Oddly enough, we here at "DaisyMae Maus and the Feline Americans" love the dark. Yes, we do live in sunny San Diego merely miles from Tijuana, Mexico and the Pacific Ocean home of perpetually beautiful days and warm, balmy nights. But all of that perfection gets pretty monotonous. Since we don't have the benefit of "seasons" here, we rely on the changing of the clocks to tell us when autumn and spring arrive (to be honest, we have two seasons: pre-spring and post-spring).
We've gotten our tails in a twist (or six) about October 29th when we get to set the clocks back a whole hour and enjoy our "extra" hour of sleep. Yeah, we know ... We'll "lose" the same hour in the spring, but don't be a killjoy about it.
Reprinted below is a little article about what's gonna happen sooner than we think ... President Bush just had to screw with TIME!
Also, the changing of the clocks is a good time to remember to change the batteries in your smoke detectors and recharge your fire extinguishers. Mom! Time to buy batteries again!
DaisyMae Maus
Daylight Saving Time (Not Daylight "Savings" Time): DST Extended by Four Weeks in U.S. Starting in 2007
by Matt Rosenberg
Update: President Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act, which extends Daylight Saving Time (DST) by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to end on the first Sunday of November. Extended Daylight Saving Time will begin in March 2007. See below for the new "spring forward, fall back" dates for the next few years.
Every spring we move our clocks one hour ahead and "lose" an hour during the night and each fall we move our clocks back one hour and "gain" an extra hour. But Daylight Saving Time (and not Daylight Savings Time with an "s") wasn't just created to confuse our schedules.
The phrase "Spring forward, fall back" helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of standard time ("spring forward").
We "fall back" at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to standard time. The change to Daylight Saving Time allows us to use less energy in lighting our homes by taking advantage of the longer and later daylight hours. During the six-and-a-half-month period of Daylight Saving Time, the names of time in each of the time zones in the U.S. change as well. Eastern Standard Time (EST) becomes Eastern Daylight Time, Central Standard Time (CST) becomes Central Daylight Time (CDT), Mountain Standard Time (MST) becomes Mountain Daylight Tome (MDT), Pacific Standard Time becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), and so forth.
Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.
Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have chosen not to observe Daylight Saving Time. This choice does make sense for the areas closer to the equator because the days are more consistent in length throughout the year.
Other parts of the world observe Daylight Saving Time as well. While European nations have been taking advantage of the time change for decades, in 1996 the European Union (EU) standardized a EU-wide European Summer Time. This EU version of Daylight Saving Time runs from the last Sunday in March through the last Sunday in October.
In the southern hemisphere where summer comes in December, Daylight Saving Time is observed from October to March. Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) don't observe Daylight Saving Time since the daylight hours are similar during every season, so there's no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer.
U.S. Daylight Saving Time
Year Spring Forward Fall Back
2004 2 a.m. April 4 2 a.m. Oct. 31
2005 2 a.m. April 3 2 a.m. Oct. 30
2006 2 a.m. April 2 2 a.m. Oct. 29
2007 2.a.m. March 11 2 a.m. Nov. 4
2008 2 a.m. March 9 2 a.m. Nov. 2
2009 2 a.m. March 8 2 a.m. Nov. 1
2010 2 a.m. March 14 2 a.m. Nov 7
2011 2 a.m. March 13 2 a.m. Nov. 6
