The Angry American

Realizing a dream like playing on Jeopardy! is one of the high points of my life.  But now that my episode has aired, I can speak more freely about my experience after the show.

Immediately after our game was over, as Gary Bechtold, Jillian Hinchliffe and I made our way toward the front of the stage, we all shook hands with each other.  (That wasn't seen on camera.)  Gary said to me as he shook my hand, "Man, you are tough!"  I also shook hands with Jillian and congratulated her on playing so well.  I was a little worried about her - during practice, she had difficulty with the buzzer.  But once the lights came on, she played well. 

As we stood on stage with Alex Trebek, in the dead silence of the studio, I asked him, "Of all the game shows you've done prior the Jeopardy!, which one was your favorite?"

"To Tell the Truth," he said without hesitation. The reason was very simple - it was the only game show he's done to this point that allowed him to sit down.

"We're clear!" stage manager John Lauderdale said as our faux impromptu chat with Alex wrapped up.  But my Jeopardy! experience wasn't over.  I had to walk over to the production table and sign for my prize money - $2,000 for a second-place finish.  Jillian signed for her prize, too - $1,000 for third place.  (Of course, it'll be a while before I see that money - the check should arrive about 120 days from the date my show aired.)  Handshakes with Lauderdale, contestant coordinators Robert James, Glenn Kagen and Maggie Speak, a walk back to the green room to pick up my clothes, and then Jillian, my wife and I made the long walk back to the Overland Gate at Sony Pictures Studios to catch a cab back to the hotel.

We hadn't even gotten halfway to the gate before we were met with our first challenge.  A tour guide taking fans around the studio grounds asked us if we were on the show.  (The black tote bags with the Jeopardy! logo emblazoned on them kinda gave us away.)  The guide asked us how we did.  "I can't tell you that," I said.  "You gotta watch!"

Even though I was finished taping on Tuesday, I wasn't scheduled to fly back to Charlotte until Thursday.  That gave the Dear Missus and I a day to lounge around and explore things at our discretion.  We didn't rent a car - smart thing, too, since we had never been to Los Angeles before this trip - so the only transportation we had were the Culver City buses and our own two feet.

Our first foray on Wednesday involved a bus ride up Sepulveda Boulevard to a shopping center with a Blockbuster and a Toys R Us, among other stores.  We killed some time there before going across the street to Big Lou's, a store that sells various collectibles, including die-cast cars.  The trip to Big Lou's was productive - I got replicas of a Chevrolet Vega, a Ford Maverick, and a Ford Crown Vic in California Highway Patrol colors. 

After returning the cars to the hotel room, we went out again, this time on a walking expedition up Sepulveda to Westfield Fox Hills, a big shopping mall that has been featured in several movies and TV shows.  Our goal there was to find some place that sold post cards and refrigerator magnets.  Didn't find anything that fit the bill there, but the mall itself was quite interesting.  I haven't seen that many skybridges since watching Metropolis.

We were pretty hungry after our trip to Westfield Fox Hills, so we ended up walking back to Dinah's, a well-known restaurant at Sepulveda and Centinela.  The Dear Missus had the all-you-can-eat fish and chips, while I went for the steak sandwich.  Neither of us went for the fried chicken, something that Dinah's is famous for.  And at Dinah's, I saw something that I thought I'd never see - two older black men dining together, one wearing a Dodgers hat and the other wearing a Giants hat.  (There's a lot of venom in that baseball rivalry, and neither time nor the move west has seemed to diffuse it.)

We ended up going to the CVS up the street from our hotel after dinner and buying some post cards of the city.  Normally, whenever I go out of town, I buy enough post cards to give to everyone on my team at work.  But I didn't find any really good deals on post cards, something that rarely happens to me, so I just bought a few for my own collection.

The ride home to Charlotte wasn't quite as long as the trip to Los Angeles, but it was still a leg-numbing four-hour trip.  It was good to get home and only have to drive about 20 minutes across town to get into my own bed.  For fellow Jeopardy! contestant Dave Sutherland, who rode the shuttle with us to LAX, he had a much longer drive ahead.  After flying into Calgary, he had a three-hour drive across the mountains to his home in Invermere, British Columbia.

The six weeks or so after taping ended were the toughest six weeks of my life.  Of course, everyone wanted to know what happened, and we couldn't tell them.  That didn't stop people from trying to trip me up to find out, either.  (Like I said, the Sony Pictures Studios guide tried, and he couldn't get anything out of us.)  But after Friday night, when most of the country got to see what happened, I could finally relax and talk about it.  In fact, shortly before I started writing this entry, I talked with a reporter from The Gaston Gazette and gave him a similar post-mortem.  I can only imagine what's it's going to be like at work tomorrow.