Thursday, October 31, 2013

A Rant about the End of Daylight Savings

Source: whimquarterly.com
Every year in the spring, there is a vocal minority that complains about daylight savings time.  Some don't like the "hangover" from the time change.  Others think it is some government conspiracy.

I think these people are all nuts.

The problem with daylight savings time isn't that it starts, but that it ends.

If I were King, I would make daylight savings time permanent for the entire calendar year.

Why do we even bother with standard time?  Who cares if the sun is at its highest point around noon? What I care about is recreation, and I like it when the light lingers after I get home from work.  I can do that this time of year when we are on daylight savings time, but not standard time.

Yesterday I was out for a walk in the foothills until almost 6:30 PM and it was light out.  How enjoyable.  Next week, it will be a walk in the dark.  Why must we suffer in this fashion?

What are the arguments for going on daylight savings?  One is school safety, but kids get up too early anyway.  Let's shift the school day instead.  Let them sleep in.

It's time to put an end to standard time and make daylight savings time permanent year round.

3 comments:

  1. As a dawn patroler and someone whose work days often drag on into the evening, I disagree. Daylight savings is great during the heart of summer, but in late-March/early-April and all of October it's just a drag. Near the end of ski season you are finally getting to do much of the dawn patroling in the light, then all of a sudden you have to wake up at what was 4, just to be up at 5, and it's barely light when you need to go in to work. It stings. In October, running or mountain biking before work are just out of the question when the sun doesn't come up until 7:30. Now, I do love the long summer evenings, when you can still get an after work mountain bike ride as long as you get home by 7:30. But I wish they'd cut about 2-4 weeks off either end of daylight savings. The old version was better, but the vast Bush-Halliburton-Freemason-NationalWeatherService-Obama-LiberalMedia conspiracy wants to make sure I get out of shape every October. Maybe Mike Lee and Jason Chaffetz will help me monkeywrench the government until we get some answers about why the government is so determined to see me get out of shape.

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  2. AMEN!

    As much as I will enjoy being able to run again in the morning starting on Monday, as a parent, my enthusiasm for an extra hour dropped away immediately five years ago, when my then one year old, got up at 5.30 a.m., we had toured the entire Zoo by 12.30, he napped for 35 minutes and we still had five hours to go until bedtime. (The day still looms fresh in my memory all these years later.)

    To ease the pain - and really with each passing year it does get a little easier - my husband and I now host an annual open house for all of our parent friends on Sunday afternoon so we can all suffer through the end of the day together. Cranky kids and time changes are enough reason for me to want the same time all year long. At least we lose an hour in the spring but it still messes with the sleep schedule.

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  3. Love WWW - but totally disagree with this post. I'm from northern Vermont (where the earliest winter sunset is at 4:10 pm.) Living here in the mid-latitudes and along the western edge of the mountain time zone, there is workable light til almost 6 pm when the earliest winter sunset occurs in early December. When I first moved here I couldn't believe how long the sun shone into the night. Crazy. I say we get rid of DST altogether - winters are easy, bright, and all to short around here. The trouble is with DST is the summer when you want to go for a run at 6 pm and the sun is blazing high in the sky and it's STILL 100F. Kill DST.

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