Hello chriswms.
If you get my advice, i would not use a 555 timer for such a long delay. There is no equivalent to electrolytic capacitors, except the new 'solid state' capacitors that i do not have a clue if they are good or not, and how stable they are. 8 hours is way too much. I suggest you use a crystal oscillator for example 32,768KHz, and with 256 and 128 bits division you get a pretty accurate 1-sec timebase. Furter divisions will get you the 28800 seconds (8 hours) and your 29 seconds. This makes the circuit rather complicated, but is very accurate. Do you need accuracy and how much?