My Millionaire Journey

Back in January 2001, I had the rather fortunate experience of having appeared as a contestant on the insanely popular ABC primetime game show “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.”  In April 2014, I began writing every Friday on this blog about how I got chosen to be on the show and chronicling my trip to New York for the taping… and it took me seven months and 33 posts to finish the story!  I had no idea just how much there was to milk from this fascinating moment in my life until I went to write about it in serial form!

Here is a complete list of links back to every post in the Journey:

Introduction: Million Dollar Squirrel (Posted 4/4/14)

Part 1: And So It Begins… (4/11/14) – How my finding the WWTBAM message board got this whole thing started.

Part 2: A Squirrel At The Cattle Call (4/18/14) – Heading to the audition.

Part 3: Get Those Mechanical Pencils Ready! (4/25/14) – Taking the written test and waiting to see if I passed.

Part 4: Please Wait To Be Judged (5/2/14) – The dreaded in person interview!

Part 5: The Waiting… (5/9/14) – And now I wait for callback week…

Part 6: Prepare To Qualify (5/16/14) – I’m in!  Now I’ve got five weeks to prepare for this thing!

Part 7: Leaving On A Jet Plane (5/23/14) – The flight to New York Jersey.

Part 8: Hitchin’ A Ride (5/30/14) – The limo ride into New York City.

Part 9: An Empire State Of Mind (6/6/14) – Settling in at the amazingly awful hotel contestants are put up at.

Part 10: Paging Colonel Sanders (6/13/14) – The search for food in NYC.

Part 11: Meeting Of The Minds (6/20/14) – The pre-show contestant meeting atop the Empire.

Part 12: T’was The Night Before Showtime (6/27/14) – Jitters from the evening before the big day.

Part 13: The Big Day Is Here! (7/4/14) – It’s time to head to the studio!

Part 14: In The Green Room (7/11/14) – Hanging out in the lounge of the stars!

Part 15: The Least Interesting Squirrel In The World (7/18/14) – The unenviable task of squeezing conversational tidbits out of my boring life.

Part 16: Stu-Stu-Studio (7/25/14) – It’s time to head down to the studio to practice the Millionaire basics!

Part 17: Practice Makes Prefect (8/1/14) – The excitement of fastest Finger action that doesn’t count!

Part 18: Let’s Do Lunch (8/8/14) – Chow in the cafeteria of the stars.

Part 19: Get Dressed For Success (8/15/14) – Scenes from the dressing room!

Part 20: Heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Evil! (8/22/14) – It’s time to go on stage in front of the cheering crowd!

Part 21: Let’s Play! (8/29/14) – And the game has begun!

Part 22: The $16,000 Question (9/5/14) – Controversy on the set!

Part 23: The Butterfly Effect (9/12/14) – The first Fastest Finger question is asked!

Part 24: Yakity Yak (9/19/14) – Less talking and more playing, please!

Part 25: Tough As Nails (9/26/14) – The fate of a dishwasher rests on this one question…

Part 26: Everything’s Coming Up Amyyyyyyyyy!!!!! (10/3/14) – It’s time for Millionaire Idol…

Part 27: Men on Film (10/10/14) – Let’s give this Fastest Finger game another try…

Part 28: The Final Countdown (10/17/14) – It’s down to the real nitty gritty now…

Part 29: Life After Losing (10/24/14) – It’s all over but the crying.

Part 30: The Best Of Times (10/31/14) – Gotta see something in New York, and it might as well be Times Square.

Part 31: I Wanna Go Home (11/7/14) – Let’s blow this joint!

Part 32: Let’s Watch A Train Wreck! (11/14/14) – Here’s the final product that aired on national primetime television.

Part 33: It’s A Long Way To Tipperary (11/21/14) – The End.

And if you made it all the way through the series… treat yourself to this!