No offense to New Year’s Eve and January 1st, but September seems like a new year to me. I don’t know who is in charge of calendars, but I feel like moving the first of the year to September 1st would be a solid idea. Football starts in earnest, leaves change, crops are ready to be picked, and it just seems like a beginning.
My limited research skills indicate that Julius Caesar is responsible for the 12-month calendar in the current age. He apparently did that is 45 BC, which is quite a long time ago, if you are not into math. Anyway, it’s probably not possible to get this changed, been a bit of a long routine to get everyone out of. Maybe the new Missouri Attorney General could file a lawsuit against Caesar and his heirs to go with the China and COVID lawsuits they currently are shepherding. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems like a decent plan to me.
The NFL and Chiefs take the action to Friday night this year and that seems like quite slap in the face of the traditions of football. Generally, college and pro teams have left Fridays to the Friday Night Lights of high school football, but they have gradually encroached on the night over the last few years, and it now appears that nothing calendar-related is sacred to the money demands of college and NFL football.
Before Caesar, some folks used a 10-month calendar. If we moved to a 10-month calendar, I would kick January and February out. Both are generally worthless months that have no significant redeeming qualities unless you like leap years. We could simply go from December to March. St. Patrick’s Day is certainly a better holiday than Valentine’s Day, so that seems like a no brainer. I hate to put Cupid out of a job, but progress requires sacrifice and quite honestly, he’s not really good at his job if you look at divorce rates.
The wife and I have been dabbling in the Powerball drawing since it neared $900 million. The bizarre part of a prize this size is that if you choose the lump sum payout, your after taxes would “only” be around $265 million. Be tough to scrape by on that, but the tax machine must be fed.
I’m not sure what my chances of winning are, but I’ve already convinced myself that that kind of money would bring more problems than it is worth, but I’m willing to give it a go. Still going to ask for my senior property tax assessment freeze when I hit 62, though. Might be hard to keep up on property taxes if I only clear $263 million. I’ll let you know how we do.
(Guy Speckman can be reached pre-spending his lottery winnings)
