What time is it?

Our wonderful government doesn't know when to leave things alone. "Hey if DST (Daylight Savings Time) saved a bunch of money in electricity when it was enacted, let's make it longer and we can save more money." There were even some that thought if we observed DST all year long, we'd save even more money. Ugh. Lights are not the biggest draw on the electric supply any more. It's the always on computers, stereos (even when they are off they are on), etc. Lights are just a fraction of the deal. At least in our house, we end up using the same amount of lights in the morning and evening regardless of how light it is outside. If anything, with the time change, they are on more as I am now getting up before sunrise again.

Now, we also have many gadgets that have built in DST settings. Computer patches and upgrades were issued, and our IT deperatment did their best to get things right, but at least one application seemed to jump forward by not just one hour, but a whole day. Go figure. But my VCR doesn't have a firmware upgrade for the DST change. Nor did the banks' outdoor signs. When Y2K came around, the banks were the first to notice the problem, and spent tons of money upgrading and testing for both Y2K bugs. (Yes there were two: one was the problem with only storing the last two digits, the other was a lack of understanding of the leap year rules.) But on my way home from the store after picking up some pepper seeds to get started, my daughter was surprised that despite the amount of sunlight, the time was getting late (around 6:30pm). As we passed a bank, she also noticed that a bank had the wrong time on their public service time / temperature sign. (Did you know that banks are required to have these signs?). Anyway, it was more than one bank that didn't fix their signs. Now, they might have ditched DST and stayed on CST, but I doubt it.

But the real reason for the DST fix was to keep the economy moving. When it's dark early, people tend to get depressed and hibernate. When then the sun stays out longer after people get home from work, they tend to go out and be better consumers and spend money and keep our economy afloat. It has nothing to do with saving energy. The energy policy wonks will show that we saved X number of KwH of electricity, but will not mention the increase in gasoline usage during that same time.

There is one good thing though that will come to light from the DST change. Halloween in the fall will be just a little bit brighter for the kids to be trick or treating. It won't be quite as dangerous to be out into the evening. The kids will be able to visit more houses. We'll probably even need to buy more candy because of it. Which gets me back to my point. It's the economy, stupid.