a new holiday for enjoying life

So we just had a leap day from this leap year. I suppose they’re important, to keep the calendar synced up with the seasons. Without leap day, Christmas would eventually be in the summer. (Obviously I’m writing this from the northern hemisphere, where a summer Christmas is unheard of, yet it happens in the southern hemisphere.)

What did you do with your extra day on February 29? Probably nothing special, since the world treats it like a normal day. But what if there was a better way? Why can’t we have a bonus day off every four years?

Have you ever looked at the calendar we use and wondered why it is like it is and if it could be better? The story behind why the months have varied numbers of days is beyond the scope of this article (long story short, blame the Romans), but there are potential solutions to improve it. I could think of some ideas, but actually J.R.R. Tolkien (who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) has already created a better calendar system. He created separate calendars for the Hobbits, Elves, Men, and Numenoreans (Aragorn’s ancestors), among others. (Yeah, that’s nerdy, but consider that he created new languages for different people groups.)

Worth noting for this discussion is the Hobbit calendar. It’s based on the same 365 days per year with an occasional leap year, just like ours. However, their calendar had 12 months with exactly 30 days each, which is convenient, although that leaves 5 or 6 days out. So what did Hobbits do about that? Here’s where it gets really interesting. The bonus days were split between “Lithedays” near the summer solstice and “Yuledays” near the winter solstice. These bonus days were holidays that were not included in the calendar — they simply stopped counting days during these celebrations. Actually, these days counted as days of the week, but not days on the calendar. They would have days of feasting during that time, so it was like a mandatory party or vacation (for them, since Hobbits usually didn’t leave the Shire). Also, there was a day, Midyear’s Day, which did not count as a day of the week, so their year officially had 364 days.

That might seem more complicated, but in some ways it is simpler. Their calendar made dates always fall on the same weekday. Bilbo’s and Frodo’s birthday of September 22 was always on a Thursday. The year always began on the first day of the week and ended on the last day of the week. This calendar was designed to reinforce their culture, prioritizing routine, order, and convenience, along with emphasizing their love of feasting and partying. They even had an area of town called Party Field for dancing and feasting.

Would it be worth the hassle to change our modern calendar? Probably not. People like routine and don’t like change, plus it would be really difficult to change. (Remember the hullabaloo about Y2K? This would be much more difficult to change.) And having mandatory days off sounds good, but given our culture, it probably wouldn’t work. It would result in days of no open restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, police, etc. I’m not sure our American society could safely handle mandatory days off work. (That’s a discussion for another day.)

But what if towns and cities had a place where they would have dancing and feasting? Is that doable? It might get too complicated and crowded in big cities to pull off, logistically, but it seems like a good idea on a smaller scale. Ideally our culture would accept this idea and make it happen. Imagine a recurring time where people enjoy being around each other, eating together and dancing and just enjoying life. Actually, this sounds like the Sabbath in Christianity, where we’re supposed to devote the seventh day of each week to honoring God, which includes not working, with an emphasis on spending time enjoying God and His creation and people. Many Americans struggle with this, even though it is built into our calendar already.

I suppose the point of all this rambling is that it’s good to slow down from normal life on a regular basis so you can enjoy your life and the people around you. Here in America we are really blessed financially and with freedom — even though many people complain, we still have more prosperity and freedom than perhaps any other country. Of course the system could be better and the wealth distributed more fairly. But regardless of your situation, it is what it is, and where you are right now is your actual life, so make the best of it. Find time each day to laugh, to dance, to marvel at something amazing (like nature, or technology, or how the human body works, etc.), and to enjoy the people around you. If it’s hard to integrate this into your daily life, just start somewhere. Set aside some time today to enjoy life for yourself (that is, without it being fed to you via TV or social media or the internet). Maybe go for a walk, or visit with a friend, or read a book…

Try to enjoy today’s portion of your life’s journey. You won’t pass this way again.

decorative Wi-Fi access points

I have a business idea that someone needs to run with. This is not one that I plan to pursue, because my plate is full (running over, even), so I’m putting it out here for someone to take. Please do, because I would buy this.

Most houses have Wi-Fi now, and to get good coverage throughout the house you often need either an extender or a mesh network. (I just switched mine to an Amazon Eero mesh network.) The “problem” with all the solutions I’ve seen is that the hardware devices don’t look interesting. They’re plain and utilitarian. That’s not bad, per se, but it could be much better. I don’t care to see them around the house, although it’s not that big a deal to me. However, I’m married, so the WAF does need to be considered. (WAF = Wife Approval Factor.) My wife cares about the house being “presentable” and decorated. (Granted, I do too, but she does even more, so I often defer to her preferences, which seems to be common among men.)

So here’s the idea that improves the situation. Make Wi-Fi hardware points where you can snap decorative outer shells on them, which feature a pleasing design. By doing this, you can cater to multiple markets with the same base product. Here’s some ideas to help get you started:

  • fake plants — This may have the highest general WAF, so it definitely should be an option.
  • book-related — There are a lot of people who enjoy reading, or at least want to enjoy it if they had more free time. This could be a bookshelf insert like the one pictured, which is a street from the Harry Potter universe. You could also make bookends like the Argonath statues that came with the first deluxe DVD set of The Lord of the Rings. (I want that one, and my wife would probably tolerate it outside my home office.) Another idea is the Dr. Who TARDIS phonebooth.
  • movie-related — There are many options here, from figures to vehicles to buildings to logos. Of course there would be licensing to deal with, but a well-made Batman figure and/or the Batmobile would be worth it. Transformers figures (G1 style, preferably) would be awesome, too. (The WAF score sinks considerably with this one, but there’s a large audience of single guys who can decorate how they want. And Transformers figures definitely counted as decoration when I lived in the bachelor pad with college roommates.)
  • decorative frames with pithy inspiring quotes — People already buy this kind of thing. You could make it a frame with changeable inserts, so you could sell packs of more quotes. You might could even include a cheap subscription with new inserts arriving each month that match the season.
  • holiday decorations — You know if there was a way to make your Wi-Fi point look like a Christmas tree or an ornament instead of a chunk of boring plastic, people would buy this. These would sell like hotcakes during the Christmas shopping season (which gets longer every year). These could also have lights on them, since you already have power there.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are MANY possibilities here for selling more, because if they all fit the same base units, people could buy multiple decorative pieces to change it out throughout the year. And when a new version of Wi-Fi comes out, make the base unit into the same shape so customers can use their current extensions. This encourages brand loyalty.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but make the actual hardware be quality. People will be paying more for this, so there will be expectations that it works well. If it looks impressive and works better than average, people will talk about it, which is free advertising.

To any entrepreneur willing to jump on this, the idea is free. If you’d be willing to send me a copy for review, I’d be glad to check it out. Have your people contact my people.

huge home theater speakers and modern art

When I was in high school, there were some Klipsch horn speakers like this in the band room. They rarely got used, but they were huge. Now I happened upon a home stereo gallery shared online where someone had speakers like that in their house.

I gotta admit, I don’t like the look of these. I like Klipsch as a brand and I appreciate big speakers (for sound and looks), but this just doesn’t look impressive to me. Hopefully they sound better than they look. There are excellent-sounding speakers that look much cooler, IMO, but to each their own.

Also, what do you want to bet that the owner of these is single? I imagine the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) of these is zero (0). That kind of thing matters when you get married. I have a friend whose wife would put his (small) speakers behind plants or even inside the armoire with the closing doors (this was years ago, when a 32″ TV was standard). Covering speakers affects the sound quality, but to some people, seeing plants is more important than immersive 5.1 home theater surround sound. 🙂 I guess everyone has to choose what matters to them. (For the record, I managed to keep my large speakers after getting married. She’s allowed to put fake plants on top of them, but if they fall off from the bass vibrations, that’s not my fault. Also, my speakers are nowhere near as large as those in the picture.)

P.S., somebody should tell the owner of that picture that someone spilled paint on his painting. It looks a mess and you can’t even tell what it is anymore… 🙂 Is that supposed to be cats jumping over a flag that’s on fire? Or is it where his cats “painted” it by knocking over paint cans? Really, I have no idea… I just don’t understand modern art…

watch includes fashion advice

So I was looking at watches a while back because my son wanted one for Christmas. I saw this Casio watch which looks just like they did back in the ’80s. Is this a retro thing? Or are the ’80s making a comeback (again)? Or did they just not bother to ever update the design? (I haven’t worn a watch in years, so I haven’t kept up with it.)

Also notice what is suggested with the watch, per Amazon.com. They have “styling ideas” to go with this ’80s-themed watch.

Does anyone buying a retro watch for $16 want style advice with it? It just seems odd. The recommendations aren’t anything like what I buy (nor do I buy clothes from Amazon), so it doesn’t seem to be custom to me, meaning it’s specific to the watch. I was curious if Amazon offered style advice on other watches, so I found an expensive one (a SUUNTO race sports watch) for $549, but it did not have any fashion advice. Perhaps they figure if you’re buying an ’80s-themed Casio watch for $16 that you need fashion advice… 🙂

Are they suggesting that your watch should match or coordinate with your outfit? I could see some people thinking that way, especially for more formal situations. However, I’m a man, so I don’t care about such things. Besides, I don’t even wear a watch anymore.

I had a watch similar to that when I was a kid, except mine had a temperature sensor to let you know the ambient temperature. That was high-tech in a kids watch back then! One time I also had one with a calculator, which was quite nerdy. Did you know that it was totally uncool to be a nerd back then? Now, people carry calculators with them all the time, but back then it was not socially acceptable for popular people. Now almost everyone has a smartphone and thinks nothing of how nerdy that used to be. You’re carrying a computer in your pocket/purse! NERD! In the ’80s, if you even knew how to use a computer, you were probably a nerd. Now it’s cool to be a nerd. Well, that’s what I tell myself anyway. I’m still a nerd, but I’m okay with it. (Being comfortable with who you are is actually the essence of being cool, if you strip away the preconceived notions of following the trendy popular crowd. But I digress… Such transcendental wisdom is not desired by some people who would rather put people in a box labeled either cool or not cool.)