Complicated Calendar

Noticed “Election Day” was in the wrong place in my work calendar. It was on November 1st when it ought to have been November 8th. This is because the date is the first Tuesday after the first Monday giving it a potential range of November 2nd through 8th.

The Microsoft Outlook / Exchange pattern for recurring dates has nothing to accommodate this. The closest pattern Outlook has is “on the first Tuesday of November” which leaves the date that occurs this year as the lone exception. Looks like it will happen again in 2022 (non-presidential) and 2044. It last happened in 1988.

I think this came from a Microsoft list of United States holidays I added. Certainly, looking at that, I have “United States” checked for the locations shown in my calendar. All the entries appear to be entered for each individual date rather than patterns set to handle regular recurring dates and just individuals for the crazy ones.

The only other calendar entry that I can think of that is so complicated is Easter. OK, actually it is far more complicated. Well, Easter is dependent on Passover. Passover depends on the full moon. And Orthodox churches have a different calculus than than Catholic/Protestant churches. Everything else is on a date or first/second/third/fourth day of week of the month. These are all easy to program with a rule.


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