Editorial: Springing forward

Saturday, March 10, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

If rousting those teenagers out of bed for school was tough last week, brace yourselves. Starting Sunday, it likely is going to get tougher by an hour.

Daylight-saving time starts Sunday - three weeks earlier than usual - and doesn't end until the first week of November, which is one week later than usual. The monthlong extension is the result of a law that Congress passed two years ago in an effort to give Americans a little more daylight in the afternoon in the hope that they will use less energy.

That's the theory, anyway. Few speak of early risers, who likely will use an extra hour of electricity in the morning because sunrise will arrive an hour later.

And we hope whatever savings are made in using less power won't be consumed by computer technicians who are burning the midnight oil trying to make certain that all of the mainframes, networks and computer communications systems will reflect the time change ahead of the usual schedule. According to a recent story by The New York Times, experts are predicting a crash similar, but on a smaller scale, to what was once feared would happen with the Y2K computer bug. The Y2K catastrophe, of course, didn't happen. So perhaps the time change concerns also will be for naught.

Still, imagine the mayhem Monday morning if companies based in the United States have failed to properly sync their electronic communications and computer systems with their corporate brethren overseas.

And hotels typically automate their guest wake-up calls in one or two main data centers, one computer expert told the Times. A lot of businesspeople could be late for meetings Monday if these data centers can't get their collective computer acts together.

Our advice would be to tote a battery-powered clock on that business trip - just in case. And don't be disappointed to be the only one who arrives on time Monday. It's one way of getting first pick of the doughnuts.