Words of Truth

Ok, so where was I? Taking a test? Ok. So I missed the quahog question. There was another question that went:

What is the abbreviation doctors write on a prescription to state that there are to be no substitutions?
A. DLM
B. LIB
C. DAW
D. MDL

I didn’t know (until I got home) that the answer was DAW, Dispense As Written. In my defense, I work in a hospital, not a doctor’s office. We use order sheets, not prescription pads. And my doctor’s office uses pads that have a check box that says no substitutions (which he puts a check mark in if this is what he wants). Bummer.

So, after missing those, a question about which female rapper did something, and a few others, I handed in the test. I felt confident that I had at least 23-24 correct. I didn’t know about the other 6-7, but I figured I would get a couple right just by the odds. They graded our tests, and the guy came back to say, “ok, here are the people who passed the test”, and he read off the numbers of those who had passed. My number was 128. My number was conspicuously absent among the numbers emanating from his oral orifice. Grrr. I was struck dumb. I didn’t know what to think. I had thought that the hard part was going to be impressing the staff with my “interesting-ness” and wanting to have me as a contestant. I felt that the test would be a mere formality. As Charlie Brown said when Lucy pulled out the football: AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!

I walked out of the studio in a funk. I walked to the subway entrance, walked down four steps, and realized that this may well be the last time I come to NYC. I was not planning on doing any sightseeing this time, due to the fact that Kim and I would be coming back to NYC when it was time for me to be a contestant (right??). Suddenly faced with the prospect of not being on the show, I wanted to see SOMETHING of New York before I left the next morning. I walked to Times Square (from 66th and Broadway to 42nd St.) Along the way I tried to order a hamburger at a place called “Cosmic Diner”. My waiter was a very nice man named Tony who struck me as not being able to speak English very well. My hamburger came rare. At the time, I was in no mood for screw-ups, so I paid for my diet coke and left. Plus they served it on an English muffin. Sean? What’s up with that? New Yorkers never heard of a bun??

Anyway, I got a sandwich at Blimpie (not knowing any good places to eat), bought some chips, and took the subway back to my hotel. I was pretty depressed, so I turned on the TV to relax. I got to see the last 90 minutes of Million-Dollar Baby (with Clint Eastwood). Boy, that sure made me feel better. I thought, I may not be able to get on a tv show, but at least I’m not a quadriplegic, or blind in one eye, or retarded, and I have family that loves me. I swear, that movie was the most uplifting thing I’ve seen in a long time (at least it made ME feel better…I mean, at least I’m not as bad off as those schmoes!)

Next day, flew home. Nothing interesting happened. Oh, except I got to the airport early enough to see that there were a few empty seats on the side of the aircraft that had one seat instead of two (could I get a professional writer to rewrite that sentence so it makes sense?). Ok, how about this: I checked in early enough to get a single seat, instead of a seat sitting next to someone. That’s better. Anyway, I sat in seat 13A. My wife said, “13? You Picked 13?” I said, “Hey, #1. I was born on the 13th, #2. we don’t believe that stuff anyway, and #3, what’s going to happen to me in row 13 that wouldn’t happen to the guy in row 12? Nothing. So during the flight I looked back at row 16 (where I was originally scheduled to sit), Free Range Troll! Ouch! This lady was beyond description. Ever seen the movie “Clash of the Titans”? GORGON!!! Ick. ANyway, glad I got to sit by myself and read my new book “Godless” by Ann Coulter. Good book! Had me rolling several times, like the part where she is talking about the Chernobyl disaster, and she says, “It was the worst nuclear disaster in history–finally giving us a nuclear power plant that killed more people than died in Teddy Kennedy’s car.” Then, while discussing the “no-flush toilet”, she makes the comment, “Water. Liberals are worried we are going to run out of something that literally falls from the sky. Here’s an idea: Just wait. It will rain.” The whole book is full of that stuff. Hee hee.

So that’s the story of my Millionaire quest. I found out that they are supposedly bringing the auditions to Chicago sometime this summer, so Kim and I will go up there along with her dad, and we are all three planning on trying out. Maybe I’ll get the same test (ha ha).

If anybody wants a lesson in humility, just ask. But it will cost you $400 (at least mine did).

OK, so here is my saga of my trip to NYC. I found out several weeks ago that the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” show was holding auditions for contestants in June. I e-mailed my registration info, and they sent me a confirmation that my audition was Monday June 19th at 6:30pm.

I left my house Monday morning at 0700 and drove to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Reception Center (AKA: the “airport”). After parking and waiting for two hours (why do they say to come 2hrs early? It’s a ploy to get you to buy stuff from the duty-free shops), I boarded the plane to LaGuardia. This was an Embraer jet with 50 seats. I’m not sure what model jet it was, but I think it was the “Sardine”. The fuselage was 8 feet wide. There was a seat on one side of the aisle, and two seats on the other side. There was one flight attendant and two pilots. I got to sit in seat 17F. There were 18 rows, and so I was next to the single toilet. I sat next to a lady who works for ATA. “Sat” is such a plain word, not very descriptive at all for the experience of being shoehorned into a space smaller than a port-a-potty with a total stranger. Thankfully, she was nice, and didn’t try to grab my butt (ha ha ha ha ha). So we flew to NYC. It took two hours. (twenty minutes longer than the promised 1:40).

Arriving in New York at 1pm, I went to the “ground transportation” section. The lady on the plane had advised me to not take a cab, but to buy a “MTA” ticket instead. I bought a ticket good for six total rides (on a bus or a subway) for $10. That lasted me for the entire trip, and I would have paid around $40 for each cab ride. Boy that lady sure saved me some money!

I rode the M60 bus to Aurora Ave, where I got off, boarded the subway (which was elevated, at this point. Hmmm. Not really sub anything), and rode two stops to Broadway. I had to walk about ten blocks to my Super 8 hotel (Would you walk 8 blocks to save $200? Obviously I did, for a cheaper hotel). Then, after changing into my “impress the millionaire staff” clothes, I walked back to the subway around 3pm. Then it took me about 2.5 hours to figure out how to get to the Upper West Side (where the ABC studios are located). That subway system is tricky to figure out if you don’t have anybody to help you. Speaking of which, one observation, New Yorkers….SMILE once in a while! For goodness sakes, if life is that bad that you can’t smile every now and then, maybe it’s time to move! Not one person smiled at me the whole time I was in New York (at least nobody that wasn’t taking my money, THEN they smiled). If I had spent more than a few days there, I think I may have started to hand out money just to get people to smile at me.

I got to the ABC studios, waited outside for a half hour, and then went inside with 50 other people. We all sat down at tables to take the test. It had thirty questions. Most of them were no problem for me. Here are a few examples:

*What state’s capital is named after our third President?
*What year did man land on the moon?
*Who put the bomp in the bomp-she-bomp-she-bomp?

OK, I made the last one up. There were several questions that I didn’t know the answer to, or at least wasn’t sure about. One was “what is a quahog?” The answers were: a clam, a flower, a vegetable, or a pig. I knew it wasn’t a pig, that’s too easy. My gut said clam, but I thought it had a better chance of being a vegetable, so I picked that. Yep, it’s a clam. More later, as I have a softball game to go to.

Got an e-mail. The person who sent it meant well, but it was one of those “If you love Jesus, send this to ten people in five minutes, and send it back to the person who sent it to you.”

These e-mails are worse than worthless. This is not “if you love Jesus, send this to ten people.”

It should instead be called, “If you want the e-mail addresses of your friends and relatives to be sucked up by spammers, send this to ten people.”

I don’t believe that forwarding or not forwarding an e-mail proves that I do or do not love Jesus. Furthermore, you are sending it to ten people who KNOW you (at least well enough to give you their e-mail address), so if they don’t already know that you love Jesus, then doesn’t this instead prove that you DON’T?

“You will know them by their fruits.” Fruits, not messages, not words. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” If you have love, not “if you say you love” In other words, actions speak to truth, not words.

So if you know me and you want to know if I love Jesus, just ask (or better, look at my life), but don’t send me an e-mail asking. Thanks!

Been busy lately. Working and spending time out in the yard and with family. We went to the Humane Society and adopted 2 new kittens last week. One is grey all over (we named him Shadow), and the other is white with orange stripes (Tigger). My youngest daughter (2.5yrs old) up to this point has been afraid of animals. I mean, she likes them, but she doesn’t want to get close to them. When we went to the humane society though, she got really cozy with these kitties really fast, and so here we are, with two (they were having a 2 for 1 sale 😉 ). We paid $150 for both of them, and that includes microchipping, shots, and neutering both of them. Pretty good deal if you ask me. Our last cat, we got her “free to good home” and then paid $200 to spay her. It’s true, there’s no such thing as a free cat.

Dog to follow this fall. The breeder says that the mother has not gone into heat yet, but I am on the waiting list for one of the yellow lab puppies.

I have an audition with the Millionaire show! It’s next Monday in NYC. Never been there. Should be interesting. More later after I get done working this weekend.