Spring forward this Sunday, gain an hour more of gloom | Reporter notes

The worst day of the year rolls around again this Sunday morning at 2 a.m., effectively destroying your sleep schedule for the coming week and (likely) making some Starbucks executive squeal with joy come Monday morning.

By Aaron Kunkler • March 11, 2016 5:25 pm
Spring forward this Sunday
Spring forward this Sunday

The worst day of the year rolls around again this Sunday morning at 2 a.m., effectively destroying your sleep schedule for the coming week and (likely) making some Starbucks executive squeal with joy come Monday morning.

If there is a silver lining, it’s that we’ll get an ‘extra’ hour of sunshine, or more accurately, our lovely cloud-ridden gloom will start and and end an hour later.

Local fire departments also advise you to change your smoke detector batteries and other monitoring equipment. It could literally save your life.

Better yet, you could get a head start on it and do it now. Look at you being proactive! Feels good, right?

And of course for those of us wondering whose bright idea it was to start messing with the clocks, it’s a complicated answer according to timeanddate.com.

Varying water clocks were used by Romans in ancient times based on the time of year, Benjamin Franklin jokingly told Parisians they could save on candle costs if they simply adjusted their clocks, but ultimately it comes down to the Germans.

In 1916, to save on fuel costs during the first World War, Germany implemented the first daylight savings country-wide mandate which was quickly adopted by the UK, France and the US.

The US wisely stopped this practice nationally after we won, but once again the Germans started a world war, and in 1942 Roosevelt reimplemented a year-round daylight savings time.

From the end of WWII until 1966, cities and states couldn’t get it together to agree on a uniform set of times, so in 1966 the Feds stepped in and mandated daylight savings time would run from the last Sunday of April through the last Sunday of October.

This was revised as needed due to various energy crises until 2007, when the Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated daylight savings run from the second Sunday of March through the first Sunday of November.

And that is the story of why your week is going to suck.

Ever tried a three shot, 16 oz mocha? Now might be a good time to start.

But hey, at least summer’s practically right around the corner.