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Year 2008 still is young enough to be called the new year, but with almost three weeks off the calendar the march of time continues at a seemingly fast pace.

Something people might want to keep in mind is that this year will be 366 days rather than 365. The extra day comes on Feb. 29 since this is a leap year.

One of the oddities this creates is that February this year will start on a Friday and end on a Friday. The last time the month had five Fridays was in 1980, and it won't happen again until 2036.

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to remember leap years is that they occur in every year that is divisible by four. At least, that works most of the time as will be explained shortly.

Leap years are necessary to keep the calendar in alignment with the earth's motion around the sun, experts explain.

Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar that had the same number of days in each year would, over time, drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track, such as the seasons, according to information from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The drift is corrected by inserting an additional day, or month depending on the calendar, into the year. Figuring it out doesn't seem to involve simple arithmetic.

The Gregorian calendar is the current standard calendar used by Americans and most of the world. It adds a 29th day to February in 97 years out of every 400. It is implemented by making every year divisible by four a leap year, unless that year is divisible by 100.

If a year is divisible by 100, it can only be a leap year if that year also is divisible by 400. So, in the last millennium, 1600 and 2000 were leap years.

Although the Gregorian calendar is predominant, several other calendars are utilized in parts of the world. The Chinese and Hebrew calendars both have an extra month rather than adding another day to February.

The vernal equinox is an important factor in all of this. That is the time when the sun is directly above the earth's equator. The time between two vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year, and it is about 365.2322 days.

That figure might not be exact, experts say, because influences by other planets can cause tropical time to vary slightly year to year.

Leap year probably creates the most excitement among those who happened to be born on Feb. 29 because they get to celebrate their birthday on the actual date only once every four years. Other years they have to celebrate a day early, on Feb. 28, or a day late, on March 1.

A tradition that reportedly was started in the fifth century in Ireland is that leap year is a time women can propose marriage. The late cartoon creator of Lil' Abner, Al Capp, enhanced that tradition in the United States some years ago with "Sadie Hawkins Day" in Dogpatch, the cartoon home of Abner and friends.

But romance takes a back seat in Greece during leap years. Tradition there is that getting married in a leap year is bad luck for the couple.

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Ron Hansen, of Rapid City, S. D., sends word of a DD 7489 Harry E. Hubbard shipmates reunion scheduled April 17-20 in Baltimore, Md.

"We have a few shipmates in your area, that we have lost their addresses and phone numbers," Hansen said. Any area residents in that category can make contact by calling Mike Caruccio at 717-235-5768.