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Some spring forward, others just stumble
Published March 12, 2007 at midnight
Daylight-saving time arrived early Sunday, stealing time from everyone's day but granting an extra hour of coveted daylight.
Across the metro area, people either set their clocks ahead Saturday night or found themselves scrambling to keep up on Sunday.
Everyone can thank Congress, which approved the change in 2005 as part of an energy-savings plan.
Here is a sampling of how people handled this year's earlier- than-usual time change.
6:30 a.m. Frontier Airlines employees discover that the central reservation system run by Sabre Airline Solutions isn't working.
As a result, lines back up and between six and 12 flights are delayed at Denver International Airport for an average of 45 minutes each until the problem is fixed at 9 a.m., Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas says.
During the glitch, tickets are processed manually.
"It was pretty much a non- event," Hodas says.
Except, perhaps, to the people booked on those delayed flights.
8:10 a.m. Master swim coach Jane Scott and 11 of her faithful arrive at the North Boulder Recreation Center pool for a regular practice.
At least 20 swimmers haven't arrived for practice, which began at 8 a.m. Scott believes they forgot to "spring forward."
"They'll probably all show up at 9 a.m.," she says.
Swimmer Andy Weinheimer, a 53-year-old scientist, straggles in about 8:15 p.m. but he doesn't blame his tardiness on a clock.
"I was up, I was just making coffee."
8:42 a.m. Aseb Mudradzat handles a sale at a Boulder Gas station for a young man wearing fluffy yellow slippers and a University of Colorado sweatshirt.
Mudradzat says he's used to working early but was 30 minutes late for his shift Sunday because of the time change. He arrived at 6:30 a.m. after jumping out of bed when his cell phone alarm went off.
9:15 a.m. Larry Liebrecht, 53, a real estate appraiser from Centennial, was supposed to be at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Jefferson County 15 minutes ago.
But he forgot about the time change until a friend reminded him.
The two men were heading to a meeting of the Colorado Aviation Historical Society to discuss how to save a hangar at the former Lowry Air Force Base.
Liebrecht says it isn't the time change that concerns him - but rather the weather.
9:20 a.m. Rodman Lundin, 40, of Federal Heights, has no use for whiners.
He often works early as a member of the Denver Air line crew, fueling planes, checking oil, cleaning windshields and directing aircraft.
In this job, he has seen Oprah Winfrey and Mel Gibson.
A colleague arrives late with a hangover, and Lundin shows no sympathy.
"What you've got to do to get to work on time, you gotta do," he says matter-of-factly.
10:15 a.m. Parishioners - many of them Italian-Americans who grew up in the neighborhood - stream out of the copper-domed Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in northwest Denver.
Parishioner Mike Volpe, 61, is yawning as he waits for his wife. He claims the time change has nothing to do with it.
Gloria Volpe, 60, who lives in the same Upper Highlands house she has lived in since she was 1, arrives and says she reset her clocks at 4:45 p.m. Saturday.
"I thought it might help me get psyched up," she says.
Of her husband, she says, "He's sort of dragging."
11:05 a.m. Keith Arnold, who, along with his wife, owns Duo restaurant in the Highlands neighborhood, walks in LoDo after finishing the Runnin' of the Green 7K race.
He's sweaty but happy.
He says the race seemed more crowded than in previous years, so he reasons that people must have set their clocks ahead.
Usually, Arnold runs at night, so the time change is welcome. But he dreads the fall.
"It's depressing and dark at 4 p.m. What can you do?"
11:30 a.m. Brian Caron, 23, is usually asleep at this time, but a friend roused him and he's drinking coffee at The Market in Larimer Square. Three pale and tired-looking young men sit at an outdoor table in the sun.
A woman with a baby nearby talks about how much she loves daylight-saving time.
Caron hates it. He likes it dark.
His friends jokingly blame his attitude on the fact that he's from Utah.
Caron sheepishly admits he was alerted to the time change by a bartender at 1:30 a.m. at the Giggling Grizzly. (The time officially changed at 2 a.m.)
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