Slow movement is better than no movement I guess

Yesterday was the real first bit of bad news in the lockout front. Now, some might take that to be a delay in opening in Spring Training, but as you might guess from my "Feb 21st" estimate of an agreement date, I expected that and don't honestly care about it.  However, this negotiation period didn't seem to make any progress. The MLBPA did lower the pre-arb bonus pool money request... and are still way off from what the owners want (It's like 100 mill vs 10 mill)  They also made changes to their attempt to stop at least one or two instances of service time manipulation, for which the owners are like "nah, want to keep doing that". The MLBPA bent a little. MLB has to show a bend now. They were supposed to talk more yesterday and today on marginal things that have to be agreed upon in the CBA, not on anything that matters negotiation wise. And we've now learned MLB wants the federal government to try to come in and help with negotiations and an arbitrator.  What people think that means is all over the place from "Trying to show the handful of hardline owners they can't do any more" to "setting up another long 1994 type lockout"

Expanded playoffs and expanded DH are on the table for owners as "prizes" but the latter is almost certainly happening no matter where the negotiations end up. Both sides want it. I don't. It makes the game better but less fun, if that makes any sense.  

This all picks up again early next week. What you want to see is the owners make some movement on that pre-arb money and service time thing for at least the very best players (really they should agree to the player's deal which helps like 2 young players a year and one owner would probably be able to avoid it if they tried). The former is a no-brainer and if they don't move it's the first really bad sign. The latter... well they don't want to open the door even a little to losing service time control so I could see that not move at all. 

 So you want to hear about chasing sun? (one random person) 

It's not actually chasing sun, although if you never ran from impending shade from small clouds on a mostly sunny day that's a fun way to spend a day outside. Granted it's more of a rural activity than a suburban or urban one, but I digress. No "chasing sun" is about being kind of obsessed with time zones and getting maximum (or minimum) sunlight.  

Now of course it could be very simple - from March to September the Northern Hemisphere gets more light and the opposite from September to March. The further you are from the equator the more extreme it gets.  This is neat to think about around the inflection point.  If you take a place near the equator, let's say Aruba (I've been there!) and a place far from it, let's say Yellowknife (I have not been there), at the beginning of March Aruba has 11:36 hours of light* and Yellowknife has 10:20. Around March 15th they'll both have about 11:45 of light. At the end of the month Aruba has 11:53 and Yellowknife 13:21!** So go as far N as you can in the summer and S as you can in the winter, for the most part. 

Now my thoughts break into two arenas.  First is where I can get the most or least sun in the continental US. I'm the type that if I have the free time would drive to the middle of nowhere to see that. Second is where could I live in the world that's reasonable for me that would give me the most overall sunlight. For the sake of rambling savings we'll only deal with the US right now. 

Now two things can come into play here. One is the fact we aren't feudal farmers. What I mean by that is that we don't live by the sun, we live by the clock. We live by a construct of time that we ourselves set through time zones. Second is we aren't robots. We need to sleep. Even us soulless automatons try to get 5-6 hours. 

Why do these matter? Well for the clock in a perfect world the time zones would be equally 15 degrees apart, however countries, states, hell even towns would be split if you did that. So we don't do that. But because we don't do that and time zones differ by size we can't simply say "the furthest northwest spot in any time zone will work. We have to actually look. For the sleep - if all you care about is sun after you wake up - then it's not the most sunlight that matters as much as the most sunlight starting from time X.  In the longest days in the Northern US it's quite usual for the sun to rise pre-6 AM.  For me that's just wasted sunlight. 

So knowing that what matters more latitude or longitude, going north or going west? Again that depends on when you set that wake up time. If it's say... 6:30 well in most time zones even as far south as you can go the sun will be up by then on the longest day so you would be more concerned with longitude.  If you set it at 5:30 it might be either. 

Let's for the sake of argument set wake up time at 6:30 which means that all but the very furthest south and west parts of the timezones are up for grabs. Intuitively you'd then think "if the highest latitude spots in each time zone aren't that different then the widest time zone would give us the latest sunset".  Good guess but WRONG. Why? Well, because of the imperfect sizes some time zones "start" the day earlier than others. In the USs case, sunrise hits the eastern time zone, which is the widest, on June 20th around 4:40 in the morning.  Sunrise hits the central time zone at about that same latitude around 5:05.  That difference is enough difference to make up the width difference and so the latest sunset in the continental US happens in the Central time zone.  Specifically in the NW corner of North Dakota. Fortuna, ND if you are looking for an incorporated town. 10:03 PM 

Sunrise hits the other time zones at roughly the same time but if we are doing this, we're doing this and the earliest sunrise is in the furthest eastern reaches of Maine. I will note it's possible maybe someplace the mountainous border of Idaho and Montana it's earlier but there are no towns there and if you aren't in a town well then you might as well be that feudal farmer. 

And you can flip all this if you are some sort of night lover. The earliest sunset is in Maine, a tear inducing 3:50. The latest sunrise is back in NW ND. 8:49 which isn't as terrible. But it's on November 5th not on the shortest day of the year in late December. It only gets to 8:46 on that day. This is why we have daylight savings time, people! 

The take away from all this is that if you want to have the most sunlight, for most people that don't mind a little darkness in the morning, you should definitely move to the western part of a time zone. In the summer you should move north. Indianapolis, is a choice.  Detroit if you want all 4 major sports. You might think Seattle but actually the Pacific time zone is pretty narrow.  In the winter you should fly South. Atlanta would be the big city sports related choice.

Some other notes 

If you just wanted most sunlight and don't mind sitting in the car all day you can try to literally race the sun.  Like start in Thunder Bay in Canada*** at sunrise and just start driving west.  Back of the envelope calculations say you get yourself an extra hour and half of sunlight that way.  It's not very effective - the world spins fast. 

World wise the southern Hemisphere is pretty empty compared to the North.  All the major cities peter out in the 34-38 longitude range. In the N Hemisphere that's vaguely Charlotte to DC range. So your choices are pretty limited for major places to live. in the N Hemisphere they peter out more around 60 degrees north.  Time zones are very funky worse that US.  China is all one time zone. Parts of Canada and Argentina and Alaska spread out basically two time zones behind where they "should" be. Mostly though it's because these are unpopulated area so it's not a big deal. 

*This is based on sunrise and sunset. There are actually different definition and times for "when the light goes away" and if you ever were a kid playing outside in the summer you should be familiar with the ideas if not the names. It technically depends on degrees under the horizon the sun is but it's easier to think of it in practical terms since you can't see the sun yourself.  

Civil Twilight is after sunset when you can still pretty much see as normal. You can still be playing wiffleball, basketball, or a some 2x2 football. 

Nautical Twilight is basically when there's still enough light to see the horizon and but dark enough that enough stars are out where sailors can navigate. For us not on the sea the sky is light enough to see things in contrast against it but the ground is pretty dark. You can probably squeeze out an end to that wiffle ball game because the white ball will still seem bright enough (being white helps a lot but it's also because of the way our eyes work in dimmer light), but it won't be easy.  Basketball will be ok enough shooting the ball but every rebound could be an adventure. Football is mostly done as only lofty Hail Marys will be seen. 

Astronomical Twilight is when you look around and say "I guess it's not completely dark". No one is playing without lights.

** sunset zooms along faster than sunrise for various reasons. It'll go from 6:00 on March 1st to closing in on 8:30 on March 31st. 

 *** looking for a major E-W highway as far N as I could go. Can't waste time going north/south or heading through too many mountains.