Stephanie’s Diary & General Thoughts
November 5th 2009-
I was driving with my dad today on the way to the store and I started realizing that this whole Daylight Savings Time thing is really getting to me. I am getting a tired spell around 6pm everyday. Luckily, it passes and then I can get back to my go, go, go lifestyle.
Dad and I talked a bit about why DST happened, he said it was cause of the railroad but he wasn’t sure why. I told him I liked to make up my own story, I like to believe it was for the farmers. You see, if the sun rose “earlier”, they could get work done in the fields in time to take their wares to town for the selling. I completely made this up but it is a story I will tell my kids when they ask why daylight savings time started.
I heard Figueroa won against the Big Bad Bird. Congrats Figgy, I hope you take us here in U.P. to a happier place where “it’s safe to be in the streets after dark”, like you say. Apparently it’s not even safe to be inside your school classroom in broad daylight these days. At least not if you are in a classroom at Drum Intermediate in University Place, WA. My daughter was in a classroom such as this just this Monday and an armed man caliming to be in the military, telling war stories was a “guest speaker” that day. Folks, that’s just about 2 degrees away from Columbine as far as I see it. Scary stuff happening here in U.P. these days.
I went to the pet store today to buy my Muggy Boy (that’s what I call my dog, I know it’s sickening so what) some food. You see he didn’t like the other stuff we tried feeding him. We thought he had an allergy to his old food so we went to Mud Bay a couple of weeks ago and bought him a bag of fish food, ok fish flavored food, and some flavored with rabbit. Apparently, Muggy is not allergic afterall, just really picky. He’s been getting more table scraps than he needs lately and he’s actually learned to ring his potty bell for snacks. Just to get you up to speed here we hung a bell on the sliding glass door that leads outside when Muggy was a baby so he would nudge it with his nose to let us know he had to go out to do “business”. Well, Muggy is one smart cookie, let me tell you. He’s begun sitting patiently in the kitchen while I make dinner and staring intently at me. When I fail to “accidentally” drop a nugget of yum yum in his dish, Muggy will ring his potty bells and then come and sit patiently at my feet. I am not rewarding this behavior in case you were wondering but I digress… At the pet store today “Pets and Pals” in University Place there was a 17.5# bag of food for 35 bucks or a 35# bag of food for 50 bucks. The 50# bag had a coupn on it for 2 dollars off. I sat there trying to do the math on it but since Daylight Savings Time has me so screwed up I couldn’t figure it out until I had struggled with the problem aloud, in line, to the teller and then once realizing that the larger bag was the better deal, I got out of line and swapped my 17.5 pounder for the 40# alternative. I brought the food home and Muggy snubbed it, he didn’t eat a bite. He went to his potty bells while I was heating up my lasagne in the microwave and he rang them in protest. I left his food down and ignored him. It’s been 4 hours and he still hasn’t eaten. He only weighs 19 pounds and I’m sure i can hold out longer than he’ll be able to.
I also glued a mirror to a dresser today. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds.
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November 5th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
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November 9th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
I must be getting old; I am seriously having a hard time with this. The daylight savings time thing meant the price of the dog food was different? And Muggy hasn’t gone potty since? Maybe he wants lasagne. I guess some day I’ll need potty bells too.
And your pa is right. From National Geographic:
Oversight of daylight saving time first resided with the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 1966 the U.S. Congress transferred that responsibility to the newly created Department of Transportation.
Congress ordered the transportation agency to “foster and promote widespread and uniform adoption and observance of the same standard of time within and throughout each such standard time zone.”
So why is a transportation authority in charge of time laws? It all dates back to the heyday of railroads.
“In the early 19th century … localities set their own time,” said Bill Mosley, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“It was kind of a crazy quilt of time, time zones, and time usage. When the railroads came in, that necessitated more standardization of time so that railroad schedules could be published.”
In 1883 the U.S. railroad industry established official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. Congress eventually came on board, signing the railroad time zone system into law in 1918.
The only federal regulatory agency in existence at that time happened to be the Interstate Commerce Commission, so Congress granted the agency authority over time zones and any future modifications that might be necessary.
Part of the 1918 law also legislated for the observance of daylight saving time nationwide. That section of the act was repealed the following year, and daylight saving time thereafter became a matter left up to local jurisdictions.
Daylight saving time was observed nationally again during World War II but was not uniformly practiced after the war’s end.
Finally, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized the start and end dates for daylight saving time but allowed individual states to remain on standard time if their legislatures allowed it.