Went out to dinner to celebrate the last day of winter this past evening. Had one of the better Prime Rib dinners that I have had in a long time at the Anchor River Inn in beautiful downtown Anchor Point. It is good to have the last of the winter behind us and into spring. Although, it is snowing lightly and the wind is gusting at about 40 mph, but they told me "spring forward" so this must be spring!
After a big dinner and returning home, before I settled in for a nap I set my alarm clock for 1:30 a.m. so I could get up and have all my clocks set to forward one hour at the stroke of 2:00 a.m. All of the digital clocks, wall clocks, DVD players, VCR players, microwave, stove, oven, coffee pot, two cars, and three wrist watches were synchronized. At 1:57 a.m., I move rapidly from one clock to the next, tapping the set switch one each. The clocks on the two cars were the tough ones, similar to running the marathon, especially after forgetting to put on my shoes or my clothes. At 2:02, I had completed my run, although two minutes late, if the government wants it done any quicker, they can send help next year. Completing, I checked out blog land, everyone was asleep so I hope all of you wake up late. The computers do it automatically as does the cell phone, but I just remembered, I forgot to set the clocks forward on the three digital cameras. Now all our photos and videos are going to be an hour later than we actually take them, we will classify it as time lapse photography.
Do you know why we have daylight savings time? The old wives tale is that originally it was done so the farmers could get into the fields and hour earlier. Yeah, like that is really important to Alaska farmers when they still have snow covered fields. In 2006, Daylight Saving Time was mandated by law. I guess all of you who did not move your clocks up at 2:00 a.m. are law violators, I am going to turn all of you in. It became law in order that it would save energy by making the daylight last an additional hour. However, typical of the professor profession, a couple of them did some research and discovered that it actually wastes energy. The two professors found that by moving the clocks forward, it actually increases electricity usage. Do you know what the cost is each year to businesses to set clocks forward one hour. Again, two professors did the research and it was on the news last night. Employees spend 20 seconds to two minutes setting clocks forward in their workplace. Taking into consideration, the average wage scale, it costs 1.7 billion dollars! Next year, I am going to contract out my services to set clocks forward for the local businesses, I figure I can do it cheaper than their employees.
Actually, "daylight" saving time is something of a misnomer. We do not really save any daylight because the relationship of the Sun and the Earth does not change, no matter what our clocks say. Here I sit, the only person that I know who is actually observing daylight savings time. If you are wondering, it is not working, it is just as dark this morning at 4:32 a.m. as it was yesterday at 4:32 a.m.
If you are wondering, at 4:33 a.m. (DST) Macky and King are on the trail to Unakleet. Mackey is either taking a nap or shut off his GPS according to GPS map he is not moving. If he is not moving, he should be because King is trailing in behind him by 22 miles and traveling at 5 mph. Hopefully they set their clocks forward, would hate to see them get to Nome an hour late.
