Something weird happened to me last night.

I think it had something to do with the time change back to Standard Time.

I’d got used to not having to change the clocks back and forward twice a year while I lived in the Cayman Islands. The biggest problem (and argument) we had was whether to set the clocks on all the computers to Eastern Standard Time and disable Daylight Savings updates, or just use Indiana Time Zone which didn’t change at all and stayed at GMT –5, just like us.

The other thing I had got used to was living so far south, closer to the equator. The sun always went down around the same time every night and always came up around the same time as well. Unless I was up at o’dark-hundred to catch a flight, the sun was already up when I woke up. It was more often than not setting when I was driving home and it was light until 7:30-8:00.

This weekend, we set the clocks back and cashed in on the hour extra sleep Sunday morning. I’ve been in many arguments with people over the bullshit quality of saying “you get an extra hour sleep!” All you’re doing is going to bed an hour later, too! The ONLY time this argument holds water is that first Sunday morning. If your alarm clock automatically changes at 2am, then when you wake up refreshed and it says 9am, your body really does think it’s still 10am and you got an extra hour of sleep. If you got up at 9 and hadn’t set the clock back, then you didn’t get an extra hour’s sleep, unless you do what I did and set the clock then go back to bed for another hour. :)

Monday morning I left for work at 7:30 and didn’t really pay too much attention to my surroundings. Honestly, who does at 7:30 on a Monday? I spent the day in my windowless office and when I took the elevator down to the garage, got in my car and drove out, I was shocked to see that it was NIGHT out! Not dusk, not evening, but NIGHT! It was just about 6:00 PM so I suppose it was 7:00 PDT and November with the Earth tilting us northerners away from the sun.

I remembered as a kid that in the winter it would get dark early and be night before my dad got home from work around 6. I remember complaining bitterly at my last job in Vancouver before I moved south in 1998 that when I left for work in the dark (I started early then, too) and had to work late, then I got home when it was dark. (I was usually finished by about 2:30-3:00 then) I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it, but I guess it was a big change from last Fridays environment to yesterdays.