As any parent well knows, sleep is a luxury. In other words,
you may or may not receive it and regardless, you have to just soldier on. Under normal circumstances, I could likely
blame cute, little Ellie for me receiving a lack of sleep. Not this time. Instead,
my failure to achieve adequate sleep is 100% on me. Simply put, I decided that
it was more important to me to see ninjas instead of zzzz's. You're probably
asking something along the lines of "Why would you do that to
yourself?" or "Get your priorities in order." Both could be
accurate. In light of this, I thought rather than having an Ellie-centric blog
today, my eighteen readers might instead enjoy being regaled with tales from my
experiences at two consecutive nights of 'American Ninja Warrior' tapings. If you're not certain what that is, this video should enlighten you...
To start off with background, 'American Ninja Warrior'
returned to Kansas City for the first time since 2015 to tape shows to be aired
this summer. Once I discovered this information a few weeks ago, I immediately
went online to reserve free tickets for the tapings. I was a little late. The
primetime audience slots had already been filled so I was stuck with a 12:30 am
time slot for the preliminaries and a 10:30 pm time slot for the regional
finals the following night. Of course, since I'm a stay-at-home dad, void of
most responsibility, I saw no issue with me essentially staying awake for two
consecutive days.
No one wants to watch ninjas by themselves so I had reserved
four tickets for each session. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the level of
difficulty I'd experience finding people brave enough to go with me.
Fortunately for me, Facebook had provided me with willing participants.
Unfortunately for me, said willing participants had to back out leaving me
flying solo. Never fear, I pride myself on my ability to make friends in
situations like this and make friends I did.
I arrived at Union Station for the preliminaries at 11:40 pm
on Monday night. Since I'd been in 2015, I realized the importance of being in
line early. As family members of ninjas and earlier audience members gradually clear
out, spots are replaced by those in the ticket lines. Of course, since I was
alone, I decided to engage in conversations with those around me as it was
likely they would be surrounding me all night. Before long, I'd made friends
with a college baseball player, his girlfriend, and a former high-level
Chipotle employee in charge of opening stores.
12:30 am came and went with no entry. Finally at 1:15, we
were given our wristbands for entry and escorted into the taping area. Only
half of the course is used for the preliminaries with the full course being
utilized for the regional finals. We were initially seated in an area near the
unused section of the course making it difficult to see anything of value. It
didn't take long until we were moved to our permanent home for the night near
the infamous Warped Wall.
 |
| Stock photo of said Warped Wall from a prior season... |
Once we were in place, we were treated to a veritable
laundry list of rules and regulation before the fun could begin. Rules which
included the likes of no personal photography or filming, no funny faces on camera,
no causing a distraction while filming, and a few others that I can't remember.
Cut me a break; it was 2:00 am. With that, the film crew began having us use
our imagination to create fake reaction shots of the crowd for television. Once
that was done, it was time for some ninjas. The three page (front and back!)
document I signed says I can't give away any particulars of the course. I will
tell you I saw four ninjas out of over forty actually complete it. Also, I
occupied a position right on the security barricade so my potential for
television time is definitely impressive.
I finally called it a night around 5:15 am when the walk-ons
began their runs. For the most part, the walk-ons fail pretty much immediately
and I wasn't in a good spot on the course to see their failures. Therefore, I
decided to head home and catch some sleep instead. Unfortunately for me, I
arrived home and crawled in my bed only to nearly crush Ellie underneath my
impressive girth. Obviously, she woke from her slumber and a nap was out of
equation.
Fast forward to Night 2. I showed up at Union Station around
9:20 in anticipation of my ticket entry time of 10:30. What I didn't plan on
was the copious amounts of rain that came in. In fact, the rain and lightning
was so substantial that the producers pulled all ninjas from the course and
moved fans inside Union Station for shelter. During the delays, I made friends
with a non-traditional college student from UCM who was also flying solo.
Finally around 12:30 am, the rain seemed to clear and test ninjas began running
the course to ensure it was ready to go. However, my bad luck (and lightning)
struck again as the rain began pouring again. 1:20 am hit with the producers
announcing they didn't actually know when filming would commence.
With that, I decided to head home and close the curtain on my Ninja Warrior audience experience. It was definitely enjoyable but the days after of a tired daddy dealing with an unhappy baby made me question briefly if it was worth it. After much contemplation, I decided that the first night was definitely worth it. Possibly because I was acknowledged favorably by the hosts after yelling "Celebrity Apprentice" at Matt Iseman. The second? Not so much, not so much. #DaddyWrite
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