# DST rant



## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

Thanks for providing a rants section, first off. 

Here's the rant. A couple weeks ago, I was enjoying the government mandated extension of DST.

Now that DST is over, when I get home it is dark, yet sometimes still warm enough to work outside.

This has forced me to use a lamp and flashlight, much to the chagrin of neighbors. Well, ma'am or sir, you see, I'm laying down a bed of Rawlins mix, atop which I'm putting ties and rails.

Working neath a manmade light just isn't the same as sol.

My solution, extend DST yearround. 


Dave V.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

I know the guy who wrote This Book on the history of time in the U.S. Know him well. The book has a chapter on the history of DST, if you're interested


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Move to Arizona, we watch you folks play with time twice a year!


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## East Broad Top (Dec 29, 2007)

Move to Arizona, we watch you folks play with time twice a year! 
But that's out of necessity. If you go outside before 5pm, you melt.  

Later, 

K


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

They briefly experimented with year-around DST - I believe it was during the Nixon administration right after the first Arab oil embargo. It didn't last because some parents got upset that their kids were walking to school in the dark before sunrise. When they reverted to going back to Standard Time, they added a month to DST by going to it sooner.


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

I used to see kids walking. We walked. Not anymore. If the school is just a few blocks away, the bus picks them up. God forbid they exercise.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Melt? Nope, but I do drip a lot! 
Same hours in a day, we just roll up our sidewalks at a reasonable hour. 
I love to get up before dawn and watch and listen to the green desert awake. 
The songbirds sing for their breakfast, my football Quail are bossy and my gandy dancers come to the Boss for their peanut rations. 
I hear the distant warnings as they are echoed by new voices long before the Hawk gracefully glides over the ridge looking for his own meal. 
After a day's work, I pick up my flock as I drive the dirt ruts home, first a couple then a dozen measure my progress and race for the best roosts. 

I worked outside all year long and am still upright! 

John

edit... I should have added to the list; Listening to a chuckwalla chuck.....


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Posted By SE18 on 17 Nov 2009 12:22 PM 
I used to see kids walking. We walked. Not anymore. If the school is just a few blocks away, the bus picks them up. God forbid they exercise. 
Times have changed, safety is an issue. Not too long ago we lost a young girl that got upset and walked ahead of her group.... 

I wish the kids today could live the innocence we were blessed to know, I walked 6 miles to school... in Maine! Rain? Wear a coat. Snow? Bundle up and leave sooner....many times alone.

John


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

My Granddad was a farmer and used to feign a low, rough, gravely voice and in the spring he'd say, "I think we ought'a just stick ta bein' on God's Time." Likewise, in the fall he'd say, "Glad we're gettin' back to God's Time, now." 

He got up and went to bed "with the sun" which meant in the winter time he had fewer hours to get work done outside, but that was okay as there were fewer outdoor chores to do in the winter time anyway. He ate "Dinner" (that's "Lunch" to you cityslickers; "Supper" is the evening meal) at "Noon"... not "12:00 o'clock... NOON!, when the sun was directly overhead. He only paid attention to the clock when he had an appointment with someone in town.


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## JEFF RUNGE (Jan 2, 2008)

Time is only important, when there is more than one person involved......


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Harumph! harumph! I have been grumbling the same thing since DST went away, I say chose one time and stick with it! DST works best IMO, I cant understand why we have to go thru this dance every year, sure I get one hours extra sleep in the morning, at the cost of it being pitch dark when I get home and falling asleep watching TV at 9:30pm - yeah thats a great trade off. I have to get up at 5am so "Late Night" for me now is watching Leno, and in what? 3 months we go back?, why do it at all?


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

We went off DST and I still have jet lag.


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Posted By Totalwrecker on 17 Nov 2009 12:30 PM 
Posted By SE18 on 17 Nov 2009 12:22 PM 
I used to see kids walking. We walked. Not anymore. If the school is just a few blocks away, the bus picks them up. God forbid they exercise. 
Times have changed, safety is an issue. Not too long ago we lost a young girl that got upset and walked ahead of her group.... 

I wish the kids today could live the innocence we were blessed to know, I walked 6 miles to school... in Maine! Rain? Wear a coat. Snow? Bundle up and leave sooner....many times alone.

John


You For got 6 miles to school and both ways up hill.









I wish we would all got one hour forward and stay there. I think the would give me a little more time to play in the afternoons. I love being here in aZ where we don't change time.
The morning are just like he discribed. Birds sining and all kinds of animals coming out to great the new day. When the cactus bloom it is just beautiful. That why I live so far out of Down Town Phoenix.


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## nkelsey (Jan 4, 2008)

I read a good one about DST 

Only the white man would think that cutting a foot from one end of a blanket and sewing it on the other end would make the blanket longe. 


Plus multiple studies show middle and high school kids do not learn in the early morning anyway


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

You guys all know the dates are changing AGAIN next year? 

Starts 1 week sooner, and ends 1 week later. 

Regards, Greg


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Remember the old adage? "Spring Forward and Fall Back"... 
Well, actually for me it now seems to be: "Spring Up and Fall Over".


Anyway... When I retired, that first evening when I went to bed, I took a small hatchet with me and the next morning when the alarm went off I got to do what I had been wanting to do for 40 years!!!!! VERY SATISFYING!!!!!









But then I realized I still needed some sort of clock in the bedroom so I went out and bought a new clock-radio. On the box it advertised that it automatically adjusted for DST and kind of implied it did it via radio signals from the National Radio Station that broadcasts time signals.

The first spring on the appointed DST day, it failed to update the time. I waited until the next day, thinking maybe it took a while for it to respond to the time signals and it was still wrong so I figured that maybe where I live it cannot receive the signals and I just set it ahead myself. A week later it was ahead one more hour, like it finally got the radio signal and responded to it. I set it back the extra hour and the next week it did it again! I reset it again and it was okay for the rest of the summer.

That next fall I again had to fight with it to keep the time correct for about 3 weeks.

I now know to just leave it alone and "remember" that it is wrong for a week, then right for a week and then wrong again until I reset it, until the next DST shift. The problem is that it always automatically changes a week late so, it is wrong for a week, then right for a week and then wrong again until I reset it. If I take the time to reset it manually, then I have to reset it 3 times in the Spring and 3 times in the Fall.

I think maybe it is getting me back for what I did to it's cousin.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have huge problems, our company has 30 branches, and much of the computerized equipment has the original DST change dates, so in several cases we have to change the time FOUR times a year... wreaks havoc with phone systems where the phone system clock determines if it puts your call through or says we are closed... 


Greg


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

Thanks for the tip on DST changing again! I'm putting together a calendar for our magazine and we would have goofed big time. 

I no longer drive to work (take VRE train), but when I used to drive, I had to face sun delays not just 2 but 4 times a year on account of the time changing back and forth. BTW, eastbound directly into the sun was in the a.m. and visa-versa. 

I went out again last night with lamp and flashlight but gave up after 5 minutes. Just isn't the same as working in daylight. 

Ironically, we need DST in winter even more than in summer (when the sun setting sooner cools everything down). In winter, lack of DST causes seasonal affective disorder for some. 

In addition to AZ, I think that there might be 1 or 2 other states that don't change clocks.


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 17 Nov 2009 07:46 PM 
You guys all know the dates are changing AGAIN next year? 

Starts 1 week sooner, and ends 1 week later. 

Regards, Greg 
Quick question Greg-

Did they change the times in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, as it stated Daylight Saving Time starts on the second Sunday in March, which will be the 14th in 2010. So "technically" a week later than 2009 (March 8th)?

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/faqs/qdaylite.htm

See page 23 of the bill:

http://www.epa.gov/oust/fedlaws/publ_109-058.pdf

Thanks


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## SE18 (Feb 21, 2008)

I just looked it up. Believe it or not, the same department that controls the railroads controls the time! The Transportation Department!!!!!

Furthermore, I found out that there are other countries that also follow DST, but their dates are different. I'm speaking of Europe.

Also, I found there are 3 states with no DST.

1. Arizona; except for Navajo Indian lands, a sizeable chunk in the northeast part

2. Hawaii

3. Federated States of Micronesia 


Some trivia there for you! And a train connection to (Transportation dept)


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By SE18 on 18 Nov 2009 07:23 AM 
I just looked it up. Believe it or not, the same department that controls the railroads controls the time! The Transportation Department!!!!!

Furthermore, I found out that there are other countries that also follow DST, but their dates are different. I'm speaking of Europe.

Also, I found there are 3 states with no DST.

1. Arizona; except for Navajo Indian lands, a sizeable chunk in the northeast part

2. Hawaii

3. Federated States of Micronesia 


Some trivia there for you! And a train connection to (Transportation dept) 





True, and if you remember your Highshool History, there was not even a "standard" time in the US until after the Civil War, due to the railroads:


http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/d.html


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

How people feel about DST usually depends a lot on where they are located within a zone. If you are on the far eastern or western edge of a zone, you experience a much more drastic difference between clock time and solar noon. For example, if you are on the western edge of the eastern time zone, you are already almost an hour off from solar noon--the clock says noon, but the sun says 11 o'clock. If you go on DST, then the clock says noon, but it feels like 10 am. How you experience DST differs pretty radically depending on where you live


DST makes no sense at all the closer you are to the equator--there's very little difference between the winter and the summer sun. Hence Hawaii and micronesia


Historically, complaints about DST often come from people who have to rise very early for work, because it means they are in darkness all year, and it's harder to get to sleep at night


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## trainman707 (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 17 Nov 2009 07:46 PM 
You guys all know the dates are changing AGAIN next year? 

Starts 1 week sooner, and ends 1 week later. 

Regards, Greg 

WONDERFUL!! I will certainly welcome that!

Monte


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## Nicholas Savatgy (Dec 17, 2008)

I like it darker longer.........DST


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I am seeing the trend to slowly extend DST until it is always on. 

The complaints have mostly been from people not wanting their kids to head for school in the dark, but heck, I never see kids walking any more! Mommy and Daddy seem to be chauffer service... as well as providing computers, cell phones, etc... 

I think it's steps in the right direction. In my case, in the winter it's dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home. If we had year round DST, at least one of my trips would not be in the dark, and might have some light to run some trains when I got home, my highest priority! 

Regards, Greg


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Of course we could just all agree to start work and hour earlier and get home an hour earlier. Exactly the same thing is accomplished, without the odd pretense of shifting the clocks around



Or we could change the thermostats, so it says "70" when it's actually 60!


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Many years ago there was a serious proposal to convert the "Lower 48" of the U.S. mainland to just one time zone. It was to be done over several years by first creating only two time zones, combining the time zones of Eastern with Central, and Mountain with Pacific. Then after some fixed number of years combining those two time zones into just one. The only area where the sun would be overhead at noon would be the stack of states from Texas to N. Dakota. People on the East coast would just get to sleep late or possibly get up early and have their "family/personal time" before going to work and people on the west coast would be the opposite. Since the majority of food production is in the central States, the majroity of farmers would be on a Solar schedule which fit the needs of the occupation.


It was argued that a major portion of the population already have work/play schedules that do not follow the Solar day so why not make just one time zone so work schedules could be coordinated across the country.


I remember that when I read of this, I thought the people proposing it have lost all touch with reality and should be locked up for the good of society!


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