Three days before we leave for the band's second west coast tour our booking agent tells me we're having a day off during the southern California leg of the tour. I'm thinkin', "bummer," until he says, "but I got you guys 9 tickets to The Price Is Right on that same day." Suddenly having that day off isn't a bad thing at all, now it's like the best thing ever. I've only wanted to be on The Price Is Right since I was a wee lad. I'm 33 now and I've been watching that show since before I was even 10 years old!

Fast forward to the evening before our Price Is Right taping, but realize that with each passing day of tour our anticipation for the big show increased madly. Anyway, we are but a few hours away from leaving for Hollywood. We were all staying our friends' (Perla and Melissa) apartment in Temecula and it struck me that we should stay up all night and have a Mac and Cheese party. Most of the fellas were up for it and the few who weren't slept as much as they could amidst the noise created by those of us too excited to sleep. They didn't get much sleep.

We had been advised by people we knew who had previously attended a Price Is Right taping to be on the CBS lot no later than 6 am so when the 4 am hour arrived we were out the door. The entire drive was uncharacteristically rainy (it's not supposed to rain in southern California!). Thankfully the rain ended just as we were hitting the general Hollywood area. We got out of the van with our tickets in hand and got in line.

It's a...uh...a bit of a process to actually get in The Price Is Right studio. Too much of a process...one that I really don't feel like going into. Let's just say it was agonizingly long and annoying. Our determination helped us stay the process and we finally got to walk up the stairs to the famous studio. Once inside we were ushered quickly to our seats (think...movie theater seats). Every last drop of annoyance we had been feeling left us the moment we got inside that studio. It was bright and colorful and immediately recognizable and yet completely different than anything we had imagined all at once. This studio was small! It wasn't big the way it looks on the tube. We were in absolute awe. It was like being at a concert of the one band you had never gotten the chance to see.