Confessions of a Fifth-Place Road Warrior

Being compared to Brid­get Jones does nothing for the ego (not to mention your love life), but the last year has been a great ride.


They called us the talent.
The 2005 Ultimate Road Warrior finalists - Andy, D.J., Amie, Ben, and I -
received the coveted call in September. They welcomed the message with the same joy that comes when balloons and a guy from Publishers Clearing House shows up on your front doorstep. But for me, it was different. Unlike the others, I had been vying for the URW title for two years. In my effort to be supreme, I had kept every boarding pass, read every Road Warrior-related article I could get my hands on, and spent hours recording relatively mundane observations from my life on the road. My drawers were filled with scribbled notes, newspaper clippings, and old editions of American Way. Dog-eared pages and worn covers aside, I looked to them for inspiration. You see, in 2004 I was a Top 20 finalist. But I came up short on a question related to the Tom Hanks film The Terminal - and I was determined not to let URW greatness elude me again.

I knew 2005 would be my year.

My plan was simple: I'd win the contest, be whisked off to some fabulously tropical place for photographs and interviews, and then, with my newfound fame and glory, I'd quit the job responsible for putting me in the road-warrior category in the first place and run off to Italy in search of the Tuscan sun for a few months (or maybe even a year). With a million AAdvantage miles and two million Hilton HHonors points, the opportunities were endless.