World's Best Travel Alarm Clock

It's the Oregon Scientific AS316NE-S Nightfinder, for $13.95.

With a model number like that, you'd think it was intended for the Defense Department or something. But I digress.

I was gonna title this post "The Persistence of Stupidity,"

a kind of mild homage to Dali's 1931 masterpiece but more a bow in the direction of my own tendency toward perseveration, which creates problems for me.

Back in 1997, I was in Duluth, Minnesota for the NorthShore Inline Skate Marathon.

I set the five Westclox Travel Alarms (below) that I'd used for years without any difficulty.

I set them, by the way, as I always do: to go off at five minute intervals, and placed at various places around the hotel room so I would have to get up to turn them off.

Except in Duluth, I forgot to move the Alarm button (under the 00 in the picture above) from "Off" to "On."

So all five alarms were set perfectly, but not turned on.

So, long story short, I missed the race.

That's a long way to travel to spend a night in an Econolodge.

But the great part of the story is, I blamed myself for my failure, instead of the clock, and so kept on using it.

Until earlier this year, when I couldn't find it online anymore.

So, I started looking for a replacement.

And I happened upon the Oregon Scientific one featured here.

It's much better, for one big reason: it shows you on the screen not only if the alarm is on, but also what time it's set to go off.

When you're managing five of 'em simultaneously, that's important and very helpful.

It's also better for four smaller reasons:

1) you can adjust the settings up and down, instead of up only

2) the nightlight/snooze mechanism is activated just by tapping the top, which rocks gently backward on a spring hinge.

3) it runs on a AAA battery, instead of one of those impossible-to-find-the-right-one watch batteries like the Westclox

4) it's smaller and lighter than the Westclox