Fall back......... Gladly!

I have never been a “morning person” even though most of my adult working life has been spent following normal daylight hours. So the fact that twice a year I have to adjust my internal body clock to the outside real world moving either forward or backwards an hour has never pleased me.

Now I do have to say that of the two adjustments I make the transition “backwards” much better than I handle the move in the other direction. It takes me at best several days to get acclimated to losing an hours sleep each year when we make the leap to “daylight savings” time. On the other hand I will hardly take notice of it when the clock is wound in the opposite direction. It does annoy me somewhat that we will now start to lose the daylight hours before six o'clock in the evening. By the time I get home from work even if the weather cooperates and it would be comfortable to sit on the front or back porch and read the natural light is gone which is the other part of that experience that makes it enjoyable. Such is one of the detriments of living in the northern section of the continent North America.

I find that from talking with a number of people that I am not alone in my sentiments on the subject. While at the bank this morning the young lady who was handling my transaction was surprised when I mentioned that this was the weekend to “turn back the clocks” for 2005. It also brought a smile to her face as she said that she was looking forward to gaining an hours sleep tomorrow morning. She is not the only one that I have encountered during the course of the week that has expressed that same sentiment.

I personally wish that the government would stop adjusting the time twice a year. Just pick one or the other and leave it along. I could be content with that. Somehow though I don't think my wish will come true anytime soon. The latest effort to tinker with the amount of daylight alloted to us in each twenty four hour cycle of our lives is a proposal to extend “daylight savings time” some number of additional weeks each year. This is going to cause all sorts of mischief with consumer electronic devices which have been programmed to compensate for the changes based on the calendar.

This is going to make my life even more interesting since I am the designated family member who has to set all of the digital clocks in various devices that don't set themselves for those members of the tribe that still live in the analog age. Had I listened to my late beloved Mother I would have gotten a good education, become a lawyer and could be making a lavish living filing suit for those that awaken to cold coffee in the morning because the clock on their automatic peculator activated the device at the wrong time.

Having said that I am writing this for my regular readers to make sure that they are not befallen by any of these modern maladies because they will have dutifully set their clock back one hour before retiring for a nights sleep this evening. While you are at it, follow the excellent advice that various groups have been offering and replace all of the batteries in your smoke detectors. I just replaced the one one here in my radio/computer room. Good night all.