Mesa Musings:

We, the residents of Newport-Mesa, live in the world’s comfiest, most charitable time zone.

What on earth, you wonder, am I talking about?

Once upon a time, people rarely left the time zone in which they were born (all time was local, anyway). It’s said that Alexander the Great traveled from Greece to India in the fourth century B.C., crossing at least four (yet to be identified) time zones. It took him weeks or months to cross each. I can’t find a single reference to the fact that he needed to adjust his chronograph as he traveled east, or that he sat jet-lagged (or camel-lagged) on the banks of the Ganges.

But, due to today’s instant communication and jet travel, it’s clear to all on this orb that we don’t reside in the same “moment.” When people are lunching in Europe, others are bedding down in Asia or awaking in the Americas.

I spent four months this year on the East Coast, and have concluded that not all time zones are created equal. Clearly, some are better than others. I happen to think the Pacific Time Zone is best of all! While on the Eastern Seaboard, I can’t tell you how many times I was awakened at midnight by a Costa Mesa friend who thought he was calling my cell at 9 p.m. (he was; it just wasn’t my 9 p.m.!).

Given a 24-hour day, and 360 degrees of longitude around the earth, the world’s 24 time zones are 15 degrees wide, on average. The day begins and ends in the mid-Pacific due to the Prime Meridian’s location half a world away in Greenwich, England. The Prime Meridian was established in 1884 to create a “universal day.”

As a result, three time zones in the world are earlier than the Pacific, and 20 are later. (Actually, there are more like 40 zones due to fractional hour offsets.) We’re the caboose on this time-zone train, and, by sheer luck, we’ve been favored.

When the 11 p.m. news airs in the Pacific zone, the news of the rest of the continent — and the world — is pretty much over for that day. We’re at the end of the 24-hour news cycle, and we get a nice wrap-up of the day’s activities. East Coasters, and more particularly Europeans and Africans, go to bed with lots of stuff still simmering. (The Super Bowl kicked off at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time this year — 12:30 a.m. in Berlin and 1:30 a.m. in Capetown.)

My morning newspaper in California is a neat package of yesterday’s news, and also today’s news from Asia. When I open my sports page on the East Coast, the missing scores exasperate me. Almost never do I know what the Angels or Pac-10 teams have done.

I’m a huge college football fan. I love the fact that, in Costa Mesa, I can wake up early Saturday morning, take a brisk walk, stop for a latte and click on my TV to view several college football games beginning at 9 a.m. Dude, I’m in College Football Heaven — all day!

When I’m on the East Coast, the wait for noon kickoffs is interminable! What am I supposed to do with an empty college football morning? Yard work?

World Series games started last fall at 8:10 p.m. Eastern time; 5:10 on the West Coast. My 9-year-old grandson in North Carolina got to see exactly 20 minutes of the games on school nights. He was crestfallen. Here, we’re able to watch an entire game, as well as the post-game show, and still climb into the rack at a reasonable hour.

I was in New York City in March and watched the Big East Basketball Tournament on my hotel room TV. The Syracuse-UConn game, which started at 9:30 p.m., went six overtimes and finished at 1:22 a.m. I was a wreck when my alarm sounded at 6:30! Had I watched the game in Orange County, it would have ended at 10:22 p.m.

By the way, China has a single time zone for the entire country. That’s nuts! It’s tantamount to Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and New York all operating on the same time. I’m told that in western China, the sun often doesn’t rise until 10 a.m. and sets after midnight.

I’ve spent New Year’s on the East Coast several times, and the experience is odd, to say the least. The Rose Parade — a breakfast event for the civilized world — doesn’t begin until 11 a.m. in New York, and noon in New Brunswick and Puerto Rico. The Rose Bowl Game — a blossom-scented, sun-splashed affair — kicks off after sunset in the east. That’s gotta be counter to some biophysiological law!

But, what I like most about the Pacific Time Zone is returning to it after a sojourn in the east. I treasure those three bonus hours of sack time.

JIM CARNETT lives in Costa Mesa. His column runs Wednesdays.