Come Monday...Fun With Atomic Clocks

“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 1^st 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.

Please Also Visit:

[FishHawk Droppings]

and

[The Tribulation Times Herald-Exhorter]