599 K ...

[John Fairbairn, GCE GACM]

Yesterday evening I was sitting on my couch. Next to me sat my lovely wife of more than 45 years - our anniversary was on 05 Jan. As she cuddled against me I observed with satisfaction that even as she moves gracefully towards 70, her hair still is its same lovely strawberry-blond color. Oh, there are a few silver strands here and there, but not many. The color is natural; she does not dye it. That thought started a background process in my brain about which I have been mulling since.

We were sharing watching the live performance of the musical play Rent, which was being broadcast in honor of 23 years of staging. The first large-group musical number is called "Seasons of Love", and it begins with a phrase that is repeated by various singers as a background throughout the number.

"Five hundred ninety-nine thousand, six hundred minutes ..." they chanted. It's the amount of time in a standard Solarian year. The play itself is about a year in the life of people in New York City who live in the slums, trying to make their rent each month. It looks (hard) at their lives as they struggle just to make ends meet. "But why does that have anything to do with the Honorverse?" you might quite reasonably ask. Where is this meandering post going? I'll tell you, if you will be so kind as to listen to an old man's mutterings.

I also finally have gotten around to reading Mr. Weber's most recent book about Honor Harrington. Currently, I'm about in the middle, reading slowly, savoring it. And these three things came together in what I fervently hope is a logical and inevitable manner. You see, that background refrain from the play goes on:

"... It's about love - love - seasons of love." The play describes all kinds of personal love, from what we think of as a first flash upon hearing that word (romantic besottment) through courting, intimacy, and lasting commitment to old age together. And it includes all flavors. It also includes love of community and country. Rather like the mind-glow kinds of things David writes, in fact: concern for those about us, personal affection, appreciation of the wonders of the world(s) on which we live, dedication to service to others, preservation of our natural resources, advancement of knowledge and understanding - and most of all, standing up against evil and darkness that would overwhelm these things, ... just because it's the right thing to do.

By the way, I'm working through my 75th year. Now, let's see. 599,600 times 75?

That is 44,970,000. Then add 2700 for the 18.75 leap days. 44,997,000 Minutes. I will. Have lived.

And I got to pondering on how many of them I have spent loving. And letting myself be loved. Not nearly enough of them. That's a fact.

So I have thrown away all of my great, wonderful, and thoroughly self-centered and conceited New Years resolutions. Instead, I have resolve that this year I am going to concentrate on seeing ... really noticing ... all the chances I have in my life to experience and give love. That is what this wandering post is about.

Let us open our eyes. Look around us. Get up each day resolved to see love that is extended to us, however casually or indirectly, from whatever source, and pass it on to at least two people. I think I can guarantee that if we do that we will be far too busy to argue, feel spiteful, or hold a grudge.

Oh. And of course, do it with Honor.

[Kevin Smith]

Probably not a big surprise, but musicals are not a good source for astronomy/chronology data.

A mean tropical year (Average time to complete a cycle of the seasons) is 525948.7536 minutes, a sidereal year (Time for the Earth to complete an orbit in a non-rotating reference frame) is 525969.162726 minutes, and an anomalistic year (time between perihelions when Earth is closest to the sun) is 525973.87584 minutes. The differences between these years is due to the precession of both Earth's rotational axis and the semimajor axis of its orbit.

On average, the Gregorian year tracks the the tropical year. A Gregorian year is 525600 minutes, or 527040 minutes in a leap year.

Also for easiest calculation of your age in minutes, you would probably do best converting your birth time and the current time to Unix time stamps and then subtracting to get your age in seconds (possibly off by a few seconds depending on the different forms of "universal" time and the different ways they handle leap seconds) then you can just divide by 60. be sure to check that you know the correct UTC offset for where and when you were born though as timezones change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY

[Karyn Hill, KDE, QBM, MP]

Probably not a big surprise, but musicals are not a good source for astronomy/chronology data.

A mean tropical year (Average time to complete a cycle of the seasons) is 525948.7536 minutes, a sidereal year (Time for the Earth to complete an orbit in a non-rotating reference frame) is 525969.162726 minutes, and an anomalistic year (time between perihelions when Earth is closest to the sun) is 525973.87584 minutes. The differences between these years is due to the precession of both Earth's rotational axis and the semimajor axis of its orbit.

On average, the Gregorian year tracks the the tropical year. A Gregorian year is 525600 minutes, or 527040 minutes in a leap year.

Also for easiest calculation of your age in minutes, you would probably do best converting your birth time and the current time to Unix time stamps and then subtracting to get your age in seconds (possibly off by a few seconds depending on the different forms of "universal" time and the different ways they handle leap seconds) then you can just divide by 60. be sure to check that you know the correct UTC offset for where and when you were born though as timezones change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY

I'm going to ignore this post in favor of the wholly romantic one above. In cases like this, romance wins over precision for me.

[Megan Krick]

The song in the musical is entitled ‘Seasons of Love’ and it says
“525,600 minutes. 525,600 moments so dear ...”
The song opens the second act and is amazingly powerful, especially is you see it in person. It still had the power watching it on Sunday.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John Fairbairn, GCE GACM]

The song in the musical is entitled ‘Seasons of Love’ and it says
“525,600 minutes. 525,600 moments so dear ...”
The song opens the second act and is amazingly powerful, especially is you see it in person. It still had the power watching it on Sunday.

I stand corrected. Megan is right on both counts. My memory is fading fast, Folks ...

[Megan Krick]

It happens. I have seen the stage production multiple times and own the movie, as well as both soundtracks.
We used to do a version of the song at karaoke with a group of theater people.