Introduce Yourself Here

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BobF
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by BobF »

My name is Bob (big surprise, huh?) and I've been a huge fan of Jeopardy ever since the early days of the Trebek incarnation, back when I was in college. As a ute (think Joe Pesci trying to say youth) I had the old home version of the Jeopardy game with clues worth $10-$50. Married, 3 kids, live in Maryland, computer programmer, never been on the show, but I taught a class where one of my students was a 3 time champ who won $58,000.

Oh, roadgeek Adam, if you read this, I lived in Highland Park for a year after I graduated from Rutgers.
Was once hugged by Maggie Speak!
Asphodel
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Asphodel »

Woof wrote:Belated congratulations, Alison. If you have a boy, will you name him Alex? :D
Nope, but it is a boy, and we are going to name him after a historical/literary figure who has been referenced in dozens of Jeopardy! clues (not in any of my games though)...
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Fleeboy
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Fleeboy »

Time for this 10-year member of the "old" board to stick his toe back into the water ...

From the "Caste of Characters" thread:

Bob Fleenor here. Five wins, $55,700 and his-and-hers Camaros in March-April 2001, plus another $2,500 for a blink-and-you-missed-it appearance in that year's ToC (file under "Ruttered")

Was resurrected in 2005 for the UToC, losing (respectably) to young heartthrob Mattie Z. in the first round. Quickly blew the $4,650 check on riotous living.

With Ryan Moore and Larry Cloud, was part of a run of three 5xers in a span of 16 games -- not the record, but close.

Other brushes with notoriety (cut by TPTB from my UToC Web bio):
The faculty adviser for my high school Thespian troupe later became Donald Trump's butler at Mar-a-Lago.
Represented WV at the W.R. Hearst Foundation U.S. Senate Youth Program in 1969. One of Utah's two delegates was Karl Rove. At least one of us amounted to something.
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boson
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by boson »

alietr wrote:
boson wrote:forcing people to drink if they didn't get a question (my mind is fuzzy on the actual rules).
Sounds like you didn't do very well at it ...
I did very well at the drinking game.
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jepkid97
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by jepkid97 »

John Boy wrote:neglected to mention...

born and raised in Texas until my 30s, and have been living in greater Cleveland for nearly 25 years. I know there are a ton of J! viewers, fans, and former contestants in the Cleveland area. We should meet....
I'm in, as long as we don't do it in a bar. Mental_Floss store?
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Budphrey
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Budphrey »

Bud Humphrey, January 2005 3-game winner. For quite some time I considered myself the luckiest $50K+ winner in the history of Jeopardy!, partly because I missed the likelihood of being a Ken Jennings loser by a mere month, and partly because I was dead meat in my third game until it was revealed the leader made a real head-scratcher of a FJ! wager. Got a free trip to L.A. courtesy of Sony Pictures because they felt they needed an alternate (read: cheerleader) for the 2006 Tournament of Champions.

Spent slightly less (at the moment) than half my life in Idaho and Montana, 13 years in South Texas, and the last 14 in Chicagoland. PM me if you're in Chicago on a Tuesday or Thursday and like to do team trivia.
Poo-tee-weet? So it goes.
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jeff6286
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by jeff6286 »

Budphrey wrote:Bud Humphrey, January 2005 3-game winner. For quite some time I considered myself the luckiest $50K+ winner in the history of Jeopardy!, partly because I missed the likelihood of being a Ken Jennings loser by a mere month, and partly because I was dead meat in my third game until it was revealed the leader made a real head-scratcher of a FJ! wager.
I was looking at Bud's games on the archives, and there were 4 games in a row that featured some absolutely bizarre and mind-boggling wagering, from Tuesday, January 18th's game http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=110 to Friday, January 21st's game, http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=114 In every one of those four games, at least one player got Final Jeopardy! right, but lost the game because they didn't wager enough. In Bud's 3rd game, which he mentioned above, all 3 players could have lost because of the wagers they made. There must have been something in the water at the studio that week.

Budphrey, I hope this doesn't dredge up any unpleasant memories for you, but would I be correct in assuming that you missed out on the TOC by a single dollar?
MFalk
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by MFalk »

MFalk, answers to "Michael", junior high math teacher near Milwaukee. Co-coach of my school's quiz bowl team, which finished in the top 20 at the Middle School National Championship Tournament. Very much into standards-based grading and use of technology in the classroom. Participant in basketball, pub quiz, and Ms. Pac-Man, each about once a week. Fan of drinking iced tea, using Linux, going for walks in the park, and cooking Asian cuisine.

Came within 6 frames of winning (yes, I did freeze frame it once... how pathetic is that?) on Merv Griffin's Crosswords in 2008. Did better on J! two years earlier, where I had the distinct and lasting pleasure of meeting (among others) fellow jboard.tv posters Budphrey and Rex. Still a game show watcher when there's time, rabid Brewers fan, pretty decent bass guitar player, and rapidly learning father of one.
sherder
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by sherder »

Sue here, currently from the Twin Cities, but grew up in NJ, Exit 5. I am the technology integration specialist and curriculum resource teacher for a suburban St. Paul school district. My daughter is autistic, so I spend much of my free time shuttling her here and there, but when I get the chance, I like to bake cookies and cakes. I earned my masters degree in biology from UNC, so don't be looking for me hanging out here too much during March Madness. I was on the show in April 2007, where Schlie (hi, Schlie!) would argue my claim to fame is that two of my three interview stories were, um, let's say scatalogical in theme.

I'm currently your not-completely accurate scorekeeper for Tuesdays in the SHC, so please be sure to check your scores. I'm currently mired in growth data in math for over 2000 middle school students, so spreadsheets are starting to all blend together.
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barandall800
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by barandall800 »

Hi, all. :) My name is Brandon Randall (my username consists of my first two initials...I would have included my third initial, S for my second middle name, but that just doesn't read as well...plus my favorite number, 800), I'm 19 years old, and I'm from Mesa, AZ, by way of Spokane, Washington (where I lived from about the ages of 1-5) and the lovely state of Utah (where I was born, in a city called Sandy, and lived for the first year or so of my life). I've lived here for about 13 years, and I love it here...except for the weather. (I'm a cold-weather boy at heart. The more snow and the lower temperatures I have, the happier I am. All of you blizzard-weary folks, feel free to send me your unwanted snow... :mrgreen: ) I also went to college at BYU up in Provo, Utah, from August '09 to May '10. I'm planning to go back eventually, but right now I'm working and preparing to serve a 2-year full-time mission for my church (as you might have guessed from the BYU thing, I'm LDS, otherwise known as "Mormon"), which I'll hopefully be leaving for within a few months or so.

I've been a J! fan for a long time, but I didn't start seriously watching until about 4 years ago. (I vaguely remember watching some KJ episodes, though.) I'm not always able to catch the program (my viewing was horribly spotty my year at BYU, partly because 7:30 was not an ideal airtime for a busy university student, and partly because we didn't even realize we got the channel that aired J! on our TV in our dorm room, so I had to go downstairs fall semester in order to watch it), but I always try my best to. Pre-online test, I think I registered once for audition consideration for Kids Week years ago. I've taken the online test four times...twice for the Teen Tournament, and once each (in the same year) for the CC and for the regular shows. I made it to the auditions the first year I took it in '08, and also the first time I took the College test last year. I felt like I did well each time, but I guess I still have some more growing (and learning) to do. :)

As for personal interests...I am a huge music lover, and music is a huge part of my life. I love to sing, and I also play the piano (for about 10 years now), and, since a year ago, the organ. I love to listen to music, I love to make it (I've been writing songs, mostly recreationally, for a few years now), and my career goal is actually to become a musician. I also love to write. When I was younger I filled up notebooks with stories, I've always loved creating poetry (free verse mostly, though, since I can't rhyme worth beans, at least when I'm not writing song lyrics), and the past few years, I've really taken an interest in blogging. Right now my main focus in that area is my music blog, which I started back in October. The link should be under my username in my posts in case you want to check it out. (I just reached my 50th post, which was exciting, since I've never gotten that far in any of my previous blogging ventures.) In my spare time, I also love to read, and although I don't make as much time for it lately as I should, it's always a wonderful experience to sit down with a good book. I also have heavy interests in both pop culture and politics, which means those are often my favorite categories on Jeopardy!
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dhkendall
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by dhkendall »

Asphodel wrote:
Woof wrote:Belated congratulations, Alison. If you have a boy, will you name him Alex? :D
Nope, but it is a boy, and we are going to name him after a historical/literary figure who has been referenced in dozens of Jeopardy! clues (not in any of my games though)...
... you're naming your kid Machiavelli? ... :?
"Jeopardy! is two parts luck and one part luck" - Me

"The way to win on Jeopardy is to be a rabidly curious, information-omnivorous person your entire life." - Ken Jennings

Follow my progress game by game since 2012
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econgator
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by econgator »

dhkendall wrote:
Asphodel wrote:
Woof wrote:Belated congratulations, Alison. If you have a boy, will you name him Alex? :D
Nope, but it is a boy, and we are going to name him after a historical/literary figure who has been referenced in dozens of Jeopardy! clues (not in any of my games though)...
... you're naming your kid Machiavelli? ... :?
Nope ... Attila ... or Genghis.
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cinemaniax7
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by cinemaniax7 »

My name is David, and I live in the greater Nashville area. A Hoosier, born and raised, I've also made stopovers in Ohio, Michigan, Texas, California, and Oregon. I've had the privilege of interviewing for J! and playing the mock game three times -- Seattle in 2003, Nashville in 2006, and Raleigh in 2010 -- but have yet to get the call. A few facts about me:

• I hosted and occasionally taught a film class in Southern California for seven years. Owen Wilson and Mel Gibson were among my guest speakers.
• I met my wife in the film industry when she worked for Columbia Pictures (before Sony bought the studio).
• My wife danced with Tom Selleck at a Christmas party, and she turned down the chance to go out with Bryan Adams because she was dating me. Sorry, babe!
• I'm a published author with two books in release and another on the way.
• I scored a 49 on my most recent in-person test. (A pox upon you, Anderson Cooper!)
• We've homeschooled all six of our children.
• I've won fantasy league championships in four different sports. (What a geek!)
• My supervisors at two different publishing companies told me I should have been a game show host.
• I once presented a scholarly paper on beer commercials at an international symposium on popular culture.
• I share a first and last name with a literary and film action hero.
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Budphrey
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Budphrey »

jeff6286 wrote:In Bud's 3rd game, which he mentioned above, all 3 players could have lost because of the wagers they made. There must have been something in the water at the studio that week.

Budphrey, I hope this doesn't dredge up any unpleasant memories for you, but would I be correct in assuming that you missed out on the TOC by a single dollar?
Thank you for caring. ;) For my part, I can't blame the water. Failure to get more than an hour's sleep in between taping days, influenced by the shock of achieving my dream and winning a game, compounded by increasing time spent on my feet — now, I'll let that take some blame.

My failure to wager that last dollar is one of several "near miss" factors that kept me from competing in the ToC. In point of fact, though, I have no unpleasant memories at all associated with being part of Jeopardy! on any level. Not just blowin' politically correct smoke here. It was all awesome.
Poo-tee-weet? So it goes.
Glassysquid
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Glassysquid »

Erin McLean here, winner of the 2010-B College Tournament. Lost my senior year's quiz bowl championship for my team in sudden death overtime, so I haven't always come out on top. Going to school for Marine Bio and English at Boston University, thinking about grad school on the west coast when I get to that point. Longtime fan of Jeopardy, the Internet, and puppies. Currently working for the New England Aquarium where I get to tell people trivia about fish all day, really, the greatest job there could possibly be for me.
Proud member of ESPRIT DE CORPS, otherwise known as the 16 fine individuals who participated in the 2010-B College Championship, and the outstanding ToC Class of 2011.
Fish/squid enthusiast and Ph. D student at the University of Rhode Island.
jtb34
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by jtb34 »

Hello everyone my name is Jason. I had been posting on and off on the old board since 2005. In fact, I used to like going back to my first post because I wrote in it that I was averaging about a $10,000-$12,000 at-home Coryat score at the time. I liked to compare my current Coryats with those to see how much I've learned. Now that all the old board data has been lost, I can't do that anymore :(. I currently live in the San Diego area and I'm a Web Editor for a company that sells telescopes and telescope accessories. I'm single and I love listening to music, watching sports, and, of course, playing trivia games.

I've always enjoyed watching Jeopardy! and playing along at home, but I didn't really get into it until Ken Jennings's run. I specifically remember sitting in my apartment one night watching one of his games during his streak and thinking "Hey I'd like to do that too. I wonder what it takes to get on that show?" So I googled something like "how to study for Jeopardy" and found Karl Coryat's website. I expected him to say something like you have to memorize the encyclopedia or be a genius with a really high IQ, but instead what I got from the article was that I could study for Jeopardy but it would take a few years. I was completely fine with that. From then on I was hooked.

As I mentioned before, my coryats started off pretty abysmal, probably a little under $10,000 at the very beginning. For the first few years of studying, my average coryat steadily went up. I started my own flash card database online and every time I read or see something on TV that I think might come up on the show or if it's just something I want to remember, I put it in the database. I have somewhere around 9,300 cards in the database and I try to go over some of them as often as I can.

I've gotten to the point where I've been able to pass the contestant exam a couple times so I know I could be on the show. But I'm not anywhere close TOC-level which is where I want to be. My average coryats have remained at about $25,000 for the past 3 or 4 years and I don't know how to get any better. Maybe I don't study enough. I know I could win maybe one or two games if everything broke my way which is saying a lot, but I want to feel as if I could win a TOC and I don't feel that way right now.
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demomoke
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by demomoke »

okstater04 wrote:BTW, to stick with the topic of the thread, I currently work at a major D1 university (not the one in my username)
You did upgrade to a real university, though, so I'm proud of you for that.

All right, I suppose I should do this whole bio bit myself. My name is Mark Goode, I'm 30 years old, and I'm originally from Coffeyville, Kansas. Coffeyville has produced a J! participant in the past; Scott Steiger, who won the Montgomery County Spelling Bee five years running (I know because I lost to him those last two years). I want to say he was on sometime around 1998 or so. Perhaps someone here can get my facts straight there.

I'm currently wrapping up my final year of service in the United States Navy. By the end of November, I will have eight years under my belt, and there will not be twelve more. (20 years in and you can retire and get a pension) I began my Navy career as a student at the Defence Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. In fact, that is how I came to this community; my roommate there was skkorling, and he introduced me to the group around 2005 or so. We've been best friends ever since. Unfortunately, language school did not work out in the end, so for the last four years, I have been a sonar technician (I put sound in water to try to find submarines) stationed on the USS STERETT (DDG 104), better known as Hell's Armpit, homeported out of San Diego. I love living here in San Diego, and I hope to return to California to live someday. I'm thinking more the Bay Area than down here, but as long as it's on the coast and not Los Angeles, I'll take it.

I am an alumnus of the University of Kansas (alluded to above as okstater's current employer), graduating with a B.A. in political science in 2003. I very well may return there in 2012 to gain a couple more bachelor's degrees in journalism and geography (you read: rehabilitate my GPA), hopefully leading to law school. But I do not know for sure what my post-Navy life has in store for me.

I have tried out for J! twice: the first time was at the Culver City studio in 2005. I rocked the test and was asked to play a mock game. I don't believe I did very well there, which is why I was not selected for taping. The second time was April 2010 at the Radisson. Again, I nailed the tests, but this time I also destroyed in my mock game. So I'm currently still swimming, but only for a couple more months. A six-month deployment to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf (Oct '10 - Apr '11) put a big dent in my J! hopes for this go, but I'm going to keep auditioning as long as it takes me to make it. Ironically, it's been a rather long time since I've watched J!; my work schedule makes it very difficult to do so on a regular basis. Perhaps I will get back in the habit after I get my honourable discharge.

I'm a big sports fan, with the notable exception of American football. Baseball and college basketball are my two favourite sports (the NBA is garbage), with proper football close behind. I also follow cricket somewhat; I hope to see a Test one day, preferably in the West Indies someplace.

My other passion is politics. I started out as a Democrat -- in fact, I was the president of KU Young Democrats my senior year. However, in the past couple of years or so, it's become pretty apparent that, to quote George Wallace, "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between them and the Republicans. As a consequence, my current voter registration is "non-Republican." My real political orientation is probably Social Democrat; i.e., the Republicrats are all too far to the Right for my liking. But I'm not trying to convert anyone here.
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saintanthony
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Drew’s Caste of Character’s Entry

Post by saintanthony »

Hey all. This is the poster formerly known as Drew Scheeler, a rising junior at Case Western Reserve studying economics, history and American studies. I’m a freelance balloon sculptor and ex-amusement park coin counter. I stumbled through Jeopardy! at 17 and stumbled slightly less awkwardly through WWTBAM at 18. I used two lifelines and missed my $100,000 question on Millionaire, as detailed in the Youtube video “Weird Guy on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” The painting that inspired my new username owes me $75,000 so I might as well get some use from its name.

I thought about making a list of all of my wonderful J! experiences, but quickly realized that it devolves into a shameless namedropping post with too many in-jokes.

Highlights of my last three years of trivial endeavors in approximately reverse chronological order include*:
• Outbuzzing Ken Jennings, theconfessor, Jyv’92, Kevin Olmstead and bobharrisdotcom on several questions at TCONA, but mostly ones about Meat Loaf lyrics, Scorpions songs and Sarah Silverman.
• Playing Dan Melia’s fake Jeopardy! board against OSC and the H-Bomb in Shane’s hotel room while progressively more delicious room service was brought in.
• Meeting reddpen, tagnv, warren usui, uly and rooming with minnesotamyron at TCONA.
• Sitting with sorban at herrmadden’s National History Bowl finals and getting to joke about the soon-to-be-trademarked color “super red.”
• Having dinner with emurphy, bobharrisdotcom, hbomb, rexkramer, skkorling and jcui in DC.
• Getting to read quizbowl at Mt. Vernon and meet Brad Rutter and AWSOP back at the hotel
• Getting an ice cream with mrbungle at the El Capitan in LA while I was in a state of sleep-deprived incoherency.
• Randomly seeing Robert KS on the mean streets of Cleveland and getting to play “The Beatles: Rock Band” with him at the John Lennon tour bus and attending his Jeopar-loss party a few months later.

That’s all for now, I'm sure there are plenty of great people that I'm forgetting; I’m off to Jersey tomorrow to team up with Raynell Cooper at a quizbowl tournament at herrmadden’s beach house.

*note hanzz and glassysquid. I know that you have met seaborgium in person. Nevertheless, that still doesn't give you two the right to suggest that your one meeting can equal or surpass all of the awesome experiences I have had thanks to J!, so please put it to rest. Besides, when I do meet sg this will all be a moot point.
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jbillygirl
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by jbillygirl »

My name is Jessica. I'm 42 years old, and I live in Bloomfield, NJ. I've been a Jersey girl pretty much my whole life -- born and raised in Morristown, lived in Princeton for 20 years. In college I decided to go into classical music, to the eternal detriment of my wallet. I studied piano for maybe 13 years and voice off and on for about 6. I once dreamed of being an opera singer, but I never got my voice under control. In grad school I began a dissertation on Aaron Copland's ballet Billy the Kid (hence the "billy" in my screen name), but after years of banging my head against the ABD wall I realized I did not want to become a professor. So I switched to a career doing something else I was good at: editing. First copyediting, then editing books on the performing arts. My books have included Zubin Mehta's memoirs and a book celebrating James Levine's 40 years at the Metropolitan Opera.

Here are some things I put on my J! audition application:
* I once won a trip to New Zealand in a travel agency's contest to name a newborn kiwi bird at a sanctuary. The name I picked was Jackson, for Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings.
* When I was five, my parents and I were in Washington DC during the Watergate hearings. I got past the minimum age requirement of six (I was just a few weeks shy) by reading aloud the thick Gothic lettering on the entry ticket. Once inside, I fell asleep.
* When I was in college, I delivered pizza to the New York Giants a few times, even though they were supposed to be on strict diets. The pizza was always the same: medium pizza, everything on it (except maybe anchovies). I think this would have fed one Giant.
* I have turned pages for pianists at classical music concerts many times professionally, including Yefim Bronfman and Emanuel Ax as well as Yo-Yo-Ma's and James Galway's accompanists.

I was on Millionaire about ten years ago with Regis Philbin and won $32K, after falling back from the $125K question. (Macrons have been my nemesis ever since.) Five years later to the day I won $2K on the "Extravadanza" segment of the dearly departed Tony Danza Show. I put the money toward a digital piano.

I took the online J! test in January 2010, auditioned in April of that year, and got "the call" 14 months later. I taped on Tuesday, August 2, and no, I can't say how I did, but I can say that Alex looked great, even though he had to hobble around in a boot and sit on a stool behind his lectern. It was the ride of a lifetime, and I hope you all get your own chance to experience it as well.
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Rafferty Barnes
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Re: Introduce Yourself Here

Post by Rafferty Barnes »

jbillygirl wrote:
I took the online J! test in January 2010, auditioned in April of that year, and got "the call" 14 months later. I taped on Tuesday, August 2, and no, I can't say how I did, but I can say that Alex looked great, even though he had to hobble around in a boot and sit on a stool behind his lectern. It was the ride of a lifetime, and I hope you all get your own chance to experience it as well.
Ooh, our first Boardie on the show for Season 28! I should revive the thread.
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