From the "Now for something completely different department": living on time-zone boundaries

lol i have nothing to add...but i thoroughly enjoyed this

Thank you for this topic. I also have no experience with this but I really hope someone does.

I ran a construction job in northern Saskatchewan, right adjacent to the border with Manitoba, many moons ago (1990/91?). The provincial border was the time zone boundary in this area. We were living in a motel on the Manitoba side, working in Saskatchewan.

If I recall, Saskatchewan doesn't go on daylight savings time, so half the year the two adjacent towns were an hour offset, and the other half the year they weren't. The job started in September and ran through the next spring, so we experienced both.

I'll be honest that I don't remember exactly how I set my watch or the clock in my room, but I DO remember that it really wasn't all that big of a challenge, as I'm generally capable of adding or subtracting (in my HEAD!) an hour at pretty much any time of day (well, except maybe when the bars were closing on the Saskatchewan side and we couldn't remember whether we still had another hour of drinking on the way back home, or instead we were one hour closer to the hangover...)

Don't imagine that helps, but thanks for letting me share!

There was a west wing episode about it where they're stuck in the midwest for a while.

afdsfd wrote:

There was a west wing episode about it where they're stuck in the midwest for a while.

That episode alluded to Indiana's refusal to use Daylight time for it's 90% Eastern Time Zone. FINALLY this year we have gone to Daylight Time, like the rest of the country except Arizona andf Hawaii.

Most of you likely don't know that we have a Canadian province with its own time zone offset by a half hour instead of a full hour - Newfoundland.

Not only that, but half of Newfoundland - the mainland half (Labrador) - has a different time zone - Atlantic.

Those crazy Newfies!

I was picking someone up at the birmingham airport once and I was in GA at the time. Their plane got in at 7 and it took about 2 hrs to get to the airport, so the timing was perfect since I got off work at 5. The day I was going to pick them up I got off work a little late so I was worried that they would be sitting at the airport waiting for me and I wouldn't be able to get anything to eat....

UNTIL I got to the border and realized that it was 7 CENTRAL time and not EASTERN time so I actually had an hour to kill before they would get in. Needless to say I felt pretty dumb, but the timing worked out pretty well.

Funny story though

this is a great thread.. or at least could be.

come on, somebody has got to be dealing with this now! or what about people who live on the very western edge of a time zone... in the middle of summer, it's got to be light out until like 10pm!!! right?

there was a segment on 60 minutes a few years ago about this....some family in indiana? but the main street was at the line, so half the town was in one time zone and the other was in another. like the school and banks were on one time, most of the other things and the post office were on the other time, so the father (i think he worked at the post office) had 2 clocks in each room with a label on them to see what time it was, it was kind of funny and sad at the same time

I have wondered about something somewhat similar in the past...while traveling across this country I have noticed that some homesteads (ranches, farms, whatever...) cross state lines. Which state do they live in? Where do they pay taxes??

that would be crazy, pete, if anyone actually lived in labrador.

they sure make good dogs though.

In the northernmost and westernmost parts of the time zones it is light out past ten, for example Boise, Idaho which is on the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone and is also fairly far north. South and east gets dark sooner.

I too have thought about this potential complication. I like seeing that there are others who think of such things.

I love not having daylight savings time. We just keep our clocks the same year-round.

Consider China: Despite being thousands of miles across (enough for four or five time zones), the whole country is officially on Beijing time. So, those few who live in the far western regions have the sun rising or setting at all sorts of ridiculous times.

But, just to confuse everyone, they do have their own unofficial time which, while used for lots of everyday things, can't be used for such official things as train schedules. And, of course, there are plenty of situations where one may not be sure which time system is being used. Fun.

In the UK it is light until 10pm in midsummer.

Remember the old ABA basketball player Marvin Barnes?

Barnes, who played for the Spirit of St. Louis, didn't understand the concept of time zones. He was reluctant to board a flight scheduled to leave Louisville at 8 a.m. and land in St. Louis at 7:59 a.m. because, he explained, "I ain't goin' on no time machine."

Shades of Dave Bedford's comment about going out for his afternoon run and meeting himself coming back from his morning run.

interestingsubject wrote:

there was a segment on 60 minutes a few years ago about this....some family in indiana? but the main street was at the line, so half the town was in one time zone and the other was in another. like the school and banks were on one time, most of the other things and the post office were on the other time, so the father (i think he worked at the post office) had 2 clocks in each room with a label on them to see what time it was, it was kind of funny and sad at the same time

A poster previously mentioned that Indiana has recently started observing daylight savings time, so I don't know the current status there, but this is probably the explanation of that story. The entire state of Indiana was official on EST all year round. However, in many areas near Chicago, Louiseville, and Cincinatti, the towns in Indiana would observe what those major cities were doing. Parts near Chicago would observe CST, then switch to CDT (which would put them in-sync with most of Indiana, still on EST.) Parts near Cinncy and Louisville would be on EST, then switch to EDT. The problem is that government buildings would always be on EDT, the official time. So the Post Office and schools might be operating on a different time than private businesses in some towns.