Locator: 49986ARCHIVES.
1. The movie Jack Reacher is one of my favorite movies. Co-star to Tom Cruise was Robert Duvall -- his death, at age 95, was announced today. Jack Reacher is available all the time (?) to those who have a subscription to Paramount+; otherwise it can be rented for $3.99 or bought for $14.99 over at Amazon Prime. Someday I may buy it; not tonight. Will probably watch The Third Man.
Also, Robert Duvall -- The Independent -- link here.
2. Back to biking regularly. I think the high was 72°F today, on the cool side, but still pleasant. Tomorrow, the high will be 78°F -- only a couple of degrees from 80!
3. Mardi Gras tomorrow. Forty days plus six Sundays prior to Easter Sunday. Mardi Gras falls relatively early this year.
4. Liturgical calendar (how I remember things; there may be typographical and/or content errors below)
- Michaelmas: September 29
- Michaelmas term: first academic term of the academic year
- US Supreme Court: begins its annual nine-month term on the first Monday in October, a few days after Michaelmas
- Advent: four Sundays before Christmas
- Christmas -- fixed
- 12 days of Christmas -- Christmastide
- between the birth of Jesus and Epiphany -- the coming of the Magi
- Epiphany: January 6
- marks the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Ordinary Time
- First Sunday after Epiphany: Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
- four to nine Sundays after Easter depending on date of Easter
- final Sunday after Epiphany is Sunday before Ash Wednesday
- Easter (movable):
- first Sunday after first full moon (the Paschal Moon) after vernal (spring) equinox
- [Passover (Pesach): falls during the Paschal Moon)
- Ash Wednesday: counting backwards -- 40 days + six Sundays (46 days in all) before Easter
- Mardi Gras: Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday
- Shrove Tuesday (UK/Commonwealth)
- Pancake Tuesday (dinner)
- Lent: 40-day solemn Christian season from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday (Thursday before Easter)
- Pentecost: 50 days after Easter
- Shavuot: Jewish; the 50 days from Passover to the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), a harvest festival
- the word "Alleluia" is often reintroduced in services
- the "A-word" is absent from services during Lent
- commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and followers of Jesus in Jerusalem
- "birthday of the Church"
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Musical Interlude
What is life? A cover by Sina.
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The B-52
Link here. One of my highlights in the USAF: an operational low-level flight through the Rocky Mountains early in my career. Overnight sortie. Eight hours flight time. Over twelves hours in the a/c.
The B-52J through 2060. $50 billion
