Our 50th Anniversary

[Roger C H]

This is true:

My wife and I were married Saturday, November 17, 1962.

Just last year we celebrated our 50th anniversary on Saturday, November 17, 2012

I just noticed the following strange fact:

If we had been married on Saturday, November 15, 1862, we would have had to celebrate our 50th anniversary on Friday, November 15, 1912.

Why is that?

[Sandy Christie]

The Year 1900 was not a leap year. 2000 was and that is the one day difference.

Sandy C

[Byron Kinnaman]

Originally Posted by Sandy Christie

The Year 1900 was not a leap year. 2000 was and that is the one day difference.

Sandy C

Leap year...Leap Day..... Sadie Hawkins day/

[Roger C H]

Originally Posted by Sandy Christie

The Year 1900 was not a leap year. 2000 was and that is the one day difference.

Sandy C

You got it. Just goes to show how smart FGRV'ers are. I thought I would have you guys stumped.

Actually what got me started was someone sent me an email that claimed that August 2014 has 5 each Friday, Saturday and Sunday and that that wouldn't happen again for 843 years. That seemed bogus to me and I did a little research, and discovered that monthly calendars repeat on a 6, 5, 6, 11 year cycle and that that email was BS.

Actually, since there are 365 days in a year, and 52 weeks contain 364 days, the days index once place per year, but leap years shorten that to 6 years and if there happen to be two leap years in that seven year period it will reduce that to 5 years. If the two leap years cause the date to skip its original position, then you have 11 years between identical months.
Of course this is Solar years, not Sidereal years. LOL

[Donna D.]

Hey, be grateful Roger... it wasn't a Friday the 13th!

Congrats BTW. I haven't done anything for 50 years, other than to beathe in and out.

[D Davis]

Congradulations Roger! WOW

[Steve Outlaw]

Century years are not leap years unless they're evenly divisible by 400.

[Roger C H]

Century years are the change from the Julian (like Julius Caeser) to the Gregorian, (like Pope Gregory XIII) calendar.
I like the story.
Every 100 years the Julian calendar indexed a day so that after 15 centuries, the first day of spring (vernal equinox) was getting closer and closer to March 1.
So to correct things, the Gregorian deducted a leap year in years evenly divisible by 100 except in years evenly divisible by 400 would still be leap year. Plus, they adjusted the calendar: Julian Thursday, 4 October 1582, being followed by Gregorian Friday, 15 October 1582.
Well you would have thought that something was being stolen from people. There were riots and demonstrations.
BTW the last country to adopt the Gregorian was Greece in 1923!

[frank_a]

Congrats Roger and your young bride...

We celebrate our 40th next year. By the time we celebrate our 50th, we both should be retired and pulling an egg around the continent!

Frank

[Roger C H]

You folks are so into calendars, what and where was the shortest year in history?

(Partial credit for any of several short years.)

[honda03842]

I hadn't thought about it before but we were in our 37th year of marriage when we retired and started our travels. This is our 13th year on the road and of course this will be our 50th anniversary. We still revel in our time on the road. Every year has been fun and educational.

Saying this in hopes that others will consider the opportunity.

[frank_a]

Originally Posted by honda03842

I hadn't thought about it before but we were in our 37th year of marriage when we retired and started our travels. This is our 13th year on the road and of course this will be our 50th anniversary. We still revel in our time on the road. Every year has been fun and educational.

Saying this in hopes that others will consider the opportunity.

Good for you guys! Happy 50th in advance!

I only hope I get that many years on the road after we retire. I figure I'll just barely be able to afford being on the road. We'll see how it goes. You two have inspired me, and I'm sure many others. Thanks!

Frank

[honda03842]

Being able to afford to the road in part requires for most of us a change in life style. Our expenses are very different from our pre- on the road expenses. This is not to say we spend less on others, but do spend less on ourselves and I must say enjoy it more.

Clothing has become almost a non-budget item and exchanged gifts even less. The gifts we give each other are now 'each other'.

The road life style has resulted in so many un-imagined changes in our lives, certainly on the spending side. Our road expenses are nothing like our pre-road life.

I do say, at least for us, there is a wonder about why we lived the way we did.

[frank_a]

Originally Posted by honda03842

Being able to afford to the road in part requires for most of us a change in life style. Our expenses are very different from our pre- on the road expenses. This is not to say we spend less on others, but do spend less on ourselves and I must say enjoy it more.

Clothing has become almost a non-budget item and exchanged gifts even less. The gifts we give each other are now 'each other'.

The road life style has resulted in so many un-imagined changes in our lives, certainly on the spending side. Our road expenses are nothing like our pre-road life.

I do say, at least for us, there is a wonder about why we lived the way we did.

If we were to start tomorrow, I figure we'll need somewhere between 2 and 3 grand/month. 2 would be more affordable for us than 3, but all we can do is wait and see. When we retire, we hope to buy a place near one of the kiddies, so someone could keep an eye on the place that I hope we're not in much!

Merry Christmas folks!

Frank

[honda03842]

There are ways to reduce monthly costs and extend RVing oppourtunity.

Of course it's impossible to know your family or anything about their living situation from afar. We have friends whose children in installed an RV hookup in their yard, a relatively inexpensive cost. Their parents would return in the summer for a few months and park in the back of their yard and spend the summer in their RV.

It provides a measure of separation and a measure of family support for both sides. It can be particularly handy if their are younger grand children involved or if both parents work. We know people who selected this option and did not purchase a replacement home base until a number of years on the road. An interesting aspect of this choice is they found how much smaller a home base they really required.

As well I know many couples who will work as camp hosts for a few months. This can dramatically cut expenses while providing a base to explore a region while making new friends. I think one needs to be careful to not let hosting overwhelm travels.

Another thing about a home base and downsizing immediately, particularly when tying a new home base to your kid's location. In this day and age kids move around a lot and what ever you choose may not alighn with their next year's needs.

We moved into our summer place about a decade before we took up RVing, though significantly smaller than our family home it costs us about $10,000 a year to own and some years we've spent as few as 6 weeks there.

One more thought, for the last 13 years we have owned only a single vehicle further reducing our costs and it's been very adequate.

Having only one vehicle reduces costs by at least a $1000 a year and probably $2,000 a year.

Just a few thoughts for you.

[frank_a]

Originally Posted by honda03842

There are ways to reduce monthly costs and extend RVing oppourtunity.

Of course it's impossible to know your family or anything about their living situation from afar. We have friends whose children in installed an RV hookup in their yard, a relatively inexpensive cost. Their parents would return in the summer for a few months and park in the back of their yard and spend the summer in their RV.

It provides a measure of separation and a measure of family support for both sides. It can be particularly handy if their are younger grand children involved or if both parents work. We know people who selected this option and did not purchase a replacement home base until a number of years on the road. An interesting aspect of this choice is they found how much smaller a home base they really required.

As well I know many couples who will work as camp hosts for a few months. This can dramatically cut expenses while providing a base to explore a region while making new friends. I think one needs to be careful to not let hosting overwhelm travels.

Another thing about a home base and downsizing immediately, particularly when tying a new home base to your kid's location. In this day and age kids move around a lot and what ever you choose may not alighn with their next year's needs.

We moved into our summer place about a decade before we took up RVing, though significantly smaller than our family home it costs us about $10,000 a year to own and some years we've spent as few as 6 weeks there.

One more thought, for the last 13 years we have owned only a single vehicle further reducing our costs and it's been very adequate.

Having only one vehicle reduces costs by at least a $1000 a year and probably $2,000 a year.

Just a few thoughts for you.

Thanks folks, great points! Personally I'd like to go in with a duplex with one of my boys whose wife is a teacher. I don't think they'll ever leave, at least till Kimmy retires, and then I wonder. they live in her home town, and she is from a very large local family as well. We'll see how it goes. It might be soon, and it may be a while longer. It really depends on the wee lass.

Frank

[Roger C H]

Into a thread on retirement.

Please answer, if you can, the question posted in comment #10

[honda03842]

The little I know about shortened years....

Basically there were no short years only mankind's fooling around with the number of days in a year.

The year is defined by the time it takes to make a revolution around the Sun and the days defined by the number of revolutions of the Earth during that period.

In reality the Earth's orbit increases with time because the Sun loses mass and has less gravitational attraction on the Earth.

As well the rotation of the Earth has slowed down with time and the number of hours has increased from around 22 hours to 24 hours over the last 600,000,000 years. More hours means fewer days in the year.

Changes in the earth's orbit around the sun and the duration of one earth rotation have changed very slowly. However over the last 2,000 years the number of days in the year had been defined principally by a Roman emperor and later a Roman Catholic Pope.

Our present calendar was proposed by Pope Gregory around 1580 and adopted by various countries over the centuries until last adopted by Russia in 1918. The adoption of the Gregorian calendar resulted in the shortening of the year by 10 days. Each adoption resulted in a shorter year for people somewhere over about a 350 year period.

I really don't know a lot about this but the fact that everything changes truly interests me.

[carlkeigley]

Originally Posted by Roger C H

You folks are so into calendars, what and where was the shortest year in history?

(Partial credit for any of several short years.)

Are you thinking of the year that the sun stood still for a day?

Edit: Hmm, maybe that made the year longer.

[Roger C H]

See post #10

Norm and Ginny, you have the answer. Actually, the countries which changed from Julian to Gregorian in the 20th Century would have the shortest year because of the days out of synch since Pope Gregory's time.