Daylight Savings Time

My favorite day of the year is June 21st because that is the day that it says light out the latest. I enjoy sunlight. I like being able to go out at night and have the last glimmering specs of twilight still present at 10pm. Today the sun went down at 4:18 here in Seattle. Sunrise was at 7:50, giving the city 8 and a half hours of the sun's ultraviolet glory. This corresponds almost perfectly to people's work schedules, effectively forcing people to drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. I find that criminally depressive and I've blogged about how I hate that the sunlight doesn't match up people's schedules. This year I took a stand, and changed nothing.

Yep I changed nothing, but everyone around me changed. Because I enjoy the extra hour of sunlight, I decided to stay on DST this winter. So far it has worked out terrifically. Basically I never set my clocks back an hour and it's great. I get out of bed at the same time as I have all year, but now I get to work an hour early. If I oversleep by an hour, I get to work right on time. I work my 8 hours and go home but it's an hour earlier in the day. I get an extra hour of sunlight and I can show up an hour late for anything and be right on time. For me the bars close at 3AM instead of 2AM and my Michigan Football games don't start at 9AM but at 10AM giving me what seems like an extra hour of sleep.

This could all be accomplished by converting back to standard time and adjusting my schedule. But for me it works because time is all about perception. I wouldn't be able to go to bed at 9:30PM usually but when I look at my clock and says 10:30, I realize that I have to get to bed. It's the same thing with getting up in the morning. The only way I'll get out of bed is if my clock tells me if I don't I'll be late. I have the same amount of time from when I leave work until I go to bed, but it seems like more because I have more sunlight and I actually get to enjoy a little of it.

Come March when everyone talks about how great the extra hour of sunlight in the summer is I'll remind them that I've been enjoying it the entire time. I'll also mention how I won't be losing that hour of sleep during the switchover.