Thursday, February 08, 2007

Look what happens when you are sleeping?

Did you hear that daylight savings time is coming early this year? When lengthening daylight savings time was being considered by Congress last year as part of the energy bill I was furious that there was no opposition. Where was the outrage, where were the citizen activists excercising their first amendment rights, where were the advocacy groups who would argue on my behalf? No one cared, and frankly, few even noticed.

Notice you will in a few weeks--yes, that's right, a few weeks. Daylight savings starts on March 11 this year, a full month earlier then what we are accustomed to. Daylight savings has deep meaning in my life, it is when I start riding my bike to work. The sun is bright enough at 7 am when I leave my house and still lights my way home at 6 pm. I'm a little worried that it will still be chilly come daylight savings but because this is how I measure the start of my bike commuting season I will have to adjust.

I've never been a big believer in daylight savings time. It wrecks my sleep no matter when it happens and it is confusing when I call friends in AZ who don't follow daylight savings. It's easy to talk to them in the winter when they are 2 hours behind, much more difficult in the spring and summer when they are 3 hours behind. And just when you think that you have changed all of your clocks you find a watch in your drawer on the wrong time--better yet, if you are like me, you lose the directions to the watch and have to wait until the next change for your watch to have the correct time.

Daylight savings--my friend, my enemy--and this year a cruel hoax to those who fell asleep when Congress changed things up.