Additional ramblings that didn't fit in with the post about the internet

I long for an enclosed, attached, heated & air-conditioned garage. I haven't lived in a house with a garage since 1987, and that one was not attached to the house. Before that, the most we had was an open-air carport. Most of the time my parents parked their cars in the driveway anyway, and used the garage for storage.

Reader, if you have an attached, enclosed garage (that you actually use for parking your daily driver), be grateful. When I come home with a carload of groceries or other items, I must park outside my front door, no matter how foul the weather, and brave the elements as I transport the bounty into the house, my delicate gentle-manly body abused by the repeated transitions from cold to warm, hot to cool, or wet to dry and back again. A gentle-man such as myself should be exposed to unfavorable conditions as little as possible. In my previous post I mentioned the convenience of online grocery shopping, preventing me from having to exit my vehicle and be affronted by commoners. The unavoidable unpleasantness of exiting the vehicle outside my house, however, is most unsatisfactory. Many times my eyes and ears are offended by the presence of neighbors' children out of doors. Why are they not toiling in coal mines or tennis-shoe factories, or scrubbing their parents' floors?

How grand it would be to go about procuring provisions in the following manner: Enter my garage, which is kept at a comfortable temperature year-round, without exiting my house, enter my vehicle, open the garage door by remote control, set out into whatever foulness Mother Nature is shitting out, have the groceries set in my trunk as usual, and upon my return, park in the garage, which has returned to its desired temperature, and move the groceries directly into the kitchen, all while completely warm and dry.

I despise the transition to Standard Time. I absolutely loathe the onset of darkness at 5:45 in the afternoon. It's nearly dark by the time I get to my gym after work. If I can, I do my grocerying on weekend afternoons, going without necessities if I must. Clocks should be set an hour forward in October, keeping sunset at bay until 7:30, then back again in the spring. The time shift and seasonal change makes me desire the enclosed garage that much more. Those who start their days early may bitch and whine about getting out of bed in darkness, but I would prefer to get my starlit commute out of the way at the beginning of the day after a refreshing night's sleep and an energizing breakfast, rather than have to endure it after a day of labor with a tired brain and a grumbling stomach. I don't mind driving in the dark if I know daylight is just over the horizon, but knowing that it's just going to get darker as I journey home is a disconcerting thought. I feel that maintaining DST year-round, or even my proposed resetting an hour forward in the fall, would be a boon to all citizens. The economy would get a boost from consumers willing to shop in the evening hours when daylight still lingers. Fewer cases of seasonal affective disorder would arise. Fewer automobile accidents would occur in the evening rush hour with daylight still present. And we'd all be just plain happier with a little extra sunshine in our lives.