There are four reasons I started having trouble coming up with blog posts in 2008. I have no control over two of them and only a little power to change the others.

There is one, however, that could make for an interesting saga in 2009. More on that momentarily (with pic goodness).

For one, I’m running out of stories from my past. That I cannot change. I never again will slide my first car (before it was my car) into a ditch after deceiving my friend’s parents about who drove him home (before I had a license), and then have to walk back to their house to tell them I needed help.

Second, the frequency of my work trips slowed down in 2008, especially the latter half. Being at the delivery and support end instead of the sales and marketing end, I have no control over that, either. With fewer exotic locales like Ottawa, Illinois to mine for interesting content (and which are near big cities like Chicago), the Travel category was hurting.

Next up, I didn’t have a page-a-day calendar in 2008. The one from 2007 provided quite a few launching points for blog posts. Remember the Lavakan, the washing machine for pets? The Urilift, the public urinal that pops up from under the sidewalk? Yep. Both were from little tidbits in my Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader Calendar.

I’m glad to say that I have the 2009 version of that calendar and already have a few ideas brewing.

Finally, I was spending way too much time preparing videos and audio to share online. Yes, it was fun, but I was staying up too late to complete these mammoth projects. You’d be surprised how long it takes to whittle 30 minutes of video into a few minutes worth watching.

That’s not to mention major, multi-post productions like Blue Straw. More than just a chronicling of events, it was a fun project that allowed me to ad-lib like an idiot while playing in traffic. Then there were the parts I ad-libbed in my closet, and with the help of a friend in St. Louis.

Now, wouldn’t it be funny if something else got lodged in that same storm drain and spent a significant amount of time there, piquing my curiosity again? Let’s just say that has happened, and that I have taken pictures.

Click to feast your unbelieving eyes.

Then let’s say, “That’s all for today,” because it rhymes and I’m out of time.

* – Because I know someone will ask, the title is a spoof of the Carpenters’ song “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”