how accurate do you need to be ?
can you check your time once a day ?
many serial periferials take time to read and then report.
in some cases, you can just send an alert
-get ready to report-
and it will do it's tyhing
then you cycle back...
-what did you find out?
and then get the data.
it is like being put on hold while the librarian goes to look up some information.