Yup, not much fun. I enjoyed walking my dogs in darkness/coming light in the morning before work. And riding home in the light.

Now I walk the dogs in the light and ride home in the dark. I cheer myself up by just seeing it as a countdown to Dec 20th, or is it the 21st?

well, here we are at the solstice!

the grip of "The Darkness" now only grows ever weaker.

For me it's pick 1 ...
Cold, dark, wet.... I sit.
The Luddites were lately rattling the DST cages on the news here. Another ******* cause.

The Commons is Long Gone , that was what The Luddites were against, crushing their incomes and stealing their homes.

I prefer full dark; the work end of my commute is about a mile out of town, so once it's too dark to see the road without headlights, I know the cars will have theirs on and my reflectives will be doing as much or more to make me visible than my lights. At twilight, there are always some knuckleheads who won't turn their lights on until they can't see the radio display.

Couldn't find a similar picture for Anchorage, so here is one from Fairbanks that is dated 2 December. Not a very big window to ride in if you don't like riding in the dark.

^^^ Nice time-lapse photo. I just looked it up and Fairbanks gets a measly 3:41 of daylight (from 11:00am to 2:41pm). Oh, and below 0F too. Nice.

If anyone has seen Casey Neistat's holiday video posted this week where he's lifted and pulled on a snowboard by a custom-built 16-rotor 10-foot diameter drone, they were up at some ski resort in the north of Finland, where for about 2.5 weeks in December there is NO sunrise. Just a few hours of twilight each day, basically a combined sunrise/sunset sky appearance for 3-4 hours. The next sunrise doesn't happen until 30 December, and the sun is only visible for less than 1 hour. Conversely, in July there are 24 hours of daylight.

Hooray, we are now more than half-way through "The Darkness"!

Last friday represented the end of the 9th work week of the 18 weeks between fall back and spring forward. Only 9 more weeks to go. The first 9 flew by....

thanks
 

Thanks for the update Steely Dan.


we can do it!


9. more. weeks. :thumb:

This time of year I try to sit on the right side of the train on my way home, and watch the sun as it sets. I just get a glimpse of it every now and then between buildings and trees, and I note to myself where I get the last glimpse of it. Every day, it's a little farther along the line; in another month or two, it will be on the horizon when I get off the train. Now, when I get on my bike in the evening, there's just a glimmer of light in the western sky, but soon enough I'll actually see the sun on the horizon again as I'm going over the bridge over the tracks.... It's a hopeful time!

Meanwhile, in other breaking news, the South Pole is enjoying a beautiful summer.

And what all the late risers forget is that just when we are getting to the point where we can ride both ways to work without lights we are plunged back into an hour of darkness on the morning side...and it's an hour colder.

I hate day light savings!

If your work can give you flexibility, ignore DST. Standard time arrive at work 8am. DST arrive at work 9am.

i love daylight saving!

without it, the sun would rise at 4:15 in the morning on the summer solstice in chicago because of the city's location at the extreme eastern edge of the central time zone.

no one needs the sun to rise at 4:15am. 5:15am is early enough as it is with DST.

I don't see why we need government telling us when to wake up. If you want to wake up early, then wake up early. Why drag everybody else into it? I'm doing it.

Well you guys could always move here to Arizona. We don't have Daylight Savings Time, but we do have heat! Tonight my ride 17 mile ride home was 51 degrees, it was cold!

Honestly, I doubt that anyone would notice what time the sun rose at the summer solstice no matter whether we were on standard or daylight savings time. We really don't care that much during summer...or I should say that our natural internal clock doesn't care.

But in March, it makes a huge difference. That's why the change in so jarring at both ends of daylight savings time. In March, we are just getting used to the natural cycle with the morning light just about right for us to wake up when all of a sudden we plunge ourselves back to the middle of February.

It's easier to set a schedule where you can ignore DST than to move to Republican country.

but in chicago, because of its eastern edge of time zone location, the sunrises at 6:08am on march 11th, and then rises at 7:06am on march 12th after spring forward. considering that i typically wake up at 7:00am, that works out just fine for me. i don't really need to have the sun up any earlier than 7:00am and would much, MUCH, MUCH rather have any excess daylight saved for the end of my workday, hence why i love daylight savings time! it saves the daylight for me, instead of wasting it on 4:30am when i'm sound asleep anyway.

of course, i'd be ok with doing away with DST altogether if it also meant moving chicago into the eastern time zone.

Everyone is different, but I agree that I would not want the sun rising in the 4 AM hour during the summer either, which it would in the Memphis area. Not as early as in Chicago, but we're also near the eastern edge of the Central time zone. Conversely Atlanta has much later sunrise times, and their sunset times are about 45 minutes later than hours year round, since they're on the far west edge of the eastern time zone.

I have to leave the house at 6 AM to get to work, shower and be ready by 8 AM. It's pretty much dark when I leave the house for about 10 months out of the year, except for right around the summer solstice. I love Spring Forward because I get to ride home in daylight, and hate Fall Back because I have to ride home in darkness for at least part of the commute. Riding in the early morning in darkness is much less stressful with little traffic than riding at 5 PM in darkness with rush hour traffic.

i leave work around 5:35pm.

yesterday's sunset was at 5:12pm, with civil twilight lasting until 5:42pm.

there was light at the end of the tunnel!

it only gets better from here on out.

The Darkness is losing the war.

it always does.

It's caused by the Earth orbiting the Sun. Been going on for a long time.

according to my sources, it is the sun that orbits the earth. and it's been going on for ~6,000 years. ;)

...I also try to keep my long rides less than 150 km to keep from riding off the edge of the earth.

This is the dead of winter...we're still a long way from the end.

going by daylight, it's not the dead of anything anymore.

we're actually now closer to the vernal equinox than we are to the winter solstice.

the equinox is only 6 weeks away and spring forward is only 5 weeks away!!!


do you see the light?

do you see the light?

have you SEEN the light?

Wikipedia is not always correct.

...yeah, I know. But it's still dark when I leave home and still dark when I arrive at work. So no different than in winter solstice. I'm usually home before five, so no difference there either.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


well played.

According to the tenets of Last Tuesdayism, the sun has only been orbiting the earth for either 7 days or for about 10 hours...depending on whether the earth was created last Tuesday or at midnight last night.:D

Last Tuedayism is not to be confused with the heretical tenets of Last Thursdayism. Those people are just wrong. Who would want to start on Thursday? Even those Last Tuesdayers who claim last Tuesday instead of last night are treading on dangerous ground.