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One particularly dark morning about a year ago I had the idea of making an alarm clock with a plug outlet on it. The thinking was that you would plug your bedside lamp into the outlet and when your alarm clock goes off, your lamp turns on*. This concept is based simply on the fact that it’s just harder to wake up when your room is completely dark.

Since this idea is relatively simple, I actually looked into what it would take to get a patent on it. Turns out it’s a little bit of work and kind of costly. However, there currently isn’t a patent out there for this idea if anyone feels like running with it. I’ve decided to make my fortune in other areas.

However, I still had the problem of not wanting to wake up to a dark room. To alleviate this I recently took an extra electrical timer used for Christmas lights I had lying around and plugged my lamp into it. I set the timer to turn on at 6am and go off at 8am. It actually has made waking up a little easier.

I just wanted to share that.

*Note: In the event you wanted to use your lamp without turning the alarm on, there would also be a button on the alarm clock labeled “lamp”. When pressed the lamp would come on.

A while ago my cousin called me up and said, “Blake! I just heard your song!”

Confused, I asked him what the hell he was talking about.

It was at that moment when I was introduced to an Indie Rock band from New York called Vampire Weekend. He told me to listen to this song called One (Blake’s Got A New Face). At first I chuckled. I thought it was funny. I had never heard my name in a song. I mean let’s be serious; Blake really isn’t really a common name and if I were to put it in a song, it would have been something about cake, lakes, snakes, or snowflakes. But that’s just me.

Since then I’ve been a big fan of Vampire Weekend and have really wanted to see them in concert. Sadly, since I’ve known about them they’ve yet to come to Nashville. Then yesterday I heard on the radio that they were coming in April. I was stoked!

Today as I was sitting at my desk, listening to the radio, just finishing up lunch, and I hear, “The first caller that can correctly tell me what song Vampire Weekend is giving away free on their website will win free tickets.”

I pulled up the website and immediately dialed the radio station.

Busy. Hang up.

Dial again.

Busy. Hang up.

Dial again.

Ring. Hang up. CRAP!

Dial again.

Ring.

And just like that, I answer the trivia question and win free tickets to their concert!

I’m not going to lie; I’ve been really excited for 2010. I’ve just had a feeling that this year is going to be a great one. I don’t know if it was because 2009 wasn’t filled with a whole lot of life milestones or perhaps my memory was just clouded because I spent too much of my time in bars, but for some reason I felt like it was an overall kind of bad year for me. And to be honest, I was extremely eager to see it go.

However, then I sat down and did a little assessment of my life during this previous year. While there have been some ups and downs, it really wasn’t all bad. Here is a quick breakdown of the highlights of my 2009 (in no particular order).

• I ran 2 half-marathons
• I went snowboarding
• I went to Las Vegas, New York City, New Orleans (twice), and Gulf Shores, AL (the beach!)
• I gained a roommate
• I later lost said roommate (but only because she fell in love)
• I saw some great concerts
• I made a lot of new friends
• I spent a great deal of time with both my new and old friends
• I went to the lake several times
• I played on 2 kickball teams
• I played on my work’s flag football team
• I finished another year of graduate school
• I dated several lovely ladies, although none of them actually worked out, I still enjoyed the time spent with them
• I got a little bit of a promotion
• I went camping
• I went canoeing a few times
• I went to a lot of football games

All and all it was pretty good year. Plus I am still very optimistic about 2010.