Yep.  Really.  On Jeopardy!.  Can you believe it?   Alexandme.jpg

So here's the basic deal:

I guess I've wanted to be on the show since it came back on the air in 1984.  I remember thinking I could do as well on the show as these people.  Which probably wasn't true then, of course.

I'm that kind of guy.

I mean, don't get me wrong.  If you know me, you know that I forget stuff all the time.  Important stuff.  Like where I'm supposed to be when.  Or how much money is in my checking account.  Or not to ride my bicycle into busy intersections without checking the light.  Or where are my keys.  Maybe your name. (Last week someone got me into a conversation and about twenty minutes into it asked me if I knew who she was, and I had to fess up.)  That kind of stuff.

But if it's factual information that's not actually connected with my day-to-day life, I don't seem to forget it.  I don't know why.  I know that's not the same as being smart (not that I don't think I'm smart, too, but I don't think the two things are that closely related).  No one will play Trivial Pursuit with me.  I had something like an 18-year undefeated streak until Mark Edsell kicked my ass..

So I would go around saying things like, "if I ever went on Jeopardy! (the exclamation point is part of the show's title) I'd make SOOOO much money".

At some point, Tom Fendley called me on it and started pressuring me to try for real to get on the show. I mean, I'd been trying, but only in the sense that if you wish really hard for something maybe it will come true.

I went to the official Jeopardy! website and looked to see if there were any auditions coming up near where I was living (which was Chicago).

I got so obsessed that I made it my homepage.

Then one day there was an announcement on the site that they were holding auditions in Chicago!  Of course I signed up, and I just knew that this was going to be it, my big shot on the show I've always wanted to be on.  But the audition date came closer and I never heard back.  And the date went and I never heard back.  I don't want to say I was crushed, but, well, I don't want to say that.

At some point I noticed there was a link on the official Jeopardy! website that would allow me to sign up to have them tell me whenever they were having tryouts somewhere near me.

    I found out another round of auditions in Chicago.
    I signed up online.
    They didn't call me.

    I found out another round of auditions in Chicago.
    I signed up online.
    They didn't call me.

    I met a woman. 
    She was pretty cool.
    I lost track of my priorities.
    I moved to Boston.
    I focused on the life I was actually living.
    I got engaged.

But then I got an email from someone at Jeopardy saying there were going to be tryouts in Providence.  That's not too far.  So I signed up online again.

Some amount of time went by.

I forgot that I had signed up for a Jeopardy! tryout.  But this time they actually called me and invited me to an audition in early June in Providence!

The audition