Sunday is going to be a very special day here in the USA, or at least in some of the states within the boundaries of the USA….The cancellation of participating in Daylight Savings Time, Utah is one of them.

Way back when Daylight Savings Time (DST) was implemented it was my take on the whole matter, that a bunch of high fellutin politicians wanted to golf after their busy day sitting around making up new laws and they needed an extra bit of daylight in order to accomplish this.  So, they made up this DST business and sold it to enough people to get it voted in.  But not all states chose to participate.  For all these years it has made for some interesting events.  First off, it was my feeling, that when the time was changed in the Spring of the year and the clocks were moved forward an hour, I was very tired and that tired feeling continued for almost a week before my body clock caught up with the time clock.  I also observed, although not scientifically, there were more accidents on the highways because of tired drivers during that same week period.  Conversely, when the clocks were moved back in the Fall of the year, I felt like I had gotten an extra hours sleep, even though that was not really the case, and I liked that time change very much.  It did make for some interesting discussions about when we were to get up to go hunting early in the morning.  You wouldn’t think an hour would make that much difference, but in my mind it did.

Well, whatever the reason was that DST was implemented, it is about to become history!  And we will join the rest of the world in a standard of time we can all live with.  BUT….there is always a BUT (Bears Butt)……I went in search of the “standard time” and what I uncovered was a whole lot of non-standard time stuff.  Let’s begin with scientists.  Those guys have bulbous heads, even if they don’t outwardly show it.  Their minds have to have firm, unchanging and scientifically proven (without a doubt) stuff in their lives.  Stuff they can count on being the same today as it was yesterday and the day before that and will continue to be the same tomorrow and next week and next year.  Time is one of them and I’ll bet they had a very difficult time with DST.  I’d even go out on a limb and say some of them never observed DST even if it was the standard in the state they lived in.  They would have fashioned their theories around the world clock…Atomic time!  Measured out to +/- .09 seconds.  OH YA BABY!  That is the real time!

We all can relate to the Atomic Clock!  It is so accurate, even my scientific clock that hangs in my dining area will automatically adjust itself to whatever the atomic clock says is the real time.  And by the way, I try and regulate the other 10 clocks in my house to that one clock.  My trouble is getting the grandfather clock to continue to be within +/- 10 minutes of it in the 8 day window of its winding.  But I keep trying….a true scientist with the bulbous head would have destroyed that grandfather clock by now.

OK!  So, we are about to change our clocks back to what the rest of the world is on, so what is that called?  Normal time?  Greenwich Meridian Time?  World time?

I’m going to call it Standard World Time and I did see that somewhere on the web.  It makes sense that it should be called “standard” and since the whole world relies on this standard it should be called this.  Am I thinking outside the box or is my bulbous head getting in the way?

So, let’s put this Standard World Time at or near ZERO (0) degrees Longitude.  Digressing a bit:  Longitude is the dissection of the world from top to bottom and moves in East and West direction every 1 degree (or parts of degrees) up to 360 degrees worth.  Latitude is the same dissection around the world from the middle to the North and South directions up to 90 degrees…to make it easier, think of Latitude as “laying down”…..The Equator is zero degrees Latitude.  There is more to this that just this.  As the powers to be at the time (scientists) made a rule that said something like this (my words):  From zero degrees Longitude and going in an Easterly direction we will count the degrees as East X degrees until such time as we reach East 180 degrees.  As is real, at the point of 180 degrees East, we then begin to enter into the West side of the world and so we must stop our East count.  Conversely, if we depart from zero degrees longitude in a Westerly direction we will count the degrees as West X degrees until such time as we reach West 180 degrees.  As is real, at the point of 180 degrees West, we then enter into the East side of the world and so we must stop our West count.

Sort of like answering the question:  How far can you go into the forest?  Answer:  Half way, because the other half is on the way out of the forest.

Latitude is different as it is only graduated to 90 degrees each way from the equator…90 degrees to the North and 90 degrees to the South.  For time purposes we don’t get too concerned about Latitude…the only big deal about that is that when it is winter in the north, it is summer in the south and visa versa.

Back to time:  When the Atomic Time says it is Midnight (or whatever time it says), every 10 degrees you move away from Zero, in either East or West direction you will add or subtract an hour from that time.  West subtracts the time.  For simplicity sake, zero degrees longitude goes through England and Utah time is six hours behind them.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

Look it up yourself.

Another thing that might be of interest, each TIME ZONE is divided into 15 degree chunks.  So if you are standing in a spot at say 110 degrees West latitude and take one more step in the Westerly direction you just gained an hour of time!  So, if you are thinking of never losing a day in your life, just keep going West….but wait!  Those tricky scientists figured out that if you did that and everybody did that, so as not to lose a day in their lives, the world could possibly get moving faster and faster (remember the merry go round at school?  The faster the guys went in the middle of it the faster it went around and pretty soon you couldn’t hold on and would fly off of it?) and disrupt the entire universe.  So they introduced “International Date lines”….that is where the East 180 meets the West 180…dang!  Lost the day.  Might as well just enjoy where you are at the time and hang onto a tree in case a bunch of people decide to get the world spinning quicker.

I for one will be glad to get on a standard time and forget about the DST B.S.  I golfed a little in my time, but not enough to lose my precious sleep over in the Spring.  Golf is going out of favor these days and that is probably the real reason the push to get rid of DST.  I know it will make the APFO Contracting section a bit happier, as when they make up the contracts for flying in NON-DST states they can forget about putting in that statement and get back to what’s real with the sun angle.  The whole country needs to drop the DST!

Well folks!  At 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2015, when it’s 8 a.m. in England….Change your clocks back one hour!  Fall Back/Spring Forward will become a question on some game show in the future!  Count on that!

Bears Butt

October 30, 2015