... to turn your clock an hour ahead tonight!
DST Fun Facts
The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time (DST), not Daylight SavingS Time.
The First DST was enacted in the USA on March 19, 1918, "An Act to preserve daylight and provide standard time." only 7 years until the 100th anniversary!
Implementation of DST has been fraught with controversy since Benjamin Franklin conceived of the idea.
The federal law that established "daylight time" in the United States does not require any area to observe daylight saving time. But if a state chooses to observe , it must follow the starting and ending dates set by the law. Starting in 2007, it is observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November, adding about a month to daylight saving time.
Arizona (with the exception of the Navajo Nation), Hawaii and the territories of Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are the only places in the U.S. that do not observe DST and stay on "standard time" all year long. If you've spent any time in the sweltering summer sun in those regions you can understand why residents don't need another hour of sunlight.
Most of Canada uses DST. Some exceptions include the majority of Saskatchewan and parts of northeastern British Columbia.
It wasn't until 1996 that our NAFTA neighbors in Mexico adopted DST. Now all three Mexican time zones are on the same schedule as the United States.
Also in 1996, members of the European Union agreed to observe a "summer-time period" from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
Most countries near the equator don't deviate from standard time.
In the Southern Hemisphere, where summer arrives in what we in the Northern Hemisphere consider the winter months, DST is observed from late October to late March.
A study by the U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration found that crime was consistently less during periods of DST than during comparable standard time periods.
Several studies in the United States and Great Britain have found that net traffic accidents and fatalities drop by close to one percent.
Because people are home fewer hours during the "longer" days of spring and summer, they don't turn on appliances and lights, and less electricity is used.
March 12, 2011
March 11, 2011
Sassy Update #1
Sassy just called me - so good to hear her voice! It's almost Noon here and 8pm there - she was about to go for dinner. She said the plane trip from Chicago to Frankfurt was terrible, but the trip to Rome was "amazing" as they flew over the German Alps. She's already seen Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, ate "real" pizza and of course gone shopping (a shirt for her brother even!). She says "everything is so pretty" and weather is nice - mid 50s today and 60s tomorrow. They have a lot of freedom - the bus brings them to the destination, they can participate in guided tours or not and they meet at set time for next adventure. Tomorrow they go to the Vatican, Sistine Chapel and the Coliseum.
Oracle of Omaha
I now know more than I ever wanted to about Warren Buffett. I've made 28 postings on the Discussion Board and I'm tapped out. Interesting facts -
Charles Munger is his partner and appears to take a back seat to Warren. I find Charlie fascinating and don't think you have to be front and center to be an effective leader.
Charlie and Warren are in it for the long haul (literally and figuratively), believing slow and steady wins the race. While reading I was reminded of one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell. A favorite Gladwell quote is "Success is not a function of individual talent, it is the steady accumulation of advantages." I had the pleasure of hearing Gladwell speak at a conference in 2007 and he used the analogy of Fleetwood Mac's experimental, trial-and-error road to success as the way we should be innovating in business over the current culture of instant gratification and gambling everything on one supposed sure thing. From what I gather Charlie feels the same - try different ideas, test them out and stay in it for the long haul.
"Warren and I have not made our way in life by making successful macroeconomic predictions and betting on our conclusions. Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time. I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude. It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?"
Berkshire Hathaway was an east coast textile company Buffett purchased out of spite - he called it his greatest folly. http://www.marketfolly.com/2010/10/warren-buffetts-worst-trade-biggest.html.
Buffett spoke of tech industry greed (he's never been a tech fan) at a 1999 Sun Valley executive retreat with many tech execs in the audience. He predicted then the stock market would not /could not continue its fantastic run based on history (34 yr comparison).
Charles Munger is his partner and appears to take a back seat to Warren. I find Charlie fascinating and don't think you have to be front and center to be an effective leader.
Charlie and Warren are in it for the long haul (literally and figuratively), believing slow and steady wins the race. While reading I was reminded of one of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell. A favorite Gladwell quote is "Success is not a function of individual talent, it is the steady accumulation of advantages." I had the pleasure of hearing Gladwell speak at a conference in 2007 and he used the analogy of Fleetwood Mac's experimental, trial-and-error road to success as the way we should be innovating in business over the current culture of instant gratification and gambling everything on one supposed sure thing. From what I gather Charlie feels the same - try different ideas, test them out and stay in it for the long haul.
"Warren and I have not made our way in life by making successful macroeconomic predictions and betting on our conclusions. Our system is to swim as competently as we can and sometimes the tide will be with us and sometimes it will be against us. But by and large we don't much bother with trying to predict the tides because we plan to play the game for a long time. I recommend to all of you exactly the same attitude. It's kind of a snare and a delusion to outguess macroeconomic cycles...very few people do it successfully and some of them do it by accident. When the game is that tough why not adopt the other system of swimming as competently as you can and figuring that over a long life you'll have your share of good tides and bad tides?"
Berkshire Hathaway was an east coast textile company Buffett purchased out of spite - he called it his greatest folly. http://www.marketfolly.com/2010/10/warren-buffetts-worst-trade-biggest.html.
Buffett spoke of tech industry greed (he's never been a tech fan) at a 1999 Sun Valley executive retreat with many tech execs in the audience. He predicted then the stock market would not /could not continue its fantastic run based on history (34 yr comparison).
March 10, 2011
Ciao and bonjour!
Sassy left for a 10-day trip to Europe this morning. How exciting for her! How nerve-wracking for her mother! Very inconsiderate. I'm not sure what she's most excited about - the trip or the fact that she'll be in the country she wants to visit most in the world - Germany - for a 90-minute layover en route to Rome. Sassy takes German in school and has an obsession for all things Teutonic. She had an opportunity to take a trip to Germany as well, but it's for a 3-month stint and she didn't think she could stand to be away from home that long (thank goodness because I know I coudn't stand it - I've already forbidden her to go out of state for college).
Here's her Italy/France itinerary:
Days 1-3 - Rome
Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon; Pizza-making with a pizzaiolo
Day 4 - Day trip to Pompeii
Day 5 - Travel via Siena to Florence
Day 6 - Florence
Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Vecchio, Chiesa di Santa Croce, Gates of Paradise, the Duomo; Leather-making demonstration
Day 7 - Travel to Pisa and the French Riviera
The Leaning Tower, Baptistery, Cathedral
Day 8 - Monaco • Nice
French perfume factory tour in Eze, walking tour of Nice
Day 9 - Travel on a TGV train to Paris
Days 10-11 - Paris
Place de la Concorde, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides, Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Louvre, Latin Quarter, Notre Dame Cathedral
Here's her Italy/France itinerary:
Days 1-3 - Rome
Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and Pantheon; Pizza-making with a pizzaiolo
Day 4 - Day trip to Pompeii
Day 5 - Travel via Siena to Florence
Day 6 - Florence
Piazza della Signoria, Ponte Vecchio, Chiesa di Santa Croce, Gates of Paradise, the Duomo; Leather-making demonstration
Day 7 - Travel to Pisa and the French Riviera
The Leaning Tower, Baptistery, Cathedral
Day 8 - Monaco • Nice
French perfume factory tour in Eze, walking tour of Nice
Day 9 - Travel on a TGV train to Paris
Days 10-11 - Paris
Place de la Concorde, Champs-Élysées, Arc de Triomphe, Les Invalides, Eiffel Tower, Versailles, the Louvre, Latin Quarter, Notre Dame Cathedral
March 9, 2011
New Word Wednesday #8
March 5, 2011
Jeans
Hubby and I are finally hip - we both have different length jeans for different shoes. I used to buy all Hubby's clothing but recently he's started buying his own ah, maturity. He is tall (6'4") and very picky so that really narrows things down except in the jean department - he has like 50. He recently exclaimed he needed different jeans because his new shoes he's become quite the shopper have a lower heel and the "old" jeans drag on the floor unless he's wearing his "high heel" shoes. This got me thinking about my jeans, their length and my shoes. I've almost always worn jeans that hit at my ankle - I figured it was the right length for my height and I've never really gone outside my comfort zone. That's all changed recently as I've watched far too many episodes of 'What Not to Wear' to not heed their advice - dark wash jeans that go to the floor with whatever heel you're wearing make you look long and lean. Now I have "extra long" jeans to wear with heels, "long" jeans that hit at my heel for flats or walking shoes and capri jeans for summer (if it ever arrives in the arctic). By the way, I recently discovered this brand of jeans at Nordstrom and they have changed my life. Love them. LOVE!
March 2, 2011
New Word Wednesday #7
A coworker used this word the other day to describe how her family sounds when singing 'Happy Birthday'.
Cacophonous
[kuh-kof-uh-nuhs]
– adjective
– having a harsh or discordant sound
– synonyms: dissonant, strident, grating, raucous
Cacophonous
[kuh-kof-uh-nuhs]
– adjective
– having a harsh or discordant sound
– synonyms: dissonant, strident, grating, raucous
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