WSER 2023 - The 50th running and my 12th year at Last Chance!

There was a point in the fall when I wondered whether the 50th running Western States 100 race could even happen. The wildfires were devastating and unstoppable.

As it turned out, they were stoppable, due to a heroic effort. But a lot of damage had been done. Last Chance had been spared, but man, so much of the course after it was a mess.

And then we had a remarkably wet winter, and a remarkably wet winter after a wildfire means even more challenges putting this race on. 

In the end, all those challenges were met and the race got the green light. 

There is a reason the cover of this year's official magazine didn't feature a runner for the first time that I recall.

One challenge that couldn't be fixed in time was a badly damaged Mosquito Ridge Road. 

The Mosquito Ridge Road saga

Mosquito Ridge Road provides important access to a number of aid stations, including a couple that are crew accessible. This road goes from Foresthill to French Meadows, providing access to Last Chance, Dusty Corners, and several more aid stations. Anybody that has crewed a runner at Duncan Canyon and/or Dusty Corners has used this wildly twisty, hilly road. In the past, it's been infamous for having areas limited to a single lane due to road damage. Between the wildfire and the wet winter, the road gave up completely and is requiring significant repairs that will take until late summer to finish. 

The runners lost access to their crews at miles 24.4 and 38. The trick was going to be getting the volunteers to those aid stations served by that road. Fortunately, the section that was so damaged was between Foresthill and the turn to Dusty Corners/Last Chance - from that turn to French Meadows was fine. And these hills are infested with back roads, so we would be able to access the locations, but man, it would not be straightforward.

The end result was that, instead of heading to Foresthill out of Auburn, we headed to Cool and then Georgetown, then took a few back roads to get to French Meadows, where we were able to get onto the undamaged bit of Mosquito Ridge Road. All of this meant it took about two hours longer to get to Last Chance than normal. 

(There was an initial proposal for us to take a route that went past Robinson Flat instead of Georgetown - this would have been a bit shorter, but was hampered by snow until very late, when a bulldozer was brought in to clear the road.)

Last Chance

There was some concern that the challenging access might cause some volunteers to stay home this year. That did not happen.

Nearly 60 volunteers at Last Chance braved the challenging access.

The general consensus was that it would be warm for the runners (once they got past the 20 or so miles of snow covered trails in the high country), but not nearly as hot as it was last year. And once again, it was decided to bring an ice trailer to Dusty Corners, and for Last Chance to get its ice from that trailer.

Loading the Dusty Corners ice trailer.

Once the trailer made it to Dusty, we drove up to it and picked up our 1200 pounds of ice. I doubted we would need that much, based on the forecast, but nobody wants to risk running out. (We ended up  using between 900 and 1000 pounds.) 

As cool as it felt at Last Chance this year, the runners knew what was coming - the fire had turned the climb up to Devil's Thumb from a largely shaded slog into a totally exposed slog. It was going to be brutal, and most of the runners prepared for it by packing their hats, sleeves, and bandanas with ice.

Shading the porta-potties to keep them from roasting in the sun.

Two things: It was odd seeing people actively seeking out chairs in the sun, and that table under the awning was added to make it easier for the runners to go through their drop bags.

One thing that took some getting used to was how much brush in the Last Chance area had been thinned in an effort to aid in fire prevention.

This is the hill I put up the signs the runners see as they exit Last Chance. This is what it looked like in previous years.

That same hill this year. It was weird being able to see so far with no obstructions.

Click HERE to see all the signs.

For the most part, the day went smoothly. Many of the runners were having foot issues due to having to spend so much time running on snow, but they were also enjoying the milder temperatures. 

Getting a shower and ice refill.

Attending to a runner meant doing some running yourself sometimes!

The Pixie Ninja dominating some watermelon on her way to her ninth finish!

One of the coolest things was that we had no runners drop at Last Chance this year! (Out of 22 potential places to drop, including a bit oddly, the finish line, only six had nobody drop. At least part of this was because the logistics of dropping here are not great, especially this year with that long drive. Three dropped at Devil's Thumb, the next aid station.)

Maybe my favorite WSER moment of all time

Donna and Tessa alerted me to a special runner in the race - John Almeda. John is non-verbal autistic, and for personal reasons, I was especially fascinated and anxious to see him come through Last Chance. One interesting bit - I think this was the first time in my 12 years I've seen a pacer bib here.

I had to restrain myself from being a fanboy, and the last thing I wanted to do was distract him. I had made him a sign which was in the swarm of signs on that hill - I really hoped he or his pacer would notice it, but seriously, the chances weren't great (they had no idea it was there - I decided to risk having it be a total surprise). 

They noticed it - his pacer took this shot.

Even a week later, this makes me tear up! I mean, just, WOW!

John finished in just a bit over 27 hours. This is so very cool.

Some boring stats that only I find interesting

One thing I'm always fascinated by is the finish rate of the runners that come through Last Chance in the final 90 minutes or so. Based on history, the guidance is that you need to get here by 4:20 to be on a 30-hour finish pace. The actual cutoff is 5:25. So theoretically at least, runners showing upon the last hour should be reasonably doomed. Here is a chart:

Gaps show where runners were unable to finish the race. Click or tap this to see it larger (if you find such things irresistible).

I picked 4:00 PM as the time to start tracking finishes. I found it interesting that four runners in the twenty minutes between 4:00 and 4:20 finished in the 27th hour - a couple of those were pushing the 26th hour! These are runners that seriously thrive on the second half of this course.

For the next twenty minutes, from 4:20 to 4:40, you have five runners that finish in the 28th hour! From 4:40 to 5:00, the runners are finishing in the 29th hour - the interesting thing is that only six of these twenty six runners were unable to finish. For being significantly behind the 30-hour pace, that's really remarkable!

Starting at 5:00 though, things start getting a bit rough. Only two of the twelve runners during the last twenty five minutes finished, but the last one of those came in at 5:14 - nearly an hour after the projected 30-hour pace!

The lesson is that it isn't a fantasy that those runners coming through so late have a realistic chance of finishing - they really do! Maybe they will get to soon start working with their crew and pacers, and that makes the difference. Maybe night running is their thing.

Maybe that second scoop of ice in their bandana and that third piece of watermelon is just what they needed, and it's now game on!

My very dusty van back home.

Wrapping up

This was a challenging year to volunteer at Last Chance due to the longer drive, but even that wasn't so bad thanks to detailed directions given by Dusty Corners Doug! The weather was much more pleasant than usual, the mosquitos didn't seem to be any worse (granted, they've set the bar pretty high), and the day went by remarkably fast.

For the second year in a row, I chose to drive straight home rather than stopping at the finish line. This decision is a big struggle and is always regretted a bit the next day, but as I've gotten older, pulling an all nighter after working the aid station all day is too much of a challenge. Maybe 2024 will be different.

That's it - move along…

PS: I just realized that I didn't provide my usual introduction to the Last Chance aid station. It is the aid station with the longest serving organization - for 41 years the Stevens Creek Striders have managed Last Chance. It's at mile 43.3 and just before the first of the traditionally very hot canyons and the famous Swinging Bridge. One of the things that makes it great is that there are no pacers or crew allowed - we have the runner's full attention! One of the things that makes it challenging is that access is cut off fairly early in the morning on race day since parts of the road are also part of the course, which means you can't leave early or come in late (many of us come in on Friday and camp overnight, much to the mosquitos delight - a bonus of this is that you can explore some great sections of the course). Another thing is that there is no cell service for most people, which means that using GPS navigation is often an adventure.

Is your Wordle guess doomed?

The first point to make clear - this is all predicated on the unwritten rule that Wordle will never use a word more than once. I don’t think that’s an official rule though.

Supposedly Wordle has a database of 2309 words (pre-New York Times takeover) to choose from (out of around 13,000 English five letter words). That means, if they never repeat a word, the game will be done in October of 2027. Reusing words would avoid that deadline (as would allowing more of those 13,000 words). 

In any case, I think it’s fair to assume words aren’t going to be repeated in the near future, so it’s worth my time doing a test. 

Now that a bit over 700 of those 2309 words have been used, I was curious how many times my recent guesses were words that’d already been used, and thus, were doomed and had no chance of being that day’s word. I didn’t count my start word (I have several that I use, and I’ve verified that none of them have been used - no way I want to jeopardize my 1/6 chances), and I didn’t count the second guess if it was following a first guess whiff, since that guess is going to be an alternative start word, and of course, I didn’t count the final word. So for a 4/6, there were (usually) two guesses that were potentially previously used words.

The pink cells are already used words. The green ones are start words.

I went back two months and looked at my guesses (I’ve taken a screenshot of every day’s play since back in July of 2022), made a spreadsheet, and then checked to see how many of the guesses were doomed.

From April 24th, FIFTY (which gave me an I) and PINTO (which gave me an O) had already been used.

Important point: Doomed guesses are still useful, and I would still happily use a doomed word if I couldn’t think of anything else and thought it might provide some help.

Out of my last 58 plays, there ended up being 123 possible guesses that may have been doomed (an average of 2.3 per day). An astonishing 40 of those 123 were indeed doomed words - words that had no chance of being that day’s word. Basically, a third of my non-start-word guesses were doomed.

I have a spreadsheet where I track the previously used words, so theoretically, I could check each word before I entered it. The problem is that I’m lazy, and just won’t do that (with one exception). I don’t really think doing that is cheating - it’s just being willing to put in extra time and effort. My goal is to finish the day’s game quickly - I will gladly trade a 3/6 that takes 15 minutes for a 4/6 that takes 7 minutes.

Oh, and about that one exception; over the last two months, I’ve twice ended up with an X/6. That’s usually due to a “there are too many options” situation. If I’m on the sixth guess and I can think of more than one potential word, I think it’s worth the effort to verify that the word you are entering isn’t doomed. This would have helped me in one of those X/6 cases, and been worth the trouble. 

In this X/6 from May 11th that still gives me nightmares, TROVE, DROLL, FROCK, and AROMA had all already been used.

Every day another words gets used. As more words get used, the chances of your guesses being doomed go up. 

Go AHEAD and play as USUAL, be BRAVE, don't get UPSET or ANGRY, and have no UNDUE WORRY - ENJOY the HAVOC and WHOOP with GLORY! Maybe even GLOAT with a bit of FLAIR.

That’s it - move along…

PS: I have a shared Numbers spreadsheet that I keep updated with past words (I update it a day late so it won’t give away that day’s word). It also includes a chart to shows the popularity of each letter (which can be useful when working out your guesses). Feel free to look at it here: https://www.icloud.com/numbers/05dIazj8r27ioSxEVwvGKPuiw#Wordle_Words_-_Shared 

A wet winter makes Yosemite extra fun!

This has been a pretty epic winter with respect to the rain and snow California has received. The ski areas are talking about staying open into July. Reservoirs are filling to levels unseen in years. People that sell tire chains are buying summer homes in Santa Barbara.

All of that means that Yosemite waterfalls should be amazing. Which means MANY people want to witness those waterfalls, so finding someplace to stay in the valley can be challenging. 

A friend of Mrs Notthat books a set of rooms a year in advance with the intent of her family gathering there. That did not work out this year though, and Mrs jumped at the chance to take a couple of the rooms - one for us for seven nights starting on a Monday and one for our son and his wife for three nights starting on the following Friday.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls were very perky.

We stayed at the Yosemite Lodge and were treated to the roaring noise of the falls, which was especially noticeable at night once everything else quieted down. (We walked over to look at them at dusk that first day and turned back as, while we still weren't that close to the viewing area, we were already getting very wet and cold from the spray. We bravely went up to the viewing area the next day though. Here is a video.)

On Tuesday morning, we woke up to being told that the valley area was closing and we would have to leave on Thursday due to forecasted flooding. As we were scrambling to figure out what to do, the park updated the closure to be on Friday instead.

In our door later in the day. It would have been really easy to not know about the upcoming closure.

After some phone calls with the kids, it was decided to stay at a place, Evergreen Lodge, that claims to be near Groveland but is actually about halfway to Hetch Hetchy reservoir. More about that later.

So Mrs and I still had four days to explore the area, and we explored all we could.

Bridalvale Falls as seen from the Tunnel View area. The rainbow was a bonus.

The weather was reasonably cool, but sunny and dry - I don't remember seeing a cloud during our stay there. But man, we saw waterfalls. Every. Where. You. Looked.

Some of the waterfalls weren't huge, and most are temporary, but they were still awesome.

Seriously, after a while you just stopped taking pictures of them since there were so many and you couldn't remember if you had already captured that one or not.

The valley meadows were astonishingly soggy.

All of the trails that headed out of the valley were pretty much closed. We were able to hike to Mirror Lake and to the Vernal Falls viewing bridge, but that was about all that was available (other than the valley trails, some of which were under water).

The only snow in the valley were the piles left over from the snowplows. Some piles were sadder than others.

Mrs Notthat taking in Upper Mirror Lake. Last summer this was all dry and we could walk across the lake bottom.

Some valley trails required swimming skills.

Hiking up the Mist trail to see Vernal Falls.

By Thursday, it was warming up a bit, although that just meant mid-60s here. But the sun felt really intense if you were getting directly hit by it.

The Mist Trail closure point, just after the John Muir Trail split off.

A water level measuring station on the Merced River along the Mist Trail. The water still had a LONG ways to go to reach flood stage.

The dogwood trees were getting fresh foliage, but were not blooming. As a spoiler, when we came back on Sunday, they were blooming like crazy.

 

A waterfall that goes under the Big Oak Flat Road.

A lot of people left the valley on Thursday, either because they made arrangements before we were given Friday, or because they wanted to avoid the imminent apocalypse, which really reduced the crowds. On Friday, it was our turn to head out of the valley. Everything indicated that it was going to be closed at least until the middle of next week, so we took our time going out on Big Oak Flat Road.

Mrs Notthat trying to find the Tuolumne Grove Trail. It was there somewhere.

Eating lunch at the Merced Grove trailhead.

Letting Mrs' car touch snow.

Our son doing unplanned vehicle maintenance.

The road to where we were staying next, Evergreen Lodge, is the same road you take if you want to drive out to the Hetch Hetchy reservoir dam (which is part of Yosemite Park). It is not a wide road, or a particularly well maintained road. Sadly, the kid's vehicle managed to let the hook end of a broken bungee cord that was laying in the road penetrate the sidewall of a tire. 

(Truly sad thing: The kids were fighting Friday afternoon traffic and were going to be late, so we stopped and had dinner in Groveland. While we were having dinner, unbeknownst to us, they went past and were now ahead of us. Until the bungee cord stopped them. We were so focussed on trying to find this place and not get run off the road that we actually drove right past them as they were changing the tire, and didn't see them. They saw us though. Note that cell service is mostly non-existent around here, so there was no way to communicate.)

The closest place to get a replacement tire was in Sonora, which wasn't that far away, mileage wise, but was about 90 minutes away, time wise. It's not a bad place to kill some time though, and it was amusing to keep confusing Sonora with Sonoma.

Then the unexpected happened - Yosemite Park realized that the flooding danger was not actually materializing, and they would open the valley to day use visitors on Sunday! So the kids would get to see the waterfalls after all!

Viewing the Lower Yosemite Falls, but with a lot fewer people around.

On Monday, it was time to head home. Mrs Notthat and I decided to go up to Hetch Hetchy to see what it was like since we had never been there before. 

It was pretty awesome.

It is not very developed - there are no hotels or restaurants and only one bathroom, but there is a dam, a lot of water, some waterfalls, and trails.

Looking at the dam spilling out water.

Three different waterfalls visible from the dam.

A different view of the water gushing out. Normally they would not be doing this, but this year they need to make room for all the snowmelt that's coming. Also, note that staircase coming down the dam - there is no way you could talk me into getting on that. 

If you walk across the dam, you can go through this tunnel to a trail that leads to the waterfalls.

On the other side of the tunnel, the trail leads to the waterfalls. Sadly, we didn't have time to walk all the way out there, so we will have to come back and do that.

Going back through the tunnel. Note the large puddle - you could mostly get around it if you tried pretty hard.

And that's about it. We had to roll with the punches a bit, but it was still a great trip. (A few days after we left, the park had to close a portion of the Big Oak Flat Road since the hillside is sliding downhill and taking some of the road with it. I promise this isn't my fault. Probably.)

Most of the valley was open during the week we were there, including the shuttle busses and bike rentals. 

For food:

• The Base Camp Eatery at Yosemite Lodge was pretty underwhelming with choices (and they now use a system where you order and pay at kiosks). This will likely get better as the summer gets closer. Hopefully.
• The Mountain Room Restaurant was open, but if you did as told and tried to book a table online, you would be told you would have to wait until 9:30, which was not true - you really need to make the reservation in person. (They would say they were full but there would be lots of empty tables - I think "full" was based on the amount of staff on hand, which will get better as we get closer to summer.) The food was excellent there.
• The Meadow Grill in Curry Village is now taco-based! The tacos were small, but were pretty good.
• The Ahwahnee dining room appears to be closed for seismic retrofitting. We had lunch at the Ahwahnee Bar and it was very good.
• One of the things we did several times was just grab a sandwich or, at the store in Yosemite Village, a warm burrito from the back (think truck stop hot food), which were all plenty good.

For the first time, we walked around the cemetery and the Indian Cultural Exhibit.

As far as the Evergreen Lodge, it's pretty remote, but pretty nice. We had no cell service there, but really good wifi. (Wifi at the Yosemite Lodge was very underwhelming, but we at least had a small cell signal.) The rooms are all in cabins - some are single cabins while others are duplexes. There is a restaurant, a bar, a gift shop (with sandwiches, coffee, and, well, gifts), and several fun playgrounds with short zip lines for the kids. You can also camp there - they have tents set up with sleeping bags ready to go! There is a heated pool, hot tub, and rec room, along with a disc golf area, bocce, and horseshoes. The rooms do not have TVs.

It is not cheap though - our cabin (a duplex shared with the kids) was about the same as a room in Yosemite Lodge, which is also wildly not cheap. 

But man, that place is pretty dang amazing.

That's it - move along…

What is "how do you attend a Jeopardy recording"?

The answer was "What this post is about."

Back in January of 2009, Mrs Notthat, The Boy, and I headed down to LA to watch a taping of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. And now, 14 years later, Mrs Notthat and I finally worked up the nerve to go back to LA, this time to watch a Jeopardy taping.

(Actually, Mrs Notthat had no idea what we were doing. I asked if she could go on a trip this week. Apparently it wasn't until the day before that she figured we might be going to something TV related. She didn't know it was Jeopardy until we were at the gate and I had to show the tickets to get in.)

Look, this is really long, so here are the high points.

Executive summary

• You need a LOT of patience to attend a Jeopardy taping.
• The actual shows go really fast though.
• You also need to be fully vaccinated and boosted, and you will be wearing a black mask in the studio.
• Don't try to take pictures in the studio.
• They don't like you yelling out the answers/questions while taping.
• Ken is really good at this.
• Bring a cough drop.

The details

Jeopardy tapes five episodes in one day. There are two audiences each taping day: One at 10 AM and one at 2 PM. The website says that one audience will see two shows, and the other will see three shows, but they don't say which session will see which, and since more is always better, I had to make a guess as to which group would see three shows. (They ask you not to sign up for both groups, and in retrospect, that would be a long day.)

I figured that the morning would go from 10 to 12 and the afternoon from 2 to 5, and since the afternoon session was longer, I assumed it would have three shows, so that's what I booked for us. 

I was wrong - we were the two-show group (but had the bonus of getting to sleep later). 

When you sign up for a free ticket, they ask a few questions and then show you a picture of your ticket. It's a good idea to print that ticket, or at least take a screenshot of it. It's also good to read the text under that ticket (I made a PDF of the whole page) since it has some info you won't find elsewhere. (We never received a follow up email like they mention, so that was our only chance at these tickets. It might be that just having their pictures on your phone would be good enough.)

One thing that is still taken very seriously is COVID 19 - you must be fully vaccinated, including boosters, and must show your vaccination card (or a picture of it). You will have to wear a mask at all times while you are inside the studio - they are really strict with this and I saw several people get told to put their mask back on. (We were given black masks since we would be potentially recorded and black is slimming, or something like that. Maybe they just don't want anyone wearing a Wheel of Fortune mask.)

The Sony lot, showing where we parked and the studio.

The studio is in Culver City, and I booked us a room at a place called Inn at Playa del Rey, a small hotel/bed-and-breakfast that backs up to a frog-infested marsh and was fairly close to the beach. (The frogs were awesome.) 

I was stressed a bit, and wasn't completely sure where we would enter the parking lot, so we left a bit early and ended up getting there at about 1 PM. Parking went smoothly - the trick now was to work out where we should go next. At the garage entrance, there was an area with benches, but it wasn't clear whether they were for us or people taking the Sony tour, or both. (It was both.) 

Tip: The area is divided by a rope; one one side is a red carpet and the other side has no carpet, and both sides are lined with benches. Sit on a bench on the red carpet side, up near the wall with the paparazzi mural. The checkin table will be there, and you will get to check in first. (Apparently they overbook these shows, so if you show up late, or even on time, but closer to 2 PM, you may not get in.)

Looking towards the checkin table. Smile for the fake paparazzi!

Looking behind us. Very observant people will notice the metal detectors we would eventually have to go through.

Looking directly at us - we have not received our official approved black masks yet.

A bit after 2, they started checking us in, and it was a painfully slow process. We were maybe 30th in line and finally got through about 15 minutes later. 

Our ticket (it did its job and was no longer needed), black mask, and for some reason, a little blue ticket.

Now we sat on the benches on the opposite side, and waited some more. At about 2:30, we were told to go through the metal detector and stand in another line to be the second group let into the studio. Then we were pulled out of that line and moved to the first group's line! (They ask you to wear "business casual" but most were wearing "Walmart casual" - I honestly think we were "upgraded" because we looked nice. Well, Mrs Notthat looked nice.)

By 2:40 we finally started the hike to the studio. It is not a short hike, and it moves at a pretty quick pace. 

They asked us not to get run over on the hike. 

There were several people that had to pause along the way. It's like the Jeopardy people are not aware how old their TV audience is! (Of course, we used those occasions to move closer to the front of the line.)

Finally. At the Jeopardy studio. Where we can wait some more.

By 2:50, we were finally at the studio. But not IN the studio. Now we waited for the other groups to join us. (I don't know how many people were in the audience - it didn't seem like that many, but it was like herding cats trying to keep us focused on the goal.)

At 2:55, we were finally in!

The back of Mrs Notthat's head. 

Pretend podiums we actually were allowed to take pictures of.

There is a lower-level of the studio where we were allowed to take pictures. In the main studio though, we were not allowed to have our phones out at all, and strictly no photos were to be taken. (One woman, as soon as she got in the main studio, immediately started taking pictures, and was nearly tackled by security. They made her delete the pictures and watched to ensure she did it. I so badly wanted to take a few shots, but man, we had finally made it in and I didn't want to risk getting tossed out now!)

Pearls Before Swine is one of my favorite comics, and this original strip from a fun series was exciting to see.

Memorabilia from when Alex did some clues on hockey skates. 

At  halftime (between shows) we were allowed 15 minutes in the lower area to take pictures. There is a LOT of memorabilia there, but there were also a LOT of people trying to get pictures of it, so I only got a few useful shots. 

In the main studio

As soon as we entered the main studio, we saw the three contestants already standing at their podiums, which was a surprise since, based on how long everything else took, it was going to take a while to get everyone inside and seated.

The studio is much smaller than it appears on TV, although the board is huge. Since we were in the first group, we got seated first. That doesn't mean we got the best seats though. Ours were not bad, but some who got seated before us were on the far right, and had to stare at the backs of the contestants. We were a bit closer to the center, but couldn't see the front of the contestant podiums (and their scores, which thankfully were also shown on a scoreboard on the other side of the stage). People in the later groups likely had a different problem - they could see the contestants fine, but not the board. 

A bit of a sidetrack

Looking at the backs of the contestants, you got to see the different sized risers each stands on - when you watch the games, it always looks like the contestants are all the same height, but that is something accomplished by using those risers. (You can sometimes see the one the far-right contestant is standing on during the broadcast.)

Back to the main feature

A guy named Jimmy explained to us how this was going to go and would tell us when to applaud. (There were also APPLAUSE signs way up high that I didn't notice until the second show.) It's worth noting that Johnny Gilbert was not there - he does not actually sit through the tapings any more, and has his voice added later.

The actual games go fast. The hardest thing during the games is remembering not to shout out the answers/questions. It was funny how, when the contestants were stumped, you could hear several people in the audience whispering the answers/questions. It was REALLY hard not to try to help.

(Interesting bit: Along the sides of the board are blue lights that are not shown on TV. They light up as soon as it's legal for a contestant to buzz in - it's remarkable how briefly they are on; these people are really fast!)

Once during each game, Ken would take a few questions, and just before the second game started, Ken did some odd shots where he was redoing flubs from a previous game (which was odd to watch since you didn't know the context). 

An interesting thing about Final Jeopardy; you know how when they go to commercial after they show the Final Jeopardy category, then cut back for a quick shot of everyone writing down something (presumably, their wager)? They are writing "What" - they set up the camera and are told "OK, start writing 'What' now!" They are also given a couple pieces of paper to use to do any math needed to work out how much they want to wager. (It's a bit odd - the papers are two different colors - they write on one of them and then cover it up with the other one so they can't see it when actually trying to come up with the question.)

Another sidetrack

There is a lot of effort put into hiding the fact that these shows are all taped on the same day. We were told that we were a Thursday audience, then that we were a Friday audience, which meant we had to be rowdier. The champion and host have to change their clothes between games. This bit makes me wonder though - if Ken is redoing flubs from a previous game, but is wearing a different suit, wouldn't that be noticeable? (My guess is what they really need is the audio to be right since the host may not be on camera anyway.)

Back to our main feature (again)

The second game started off badly with the contestant names getting mixed up during introductions. And then when they went to reveal the board, something went wrong and the dollar amounts were missing. So they had to restart again. 

And then we were done. It turned out the little blue tickets were for a giveaway of a copy of Alex Trebek's book. Then we were asked to promptly leave (no second pass through the lower area) and hike back to the parking garage. (If earlier was like herding cats, this was much worse since we had already seen the shows and no longer could get thrown out.)

And that's about it. 

Our two shows will air on April 20 and 21. Surprisingly, we were not asked to keep anything a secret. Ken did suggest that we watch the episodes with people that don't know we were there, and impress them with our mad trivia skills as we question all the answers correctly. (To be honest though, by then I will have forgotten pretty much everything. Right now I couldn't tell you any of the categories and I only vaguely remember one of the Final Jeopardies.)

The show before our two (which was part of the morning shift and will air on April 19) should be a bit interesting. I'll say no more. 

One last thing - the audience is pretty quiet as the show is going on (other than the occasional whispers). The thought had occurred to me the day before that I should bring a cough drop for just in case. I forgot to do that. At about the halfway mark of the second show's Double Jeopardy round, I, for reasons unknown, mentally congratulated myself on not needing a cough drop. 

And then, within seconds, I got a tickle in my throat. Nothing serious. Not a worry. 

But the tickle got stronger. And more urgent. I began silently begging the contestants to ring in fast and answer fast and get to the break as fast as possible. I'm by now really struggling, trying not to cough. (You are not allowed to bring any kind of drinks or food into the studio, so I didn't have a water bottle to help me out.) I finally end up emitting a highly muffled cough (which Mrs Notthat says she didn't hear), and then we were at break and I could cough freely.

Next time I will have a pocket full of cough drops. 

And I do think there will be a next time - I'd love to be there for a Celebrity Jeopardy or Masters Jeopardy taping, or even a Tournament of Champions. Unfortunately, the website does not say what kind of show you are attending. (I believe standard episodes always tape on Mondays and Tuesdays. Feb 27 and 28 are next up. What's a bit interesting is that the shows after that are being taped on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, March 22-24th - I would guess that those might be special shows. Tickets are not available for those yet.)

That's it - move along…

PS: If you listen to podcasts and like Jeopardy, you really should listen to the Inside Jeopardy! podcast. Lots of, well, inside Jeopardy information tends to be talked about.