Thursday, August 29, 2013

This Date in History - Whoops

I hope you enjoyed our regular Wednesday feature yesterday.  I get many notes on how much you like "This Date in History."  You find it funny and....gasp....educational.

But yesterday's date was a challenge to get to you.  To explain this will also provide you with a glimpse behind the scenes of this blog.

Truth be told, I write a lot of these Wednesday pieces in advance.  The good thing about history is that you don't have to be current.  And since the research behind these historical capsules requires about a half-hour of work, I try to double up by outlining more than one Wednesday piece a week.  That creates a backlog.  So, by early August of this year, "This Date in History" had about two months in the can.  I was done up to about the third week in October.

Except....

As I was looking at this week's postings, I noticed something about the piece I had done for this Wednesday.  

The August date was wrong.  

And, since I work so far in advance, my weekly calculation of seven days later also gave me the wrong date. 

As a result, I had seven future editions of "This Date in History" for Wednesday dates that didn't actually exist in 2013.  

Could I have simply decided to run the feature on another date of that week so I could use the pieces?  Probably.  

But a compulsive person focused on details and routine and accuracy can't do that.  And that would be me.  

So into the virtual trash can went seven wonderfully comedic looks at past history.  

But, you're saying.  Why didn't you save them for another year?  Well, my date calculations were so off that I won't hit the right Wednesday for another three years.  Am I thinking this blog will exist that far in the future?  Who knows?

I threw out the pieces anywhere.  Trust me.  There was some good stuff that you would have found hysterical.  But only I will ever know just how much.

And you thought it was easy to keep you entertained here for 365 days every year?

Dinner last night:  Roast beef French dip sandwich at BJ's.

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