“Come Monday…” is a
weekly series that will involve a review of, or commentary about, websites, movies, documentaries, television
shows, sports, music, and whatever else may tickle my fancy at the time. Be assured that these reviews will be
generally positive, as in accordance to the Jimmy Buffett song “Come
Monday.” This is subject to change,
however. In fact, I would be most
derelict in my duties to neglect going on a rant every once in a while. For rants promote change, and change can be
good—right? Therefore, since good is
generally considered as being a positive force in 99.3% of the parallel
universes that I am aware of, even a rant could be considered as being
something positive, and a genuine hissy-fit would be even better (so I’m told).
Arlynda’s
mother (my mother-in-law, I think) lives with us, and she loves atomic
clocks. Evidence of this is on full display
in 27 places throughout our house.
Okay,
I may be exaggerating a wee bit with that.
For I think there are actually only 5-6 atomic clocks, but in a house
with merely 780 some odd square feet of interior floor space, it sure seems
like 27.
One
just like the one above hangs in our living room, and I must admit that it has
provided us with hours upon hours of high entertainment. Granted, it is not quite to the level of a
keg of beer and a bug-zapper, but watching for the inside and outside
temperatures to equalize holds our attention on a regular basis.
The
inside and outside temperatures are displayed at the bottom corners on either
side of the moon phase display, and it gets really exciting around here when
one of them is at 66.6F and the other flirts with following suit. Yeah, I suppose one would need to be a Jesus
freak to get the full measure of that sort of fun, but I would think that it
should make even a very enthusiastic atheist scratch their head over the
display for a full moon showing a completely blacked-out moon.
The
strange thinking behind the moon phase display is not the only thing that seems
possessed about our two [SkyScan atomic clocks]. For when it comes to set them up, the party
really gets to going.
According
to the instructions, one needs to first place batteries in the outdoor temperature
sensor unit (which is the white thing on the left in the image above) so that
the temperatures are the first things the clock picks up after placing
batteries in it.
I
do not know for sure if the necessity for picking up the outside temperature
may have anything to do with one of the temperatures possibly being around
66.6F, but I have my suspicions. For
that is the only easy part of the set-up process.
You
see, one has 10 minutes to set the proper time zone before the clock starts
picking up the [WWVB] time code radio signal out of Colorado Springs, Colorado,
and after that happens, no changes can be made.
Now, if you live in the eastern time zone, there will not be any changes
to be made, but we live in the central time zone.
Oh,
and this might be a good time to mention that our clocks do not always pick up
the signal when they should. In fact,
there have been times when they have not picked up the signal for days, and after
a couple of hours of waiting for the display to show that is not a couple of
hours after midnight on the 1st of January on a fortnight in 1763, I
just have to start manually changing things, which has never been accomplished
before the clock starts picking up the radio signal, and this means having to
remove the batteries and start the process all over again.
By
the way, having to start the set-up process all over again would not be so bad
if it was not for the fact that once one of our clocks starts picking up the
signal, there is no longer any 10-minute window of opportunity available to
manually set anything after removing and putting back in the batteries. There is also no place in the house where they
will not pick up the signal INSTANTENOUSLY after the batteries are put in
place. Hey, I have even tried sitting on a clock without any success to be had!
Yes,
I finally learned my lesson and resolved to just let the clocks change
automatically when the time came to spring forward into daylight savings time
and fall back into standard time. So, we
now have 16 atomic clocks showing 5:36 a.m. CDST and 11 showing 4:36 a.m. CST at this
particular time, which makes me want to act like a mosquito and provide some
entertainment of my own.
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