Daylight savings or why I hate darkness

Today is daylight savings, which means we get to enjoy a 25 hour day. This usually translates to a lot of people showing up to church too early, a lot of people enjoying an extra hour of sleep, and Northern California getting dark at something like 5pm.

Daylight savings time has a somewhat complicated history. In practice, this seems to be one of the greatest uses of government authority to save energy and lives by pushing daylight into the afternoon. However, the Wikipedia article does raise some questions with respect to how much energy is really saved by daylight savings.

For me, I always am disappointing when we "fall back", because it means my evening commute is going to be done in the dark for 4+ months. It is quite demotivating to drive home in the dark. For me Labor Day, the end of baseball season, and the first bit rain may hint and the end of summer, but daylight savings time and driving home in the dark is a hard visual clue to ignore the fact that winter season is coming.

If I was in charge, it would always be light at 6pm in Northern California, even if it is dark at 8am.