Time Change Blues

Time Change Blues

Geese on the Sacramento River 10/29/08

I was down by the river the other day, thinking about the changing of the clocks. The geese don't care, the river doesn't care, the trees don't care, so I wondered,"Why do we change the clocks?"

I guess the first question should be; "Why do we all set our clocks the same?"
The answer was over my head.

Why we have standard time.
Bigger Hint...

Trains!
To keep trains on schedule,(and from running into each other), Standard time was established in London, 1840. When the whole country got their clocks together, it was 1847, and they called it Greenwich Mean Time. ( I suppose I would be mean too, if I were a green witch!).
Back on the Track

Tracks just before they go under Lake Blvd.
While I followed time, I followed the tracks that take the trains I hear from my apartment. On a warm summer evening, I can hear the trains from downtown Redding, and can follow their course across the river and through the gully, under Lake Blvd, to Oasis road and beyond to Lake Shasta.

Looking toward Lake Blvd from Oasis Rd.

Looking toward Lake Shasta from Oasis Rd.
You may wonder what sitting on my patio on a warm summers night, listening to the train, has to do with Daylight savings time... Well, it all began in 1784 with an idea that Ben Franklin had for an, "economical project", or it could also be attributed to William Willit, as he was riding one English morning in 1907, and noticed peoples houses still had their shutters closed. He thought that was wasted daylight that would be better used in the summer evenings.

A rose by any other name.... 10/29/08

It was the Germans and Austrians that implemented the first national "Daylight Savings Time", in 1916, to conserve fuel for electric power.
In America we called it, "War Time", during the 1940's.

Someone thought it would be good to change the days we start and end daylight savings in America this century, so we go back on the 1st Sunday in November. The thought was to have more daylight on voting day. Right! Then they thought it would be good for trick or treaters, but they forgot that kids don't go out until it's dark.
I sure hope Obama wins, and we get some smarter people in government positions.

Mushrooms by the stairwell 10/29/31

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Perfect Timing

Forward Clockwise

More Or Less



I should know more in the morning. Oh wait, it is morning already and I don’t know anymore than I did an hour ago.
 


Over the years of doing this blog, I have covered the history, the politics, and some of the arguments pro and con regarding daylight savings time. If you type daylight savings time in the search box (upper left on the page), you will get this result.



Dorothy has several varieties of daffodil looking flowers that are blooming all over her garden.



I figured I would play with some of the flowers, at least their images, and bring out some of their personalities as I see them.



Of course there’s no telling what they’ll look like to me tomorrow when I’ll have an extra hour of daylight, based upon my normal time of rising, to capture their delightful expressions.



Isn’t this a lot nicer than me talking about politics, corporate greed, and all those other wonderful topics that keep the cable news channels in business.
 


The other night I cooked up some Greek appetizers, snacks, that had a spinach and feta cheese stuffing. It was one of those things that I can cook without spending a lot of time at the kitchen counters in preparation.



A change in the weather is expected this week, and I can hear the wind huffing and puffing like it’s trying to bring in the storm. We’ll see if it comes in an hour early, or an hour late.



The tulips that Dorothy planted for this year’s garden, are beginning to show as the unexpected volunteers begin to fade.

This next image is a coming soon poster for the new varieties and colors that are about to grace the garden.



I suppose it’s time to wrap this up, or maybe that was an hour ago. At any rate, welcome to daylight savings time 2012. May all your days be filled with an extra hour of sunshine.




Tonight’s/This Morning’s Video;




Time Marches On

Daylight Savings Got Me

A Little Behind

No, I am not referring to my backside.

This Is A Backside
Dark side of the moon as photographed by the Lunar Orbiter.

I am referring to the semi-annual timepiece changing we do to enable daylight savings time. I have written about this phenomenon before. (HERE)



This time, even though I had prepared more effectively than in the past, I still managed to skew the timing on a few scheduled events.  The screwy clock changing at least provoked me to play around with the unfinished song I wrote about the time change.


Blueberry muffin behind ice cream, whipped cream, and blueberries.

So, I recorded some new parts, and made some changes to the timely song about the time change, and I liked the results. I uploaded the song for today’s song of the day, but I wasn’t done; In today’s iTunes world, one must also produce artwork.


I figured, since I added some narration to the song, I should use an image of me narrating. I think the recording session, and the graphic design process took equal amounts of time. From my perspective, both endeavors are equally rewarding and fascinating so I lose all track of time. (Whoa, that’s heavy.)

Today’s Relatively Appropriate Song;
 Time Change Blues by Phil Seymour



It’s About Time

That Time Again

The Clocks Need Changing

Breakfast will still look like this

Living here and now, in the 21st century, most of the ‘clocks’ change themselves, but I still have a few old fashioned types that require manual adjustment. They are the ones that keep time even if the power is out.

This bird wakes and sleeps by earth time

There is a new movie version of “Annie”. If it is half as good as the trailer, it’s going to be a great movie. It stars Quvenzhane´ Wallis as Annie. That’s a good thing.

Shasta on Friday

There is a new iPhone case called Wello, that, like the ‘Tricorder’ used in Star Trek, can monitor blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, temperature, lung function, and more. Coincidentally, I just read the latest Robin Cook novel “Cell”, about a fictitious, personal physician App for iPhones called iDoc. Go figure?

Saturday morning butterfly

I woke up this morning, (and that was a good thing), put on some clothes and stepped out onto the balcony to greet the day. There were blossoms, sunlight, birds, bees, and a butterfly. Nice way to start the day.

Flicker camouflage

I am looking for the perfect car, at the perfect price, to replace my 1995 Buick Le Sabre. I am sure it will appear at the perfect time and everyone involved will be thrilled and happy, (including the person who finds the Buick is the perfect car they are looking for).

An image that you can feel

Experimenting with RAW pictures. These are images that bypass the ‘in camera processing’ that happens when using the JPEG setting. Some of my RAW experiments are extremely impressive, like the yellow flower above.

I can almost reach into the picture and touch the leaves and petals. The weight and texture feel real to me. I will see how this prints out as a note card, later this evening.

Friday sunset

I am glad I took a sunset picture last night. Today has become too cloudy to produce sunset picture conditions.

Don’t forget to set your old fashioned clocks forward one hour for Daylight Savings Time.

Today’s Video;

Like Clockwork

Who Do? Hoodoo?

Boo Who?

"On October 31, the night before the new year, the Celts celebrated Samhain because they believed the ghosts of the dead came back to Earth. Celtic priests set enormous, ceremonial bonfires and made crop and animal sacrifices to please dead spirits. The Celtic people dressed up in various animal skins to fool and scare away evil demons."

By the mid-19th century, America was flooded with European immigrants. Many were millions of Irish fleeing their homeland after the potato famine of 1846. These immigrants brought the traditions of Halloween with them.

The roaring bonfires of their ancestors became carved-out gourds sporting candles -- our modern day Jack o'Lanterns. And going from house to house in a costume became a popular way to celebrate harvest festival time.

Jewel Box

NGC 4755 cluster from ESO’s La Silla Observatory.

Piece of Milky Way Panorama produced by Axel Mellinger

This past weekend, we turned back the clocks 1 hour, but it hardly affects the day to day affairs of the worlds 7 billion industrialized monkeys. We even make sure that the change occurs early Sunday mornings, so that it takes away the fun and fretting of being late, or early, to work or school, and wastes the, “What time is it?”, excuses for tardiness or missed trains.

In other countries, the change to, and from Daylight Savings Time, can be weeks different from the United States. Ours is no doubt tied to consumer spending trends, carefully analyzed over decades of economic research, to take advantage of full moons, or whatever stimulates our appetite to purchase goods and services.

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;

Shop Around = The Miracles

The Time Of My Life Is Now

What Time Is It?

Where Did The Time Go?

Flowers in Dorothy's garden. 3/15/10

It seems like it was just last year that I turned the clocks forward and wrote about the history of daylight savings time. HERE.

I didn't expect it to affect me, one way or another, but a funny thing happened when it was time to sleep last night; Sleep was not forthcoming.

Yesterday afternoon, or evening. 3/14/10

The 'gig' at the Hilltop Estates was a lot of fun and they asked us to come back to play again, (That's a good sign.)

The entertainment center at Hilltop Estates. 3/13/10

It was a really nice facility. We played in the entertainment area, adjacent to the 2nd floor dining room. The people really enjoyed the Phil Seymour Trio and covered us in praise and appreciation. They have a beautiful grand piano there, and I imagine they would be thrilled to hear the LMP Trio with Marian playing it, one of these days.

John Harrison's Mustang. 3/13/10

Before we played, John and I went to a spot to take pictures at sundown of his Mustang. We will go back again to try a little different light, and zoom, to bring out more of a match between the car and Mount Shasta.

45th anniversary edition emblem on Mustang. 3/13/10

Here In Redding

Lassen Peak on a beautiful March 3rd, 2010.

The weather is splendid. 75 degree days and cool nights are ours to enjoy for the next week or so, and enjoy it we will. I saw just about every kind of moving vehicle carrying people around in the March sunshine today when I went to the library.

I found a couple of good detective paperbacks right here in our building "A", library last Friday night, but they were such exciting, 'page turners', that today I found I had nothing left to read. The detective books were by Earl Emerson and Robert Crais, respectively. "Yellow Dog Party", features the detective - Thomas Black, and detective - Elvis Cole inhabits "L.A. Requiem".

I had a feeling that it would take some first rate entertaining writing to satisfy my reading appetite, so I was particularly pleased to find a new Clive Cussler at the Redding Library. His characters tend to survive broken limbs, gunshot wounds, arrows, torn parachutes and at least one plunge off a waterfall before they vanquish the villains.

Blossoms by the balcony. 3/14/10

Today's Relatively Appropriate Song;
Stand By Me by Phil Seymour

Love To Sing

Yesterday Now

Today Tomorrow

Monday afternoon moon

The confusion is of my own making. You see, I edited and prepared a set of pictures to appear in yesterday’s blog posting, but instead of writing and publishing the post, I chose to spend my time on other pursuits.

Pink rose from RAW image

That left me with a set of images that, in my current timeline, are now out of date.

Some of the flowers, and assuredly, the mountains and moon have been photographed in the more recent, ‘now’, that I am calling, “today”. I will use some of those images tomorrow.

Mount Shasta, Monday after 5

It is a matter of perspective of course. These images from yesterday do not exist for you, the reader, until this moment when you are seeing them. And, to further distort time, they won't be ‘yesterday’s pictures’ when you see them, either. They will be from Monday.

Squirrel watching something intensely

Last night, (which for tonights purposes was Monday), anyway, last night I watched some of the “Wake Up To Climate Change” event where concerned United States Senators spoke on the Senate floor throughout the night. If you, like me, wanted to know which of our Senators are intelligently informed about the catastrophic consequences of burning fossil fuels, this was an excellent opportunity to find out.

First iris blooms in C building planter

It was refreshing to watch elected officials who had the educational background and vocabulary to articulately express the need for immediate reduction of oil, coal, and gas production if we want a livable earth for future generations.

Snow on the lava flow

No Republicans were there to express an interest in the future. They were over at Fox news denying science and calling our president a dictator in mom jeans, (whatever that is supposed to mean).

Today’s Video;

The Epic Land Part 1 - New Zealand Landscapes Timelapse from Bevan Percival on https://vimeo.com">Vimeo

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Earth - There Is No Substitute