5 Days of Daylight Saving Time

Ahead of the time switch for Daylight Saving Time last weekend there were days of articles in the news warning of all the dangers of Daylight Savings. We could expect to see spikes in fatal car crashes, heart attacks, weight gain, diabetes, teenager moodiness, and more they breathlessly warned. Will no one stop this insanity?

Now we're 5 days in to DST. What's actually happened? Well, I don't have stats on car crashes, heart attacks, etc. And none of them have happened to me so I can't even offer anecdotal evidence. 🤣 But here's what did happen:

• Dinner time has snuck up on me.

Seriously, that's it.

The past few weeks I'd gotten accustomed to the sun beginning to set as a cue that the workday is done and it's time to start making dinner. Now with the time change sunset is about 7:15pm. The past several days I've been thinking, "Huh, I feel hungry, but dinner's not for an hour or two..." only to notice it's already 6pm or later. Or I'm still working only to notice it's already 6pm.

I'm sure I'll adjust within another few days at most.

"Is This Your First Videoconference Ever?"

I was an attendee on a webinar today when someone, one of the moderators I believe, used the toilet with an open mic.

At first it sounded like someone was running water, kind of like filling a coffee maker, in the background. It wasn't either of the active speakers because they were on camera. Though it could have been someone next to them, off camera. I posted a comment in the chat, "Mmm, I can smell the coffee! Or are you pouring water?"

The water-pouring sound continued, followed by what was evidently a toilet flush. "Sounds like someone took a mic in the toilet," I commented. There were LOLs.

Then came a loud fart. O-M-G. "Is this seriously your first videoconference ever?!" I wrote.

There were more LOLs. And at least one other person was thinking what I was thinking— that a movie warned us about this problem 35 years ago!

Watch on YouTube

Link: The Sound of Relief, The Naked Gun (1988)

There were a few other jokes about the open mic in the bathroom, and which movie it was in decades ago. I went to screen-shot them to include in this blog, but minutes later the host had deleted most of the comments about what happened.

BTW, I noted above that this was a webinar. It was configured so that only the host and the two invited speakers could share audio. This wasn't one of those, "Oh, crazy stuff happens when there's 200 people on a Zoom" situations. It was a professionally staged presentation with a (supposedly) experienced host moderator and two speakers representing their companies— one of which is a household name in the US.

Oops.

Birds on the Barbecue: Bailed!

Tuesday morning I noticed a morning dove staring to build a nest on my kitchen balcony... on the barbecue grill. 🐦🔥🍗 By mid-afternoon the bird had built it bigger and already had a mate checking it out. I decided, at least for the moment, that rather than shoo them away I'd just clean the window so I could snap better pictures of them. 🤣

Wednesday morning the nest was slightly larger but it had also shifted toward the edge of the shelf on the barbecue. I figured the gusty winds Tuesday evening may have blown it into a precarious position. I quipped before that morning doves are terrible nest builders. One of their weak skills is building nests in vulnerable locations. Instead of taking the opportunity to finish what nature started— brushing the nest off the balcony— I decided once again to help the nesting birds. I moved their nest back toward the middle of the shelf.

I checked the nest a few times throughout the day Wednesday. There was no activity. No bird sightings— even with me approaching the window quietly from inside the house so as not to spook them— and the nest had not grown, either. Maybe the birds were still spooked, I wondered.

Today (Thursday) the nest against seemed to remain untouched. I checked a few times and didn't see any morning doves, and the nest hasn't been added to. It seems the birds on the barbecue have bailed!