Thursday, April 06, 2006 : 9:40 AM

Daylight savings time and my car

The power and volume knob on my car radio busted a couple of years ago. Well, at least the clock part of it still worked.

When disconnecting the battery for various car repairs, I noted that the clock would reset to 12:00. Oh, maaan... So, it might actually be 9:32, but the clock might say something like 4:06!

I'd barely endure that until the next time I happened to remember that the top of the hour was coming (any hour would do) and I had the opportunity to get to the car to disconnect/reconnect the battery. If it was not noon or midnight, I'd then have to remember how many hours off the clock was, subtracting or adding whatever the number was, to figure out the actual time. I'd be tired of that from the start, and, again, if I happened to remember my car clock as noon or midnight approached, I'd go do the battery thing.

Well, the clock's been correct for many months. Then daylight savings hit us again a few days ago, so my clock was off by an hour. (If I don't have any car repairs, daylight savings all by itself means I have to unplug the car battery twice a year.) Yesterday, I happened to be on the road just before noon (or just before 11, according to the clock), so it was convenient to pull over and capture the moment of my setting the clock to the right time. (I know, you're thinking, "Just get a new car radio, already!" But would you have enjoyed a blog about "I bought a new car radio"?)