Sunday, November 6, 2011

Nothing holds back time nor tide. Except bureaucrats.

Doncha just love "daylight savings time"? Myself? I have a particular loathing for it. As many of you know, I have installed or worked on hundreds of heating and air-conditioning systems. Some commercial freezer's defrost times are critical to when the store opens or closes. So, twice a year I get numerous calls to re-adjust timers. Also, as many of you know, night setback thermostats are required by the building code. Some people just can't seem to get the hang of adjusting their thermostats back or forth from daylight saving to regular time, and in the past, power failures would foul-up timers. So, I was particularly pleased when they manufactured a thermostat with an automatic feature to reset the time automatically, and had a battery back-up to keep the time correct. Needles to say, I started using those thermostats almost exclusively. Then, the bureaucrats, in their infinite wisdom decided to factor in Global Warming, bird migration, salmon runs, and the red-tides, so they moved the day that we set the clocks forward and backward. So, all the people that I sold the automatic clocks call me and say: " I thought that you told me this clock was automatic. The time just changed and I think that there is something wrong with my clock, it's still on the old time". I patiently explain to them to wait a few days and it will automatically change. Usually the next day they will call and say that they tried to adjust it themselves and the got it wrong, so they turned their heater off because they were afraid that they did something wrong, and could I please come by and fix it, because they are freezing". Of course I go by and "fix" their thermostats. And, of course I don't charge them anything, because they bought the heating system from me, and the "setback" thermostat. And, I really am  grateful for their business, and usually they are really great people. But, dang, it's frustrating.

If there is a God, please convince people to leave the time alone and drop this "Daylight Savings Time" foolishness!

15 comments:

Fred Mangels said...

Agreed. I've been ambivalent about it before but now I think we should just keep the same time all year.

skippy said...

I had no idea this happens, Ernie. Thanks for letting us know what goes on out there in the real world. I have a whole new appreciation for repairmen after hearing the 'rest of the story' about timers, standards, and DST.

Ernie Branscomb said...

For a long time Indiana stayed off regular time and didn't engage in the dayligt saving foolishness, but now they even spring forward.

Farmers don't even need clocks the roosters tell them when it's morning, and the cows tell them when it's time to feed and milk.

Robin Shelley said...

Changing the subject again: does anyone here know or remember Jerry Crew or Ray Wallace & an "incident" involving them in 1958? Was anyone here personally involved? Curious.

Ernie Branscomb said...

1958? Robin, that was before you were born. Was that in the Laytonville area? Got any clues?

Robin Shelley said...

Oh, Ernie, you make me blush - ha! ha!
Big Foot, Big News, Humboldt Co. That's all I know at this time. Thought it might ring a bell with somebody.

Ross Sherburn said...

I mentioned a Wallace and Bigfoot about 2 years ago. I have an artical about the whole deal shoved in a book somewhere! Robin is this what you are after???

Ross Sherburn said...

I mentioned a Wallace and Bigfoot about 2 years ago. I have an artical about the whole deal shoved in a book somewhere! Robin is this what you are after???

spyrock said...

Some folks in Hollywood apparently didn't get the memo, or didn't get it in time. Months after the Wallace family's bogus story about their deceased, veracity-challenged father, was thoroughly scientifically debunked by Dr. Jeff Meldrum at Idaho State University, and Canadian journalist John Green, a newly formed production company in Hollywood has announced plans to produce a "documentary" based on the discredited Wallace story (see article from the Hollywood Reporter, below).

Someone needs to send another memo to actor Judge Reinhold and producer Eric Geadelmann, before they make fools of themselves:

1) The Wallace story has been debunked, scientifically. It was a lie. The wooden track stompers shown to the media by the Wallace family do not match photos of the 1958 tracks they claim their father made. They are different foot shapes. See for yourself.

2) It is not physically possible to fake tracks with the shape, depth and stride of the Bluff Creek tracks, using any kind of wooden track stompers. Go ahead and try it sometime. Stompers large enough to produce the tracks cast in 1958 act like snowshoes in soft soil. They cannot create the heavy compression seen in the 1958 casts.

3) John Green has offered $100,000 dollars to anyone who can recreate the tracks the Wallaces claim their deceased father created. The Wallace family can't do it. One of the Wallace family members nearly killed himself trying to do it, as he was towed behind a pickup truck while wearing the wooden stompers, in front of media cameras.

4) The Wallace family waited for their father to die before propagating their bogus story, because Wallace himself would have been easily discredited upon cross examination by those who could prove he didn't know the key details about the tracks found by Jerry Crew.

5) Scientific luminaries such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller have recently become vocal advocates for the authenticity of the real evidence indicating the existence of these animals.

6) This is a very serious environmental issue. Television programs and films that mislead the public about it will eventually be viewed as something between distasteful and criminal exploitation of popular misconceptions, as more evidence and scientific support accumulates to show that the species exists, and is likely endangered.

Is this how you'd like to be remembered? If you have any moral fiber at all you'll think about this. Don't cop out by calling it entertainment. The ignorant attitudes you're encouraging will affect public policy in a lot of areas, policies that directly affect the habitats of this rare, important primate species.
bigfoot is real.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Sorry that I haven't been responding, but I've been busy.

Everybody just hold tight about the Bigfoot thing, I'm doing a post on it! Maybe it will be up tomorrow morning!

See you then,
Ernie

Robin Shelley said...

I'm interested in anything anyone here has to say about it but I'm primarily looking for anyone who may have actually been there with Jerry Crew or anyone who knew him personally.

Ross Sherburn said...

I know the true story of "Bigfoot" around the Willow Creek area,But no one will listen to me????

Robin Shelley said...

I will listen, Ross. I'm a seeker of truth & a gullible listener. I love coyotes, story tellers & local legends.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Ya'll should be right at home here then!

Joe WB6AGR said...

I had just started Humboldt
state in september and remembered stories going around about the incident, but that is about all I remember.

Joe Park