Monday, 4/24

Don't worry. I have not turned into an early bird.

Those of you who know me know I have trouble waking up early. Those of you who know me know I have trouble really functioning at all before, say, noon. And that's why a couple of you, over the past few months, have been reading these and wondering how in the world I've been posting these blogs at, say 6:30 in the morning, an hour when I'm usually lost deep somewhere in slumberland.

The answer is, I haven't been posting them that early.

Here's the deal—about a year or so ago I started using Blogger to post these on our website. Before, I used to send them to our webmaster and he'd stick them up, but to save him some work and to allow me a little more control over what gets posted when we made the switch. And so far, it's worked out well.

There is, however, one slight quirk, and that quirk has led a few of you to believe I've become an early bird. If you scroll down to the bottom of this particular blog you'll notice it says it was posted a little after 6:30 this morning, something that it says almost every day. Well, I can tell you for a fact that I, like a sane person, was still sleeping at 6:30 this morning. I didn't wake up that early, and I certainly didn't write this that early. I woke up like I usually do, I wrote this like I usually do, and I posted it like I usually do.

Just not at 6:30 this morning.

Why do people think I've become an early bird? Well, Blogger is part of the Google family. Google, like most tech companies, is located on the west coast. The west coast is three hours behind us in time; in fact, they're in the Pacific time zone. So when you see the time this blog was posted, what you're seeing is the time it was posted on Google's server. On the west coast. In the Pacific time zone.

So, you see, I haven't become an early bird. I'm just a victim of a little time travel.

That's right. The time it says this blog was posted today was actually what time it was posted in the Pacific time zone, three hours behind those of us in the Eastern time zone. So add those three hours to the 6:30, and you get 9:30, still an early hour for me, but one where I have at least 20% of my brain cells functioning; enough, apparently, to write and post one of these.

Never fear; I'm still not an early bird. And based on the way my body works, I probably never will be. I have, however, been waking up a little earlier than usual recently, through no fault of my own. Details on that tomorrow.

(jim@wmqt.com)