If I can make here, I can make it anywhere

Due to circumstances beyond my control, my camping trip fell through. The good news is that I get to blog today. The bad news is that you have to read more about my Millionaire adventure.

About a week after my wife and I got back from the east coast, I got the postcard telling me that I was in the contestant pool. I thought I was going to make it, but it was still quite a thrill.

Two weeks after this, I got THE call. I figured it would be several months (If ever) before this would happen. They wanted me to come to New York the day after Labor Day to tape the show. Yowza!

The bummer was that my wife is a teacher and she could not take the first week of school off and come with me. :( I had to take the dork route and bring my mom. That was cool. Some quality time with the momunit.

So, we get to the hotel in NYC and my mom leaves her bag on the shuttle bus. It had all of her medication in it.

We call Super Shuttle and find out that the company is run by Forrest Gump. There is no way we were getting that bag back.

Now the great thing about NYC is that you can find a doctor to write a prescription and a pharmacy to fill it after 11:00 PM on Labor Day. Is that cool, or what?

Between that and just being excited, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night. Fortunately, I had plenty of caffeine and adrenalin to keep me going.

I got to the ABC studio at 8:00 AM. They took us (there were eight contestants) to the green (it was really a kind of puke yellow) room. They then made us put all of our stuff in lockers. No cameras, books, phones, or anything like that allowed. They even walked you to the bathroom. They make sure nobody is going to cheat.

I hung out with my new friends while lots of different people told us how things worked. It was very fun and they fed us all day long. They took us into the studio and we got to practice sitting in the hot seat.

Around noon, the contestants that didn't have time to get taped the previous day's taping came in. They got to go first.

Then it was our turn. What they do is pick you randomly. Three people are on deck, one person is in the hole, and everyone else stays in the green room. They don't tell you which of the three is next until right before you go on. They like to put the pressure on.

One by one my friends were taken out. Pretty soon, I was alone in the green room. I figured I wouldn't get on till the next day. Unfortunately, none of my friends were getting very far. To my surprise, they called me and I was in the hole. Then I was on deck.

Three of us were in this small cubby hole under the seats where the audience sits. We had a small black and white monitor to see the show. A guy named Drew (We all thought that he was going to do the best out of our group) was in the hot seat. We were rooting for him, but he froze up. It was horrible to watch. He ended up not getting any money. :( That was very sad.

Then the lady came back and told us that I was next.

I was going to the hot seat...

Thought for the day -

In life, anything can happen. And it usually does.