March 12th, 2010

Daylight Savings Time 2010 and DST 2010 Begin Getting Ready for Spring Forward!  One thing about the spring that many people don’t particularly look forward to is Daylight Saving time.  When DST takes place, we set our clocks forward thus losing an hour of sleep on Sunday morning.  On the bright side (no pun intended) you will also gain an hour of sunlight during the night hours.  This is what allows you to do all those fun outdoor activities late in the evening during the summer.

Standard Time is something that was created for the purpose of printing railroad schedules.  Prior to the invention of our time zones, individual municipalities were responsible for setting up their own time.  This was a nightmare for the trains, and eventually Congress set up the four standard time zones that we have today.

Daylight Saving Time has been in and out of our lives during history, but most recently it was extended through a 2005 law that went into effect in 2007.  This makes DST a little longer every year.  We won’t revert back to Standard Time until November, whereas the changes used to take place in April and October.

Some say that the time change helps us save money on energy costs, with the premise that we will use less energy during the evening hours than if we were at Standard Time.  In modern times, this may not be the case. The net energy savings may be a wash when we consider the energy we use in the morning when it is still dark.

Don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour on March 14, 2010.  This is particularly important for those watching various basketball games on TV, as you don’t want to oversleep and miss your conference title game!