2016 Winter February 29 Monday

40 degrees this morning, Walk 36:02 minutes 

“Maneuvering” to victory is rather an new concept to me, but an interesting one.  

The “Great Course” on the Civil War I am listening to mentioned that one General befuddled his opponents by a series of brilliant maneuvers, thus basically accomplishing  his objective without any battle.

Seems good, but he was upset because he didn’t get the accolades or recognition  the Generals did who basically won the same thing, but with large numbers of persons killed/injured/missing.

I a considering in my life where I should be using “maneuvers” rather than “battles”.  Maybe I do it now.  

Just for the heck of it, I looked up “maneuvers” and it has several definitions including “trickery” (including “political trickery” )and “deception” as well as “skill”!

I prefer to think of any maneuvers I have as “skill”!  Actually, I think that is true.  

Of course, it seems that “maneuver gains” versus “gains” n the battle field where actual lives are lost would be much more acceptable than battle gains, but I think “battle” has a certain flair to a lot of people (probably those who haven’t been in battle!) than simple “maneuvers” doesn’t.

Perhaps the current political campaign for President is a good example of this, there I “maneuvering” and then there is the “battle” of words and actions, and sometimes “maneuvers” are met by “battles” and vice versia!

This is a concept I will need to research some.  “Maneuver” is my new word.   It casts a whole new light on certain situations.  

Another concept I got from reading about the Civil War was Doris Kearns Goodwin in “Team of Rivals”, mentioned that Lincoln needed Generals who would “fight”.  

He was besieged by the number of Generals who wouldn’t fight for the first few years of the war, who continually asks for more soldiers and supplies etc., “one more thing”.

I could relate to that in citys’ where Department Heads would continually said “If I just had ….., I could do ……”.  

Of course, with some it was always “one more …..”!

Actually the concept helped me a lot to recognize the true need to have something to accomplish a goal and either the fear of action or just flat laziness.  

February 29, the day that comes every 4 years!  I guess it is a matter of “give and take”, if you work by the month you “give” another day, but you also get an extra day of interest (or pay it) etc.  

I was thinking, if it wasn’t for leap year, this would be March 1, the start of a whole new month.

Of course, it also means there is an extra day of Winter, which is hardly fair, except that time is just a concept anyway, nature will do what it will anyway.

While Time is just a concept, it is an important concept since we use it to take action, measure results etc.  

Of course, I really wonder since Time has seemed to start going so much faster now!  Soon it will be two years since we moved to this area, two years for my job, two years for the “new” car etc.!

That’s it for now, Monday, February 29, 2016, the “extra” day of the year!