Daylight Saving Time ended in Sunday’s wee hours, with the clocks “falling back” an hour. So, if phoning the West Coast, note that the clocks there will be two hours ahead of ours — rather than three. Hawaii is among the few states that doesn’t observe the practice.

Launched as an energy conservation tactic during World War I, DST shifts the number of daylight hours in summer months into the evening. If the sun sets at 8 instead of 7, lights are on in homes for less time, saving electricity. DST never caught on in Hawaii, in part, because the islands are far enough south so that there’s not a significant daylight hour difference between winter and summer months.

There go a few of those utility poles

To paraphrase: How much wood could a HECO chuck if a HECO could chuck wood? And it could: about 14,000 utility poles over the course of 10 years, as it turns out.

That’s the plan for thinning the herd of excess and unsightly poles that have persisted across the islands, since resolving a dispute over ownership of the poles.

Hawaiian Electric Co. points out that the poles are of treated wood and not necessarily in stellar shape, so diversion to building materials recycling is out. Burning them at HPOWER, reclaiming them as electricity, is likely. Anyone have a better plan?