Saturday, October 17, 2009

Time

I was thinking about time today. Driving home from work, with the sun still up, I thought about the end of Daylight Savings Time--which now comes a week or two later than it used to. It just doesn't seem right that it doesn't get dark on Halloween until around 7 p.m., well after trick-or-treaters are out and about.

The change in when Daylight Savings Time starts and stops--a change that was enacted into law a few years ago--was supposed to help save energy. How? It seems to me that unless you're one of the three people in the US who goes to sleep at 7 p.m. and wakes at 7 a.m., you're using energy, and whether you use it in the morning before the sun comes up, or at night after the sun goes down doesn't really matter, does it? After all, the number of hours of sunlight in a day doesn't depend on what the hands on a clock say. Did someone really think this through? I don't like it.

And February. What's the thinking behind 28 days? Why not borrow a day from January's 31 days and another day from March's 31 days and give them to February, so all three months have 30 days (except in leap year, when February would have 31 days). There'd still be the same number of days in a year; they'd just be distributed a little better. Who came up with that calendar?

When I grow up, I want to be the person who decides time. You know what I'd do? I'd give January, February, and March 30 days each and do away with Daylight Savings Time altogether. Instead, I'd make hours 65 minutes long on Saturdays and Sundays, and 55 minutes long on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Then, just to even out the number of minutes between weekends and weekdays, I'd declare all leftover minutes "happy hour"--kind of neutral territory, you know? Good plan, huh? Vote for me!

15 comments:

QuiltSue said...

This really made me laugh, and yes, I'll vote for you, BUT... only if you'll make the days in Jan, Feb and March shorter, by about 4 hours each so winter passes faster.

Anonymous said...

I don't get why we have daylight savings time anymore either, it was meant for when the farmers needed more time to farm their fields, last time I checked, I sat behind a desk for 8 hours! And who's bright idea was it to add extra weeks to it, I'm not going there. LOL I think you guys get dark later up your way because you're further north, down in here SoCal it's dark by 6.

Kelly Ann said...

okay...you've been inside my head on the DST thing...what the...we're gonna turn on the lights either earlier or later and use the same amount of energy. I think the two of us should run the Dept of Energy & Quilting, well I just added Quilting on to the Energy dept, but that only makes sense because we use energy to quilt...I would say we could run the Dept of Treasurer but then we'd want to add quilting on that so we could balance the budget and use the leftover money to spend at our LQS!

cockermom said...

DST never made sense to me either, you either use the utilities more in the morning or more in the evening,same amount of time just at different ends of the day.

Betsy said...

I'd vote for you if you get rid of daylight savings time. I grew up without it and as an adult I cannot get accustomed to it.

Lisa at Sun Naturals said...

Happy Hours with Chocolate Martinis!

Good plan :-)

dianne said...

i'm with you on DST - not because it doesn't make sense to me but because i hate having to adjust my circadian rhythm - it makes me pissy ... and since i no longer work on weekends - borrowing the minutes from weekday hours and adding them to saturday and sunday is okey dokey ... AND you can mess with all of the days of all of the months you want EXCEPT for january - cuz it's MINE!

so my vote is yes, yes, maybe

Pokey said...

Never thought about changing the days, but what would we do with the poem, "Thirty Days Hath September"? And what about all those leap year babies born on the 29th, who would immediately become older x4? :-} But really, the time change messes with my sleep for a few weeks, it seems. I could do without that.

paulette said...

YOU GO GIRL!
Paulette

Julie said...

Would love to keep reading your blog, but I just can see the black letters on the dark green background. I give up. Will check back to see when you update you layout for Christmas.

MichelleB said...

Yes, I will definitely vote for you. Makes all kinds of sense to me.

Searchfamilies said...

You have my vote, we always saying at time changing points why don't they just leave it one way or the other
Hugs Janice

Linda said...

You got MY vote!!! Funny, up here in Canuck territory, we say we only have DST cause YOU guys in the US have it and we have to match our business hours. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me! And our winter days are very, very very short on sunshine!!!
Lurking Linda

PunkiePie (Jen) said...

You got my vote! I personally like "fall back" because of the extra hour of sleep and I use THAT excuse for about 2 weeks! LOL!

Maddie Can Fly said...

Oh I'm so with you on the daylight savings time. It annoys me to no end that I lose an hour of "my time" over the weekend. I don't care that I get it back 9 months later (seems like 9 months). I bet if we lost that hour say at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon, this silly business of playing with the clock would end.