Calendars - 2014? Already?

 

I finally got around to buying a new calendar for 2014. I always try to choose a theme that we can live with for the whole year … birds, lighthouses, beautiful beaches … as long as the calendar doesn't cost more than a dollar or two. This year I also decided to print my own because 1) I'm cheap and didn't want to buy a second calendar and 2) I like big, blank blocks I can write in for planning projects, remembering b-days and doing countdowns till our next sail date. I like to keep it all in my notebook. Yes, I realize I can do all this on my laptop or iPad, but I like to jot down notes the old-fashioned way sometimes.

Lin, on the other hand, uses her iPhone for all of her appointments, planning, etc. Still, she always requests a Wicca calendar for her December birthday and I always buy it for her. She can keep track of Esbats and Sabbats that way and maybe learn a new spell or two. She refers to its “color of the day” reminder when getting dressed each morning, just to make sure she's in sync with the rest of her witchy world.

Since we're on the subject of calendars, I might add I was always a bit confused by the Julian (named after Julius Caesar) versus the Gregorian (named after Pope Gregory VIII) calendar. Wikipedia explained that the Gregorian calendar in current use was developed in 1582 as a time adjustment to the Julian calendar amounting to a 0.002% correction in the length of the year. Evidently the motivation for the reform was so that the Christian Easter celebration stayed in sync with the spring equinox. Anyhow, people born around that time always have two birth dates, one according to the Gregorian calendar and the other according to the Julian. Two birthdays would be right up my alley.

According to my research there are about 40 different active calendars in use throughout the world. For the Jews, for instance, it is now the year 5774. Their new year starts with Rosh Hashanah in September. The Muslims use the lunar Hijiri calendar and it's 1435 for them. The Chinese will celebrate their New Year on January 31st 2014. They move from the year of the Snake to the year of the Horse. I'm an Ox and David is a Rat, so it won't be our years.

The Mayan calendar ended in 2012 (5125). The world was supposed to be the end then, but it didn't, so now it's either 5127 or 2. I haven't figured out the exact calculations and I don't know any Mayans to consult with.

Want to create and print your own 2014 calendar? It's free, easy and even country specific for holidays.  I just printed out my own Australian 2014 calendar and it's great.

Speaking of calendars … at the moment, we're using the Nine of Cups Twelve Days of Christmas countdown calendar.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Five I miss you's

Four galley updates

Three e-mailed errands

Two bigger duffels

And a Christmas morning greeting on Skype

Nelson Mandela - A Small Tribute to a Great Man

 

I noticed that all US flags were at half mast the other day (December 7th) and then remembered it was Pearl Harbor Day. On December 8th, they were at half mast again and I wondered why, but I hoped it was in tribute to Nelson Mandela. And it was and I was pleased and proud that the US was honoring a great man with this simple, conjoined effort.

When we visited Cape Town, South Africa a few years ago, we made it a point to take the little ferry boat to Robben Island. There we boarded a bus that took us on a tour of the desolate, barren, dried out place that Nelson Mandela called home for 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. Ex-political prisoners who had been imprisoned at Robben Island served as our hosts and guides.

We saw the limestone quarry where political prisoners labored, piling rocks and moving them from one place to another. No meaningful work allowed … just useless labor.

We saw his cell … tiny, cold, hard, gray concrete overlooking a concrete courtyard. He described it in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom:

“ It overlooked the courtyard and had a small eye-level window. I could walk the length of my cell in three paces. When I lay down, I could feel the wall with my feet and my head grazed the concrete at the other side. The width was about six feet and the walls were at least two feet thick. Each cell had a white card posted outside of it with our name and our prison service number. Mine read, “N. Mandela 466/64,” which meant I was the 466th prisoner admitted to the island in 1964. I was forty-six years old, a political prisoner with a life sentence, and that small cramped place was to be my home for I knew not how long.”

No contact was allowed with the outside world. No visitors. It was dirty, dank and the prisoners were subjected to indescribable and constant humiliation. How does a man tolerate the intolerable? How does he tolerate it day after day after day and still be able to forgive his persecutors and strive for his ideals of peace and equity in a country that stole 27 years of his life?

There is so little greatness among us. After we mourn his passing, we must strive to honor his legacy.

Text Me

 

We do not have an iPhone or an Android or anything close to a smart phone. We have an old-fashioned (more than two years old) dumb phone and texting is a chore. You know how it works, the “1” key is A, B or C depending upon how many times you press the “1” key in quick succession. You have to switch between upper case and lower case letters and punctuation is a whole new button grouping. I watch my sister texting on the mini-keyboard of her iPhone and she breezes through a message in seconds. Me … I spend as much time looking for the letter “s” as she does to type and send a full page document. Our nephew says e-mail is old-fashioned and way too slow.

So … why no iPhone or at least a phone with a keypad … besides the fact we're cheap? Well, when you only plan to be in a place for a short period of time, the options are limited. You can't buy a 2-year contract and without a contract, rates and actual phones can be very expensive. In Australia, for instance, you have to be a resident with an actual address plus have a bank account in order to get regular phone service. Otherwise, you're relegated to very limited, expensive, buy-by-the-byte phone and internet service. We have a collection of dumb phones from several different countries. Rarely does a phone from one country work in another and the phone service is different in each as well. Sometimes we've been able to simply buy and switch out SIM cards, but more often than not, the $10 go-phone we purchased in Panama along with leftover minutes do not work in Ecuador and the Ecuadorian phone does not work in New Zealand and … you get the picture.

All that aside, since it wasn't really my blog topic anyway, I just read that there's a U.S. National Texting Championship coming up. Last year's winner won $50K. The Wall Street Journal reported that more than 250,000 people compete in the qualifying on-line competitions which test speed, accuracy and dexterity. We're not talking an Olympic event here, but wow! Who could have known? Certainly, not us boat folks. These kids (ages 16-24) compete while blindfolded, with hands behind their backs (really?) and then have a Text blitz where they are required to copy random phrases displayed for only a few seconds. According to the Huffington Post, 42% of teens say they can text with their eyes closed. I can't even open our phone with my eyes closed.

I might add that the US is losing serious ground in education compared to kids around the world, but heck, who cares as long they can text fast.