Damsel and I will be celebrating Flag Day with Filet Mignon Steaks and a Salad for Sunday Dinner. We’re also celebrating a couple of birthdays: U.S. Army’s 251st and President Donald Trump’s 80th. Go Army and Happy Birthday Mr. President!
UPDATE: Flag Day Steaks on the grill . . .
Hers (left) is butterflied because she likes it cooked for some reason. Mine (right) is on for only 10 minutes and uncooked to perfection.
Judging from the graphic above, it seems as if our Nation has been in conflicts almost constantly since its establishment. I cannot begin to estimate the number of casualties and deaths resulting from those battles.
We thank the LORD for our freedom and security, none of which would be possible without the terrible losses suffered by those brave and gallant souls.
On this Memorial Day, as we commemorate those lost in the many battles over the years, may we contemplate their ultimate sacrifices and pray to the LORD for the safe keeping of their souls.
AI generated graphic by ChatGPT. Click to enlarge.
We enjoyed a feast today based upon the traditional Celtic/Scot/Irish celebration of Beltane, the beginning of summer. Our bill of faire was the classic Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner served with lower-carb veggies (we’re still on the modified Keto Diet). It was all wonderful.
Now that spring will soon give way to summer temperatures, we’re preparing ourselves for the days to come. We’re going through some medical therapies over the next months and hope that the temperatures won’t affect the treatments and the side effects. Wish us luck, good health and throw in a prayer or two. Thanks.
Hope everyone is having a safe and lucky Friday the 13th. We’re enjoying it and preparing for Valentine’s Day tomorrow.
I looked up Friday the 13th on Grokipedia and found this near the bottom of the article. It is a very nerdy description of how to calculate the date without looking at a calendar. Enjoy, if you’re a nerd like me.
Yearly Variations in Occurrence
In the Gregorian calendar, the number of Friday the 13ths occurring in a single year varies between one and three, with no year featuring zero or four such dates. This limitation arises from the calendar’s structure, which consists of 365 or 366 days distributed across 12 months, resulting in exactly 13 occurrences of the 13th across all months but constrained by the seven-day week cycle to produce at most three Fridays among them.[83]
Years with three Friday the 13ths typically follow specific patterns based on the starting day of the year and whether it is a common or leap year. In common years beginning on a Thursday, the dates fall in February, March, and November, as seen in 2015. Similarly, 2026, a common year starting on a Thursday, will have Friday the 13ths in February, March, and November. These configurations highlight how the alignment of the year’s first day influences the distribution, with February, March, and November forming a common triplet due to the cumulative day offsets in non-leap years.[83]
To predict the exact day of the week for any 13th, including Fridays, Zeller’s congruence provides an algorithmic method tailored to the Gregorian calendar. Devised by Christian Zeller in the 19th century, the formula calculates the weekday as follows:
Where,
- h represents the day of the week (0 for Saturday, 1 for Sunday, …, 6 for Friday);
- q is the day of the month (13);
- m is the month (March = 3, April = 4, …, December = 12, with January and February treated as months 13 and 14 of the preceding year);
- K is the year of the century (year mod 100)
- and J is the century (|year/100|)
- A result of h=6 (mod 7) confirms a Friday.
This congruence enables precise determination of Friday the 13ths for any year by applying it to each month’s 13th, revealing the yearly variations without manual calendar inspection.
Since we’re probably not going to post a blog tomorrow, please enjoy Valentine’s Day with your special ones.
Saturday, 02/14/26 VALENTINE’S DAY: I took this photo of a heart-shaped tree mobile this morning . . .
Today, we celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.
I was going to post a photo of the now discontinued Lincoln Penny, but I remembered about a United States Note, Red Seal Lincoln five dollar bill I have in the safe. I’m saving it for posterity, I guess, because it’s only marginally worth more than $5 to collectors.
Circulated Condition: – Basic circulated bills are typically worth face value of $5 – Lightly circulated examples may fetch $5-$7 – Bills with minimal wear might retail for around $7
Pennies, however, were selling 50 cent rolls for Ten bucks according to something I saw on-line. I verified this to be true with Alexa+.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Anyway, even though the pennies are out of production, Abe is still remembered on the Fiver. Happy Heavenly birthday, Mr. President!
Blockquotes courtesy Grokipedia
On each of the four cross-quarter days, we tend to celebrate our Celtic heritage by having a dinner that may have been served in celebration of the seasonal days as recognized by our forebearers. Both Damsel and I have ancestry that traces back to ancient Western Europe, where the old celebrations may have taken place.
The name Imbolc derives from the Old Irish phrase i mbolg, literally meaning “in the belly,” which refers to the swelling abdomens or udders of pregnant ewes at the point of impending lactation. This etymology aligns with the festival’s historical association with early February, when sheep in Ireland typically began lambing and producing milk after winter, marking a key agricultural transition.
Saint Brigid of Kildare (c. 451–525), also known as Brigit or Bride, was a prominent Irish Christian saint, abbess, and founder of one of Ireland’s earliest monastic settlements at Kildare in the province of Leinster during the 5th century.
Both references above come from Grokipedia rather than Wikipedia; it is reference without the left-wing bias as in the latter case. Click on either link to view the Grokipedia articles about Imbolc and St. Brigid.
Our feast today will be Irish Guinness Beef Stew, modified for low-carb vegetables, of course. The feast will be posted on our food blog sometime later today.
Image above: Festive Cross of Saint Brigid adorning a feast table. Click to view enlarged.
I’ve been fooling around with some AI lately and I understand that some users have been using AI to write code. So, I tried my hand at asking it to write a script for a countdown to the new year. I asked for JavaScript to be embedded in HTML and it produced the result seen below. The AI (Google Gemini) produced JavaScript, HTML and the Style Script (CSS). All I had to do was provide the HTML Header and Body and, voila, the counter worked right off the bat. Link to Gemini code.
If you see “Happy New Year” instead of the counter, then It is already (MST) 2026.
I’m posting this some 32 hours or so before the new year so visitors to the site can see the counter. I may (just for grins) change the code to countdown to 2027 after the new year.
So, from both The Damsel and I, we wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year in 2026!
UPDATE: I changed the target to St. Valentine’s Day 2026!
