This is one of the great things about Ohio, when you get them. A nice sunny and cool fall day. This is why I’m glad we have a nice back patio to enjoy them when they do come around.
Nice Fall Day
Category: General
Daylight Saving Time is here again
It is that time of year again, when we move back into Daylight Saving Time in most of America. There are a few places that don’t, but most of us do. And I am glad it is back. I visited this topic a few years ago in this blog post It is time to adopt year-round DST.
In this post, I put together some graphs to illustration how DST moved useful light later in the day and benefits us in the summer especially when the sun would be wasted early in the morning. We move back to Standard Time around the winter and that does give us some extra light in the morning for a few weeks, but it is short lived. This precious bit of sunlight would benefit us to stay in the evening.
I am already appreciating the change with a sunset of around 7:30PM and it will continue to increase for the next three months. The days already seem longer and more enjoyable.
This is why I think we should end the practice and keep year-round DST. No more clock changing! Maybe one day this will happen and I won’t have to revisit the topic. See you next year, probably.
Images have been moved back home
Back when I first started this blog I hosted the images with the WordPress Media Library. Then I found a cool service called B2 Backblaze which works like Amazon S3, but at a fraction of the cost. I was not able to find a huge need for the service, but I decided to try offloading the blog images there to allow for quick access and to take the load off of the server.
However, over the years, I have found it to be tedious to upload the images on B2, grab the URL, and put it in the blog. So late last year I decided to go back to the WordPress Image Library. The biggest problem though were that I had almost 250 images stored in B2 and had to migrate all of them back to WordPress eventually.
Well I am glad to update that effort is finally done. I did not have that many posts, but uploading the images and fixing the links too a long time to complete. It also was a good time reviewing all of my old posts and reminiscing. I am still using B2 to store my website backups, but all of my files are not accessible to the outside world anymore.
Heated Bird Bath Added
Since I have become quite the bird person, I got a heated bird bath for Christmas. It will be a nice resource for the birdies over winter since it is hard for them to find fresh water once everything gets cold. I added some river stones to the middle as something they can stand on. I have it on a smart outlet so it doesn’t run constantly. I am excited to see how it performs once it really gets cold here.
5th Line 5K 2020
This year we participated in the 5th Line 5k in downtown Columbus. The race ended on center ice at Nationwide Arena which was pretty cool. The race took us through parts of downtown that I had only seen before in a car and I was able to appreciate the view.
Luckily it was not too cold and did not rain or snow which was nice or else it would have made things miserable. We were able to finish with a much better time than the last race we completed and hope to do even better next time.
2018 Recap
As the year shortly comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on what has happened over the last year because I feel like it has been extensive. My goal for next year is to do a better job documenting these things as they happen so I don’t forget them. Life does come at you fast, so it easy to to lose track of the details and what is really important.
In March, I started a new job. After nearly ten years at my prior employer it was time to move on. This would be my second professional job and a lot of anticipation came with it. I would join a much larger company with many new opportunities.
In April I got married to the love of my life. We had a great time out in Las Vegas. I can’t wait to good back this upcoming April to celebrate our one year anniversary.
During the spring and summer I did a lot of flying with my new job. I tried to blog about these trips, but many were non eventful or I didn’t have time. Through the year I logged 98 flights, just shy of 100. I hope to break the 100 mark in 2019.
In July we went to Memphis to see my sister and also to Minneapolis to see my brother-in-law and new niece! Outside of these trips we didn’t do much vacationing, so I hope to change that next year.
Fall was nothing too special, just the same as the rest of the year. My travel started to curtail a bit, so I wasn’t able to hit Platinum Pro on American Airlines, but hope to be able to next year.
In December, my wife also got a new job. I think it will be a great opportunity for her to grow her career and I am very proud of her for making the jump.
Finally Spring in Columbus
On Friday, the weather in Columbus was actually nice for a change. So, before the weather decided we had too much of a nice thing and change on us, we took a walk downtown along the Scioto Mile. I grabbed a few pictures before it got too dark.
The first picture is of the Main Street Bridge, along with Miranova Place, and the CoverMyMeds building.
It is time to adopt year-round DST
Here in the United States, we moved our clocks ahead one hour and moved into Daylight Saving Time (DST). This time setting will last 238 days (65% of the year) until November 5th and then we will move back to Standard Time. I agree with most of the complaints that changing clocks twice a year is quite a hassle and should be discontinued. This problem is compounded because not all parts of the United States conform to DST let alone other countries which may change on different dates. It also can be a huge problem for software and constantly keeping up to date with any legislative changes to DST.
However, unlike most of those complaints I contend that DST is the superior choice for year-round time setting and we should adopt it as the new standard. What DST does is move the sunlit hours into the time period in which more people can use them. If we were to stay on standard time throughout the year, at the peak of sunlit hours in the summer, most of them would be wasted since the sun would rise at almost 5am. I put together some poorly editted examples from a graph I got from TimeandDate.com of the current sunrise and sunset times for my location. I also put in lines for my approximate hours of activity from 7am to 10pm or 0700 – 2200.
Current Setting
All Year Daylight Saving Time
All Year Standard Time
As you can see from the above, the Current Setting does a decent job at keeping all of the sunlit hours within my active hours. DST does the best job and moves more of those sunlit hours into later in the day which is especially nice during the winter because when I get home from work it is usually already completely dark. With DST year-round it would be somewhat dark but not completely. Finally, we see that all year Standard Time is the worst choice. The amount of sunlit hours wasted is incredibly high compared to all the others.
I believe that we will continue to endure with having to adjust the clocks twice a year for some foreseeable time. It is a good fit even if it is a hassle and causes issues albeit for a short period of time that it takes us to adjust. However, should we desire to abolish the time adjustment completely the choice is clear and it be DST that perseveres.
Summer Recap
This post has been on my mind for a while, but I just never got around to making it. I have been super busy lately and my time on the computer outside of work is very rare these days. That may be good or bad. Anyhow, I just want to make a summary of the summer so that I don’t forget it in the future if anything else.
June: This month started off well and the first week in I finally got a house! It was my seventh attempt, but I finally got one that accepted my offer and I was in contract. However, the very next week I started feeling awful and it got to the point where I decided I needed to go to a doctor. I thought it might be the flu but it turns out I had mono. That’s something you are supposed to get when you are in K-12 and here I am almost 30 getting mono. Just my luck! The first three weeks were pretty awful but after that the symptoms started to tapper off. I hope that they will find a vaccine for this sometime in the future, but at least for me I will never have to deal with it again. June wrapped up with a business trip as well as the typical house buying activities.
July: July was very hot and by the middle of the month I had completed all of the stuff for my house and was now a home owner. I also made a much needed trip to IKEA. I can’t wait until it is in Columbus next year. Very exciting but also somewhat scary. Luckily there was not too much rain during August so I didn’t have to do much mowing. I did do a lot of spending though because as I found out my house needs many more things than apartment life needed. By now all my mono symptoms had vanished.
August: The start of August was a lot more of July just busy getting things I needed and doing things for the house. However soon enough high school football kicked off and that started to occupy my weekends. I also had two weddings in the span of a couple weeks. I did get to travel Wisconsin and see some old friends which was nice. About this time though I started to get my yard in shape after acquiring many yard tools.
September: Another wedding and more high school football. The Buckeyes were rolling up to this point which was great. The Browns were being awful which was expected. This was also my birthday month and I turned 30. I entered another decade of my life. This month also brings along fall and soon enough the weather will begin to dramatically change.
So that was a quick overview of June to September. It doesn’t seem like much in text but there was a lot packed into these months. I did take a lot of pictures to document the memories. In the future I hope to post more often and include those pictures to keep all the details straight.
First Month of Home Ownership
It hasn’t been exactly one month yet, but I have been in my own house since July 11th, so just under three weeks. I have learned a lot so far and discovered that I need a lot of things I did not previously own in my apartment. Namely, everything that has to do with being outdoors. I still need a patio set, but I do have a mower and I have mowed already. I am sure my neighbors appreciate me mowing though July has been dry and not much has grown. I also did some pest control this week since I have been experiencing some centipedes which are just plain creepy. No bug needs that many legs! The next steps will be to get the patio set and also a dining room set since I have been using the coffee table for this purpose so far. Then there is the neverending cleaning aspect. I could usually do this in a weekend at my apartment but here everything has been multiplied. Overall though it has been a lot of fun and I do not for one second regret buying a house. I finally have a place that I can call my own and put my own mark or spin.
The summer has been going fast, too fast, and it is almost August. I feel like I have been wishing away most of June to get in my house and it is already August. It has been hot, but not terrible. Recently we did get some heavy rain which I am sure my yard enjoys. On the other hand it is almost football season! So I am really torn between the two of enjoying warm weather and having football season. I do know that once football season starts that the cold weather will soon follow. This year though I will have a nice firepit so that I will be able to enjoy that.
Things have been settling down, so I hope I am able to get back to updating this.