Wednesday, November 08, 2006

We aren't in Kansas anymore...but it kinda looks like it

I flew up to Edmonton, Canada on Monday morning for a week of business meetings. It's cold - not as cold as it was in February of last year, but a heck of a lot colder than home. It's dry, too.

What's weird about Canada, is that you really don't feel like you are in a foreign country. It looks like the states, the people look the same, many of the stores are the same, the cars are the same, and the food is the same. But there are those subtle differences here or there that are reminders that this isn't home:
  • currency (loonies and toonies)
  • measurements (it's all metric, baby)
  • hockey (the national pastime...if there isn't a "church of hockey" there should be)
  • silly hats (touqes)
  • Tim Horton's (and infinite number of donut shops)
  • the funny dialect (eh, eh?)

It gets light late and dark early and I am two hours off from my 'normal' schedule at home...just enough to muck up the sleeping patterns.

I am going home tomorrow and nothing will make me happier than seeing the place get smaller in my rear view mirror.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Daylight Savings Time...I don't like it

Ever since Indiana stopped going to DST every year, back in 1974 when I was 11 years old, I have been ticked off about it. Being robbed of an hour of daylight when you are a kid really stinks. As an adult, and an "outdoor" type of person, I had always thought it'd be great if we could have it again because then I could have 3 or so hours after dinned to do whatever I wanted outside.

Well, year after year Indiana's State government tried to pass a bill to make it where Indiana would begin to observe DST once again. Unfortunately, year after year, it met with resistance from all walks of life and it just seemed like a wasted effort. But last year, that changed and it was able to pushed through the General Assembly and passed. So, for the first time in over 30 years, we "sprang forward" in April, and just "fell back" last week.

You'd think I'd be happy about this. Well, it turns out I am not. What's different now versus the past 30 years? Simple...I am a parent now. When you have kids, your whole life's schedule is upended. For me, it meant that if I was going exercise outdoors, it would have to be in the morning (a feat which still amazes me that I have been doing it because I am absolutely NOT a morning person, let alone an ACTIVE morning person).

So this is first problem I have with it - sunrise progresses forward from December 23 minute-by-minute until April 3, when it is daylight at 6am. This is great because I can be out the door at a quarter of six and have an hour of daylight to exercice before I need to be home and getting ready for work. The problem is that the very next day, April 4, when we "spring forward", we actually go back in time, as far as daylight is concerned because now it's not daylight until 7am.

My next problem with it is that it really screws up the circadian rhythms when it's dark at 7:45 pm on April 3, and then the next day it's not dark until 8:45pm.

The same thing occurs on the other end of things, but it's even worse because my 3 year old has no concept of DST and her "clock" runs by the number of hours she sleeps and not by the clock on the wall. I don't get the luxury of that so called "extra hour of sleep".

Finally, I hate winter. I hate the weather, the dreariness, the dank, dark and short days. Well, it's even worse now because on November 1, we suddenly lose a whole hour of daylight on the end of the day. It's winter, only accelerated. Talk about depressing...

So I have decided that I like it better the way it was. The days seem more "natural" in that the daylight and darkness progresses throughout the year and we don't have any of this "time warp" and artificial daylight business. DST isn't really "Savings Time" because it's relative. It's relative to who you are and how you live your life. To me, it's more like DLT, or Daylight Losing Time. Heck, if anything I'd rather see us set the clocks AHEAD in the fall and BACK in the spring. That's be great because it'd be daylight when I get home from work and I can actually do something with that.

Maybe I should just get two residences - one in Alaska for the summertime, and one in Hawaii for the winter. That would solve it all.