Our kitchen clock is a radio-controlled one tuned to WWVB. One of the minor late-night thrills of the time change is watching it realize it's out of synch, letting the second hand fall to twitching every two or three seconds, and then the minute hand ratcheting clockwise until it's at the Right Time again. This year, we went to bed before seeing it. And ... it never happened. Even a day later it was ticking along on Standard Time. This led to a progression of frustrations. The original instructions are long lost; the clock was a housewarming gift back in 1999. The buttons on back are a dial with the settings ST, ET, CT, MT, PT, DST, which is either two or four switches more than would be self-explanatory. There's a little button too, which sometimes makes the minute hand sweep faster around. Searching around the Internet found what seems to be a transcription of the instructions. It's hard to be sure because the name on the clock is Zeit, which doesn't narrow searches down at all . But those instructions suggested that setting the clock to ST or DST means it ignores the radio and just ticks along at whatever the time you set it was. Which, all right, but ... why does that need two switches? Also, why had our clock been on the DST setting? After a lot of frustration and changing batteries I found what the button does: press and hold it and the clock starts ratcheting forward, and press it again when you're at the right time. So, since the clock never seemed to catch the radio signal, I set the switch to DST, the time to the correct time, and then skipped it. Then the clock stopped. And then, later, started ratcheting forward again until it hit the correct time, despite being on the DST setting. We understood none of this but were content to take the correct time whatever the reason was. This morning it was stopped again at 8:00. I changed the battery out again and put a new one in and it's moving, but has not (as I write this) deigned to grace us with the correct time. The thing I'm most suspicious of is the batteries. They're rechargeables, but they're also fairly aged rechargeables and it may be they're not holding enough power to reliably drive the radio and the motor. This doesn't explain why the old battery had been doing just fine, apart from not picking up on the time. And it explains nothing else about any of this. But I would like to try a brand-new battery and close out whether the problem is the battery or the clock. I hope it's not the clock. It's possible to get this kind of radio-controlled analog clock, but the current models have the face rimmed in this boring black plastic rather than the nice wood veneer of our model. Now, yes, I'm at the end of the camel-back bridge. What's next on my photo roll? Won't you be surprised? And a look at the pedestrian bridge and the two doomed automobile bridges from their southern end. First time and I assume last time I'll walk the pedestrian bridge. A last look of the two automobile bridges from on the pedestrian bridge. Trivia: On the 23rd of January, 1675, the astronomer Christiaan Huygens drew a sketch of a coiled-spring watch mechanism in his notebook, along with the note, ``Eureka''. He was convinced he had found a clock-regulating mechanism good for long periods of time and unaffected by motion, unlike his pendulum clocks. And that should be small enough to bring aboard sailing ships. Source: Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution, Lisa Jardine. Currently Reading: Across The Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings , Earl Swift. PS: Reading the Comics, March 14, 2022: Pi Day Edition, for everyone who wanted to know how many comics noticed ``Pi'' sounds like an item of food.