Happy Leap Day

Okay, I must say that I’m not overly excited about an extra day of winter. The last couple of days have been cold ... and not just a little cold. It’s been ears, fingers and toes numbingly cold. The inside of your nose frozen kind of cold. Take your breath away …it's blustery … ouch, it also hurts … cold. In other words, it’s the deep freeze (ok, I’m exaggerating). And, it could be like this until April (not exaggerating). And, yes, I know I live in the Northeast ... I’m just whining here. Now, I’m sure that there’s a perfectly good and logical explanation for why we get an extra day in February and not June, but wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we had an extra day of summer? I mean, seriously … HEELLLOOOO!!??!! What sounds nice is an extra day when more people can actually go out and enjoy it instead of staying inside bundled up under 5 blankets w/ a hot water bottle b/c they’re afraid that if they do go outside that their face will actually crack and fall off.

Alright, enough of that. I hope that you all enjoy your extra day. Make it count, b/c we won’t get another one for 4 years.

Some fun facts about Leap Year:
* St Patrick made it a tradition that yearning females could propose on this one day in February during the leap year. Apparently, women proposing was not as custom as it is today.
* There is a Greek superstition that claims couples have bad luck if they marry during a leap year. Apparently one in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid planning their wedding during a leap year.
* There is a 1 in 1500 chance of being born on a Leap Day.
* Some companies actually have special deals for people w/ a Leap Year Day birthday (like free pizza, ice cream … etc). Pretty Cool.
* Leap Year Day Babies born in 1884 had no birthday during their entire teen-age years. This was because 1900 was not a Leap Year.
* Leap Year Day Babies will never have a "Golden Birthday". A Golden Birthday is when your age matches the number of the day of the month you were born on.

Happy Birthday to all those Leap Day Babies out there. Here are just some of the people born on Leap Day:

*Ann Lee, Shaker movement, Manchester England, Founded the Shaker movement and brought it to America in 1776.
Stanley Swash, CEO (Woolworths).
Jimmy Dorsey (James Francis Dorsey) - Legendary saxophonist, conductor, songwriter & composer.
Bernard C. Boyd - Glassmaker and Chemist. Founded Boyd Glass with his son.
Jack Lousma - Astronaut; was a crew member of the Skylab 3 flight in 1973&Columbia Space Shuttle in 1982.
Billy Turner - Thoroughbred horse trainer, "Seattle Slew".
Heidi Henriksen - The 1st of 3 siblings born on consecutive Leap Days.(interesting, eh?)
Cyrus Beasley, Rowe NY, rower (Olympics-1996).
Bryce Paup, American football player, NFL linebacker(GB Packers, Buffalo Bills).
Fabien Bownes, NFL wide receiver (Chicago Bears).
Chris Devine, Allentown Pa, diver (Olympics-96).
Mark Farraway, CFL offensive linebacker (Edmonton Eskimos).
Antonio Sabato, Jr. - Italian-born actor.
Bryan Gillooly, Auburn NY, diver (Olympics-96).
Simon Gagne, Canadian Hockey player, NHL player (Philly Flyers).
Henri (pocket rocket) Richard, Canadian Hockey Player, won 11 Stanley Cups.