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Don't Forget: Uncle Sam Changed Time To Change The Time

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 27, 2008

TAMPA - The extra hour you get to snooze in the morning is the tradeoff for darkness at dinnertime.

The alarm clock goes off at 6 a.m., but you've been awake since 5, thinking you might be late.

The drive home from work seems later than it is. Are the sunsets out of whack?

Welcome back, Eastern Standard Time.

To make the confusion even more confusing, this is the second year that the autumn time change has been pushed back a week. Thank you very much, Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Just when you were getting used to adjusting all the clocks -- especially the bothersome digital ones on your DVD player or microwave -- on the Saturday night before Halloween, you now are instructed to do it on the Saturday night after Halloween.

That means, dear timekeepers, this Saturday night, or, technically, Sunday morning.

The clocks fall back at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Ferrell "Scooter" Melton, owner of The Hub, a popular downtown Tampa watering hole, said he will turn the clocks back at 2 a.m. Sunday and give his customers the extra hour of partying time.

The reason? Economics.

"In the spring, we lose an hour," he said, "so in the fall, we get it back."

Melton, who became The Hub's majority owner in January, said that's what the Franklin Street lounge has done twice a year for each of the 19 years he has tended bar there.

No matter the time, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority buses run on a schedule, said customer service manager Luis Rivera.

"When the clocks change," he said. "We get calls asking, 'Hey, what happened to the bus?' And we have to say, 'Well, the time changed,' and they say, 'Oh, yeah, I forgot.' "

The bus service lives by the clock, he said. "Lots of times we are the call center for people calling up asking what time it is."

In the spring, when daylight saving time kicks in, and in the fall, when clocks along the East Coast revert to Eastern Standard Time, people miss buses because of it, Rivera said.

"We usually get a just a handful of people, maybe 15 or 20," he said.

At first they are miffed at the bus drivers. The riders insist the drivers are too late or too early, he said. "Until we set them right."

Some who work the night shift Saturday may have to eat that extra hour. Tampa firefighters and paramedics have done it for years, said Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Jace Kohan

"They do," he said. "But next spring, they gain that hour back. It all balances out."

One other thing about the twice-a-year changing of the clocks, he said.

"We recommend that when you change your clocks," Kohan said, "change the batteries in your smoke detectors."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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