely tired of it and I am implementing strong measures against it as soon as I can. Here’s some extremely useful information about how to avoid comment spam if you’re using MovableType on your site and have had it with spam: Al-Muhajabah’s Movable Type Tips. Unfortunately, this is happening at such a busy time for me: we’re in the process of moving and I don’t have time for this at all. Its annoying and frustrating.

1. Grimace painfully while smacking your forehead and muttering: “Shut up, dammit, all of you just shut UP!”
2. Whistle the first seven notes of “It’s a Small World” incessantly.
3. Crack open your briefcase or purse, and while peering inside ask: “Got enough air in there?”
4. Offer name tags to everyone getting on the elevator. Wear yours upside-down.
5. Stand silent and motionless in the corner, facing the wall, without getting off.
6. When arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act embarrassed when they open by themselves.
7. Greet everyone getting on the elevator with a warm handshake and ask them to call you Admiral.
8. On the highest floor, hold the door open and demand that it stay open until you hear the penny you dropped down the shaft go “plink” at the bottom.
9. Stare, grinning, at another passenger for a while, and then announce: “I’ve got new socks on!”
10. When at least 8 people have boarded, moan from the back: “Oh, no, not now, damn motion sickness!”
11. Meow occasionally.
12. Holler “Chutes away!” whenever the elevator descends.
13. Walk on with a cooler that says “human head” on the side.
14. Stare at another passenger for a while, then announce “You’re one of THEM!” and move to the far corner of the elevator.
15. Wear a puppet on your hand and talk to other passengers “through” it.
16. When the elevator is silent, look around and ask “is that your beeper?”
17. Say “Ding!” at each floor.
18. Say “I wonder what all these do” and push the red buttons.
19. Listen to the elevator walls with a stethoscope.
20. Draw a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers that this is your “personal space.”
21. Announce in a demonic voice: “I must find a more suitable host body.”
22. Make explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
23. Wear “X-Ray Specs” and leer suggestively at other passengers.
24. Stop at every floor, run off the elevator, then run back on.