Didja "Spring Forward"?

 

It's that time.  The time when most of the country is "springing forward"... as though you are expected to joyfully "lose" an hour this time of year and "gain it back" in the fall.  I understand this folly, originally intended to save energy, allow for a longer work-day (for those who work outside, like farmers), and for safety (making it safer for people to be outside in the evening)... but we just used energy in the morning, and people who work outside could just start earlier to coincide with the sunrise, like they would normally do, and: safer?  Yeah that probably worked when you were a kid and were told to "be home when the street lights come on."

It's all a bit like setting your watch five minutes ahead of time so you won't be late for things... but you know you set your watch five minutes ahead, so you can fudge that time difference when you want.  Or, the Native American reaction to DST: "Only the white man would thing you can cut an inch off the top of your blanket and sew it onto the bottom of your blanket and think you now have a longer blanket."

Back in World War II, it may have made sense for saving energy, but the world is a different place now... and most people are "looking at their screens" regardless of the time of day (just like I am doing as I write this, and you are doing as you read it).

Some people think we moved to Arizona to be close to Steph and Dan.  Or, because we were tired of hurricane season and all that beautiful water and sandy beaches of the Tropical Tip.  Or because we wanted to change from hot and humid to hotter/colder and so dry your skin cracks.

Yeah, there is all of that... but, mostly it was do we didn't have to go through that twice a year ritual of changing every clock.  You don't realize how many clocks you have until you have to manually change them.  Oh, sure, your iPhone and Apple Watch take care of that on their own, but how many other clocks do you have around the house?  And, on every appliance?  And in your vehicles?  And each of those time keeping devices requires a different technique to reset.

Yeah, we don't have to do any of that time-wasting (as opposed to: time saving) tasks here in Arizona.  We just get up earlier during the summer to be able to go outside without spontaneously combusting.  And, we look forward to the sun going down so you can carefully touch any particular surface outside (like patio furniture, the steering wheel or door handle on your car, or the ass-burning seat on your motorcycle).

Living in the Tropical Tip, we were closer to the equator so the hours of daylight during summer and winter didn't change as drastically as when we were in the Pacific Northwest.  But, it's all the change of seasons... and you adapt to it wherever you are.  I used to find it somewhat amusing that we offered "sunset cruises" during June, July, and August when I was driving boats in the San Juans.  "Sunset" happens every day, regardless of the season.  But, by late August, sunset is happening earlier, so you can't get in a typical 3 hour whale-watch trip and get back to the dock before it is dark.  And driving boats in the dark in the PNW is no fun because of the potential for debris in the water (like a deadhead, a log that is floating vertically, with only a couple inches of it above the water).

We are pretty close to that 12 hours of daylight and dark in the Phoenix area right now (well, 11 hours and 45 minutes vs 12 hours and 15 minutes, but we're gaining a couple minutes of light each day until the summer solstice).

 Not here.