Monday, March 12, 2012

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time has already begun.  I've always had mixed feelings about this.  For someone who has to be up so early for work, getting to bed early when it's still light outside can be frustrating. No one wants to be in bed that early, wouldn't you agree?  And it can be difficult adjusting to the time for at least the first few days.  About the only good thing is the extra daylight which lasts until a week after Halloween. And I wasn't sure what to think back in 2007 when the start date was pushed ahead to the second Sunday in March from the first Sunday in April.  And that the end date would now be the first Sunday in November, pushed up from the last Sunday in October.  Before that, it began on the last Sunday in April.

"Spring ahead, fall back" is the old mnemonic used to remember which way to reset our clocks. Though now that DST begins in March, it's not quite spring yet, but the expression is still helpful to remember which way to set the clocks.  Spring is only lass than a week away from today.

Remember having to reset the time on your VCR back in the day?  When I went to college in 1995, I got a new TV and VCR to take with me.  The VCR it turned out automatically reset the time when the time change occurred.   One day after the spring time change in April 1996, while I was riding the college  transit bus, I overheard someone say that people have probably forgotten to reset the time on their VCRs. I then told her how mine adjusts the time by itself.  I ended up having the TV and VCR for several years after college, and remember waking up at 1:59AM on April 7, 2002, and seeing the VCR clock move ahead to 3AM.   And I recall coming home from a Halloween party in 2005 and seeing the VCR clock move back as DST ended for that year.   Yes, I still had that thing even after getting my DVD player for Christmas in 2002.  And I still had it (but rarely used it) when the new DST start date began in 2007. I had to turn off the setting that auto-changed the time.

I only now have to reset my watch (I still like those even if others don't!)  and any clocks in the house, as my cell phone clock and computer clock set back automatically.  Same with my digital camera clock.

Unfortunately, I've noticed the clocks on the phones at work are still on the old-start date systems, as they had bee installed in 2005, when the store first opened.  They were an hour behind today, and one a different note, one of the wall clocks was behind in minutes.

And many of you have probably always thought it seems earlier or later whenever the time changes occurs.  I man, does anyone really know what time it is?

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