Brief by Central Staff
Time – March 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
We often joke that there’s a Central Colorado Standard Time: Clocks and calendars be damned, things happen when they happen.
However, the rest of the world operates on standard time, and there are some changes this year. Previously, we shifted from Mountain Standard Time to Mountain Daylight Time on the first Sunday in April. Technically, the official clock changed from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. in the wee hours.
We were advised to set our clocks ahead an hour the night before, although at Central World Headquarters, Ed usually waited until Sunday morning. He’d get the official time via computer from the National Bureau of Standards, set his pocket watch accordingly, then go about the house, resetting clocks. And there are a lot of timepieces in modern households, from the clock on the VCR/DVD machine to the car radios, as well as the microwave oven and the kitchen stove.
Computers used to require personal attention in that regard, too, but modern ones adjust automatically for daylight savings time.
Or they did. In an effort to “save energy,” the U.S. Congress in 2005 moved the starting date from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March. So consider yourself warned.
The ending date was moved from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November.
We remember when year-round daylight savings time was implemented to save energy in 1974. And we don’t see how having to use your headlights to drive at 7 a.m. uses less energy than headlights at 7 p.m., which is the theory behind extending daylight time.
Anyway, keep the change in mind on March 11; especially on your computers, which you’re likely not used to adjusting for daylight time. And maybe we should lobby our legislature to follow the sensible example of Arizona, which stays on Mountain Standard Time all year.
After all, if “things happen when they happen” anyway, why keep messing with the clocks?
