Imagine my shock and horror this morning, when I began to go about the normal Sunday morning routine, and discovered that it was 60 minutes later than we thought it was.
It took about 240 seconds for me to realize what had happened: My alarm clock (which we both use, as it has two alarm settings) had, thinking the old DST rules were still in effect, fell back one hour last night.
As my wife said, hurrying out the door, as she was now running very late, “time for a new alarm clock”.
This is particularly annoying as the changeover to the new DST was very disrtruptive to my industry, having a large cost in software upgrades and manhours to patch and update older systems, whose programmers had no inkling that COngress, in a fit of trying to show the people that they were trying to DO something about Energy Conservation, cost the economy a huge some of money.
To date, I cannot find a recored that anyone has calculate to the to the economy of the change to the new start/stop dates, but I am sure that there are many people (like me) and companieis that got over the first hump, and neglegted to make a permanent fix, so the total cost is still rising. An old Estimate is $500 Million, to $1 Billion dollars.
So, Congress is going to cost me another $40 today, for a new alarm clock.
And it will STILL be dark when I get up. Oh, and research seems to be coming up to speed with common sense. DST may be bad for you.
Oh, and there is still the possibility that DST may go back to the previous rules, (so I am keeping the old clock, just in case), becuase, according to the Act:
SEC 110 DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME(c) Report to Congress.–Not <<NOTE: 15 USC 260a note.>> later than 9 months after the effective date stated in subsection (b), (March 1, 2007 -ed.) the Secretary shall report to Congress on the impact of this section on energy consumption in the United States.
By my calculations, that is Nov 1, 2007. Though, considering that Congress is still working on Appropriations Bills that were due Oct 1st, I doubt they will get to this anytime soon.