E.S.T.

Friends, it's happened again.


At least I can remember to purchase and install new batteries in all eight of the smoke detectors that dot this house like little green eyes, blinking, daring any fire bigger than a Yankee Candle to break out.


But I still can't figure out the daylight time / standard time conversion, and it seems to be a moot point (moot, not mute!) at this, uh, point.


Time is not a matter of middling importance to me. When I was with 911, I used to ask the computer tech guys if there was some way they could sync up the times on the phone recording and incident dispatching systems with the correct time of day. Once I was telling a guy about the disparities among those three times, and he asked me how I knew my watch was right. Another supervisor had to tell him, "Mark checks his watch against the atomic clock every morning." And it was true.


My father, master furniture maker, made this clock for me and Peggy in '85. This is serious Shaker timekeeping, friends!


Since the amount of clocks around the ol' bunkhouse scoffs at the number of smoke detectors -and you wouldn't think there would be a conflict, since they're all wired to the same electricity - I got an early start rolling the times backward. Starting at dinnertime, my goal was to finish by the time Keith Olbermann's election special came on at 10, or was that 9? Or 11?


I know this sounds like a question from Algebra II, but I need the answer.


1. "If Mark watched Olbermann at 10 and hit the sack at 12:36, then woke up at 4:46, did he get enough sleep?"

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I am sad for the loss of Studs Terkel. I devoured his books avidly, beginning with "Working", which came out in '74. In an age when people so love reality TV, I recommend his oral histories for anyone seeking reality reading. It all seems so elementary now, the way Studs took his tape recorder around and had people tell their own stories in their own words in their own spaces, but when you see others sally into that form, think of Studs, who lived so many lives in 96 years.