The Madness of Resetting Clocks

Yup - it’s that time of year when we make the switch between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time. 

The jury is still out as to whether or not this is an antiquated and grand inconvenience or sensible change of the clocks.  What we know for sure is that beginning tomorrow the return of Standard Time means an extra hour of sleep.  The sun will rise earlier - which is great if you rise early.  However, if you’re like this retired guy I’d prefer to see the sun a bit longer at the end of the day.  

So the operative questions are:

• Do we permanently switch to Daylight Saving Time?  
• Switch to Standard Time altogether? 
• Or continue with the madness of resetting clocks twice a year?

Steve Calandrillo, University of Washington professor of law, has studied this subject at length.  He has concluded that among other things, we need to abandon the concept of Standard Time inasmuch as early evening darkness is associated with more crime and automobile accidents when contrasted with early morning darkness.

Corporate America concurs.  With more daylight at the end of the day consumers stay out longer spending their money.  And if you like to squeeze-in a late season round of golf you understand the logic.

There is also the mental health angle as well.  Research has suggested that the switch to Standard Time is correlated with depression - a change not associated with the Spring Forward switch.  

Sure, Standard Time is old school and likely more in-sync with our prehistoric hunter-gatherer circadian rhythms - all hard-wired into our DNA for millennia and long before we had time-keeping devices and a Chamber of Commerce.

Nevertheless, this retired guy would enjoy more sunlight during his active time of day.  Opinions are a dime a dozen.

No matter how you slice it the sunshine pie in a given day is always finite.  It's all about being a slave to clocks.  

Before we had time-keeping devices none of this was a problem.

It's madness.....

POWTS

PRO TIP

 

 

If you live in rural America there is high probability you have a POWTS (private onsite wastewater treatment system). 

Pull your filter out at six month intervals to flush it  clean of accumulated nastiness. 

It’s a stinky disgusting job but it will help your effluent move efficiently thru the system

 

Sunset

Some days you can chill-out in a deer stand and not see a single whitetail within range of a well-placed arrow.

It is not missing the rare sunset show that makes-up for what would appear to be a waste of time.

Yesterday there was this....

 

 

November Night Sky

Public Service Announcement of the Day - November Astronomy Edition...

Friday Earworm

According to the interweb this song performed by the virtual band the ‘Archies’ was produced by Jeff Barry – and originally released on the album Everything's Archie.  The final product was the result of a collection of studio musicians managed by Don Kirshner. 
 
Lead vocals were by Ron Dante along with Andy Kim and Toni Wine - multitracking studio engineering held this catchy tune together by a thread.   Released in late May of 1969 the song achieved small success on the charts in the early summer in some radio markets.  It was re-released mid-July 1969, on the Kirshner label.  From there it went viral (before viral was a thing) spending four weeks at the top of the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.  The song eventually rose to the 1969 US number-one single of the year.  It persists - ranked at number 78 on Billboard's Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Singles. 

Not a poor showing for a fake band..... 

Pup Update

A couple of days ago I shared that our pup had suffered the ill-effects of being a shit-eating dog.

Her gastrointestinal system experience a complete reset with everything coming out both ends.

We didn't go to the vet as it was pretty clear about the source of the problem.  Furthermore, the pup wasn't running a temperature and didn't appear to be in any other distress.  As per usual with these sorts of things plenty of water and a couple of days of the Universal Bland Diet should set things straight.

And it did.  

The dog's routine (with the exception of the change in grub) returned to normal the following day and after Wednesday's breakfast her diet of 3/4 cup of puppy kibble three times a day was restored.  It's now been 24 hours of regular diet without any extraneous events.

She didn't take a dump for almost 36 hours; but this pause has passed.

Pun intended....

 

Book Club

Summer reading list (among others) included the log and storied history of Alabama BBQ...

And a book by a guy that went to my high school...