Tick Tock - About a Clock

Actually this is about two clocks. I doubt I'm the only person that has two alarm clocks. However,I don't have two for the reason you think I would, which would be to help me get out of bed in the morning.

I have two because 1) they were both free (gifts I selected from work awards) and 2) the first one wasn't my favorite so I tried the second one.

The first one is an iPod docking station, which is great for charging as well as listening to your iPod. The second one selected sometime later (probably a year or two) is one that projects the time on the ceiling (or wall) in red light. It's really cool to wake up in the middle of the night and without moving a muscle I can see how many more hours I can sleep.

However, one of the issues I have with both clocks is that the light on them, even dimmed is too bright on my night stand. So the cool projector clock has a night eye mask covering the face of it and the iPod clock is the one I use for my alarm, but I don't go to sleep listening to music, because when the timer is up and the music stops the light turns on. What's up with that?

I don't mind a night light, but a bright light on my nightstand that I can see through my eyelids is a little much. My car dash has a wonderful dimmer switch so that I can light up the dash as if I was flying a 747 or dim it while I listen to smooth jazz on the radio on my way home. So why can't my radio alarm clocks be that way?

And how is it that if I listen to music the night before, that the next morning when the radio comes on to wake me, the volume is four times what it was the night before? I can't figure that one out.

The most confusing thing now is that the clock I use for the alarm gains about 10 minutes every six weeks. So I end up getting up earlier than necessary. And it's a pain to set the time but eventually I have to do it.

The projector clock has some sort of high tech gizmo so that it always has the correct time, except for when it changes itself to a different time zone which has happened more than once. Makes it hard to figure out what time to set the alarm that is 10 minutes fast with the clock that is one hour ahead.

Well enough about that, I'm off to bed, just hope I don't oversleep in the morning!