Posted on 03/07/2020 9:00:07 AM PST by SamAdams76
Starting tomorrow, Sunday, March 8, the days will get one hour longer. No more driving home from work in the dark until October. One extra hour of daylight!
This is one of my favorite times of the year and the first true sign that spring is upon us. Now I will have time to sit outside on my patio after work and watch for signs of the coming summer with a beer in my hand and a steak on the grill.
I just want to give thanks to an otherwise horrible president, Lyndon Johnson, who did do one good thing for the U.S. by signing into law the Daylight Savings Act on April 12, 1966 that gave us an extra hour of daylight from last Sunday of April to the last Sunday of October. Now we did have DST well before 1966 - actually Benjamin Franklin first thought of it - but it was mostly during the summer months and different areas of the country had different rules about it.
Since then, future politicians would dick around with the timing, causing the extra hour of daylight to occur nearly two months sooner and extended the end of DST through first Sunday of November.
The latter, I do not like, because it means that on Halloween night, we are still having the longer days. Now growing up during the 1970s, dark would always come earlier on Halloween, effectively extending the trick-or-treating time for the kids. These days, nobody is really able to get out there trick-or-treating until around 7PM which is disturbingly close to bedtime for the little tots out there. I say move the end of DST back to the last Sunday of October so the kids get to stay out in the dark a little longer. Otherwise, I'm fine with having the longer days begin the first week of March.
It also makes sense to have more darkness in the winter months because it's not like anybody is going to be outside working in their tomato garden or sitting on their decks grilling hamburgers in 20 degree weather. Also, I like the extra darkness in winter because the Christmas lights, which pretty much go from mid November to mid January, look much nicer in the dark.
So anyway, this is a very exciting day for most of us. We get to see the sun set for the last time around 5PM. Starting tomorrow, it won't set until around 6PM and by mid-June, we'll be watching the sunset well past 8:30PM as we bat away mosquitoes and pull another cold one from the cooler.
As you can tell, I'm a big, big advocate of Daylight Savings Time and this is like a holiday for me.
DST is one of the dumbest ideas of the modern world. If you like having an “extra” hour of daylight so much, just get your state legislature to move one time zone to the east — PERMANENTLY.
Thanks. I am retired. It makes not one bit of difference.
You DST nuts go ahead and have your annual orgasmic frenzy. You’re all nuttier than a whole herd of squirrels.
DST is just another one of LBJ’s failed policies.
Just as effective as his Great Society and War On Poverty. And how are those working out?
There isn’t a thing you can do on DST that you can’t do on ST. Period.
You can still grill steaks, drink beer, play music or whatever on ST.
Its the warmer weather and more hours of daylight available in summer that matters, not the governmental construct of DST hated by the greater part of the country.
You should be delighted by the longer daylight hours of summer loved by everyone. Not the government mandated bi-annual setting of clocks dictated by Big Government.
Y’all sound like a bunch of socialist fanboys cheering Dear Leader when he announces that chocolate rations will be raised from 1 kilogram to .5 kilogram.
I hear ya. I set my alarm clock to wake me up two hours before sunrise ... and I really don’t care what time anyone else tells me that is.
Plants are smarter than humans give them credit for.
Now that the British are out of the EU, they get to keep their Daylight Savings Time - in addition to their freedom.
Actually I prefer having it get dark sooner in the winter. More conducive to Christmas lights. I like driving through different neighborhoods around Christmas time on the way home from work. Some people do such an excellent job outfitting their homes and yards with Christmas lights and having the shorter days and longer nights gives me more time to appreciate. So let's save the longer days for the warmer weather months.
I agree that DST adds an additional hour of daylight to the longer days that would naturally occur during the summer months. So even longer hours of daylight! And this is good, because I get home from work around 6:30 typically and I get to grill on my deck, along with listening to the radio, drinking a beer and reading a good book. Last summer, I got through the first two volumes of “Ice And Fire” (Game of Thrones) sitting on my deck in the daylight and that was pretty awesome. I also like it when the fireflies start coming out around 7:30 to 8PM. If not for the extra hour of daylight, they’d start coming out just as I was getting home from work. Also, listening to the crickets and tree frogs is nice as well.
“The extra hour of sunlight will burn the crops!”
Aha, we have found the true cause of glow-bull warming.
“Aha, we have found the true cause of glow-bull warming.”
—
I don’t turn the clock ahead or behind for DST, I turn it sideways.
My mother said so, and she was never wrong.
Oh, I see. Didn’t know such hybrid systems existed. Nice.
I suppose you'd like the calendars run up by a month as well.
In November, we'll have to give that hour back to darkness.
Didn’t know such hybrid systems existed. Nice.
One nice thing is saving on water (it is warm in seconds with the timers) and of course, the gas isn’t wasted.
Based on our good results, our #1 contractor and the #2 guy bought the same system. With a couple of girls in each family, they still have hot water for the adults. They have recommended these systems to other customers.
As a bartender in my youth, I used to make a fortune on this night. Our town was open until 3AM, so the drinkers got an extra hour drunker, and thus more liberal with tips.
I have a GPS based “Atomic Clock” for my alarm clock. It automatically adjusts the time, EXCEPT you have to change it from DST OFF to DST ON. Guess what I forgot to do? So at 0500 this morning my wife’s phone alarm goes off, and I fond that I’m 30 minutes late getting up.
By scrambling around, short shower, wolfing down breakfast (which wife prepared) I ended up being only 10 minutes late to work. Damn “automatic” clock.
My Casio wrist watch which with the exception of DST on and off is the best wrist watch I have ever had, is basically bad re handling DST/on off.
Fortunately, I don’t have to go to work on Sundays, we just try to be on time Sunday. Our bedroom clock is like yours and a true pia re DST on and off.
I like the extra hour of light in the evening too. Especially in the summer.
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