Enough prologue, let's move to Saturday morning.  I drove back to Butler (50 min. N of Pittsburgh, where the audition takes place) and stayed with the folks to cut travel time.  Of course, that also meant waking up at a ridiculously early hour, as the activity at the ancestral home starts around 7:30 AM.  Awakened by the general commotion, I find myself unable to get back to sleep, and I succumb to the concept of consciousness.  I find myself really anxious... the hours cannot fly by fast enough.  I'm not nervous... I've maintained relatively low expectations throughout the process. I have never expected to make the show, as much as I would love to.  It's not the information that gets in the way; I know enough to make the show, without any real prep.  But I look funny, I talk funny, and my personality can be an acquired taste, to put it gently (Ben Franklin in 1776 might put it that "I'm obnoxious and disliked"). (Editor's Note:  Musical Theatre is a relatively common topic of Jeopardy Answers, and I figured I'd pick up some brownie points from ftangredifor an appropriate musical reference.)  But still, a near zero chance is not quite zero, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.  I take a final look at my contestant information questionnaire, realize I'm as boring as I was when I reviewed it yesterday, and mapquest the directions.  Then I shower, and dress

Wardrobe was something that vexed me.  I've noticed a tendency towards casualness among the contestants as of late.  My problem is, I don't pull off the Jeopardy Casual look that well, so I decided to go with a more polished, professional look.  I chose a grey suit that I recently shrunk back into (weight loss has its advantages), a blood red shirt and a black tie.  I looked smooth, almost mobsterish.  With the new short haircut, I looked friendly but just a touch dangerous.  I approved of the look.

Around 12:45, I couldn't stand waiting at home any longer, so I got in Deathtrap (my car) and started the journey. Immediately, I hear the front of the car making noises that would make the authors of a Chilton Manual cry.  I got the brakes fixed, but this problem is new.  A stop in Cranberry for some Chik-Fil-A, which I had been looking forward to for days (yep, I'm a Chik-Fil-A junkie), featuring chicken nuggets, lemonade, and some study of the fourth thousand eights, and I proceed on... the noise continues, and I notice my steering is loose, especially when I try to do anything other than go dead straight.  About five minutes after getting back on the highway, a good Samaritan starts waving frantically as he pulls beside me.  I see him pull over ahead, and I pull over a good distance behind, just in case he's one of the Biblically far-more-prevalent bad Samaritans.  He steps out of his car (yeah, I can take him), and tells me that my right front wheel is wobbling.  Oh boy.  There is no way in hell I should continue this journey.  I should just call a truck, get towed back to Butler, and not die or watch the front wheel fly randomly onto a suburban Pittsburgh roadside.  This reasonable, logical train of though lasts approximately .000073 seconds, after which I realize, this is Jeopardy, dammit.  If I can get another ten miles or so, I can catch a cab and make it to the audition. I thank the man for his concern, tell him I'm pulling over at the next exit, and then proceed upon my way.

A stressful half-hour of fighting a hobbled car and negative thoughts later, I arrive at the hotel... where I notice the obcene parking rates at the hotel lot, necessitating another five minutes to find a slightly less pricey locale to park.  Seven dollars later, I walk the block and a half to the Westin William Penn and arrive at 2:40.

I walk up the stairs to the second floor, expecting to see a throng of people there.  I only knew a general outline of the events for the day; I had no idea how many people would be attending, or how many sessions of auditions there would be.  I see one person, sitting half-asleep on a cushioned chair in the atrium.  I walk over to the conference room, where a sign on the table outside the closed door gives us instructions.  Fill out a contestant info form, take an answer sheet and an official Jeopardy pen (just one, please).  I do as instructed, sit down and start answering the questions.  Glad I took the time to learn the callsign of the station that televises Jeopardy in Cleveland... No, I'm not related to anyone who works anywhere in anyway connected to Jeopardy.  Do I know any former contestants?  Why yes... Pat Hardwick, one of our Cleveland Scrabblers, was a champion back in the Art Fleming days.  Have I been convicted of any felonies?  Uh... no.  Am I running for public office?  With a tinge of regret, again no.  With that done, I try to relax.  I' not very good at it.  I'm pacing around the place while others arrive.

Eventually I sit down at a table with a few other prospective contestants.  A resident in internal medicine from Atlanta (wow, and I complained about my commute), a bearded architect from the Pittsburgh Suburbs with multiple pens in his shirt pocket, and a squirrelly unemployed oldster from Erie, who I immediately knew would never ever ever get on the show.  We all fake pleasantries and small talk, but there's a cold distance.  We seem to have an unspoken understanding that this is a zero-sum game, and that we are all going after the same finite objective.  This dance of forced sociability and quiet "sizing-up" of the opposition seems to be repeated by everyone else throughout the room.  Around 3:20, a cheery young lady comes out of the conference room and starts checking off our names, and a guy comes out with a Polaroid Camera, and starts taking head shots.  Upon seeing mine, I am glad I lost some weight, as my face looked far smaller than I remember it.  The girl tells us, for the first of many times throughout the audition, to smile, and speak up.  After a couple more minutes of milling about, the contestant coordinators invite us into the conference room. 

The room is arranged with rows of tables and chairs facing the front of the room.  At the front, the contestant coordinators are facing us, seated at tables of their own, on either side of a projection screen, with a blank jeopardy board on it.  I walk in, and rather than nervous, I feel at home.  Seeing the board strangely puts me at ease... it's like this is what I've been born to do.  The head coordinator starts with a run-down of the process. Firstly we are all now "officially" in the contestant pool, due to passing the online exam.  I give that line as much credence as it deserves, which is none.  I know that there are people in the room who, if the choice came between having them as contestants and canceling Jeopardy, a bunch of folks at Sony would be getting pink slips.  This audition would be how they determine who actually gets picked from the pool.  It would begin with a written test, followed by a discussion with a member of the Clues Crew, and then a chance to play a mock version of Jeopardy! 

After giving us a few pointers on Jeopardy question constructs and such,  and some sample questions (I got the one involving anagramming STAIN into SATIN.... boo yeah), the test begins. 50 questions from fifty different categories, 8 seconds between questions.  In general, not too difficult, although there are a few stumpers that are far more "you know it or you don't" trivia, rather than questions one can puzzle out logically.  I got at least 40 of them right, and at least 8 wrong... there were only two I wasn't sure of.  Blew an easy one about young water fowl, but otherwise was pleased with my result  After the test, the coordinators take our tests and info, and leave the room to grade the exams. We are not told our results.

Jimmy of the Clues Crew starts to talk with us and tell us about his experiences on the show, and then has a Q&A.  It was interesting, but it was clear the group of prospects had two very distinct classes:  The Junkies who were thrilled to question a real live Clues Crew member, and the non-Junkies, who were wondering, "Who is this guy?"  Despite falling into the latter category, I did enjoy it. Shortly after, the coordinators come back in.

They announce the beginning of the mock games, and have the players grouped into threes.  They say the groupings have no relevance or significance whatsoever, which immediately leads me to suspect they do, and gets me starting to try to figure them out. They also mention that they aren't concerned with whether or not the contestants get the answer correct; this I do believe... they are far more concerned with personalities, projection, and any number of other factors, than "winning" the game... by getting this far, we have proved we know enough to compete.  The first group is called.  Maybe there is no significance, no one exceptional, no one lousy... About eight minutes in, the coordinators stop the game, and start conducting an interview with the contestants called.  No one bombs, in this group.  No one in any group bombs, with the exception of the fellow from Erie I met earlier, who said he's "rather not discuss" previous jobs he's had, among other chestnuts.  An Assistant DA from Cambria County talked about his new daughter, who was born yesterday, and the multiple personal injury attorneys (none of whom had one a case yet) sheepishly tried to downplay their career.  All in all, an interesting cross-section of white males (yep, 19 white males out of 19 auditioners).

After two groups go through this process, I am called up with two others.  I missed a couple of questions, one on Dostoevsky, another on Hemingway (must bone up on literature), but then nailed three relatively tough questions in friendlier categories.  Since they weren't even bothering to keep score, I wasn't too concerned.  I was happy to have the buzzer in hand, and get to answer questions.  Eventually, they halt the game, and I get my interview.  We discuss my career in politics (such as it is), my hobby (Scrabble), and they ask, as they ask of everyone, "What would you do if you won a ton of money on Jeopardy!?"

Having done some research, I knew this was coming, and I figured it would provide me an opportunity to highlight my offbeat personality and world view in an attractive and somewhat homespun way.  My (absolutely truthful) response is as follows:

"When I was 16, I borrowed my mom's car one day, and I wrecked it.  Head on into a telephone poll, absolutely destroyed.  Totaled it.  My mom love that car, she really did.  So if I were to win a lot of money, the first thing I would do is buy my mom a Blue 1987 Chevy Nova." 

I think it was well-received; it certainly beat my back-up answer of "hookers and blow."  After the interviews, we sit down and watch the rest of the auditioners play and interview.  Finally, one of the coordinators tells us what's up.  We are now all officially in the contestant pool, and eligible to be called to play any time in the next 18 months.  They said they would try to give us three weeks notice before the filming date, and generally, told us we did a great job, and whatnot.  With that, we quickly file out of the room, facing the beginning of the waiting game.