Jim Panttaja

Mary has commented on our trip to Madison (Mary Panttaja). Madison is a great University town. We had ice cream one evening near the Memorial Union, looking out over the lake. Lot’s of people eating hot dogs, drink beer. Lot’s of great bike trails - we rode one to two hours every night.

And one night we saw fireflys as we walked back to our bikes. Hadn’t seen them in years.

I blogged a couple of months ago about seeing a skunk in the city. I continue to see him (or her) once or twice a week on my morning bike ride. Many of the runners going up (or down) McDowell Grade near Fort Mason don’t even notice him - though a woman last week was quite startled to see him run across her path.

But this week - there were two - trotting along together - across the roadway.

We are now spending our week days (and some weekends) in San Francisco. Most days we get our on our bikes and ride from South Beach through Fisherman’s Wharf, through Fort Mason, along the Marina, and toward Fort Point (I am sure we will vary this as we get more comfortable with city riding).

I had been noticing that there are very few animals in the city (duh!). Just dogs and birds. I know there are mice, and no doubt rats, though I haven’t seen them. A couple of days ago, while riding through Fort Mason, I smelled a skunk. On Friday, I saw the skunk cross the paved bikeway/hiking path we ride on. Just after I saw it cross - I saw a woman, off the path. The skunk had gone to see her, and collect its meal. I am sure that this is a regular event - the skunk knew when and where to show up.

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When I am in Healdsburg, I look out my window many mornings to see deer walking along my fence line. Many months of the year, there are lizards scurrying every time I go out the front door. Last fall, we saw eight snakes in the same week. Skunks, possums and squirrels are regular visitor. And in the spring, a flock of wild (but not native) turkeys wonders through our property.

City people must be desperate to view wild life.

So – time zones are simple. In the continental United States, there are four: Pacific Standard Time, Mountain Standard Time, Central Standard Time and Eastern Standard Time. Each an hour a part. The goal is to have all of us have a relatively normal ‘day’. With the sun rising at a reasonable hour, and the sun setting at a reasonable hour. Of course these don’t quite work. Boston (and especially the Cape) should really be in the next time zone over – but it is more convenient for them to be on the same time zone as the rest of the east coast. As a result – at the beginning of summer – the sun comes up about 4:00am.

But then – we got Daylight Saving Time. This meant that each spring, we set the clock forward an hour (spring forward), and then return the time in the fall (fall back). (This made the official sunrise on June 20th this year be a ‘reasonable’ 5:07am). The goal was to save energy – since much of our energy consumption is in the evening. If we made more of the evening be light outside – then we wouldn’t use as much electricity (See the Wikipedia entry for history – it ties the idea back to ancient Rome, to Ben Franklin, to a first failed experiment in the US during World War I, and then the beginning of adoption in World War II Time) See this page on the State of California’s web site, which references a study that showed that using Daylight Saving Time reduced the daily consumption of electricity is trimmed 1 percent.

So you now have Pacific Daylight Time, Mountain Daylight Time, Central Daylight Time and Eastern Daylight Time.

In the 1950s, the railroads didn’t use Daylight Saving Time. I grew up in Barstow, California. Barstow had the largest railroad switching yards west of Chicago. My baby sitter’s husband worked for the railroad. So in their house, the clocks all were set to Pacific Standard time all year. This added to a kindergartener’s confusion as I learned to tell time (and for you kids - this was when clocks had hands - none of this digital stuff).

But wait – there’s more. Arizona decided not to honor Daylight Saving Time. So Arizona stays on Mountain Standard Time through the suumer – which then matches Pacific Daylight Time.

Ah – but just when you understand that – and you are traveling on vacation through Arizona – you discover that the Navajo Nation (which is a large part of Arizona) does do Daylight Saving Time. And the National Monuments in Arizona (like Canyon de Chelly) run on Mountain Daylight Time.

I have gotten used to my cell phone/organizer (now an iPhone) handling time for me. It is set so that when I get off a plane in some random city, it syncs with the cell network, and shows the local time. On our recent trip, this has failed miserably. Nevada is PDT, Idaho is MDT, but at one point while in Nevada – I must have picked up an Idaho cell network – and phone shifted to MDT. And much of the time in Arizona I found my phone off by an hour (sometimes one direction, sometimes the other).

For many purposes on vacation – none of this matters. But knowing when things open and close (like the coffee shop, for example) can be quite crucial.

Managing systems that work across time zones – and had to work through Daylight Saving Time shifts is a challenge. Are there two 2:00AMs on a given day? Is 2:00AM before 1:30AM? Does the user want to see it in the vehicle’s time (at Sapias we tracked fleets of trucks), or the viewer’s time? As I was writing this - I was prepared to describe how Indiana has ny number of different ways of recognizing Daylight Saving Time (or not…) - but I discovered that a couple of years ago they fixed this. All of Indiana now honors Daylight Saving Time.

Mary and I always choose on the spring forward or fall back day - when we want to take advantage of - or lose - our hour. That works fine as long as we don’t have appointments on Sunday. And I need to make sure I am never in Arizona - and especially not in the Navajo Nation on either of those days - it would be too much to cope with.

I am generally pretty good with animals. Dogs will come up to me - cats that no one can pick up will crawl in my lap - in fact a baby horse once tried very hard to crawl in to my lap (I am told you aren’t supposed to sit down in a horse pasture with a mother and her baby - but I didn’t know that at the time).

We have spent much of the last three days in indian lands (Canyon De Chelly, Chinle, Arizona, Hubbell Trading Post). Some of the tour books had warned of the dogs running lose in campgrounds, and everywhere. These dogs don’t appear to have owners. They aren’t really a problem - they are generally behaved (I won’t go overboard and say well behaved).

Yesterday, as we visited the Hubbell Trading Post, one dog wandered up after his morning dip in the local creek. He looked scruffy - as only a wet dog can - and hadn’t actually notice us yet. I greeted him with my usual ‘hi puppy’. Intended as a term of endearment. I never knew a dog could deliver a dirty look - but that is what I got.

Last night, we camped in Grants, New Mexico. We got the site furthest from the office - with a great view of the thunder and lightning storm that moved through. But it was next to the ‘dog run’. I understood the Hubbell dog’s disgust with me - because we watched the parade of “puppies” - on their way to do their business. Owners in tow. “Puppies” that had probably never seen a creek.

We did make it to Dead Horse Point as Mary projected (Landed in Moab). The views are incredible (Mary took this picture).

We were here once before - the weather in August can match the image created by the name of this place. But the last two days have been reasonable. Some cloud cover (a little rain), and temperatures that only barely reached 100. We were able to bicycle yesterday in the mid-80s.

Everyone does different things on vacation - yesterday we road our bikes on a ‘moderate’ ride to Gemini Bridges (twin arches with a sheer drop), we did a little sight-seeing in Canyonlands National Park, we took a hike out to the point for sunset, I practiced my Saxophone and Bass Flute (The Healdsburg Saxophone Trio and Healdsburg Community Band are both playing for the Healdsburg Sesquicentennial on August 18th, and I am playing Bass Flute in the Fiesta Flute Orchestra at the National Flute Association Convention in Albuquerque next week - 170 flutes all at the same time), and we both followed up on email - moving some things forward for our new company (setting up interviews, making introductions).

On the bike ride, we saw two leopard lizards (unfortunately one had been run over by the jeep that had just passed us). There was a related species in the mojave desert where I grew up - though they were rarely seen.

Today we head south - to Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona. We haven’t been to this National Monument before, and are looking forward to it. Probably a stop on the way in Moab at an internet cafe (we haven’t had cell phone service (AT&T) at Dead Horse Point, but the wireless modem (Sprint) has kept us in touch with the world - though it certainly isn’t at EVDO speeds here.)

Time to make my morning Latte.