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Okay, I promise this will be the last Jeopardy reference, at least until my prize check arrives, but come on, don't you want to read my article?!?!

Sing it, Al

I have been dying to post this for months:

"I Lost on Jeopardy" by Weird Al Yankovic

Thursday cometh

Okay, so since people insist on remembering, my Jeopardy appearance is this Thursday. There's even a video clip of me online, though it makes me squirm to see myself -- I talk too fast! My head is really big! Why didn't I smile?!

I also received my fabulous commemorative picture with Alex last week. Okay picture, though he looks kinda like a cutout and it was printed off a computer. And no, I didn't really get to talk to him. There's all kinds of legal stuff around that dating back to the big quiz show scandals of the 50s. He just sort of snuck up behind me, said "Come back out and show 'em no mercy," smiled for the picture, and moved on to the next contestant.

And by the way, my sister obviously won't be able to see this. Can someone tape it for me? I don't have the official remote for our VCR, so I can't set it to the right channel to tape. Thanks!

City of Angels

Before last week, the furthest west I'd ever been was San Antonio, and that was when I was 9. I've obviously seen lots of pictures, but it's very different seeing a totally different region of the country for myself.

We flew from Charlotte to Atlanta and then to Los Angeles, and when the clouds broke somewhere over southern Arizona or Utah, I was amazed. It was so brown. And there was no civilization. Not a glimmer from a house or car, not a single track through the dust. Of course, from 30,000 feet, dimensions are skewed, but it all looked so flat and dry, broken only by the carved edges of mesas. But even from above, I could see the striations of the rocks. A bit further on, rocky mountains jutted up from the desert floor -- no snow line, so scrub line, just rock and dust. I could even see the swirls of huge dust clouds kicking up over the valleys. I really need to go to the desert in person.

I really didn't see much in the way of people until we got near Palm Springs, Calif. Suddenly, there were perfectly straight lines of roads carved through the dust, complete with little glints of passing cars or isolated houses. Slowly the vegetation started to come back, but it was so different from the lush green of the Southeast. So scrubby, such a dry green. We approached what I'm guessing were the Santa Ana mountains (there was insipid TV on the inflight screens, not much more interesting directions), I saw snow dusting the tops of the mountains, as well as a blanket of clouds curling slowly over the peaks, as if it really were a solid fabric.

Then we crested the mountains, and there was L.A. I have never seen so much development. It was a quilt of gridded streets, houses packed together, and it went on for miles and miles and miles and miles until it ran out of room at the mountains. We flew over it for something like 45 minutes. I was overwhelmed. Sure, I lived in Chicago, but this was nuts. I have enough trouble finding my place in a little town like mine, I can't imagine how lost I'd be in that many millions.

The next day was our planned event. I don't want to risk talking about it, so if you want to know more, e-mail me. I will say it was fun overall, lots of nice people and an interesting thing to watch in production.

That evening, we went out to Santa Monica for the sunset, some wandering and some food. It was, obviously, gorgeous. And wild watching the sun set into the ocean in less than two minutes. (See that itty bitty tip of light in this picture? The last edge of the sun.) Even after the sun disappeared, the color was beautiful on the clouds and San Gabriel Mountains, especially seen through silhouetted palm trees.

I was fascinated by the flora: gnarled trees with little bark; droopy, fuzzy plants arcing a good three feet in the air; 10-foot tall shoots jutting up from some kind of succulent. And of course, there were the dinosaur topiary fountains in Third Street Promenade, but they weren't quite as impressive. Nor was the upscale shopping that I could have found at malls here in Charlotte. Nor was the grill we wound up eating appetizers at, but that wasn't too bad since we were so screwed up with time that we weren't hungry.

Thursday was wide open, and we decided to go to The Getty Center. Wow. Not the biggest or most impressive collection of art I've ever seen, but the building itself and its view of L.A. were amazing. As one of my many architects first pointed out, the entire complex is designed on a grid, and you can follow any gap in the limestone squares throughout the complex -- floors, windows, walls, stairs. Incredible attention to detail. And beautiful gardens and a wonderful walkway cutting across a man-made creek that was designed to have a different sound at each crossing.

I did have some favorite paintings: Jeanne Kefer by Fernand Khnopff and Houses near Orleans by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. We didn't make it to the vast photography collection, but hey, a reason to go back, right?

We finished off the day by yet again going to Santa Monica. We had talked about going to see the freak show at Venice Beach, but we were tired and just wanted to relax. We grabbed a beer at a pub, window shopped, caught another sunset, and shivered through the gale-force winds. We wound up the night at Lula Cocina Mexicana, which had great margaritas, awesome salsa verde, and decent food. Interestingly, they served cooked carrots marinated in vinegar with the chips and salsa, and this is apparently typically Mexican. Wonder why I've never seen it on the East Coast.

To get back to the hotel, we took yet another cab. We spent more money on cabs than food, though it was probably worth not having to drive on the freeways. Our cabbies were from Guatemala, New Jersey, somewhere Arab, Ethiopia, Eastern Europe and Morocco. You literally saw all kinds of people in L.A.

And voila, the next day we flew home. We were stuck on the plane for an hour at the gate in L.A., stuck another 45 minutes waiting for passengers in Atlanta, and didn't get home until 1 a.m. But it could have been worse: our flight from LAX was going on to Tel Aviv, another 11 hours after Atlanta!

So there you go, more than you ever wanted to know about my trip, except perhaps for the part I can't talk about. I definitely recommend a trip out there, even if, like us, you don't care about celebrities. And we definitely want to go back, though perhaps more like the central coast and wine country. Ahhhh, vacation.

EST to PST to EST again

A lovely long blog will be coming soon, loaded with lots of beautiful pictures of The Getty Center and Santa Monica. I may even have time for it tomorrow. But for now, may I state -- categorically -- that Wednesday was not my day.

Countdown

Well, in about a day and a half, we'll be off to the West. We've got a loose itinerary for our free day, including the Getty Museum, crazies in Venice Beach and sunset and dinner in Santa Monica. Of course, depending on how our scheduled event goes Wednesday, we can probably do the sunset and dinner that night so we're not as pressed Thursday. We're both getting excited about the trip, though not the numerous hours in planes. There aren't more of these ice storms in the forecast, are there?

And I'm not nervous about Wednesday's planned event -- yet. Just pray for fast reflexes, fast recall and favorable topics!

Answer: 480 out of 25,000

Question: What is the number of people chosen as Jeopardy! contestants each year out of the thousands that audition?

That's your factoid of the day. I haven't posted in a while, have little to say and am valiantly resisting Jenny's meme, so this is what I came up with. Yes, I did get sucked into a few minutes of a Jeopardy! behind-the-scenes show on TV Guide channel last week, and the number above was an interesting tidbit, so I thought I'd share.

By the way, in a totally unrelated comment, 12 days till we go to L.A.

What to see out West

So I'll be going to Los Angeles at the end of February. I'm very excited, though I'm not supposed to blog about why I'm going, but I've never particularly wanted to go to Southern California. Central Coast, sure. Wine Country, oh hell yeah. San Fransisco, of course. But L.A., nope. And I'm not in any particular awe of famous entertainers. So what should I do out there? I'll have a couple of evenings and probably one day. I've heard that L.A. is infamous for bad public transit, so I also don't want to pay a ton in cab fares toodling around the city. Right now, I'm thinking the tar pits. Where else can you see tar pits? And maybe a museum and the Chinese Theater since it looks so cool. But really, I'm clueless and would love suggestions!

And if you know of any good trivia books or Web sites, that would be appreciated, too :)

I'll take waiting game for $1000

I have returned triumphant from my audition for Jeopardy!

Not that this means I know if I made it on the show, of course. All I know is they won't tell me how I did on the test, I may or may not be in the contestant pool for the next year, and the only way I'll ever know is if I get a call a couple weeks in advance of when they'd want me on the show. All right, thanks for all the clear-cut decisiveness!

I do think I did fairly well. I know for sure I missed 5 out of 50 questions on the test, but I got the feeling people around me were stumped by more than that. I aced the use of the buzzer during the mock test, though I was clueless on a few questions and guessed wrong on a couple more. I did get several right, however, and I made them laugh during my mini interview, so that's a good thing. Hopefully I'll get a call in the not-too-distant future and go on to win thousands of dollars!!! Or just forget about it and not be overly dissapointed.

It was certainly an interesting experience, though, especially seeing the types of people that would try out for a show like that. There were just a couple of truly hermity-looking, over-eager folks, including a woman who makes lace for a living. There were a couple of PhD students, including one in neurobiology, just so we all felt inferior. But there were also a few run-of-the-mill administrative types, a claims adjuster, a guy who worked for Habitat, and me, the mom. A surprisingly broad range of experiences, though I bet we all survived our share of gifted classes.

And hey, I got a free pen the size of the signalling button! Score!

This ... is ... Jeopardy!

Eeek, I've got an audition for Jeopardy! I took the online test months ago and just got an e-mail about auditions in Atlanta on Oct. 12. Now, you have to take a 50 question test, and if you pass, then take a mock test and have a interview. Even if you pass, you aren't guaranteed a spot on the show. I have two days to RSVP, so I need a poll: Should I truck on down even though the odds aren't great? I have watched Jeopardy! for years, have always known tons of the questions, have been told by many people I should try to get on. I'm no Ken Jennings, but whaddya think?

And what would I WEAR?!