The 32nd caller wins�
If you will, come take a journey with me back to a time of innocence and an age of discovery. Back to a time when people throughout the land recognized good and evil by the colors they wore.
It was early �98. I was eager, young and a new father. While I spent my nights working to make ends meet, I spent my weekends reveling in the excitement that was the NFL. The Denver Broncos had spent most of the previous year enjoying the defense of their first ever Superbowl victory. The first 13 weeks of the season saw the Broncos stampede over their competition and earn them home field advantage through the playoffs. A second consecutive appearance in the big game was sure to be their destiny.
I can�t recall exactly when my wife broke the news, but the tale she weaved would leave many in disbelief. On her way to work one morning, a local radio station was taking callers and giving them trivia questions in an attempt to qualify them for a drawing to win an all expense paid trip to Miami, Florida to attend Superbowl 33. Having never been able to even get the phone to ring through, let alone actually win anything when calling a radio station, you can guess my skepticism with what she told me next.
My wife has the uncanny ability to get through to radio stations when ever she tries and that day was no different. The program director or whatever you call the minimum wage employee answering the phones told her he was going to give the answer to the trivia question to her because they were tired of people getting it wrong and they really needed to move on. After he gave her the answer, she jokingly said �You are going to be sure I win the tickets, right?� To her surprise, he said he would. I simply could not believe it. I was sure she was probably given the answer and was now qualified for the �random� drawing, but to believe the �fix� was in was a stretch for me.
I have been a Broncos fan since I was in the fourth grade. I had followed Elway and the Broncos through many ups and downs, from dominating seasons to crushing defeats in three Superbowls. To think I had the possibility, no the guarantee that I would be attending Superbowl 33, where I would most likely see them defending their title and going for the rare back-to-back title, it just wasn�t possible in my mind.
A week went by and the radio station was still actively qualifying listeners for the ticket give-away. The whole thought of being given the tickets was becoming even more unbelievable for me. I got even antsier when the Broncos rolled over the Jets to secure their spot in Superbowl 33. The possibility of the Broncos making the Superbowl had just changed into the reality.
Later that night the phone rang. It was the radio station calling to get the names and social security numbers of those that would be traveling with my wife to the Miami for the Superbowl so they could book travel arrangements. I was amazed. Was what she said happened really happening? It would appear it was. But the next day I heard the radio station still qualifying people for the contest. What was going on? Why would they keep qualifying people for a contest they couldn�t win? The turmoil was killing me.
The night before the big drawing was upon us, the phone rang one more time and it was the radio station again. This time they informed my wife that she would need to be by the phone at 7:30 AM to take their call to award the tickets live on the air. They also informed her of when our flight was and where we�d be staying.
The next morning went just as you�d expect it to. The call came in, the fake surprise was returned, and the contest was over. We were going to the Superbowl! But the drama didn�t end there.
Over the next several days there was much confusion over where we would be given our tickets. First we were to pick them up at the radio station, and then they were to be waiting for us at our hotel, located right on South Beach, neither happened. We called the radio station in a panic. The game was just a day away and we had no tickets. The radio station set about the task of finding our tickets. After about an hour or so, we were told we would be meeting the ticket broker that supplied the tickets at his hotel and he would turn them over to us.
We made the long track from one end of South Beach to the other. I remember the trip in great detail. I had originally had the bright idea of walking so we could do some people watching on our way there. That was before I realized the guy�s hotel was ten million miles away. About half way we hailed a cab and decided to ride the rest of the way there. Unfortunately, it probably would have been faster to walk as traffic had been brought to a near stand still by a group of up and coming rappers promoting their CD. The Rough Riders and their volunteers were on every corner, in every intersection handing out the new CD from their front man, DMX. Yep, that�s when DMX was nobody. Which reminds me of another story about me and DMX, but I�ll leave that for another time.
So we arrive at the ticket broker�s room. He invites us in and hands me the tickets. I was literally holding a dream come true in the palms of my hand. It was all I could do to keep from filling my drawers with fluffy brown poop and beer diluted urine. The broker snapped me out of my drooling daze when he started to apologize for the way he had to give us the tickets. He went on to tell us he would be attending the Tommy Hilfiger Superbowl party on the beach that evening and we were on the list to get in. My jaw dropped and the poop flowed. I apologized for the mess I left on the carpet and we departed.
I came to Miami to see Elway win his last game. As it turned out, I would not only witness that event but I would be given the opportunity to hobnob with some of Hollywood�s and the sports world�s most elite personalities. From Goldberg to Joe Bob Briggs (Movie Channel�s Joe Bob Briggs Drive-In Theatre) to HBO�s Inside the NFL�s roving reporter I saw and met �em all. There was so much going on, it was crazy. Cars of all types, Ferraris to a stretched Rolls-Royce limo painted Bronco orange and blue were every where you turned. Non-stop parties lined the strip that didn�t let out until six in the morning. As Big Will put it so eloquently in his song topping the charts around the same time, �I'm goin to Miami, Welcome to Miami!�
I was going for Melissa Etheridge, though she is actually from Leavenworth, KS. You�d think I�d know that living only an hour away from there. Since there is no real answer, I am going to haphazardly dole out points. Wendyloo gets 20, Michelle gets 15, JuddHole gets 7 for obvious reasons, Anisettekiss gets 100 because her bosses are complete and utter asshats, and lastly Warcrygirl and Bigpimpinmba get a great big �Nice Try� pat on the arse.
Wow, that�s sure is a lot of points. You better check the great big hotcarl blog contest Leader Board to see where you now fall.
Question 15:
Fahrenheit 9/11 and Presidential hopeful John Kerry have criticized President Bush for his reaction during the 7 minutes following his advisors informing him of the World Trade Center disaster. In his own words, how did John Kerry say he and many other members of the senate reacted after they heard the news of the disaster? Here is a hint; he made the remarks in an interview with Larry King broadcast on CNN.
Have fun,
j
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