Leap year – 29th February 2008
On Friday 29th February 2008 hundreds of thousands of Irish employees will effectively be working for free, due to the leap year. Workers on fixed annual salaries will be receiving the same wage as an ordinary year. This free day could be worth up to €300 millions to employers across the country.
A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted, or intercalated, at the end of February. A leap year consists of 366 days, whereas common years have 365 days. Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth’s revolutions around the sun.
The vernal equinox is the time when the sun is directly above the Earth’s equator, moving from the southern to the northern hemisphere. The mean time between two successive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year–also known as a solar year–and is about 365.2422 days long.
Using a calendar with 365 days every year would result in a loss of 0.2422 days, or almost six hours per year. After 100 years, this calendar would be more than 24 days ahead of the season (tropical year), which is not desirable or accurate. It is desirable to align the calendar with the seasons and to make any difference as insignificant as possible.
By adding a leap year approximately every fourth year, the difference between the calendar and the seasons can be reduced significantly, and the calendar will align with the seasons much more accurately.
Banking Cavan style…
I don’t know, if this is a true story or not, but I would like to believe it is.
A Cavan man walked into a bank in Dublin and asked for the loan officer. He told the loan officer he was going to Italy on business for two weeks and needed to borrow €5,000. But that he was not a depositor of the bank. The bank’s loan officer told him the bank would need some form of security for the loan, so the Cavan man handed over the keys to a brand new red Ferrari.
The car was parked on the street in front of the bank. The Cavan man produced the title and everything checked out. The loan officer agreed to hold the car as collateral for the loan and apologized for having to charge him 12% interest.
Later, the bank’s president and its officers all enjoyed a good laugh at the Cavan man for using a €250,000 Ferrari as collateral for a €5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drove the Ferrari into the bank’s underground garage and parked it.
Two weeks later, the Cavan man returned, repaid the €5,000 and the interest of €23.07.
The loan officer said, “Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we did a background check and found that you are a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow €5,000″?
The Cavan man replied, “Where else in Dubliln can I park my car for two weeks for only €23.07 and expect it to be there when I return”?
Ireland – Slideshow
This is my first video file here ever. It is a slideshow about Ireland, the first one I have made, a few years ago. Since then, I have done about dozen slideshows like this one, on various occasion, which some of them I will post here later.
Now, enjoy this first one – IRELAND.
The Beatles
The only apartment where all the members of The Beatles lived together is for sale, as the owner of the apartment, an american investor living in California, is selling the apartment for GBP£1,750,000.
The Beatles lived in the apartment together just a few months after they moved to London. They were already famous and have just released their second hit “She Loves You”. They couldn’t live in the hotel anymore, due to their fame and no privacy, and Brian Epstein (manager of The Beatles) have found them an apartment on the four floor at Green Street, Mayfair in London.
At the time, the apartment had three bedrooms and one shared bathroom. The book abouth The Beatles published in 1963 contain a few images of the apartment together with the picture on the cover of the book with The Beatles leaning agianst the white staircase railing, which can still be found in the apartment today.
Orange County Choppers in Dublin
The world famous Orange County Choppers, known from the Discovery Channel series “American Chopper”, have visited Dublin. Non of the Teutuls or guys from the OCC were present at the time I was there. They have set the exhibition at Jervis Shopping Centre on Henry Street and if you are an OCC fan you shouldn’t miss it.
There are three bikes on display, all three custom made buy the Orange County Choppers, and plenty of OCC goodies including T-shirts featuring Orange County Choppers logo and themes.
The Orange County Choppers was founded by Paul Teutul Snr., who began his business of building custome bikes out of the basement of his home. With the help of his oldest son Paul Jnr., they were soon on their way to the top, with the success of their first bike “True Blue”.
They were quickly becoming recognized by chopper fans all around the states, and in 2002 they were picked up by the Discovery Channel for the TV series hit “American Chopper”. Their popularity led them to build custom theme bikes for some of the biggest stars and companies in USA.
Today, Orange County Choppers are one of the world’s finest builders of custom bikes.