Oh My God, I Won!
Posted at 4:47 AM on January 12, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(20 Comments)
I'd like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Academy, the Guild, Tony, his sister Emmy, the Board of Directors, the Cabal of Opinionaters, the Brotherhood of Luminaries and every single one of the Powers That Be for giving me this amazing award. You guys are awesome! And also all the people who worked with me on this amazing, amazing awesome project, I love you! Most of you, I can't remember your names right now because it was over a year and a half ago and I'm working with a whole bunch of other awesomely amazing people on something totally different at the moment, but you know who you are and I hope you remember me. This prize is for you.
I'll keep it at one of my houses, but really, really, really, it's yours.
The awards season is great for watching beautiful, impossibly sleek, stylish, somewhat bewildered, occasionally goofy and very, very thankful people in the entertainment industry as they accept prizes for their work; especially this year when so many very talented people in all walks of life much closer to home seem to be getting pink slips, regardless of what they've done.
Prizes are nice. I used to be smug about being in public radio where we were too dignified to have contests or give away tickets or trips or anything that would make somebody say "Oh My God, I Won!" Our only prizes were the t-shirts and mugs and tote bags we gave as thanks for your contribution, and even then they weren't really prizes. You paid for them. So when it finally became possible to give something away that was actually, well, giving something away, and I got to talk to the winners on the phone, I realized how happy people get when a surprise, even a little one, falls out of a gray winter sky. It's fun to be part of that.
Our first Radio Heartland give away was a trip to New Orleans (courtesy of American Routes and the State of Louisiana) and it went to Lorraine, a lovely person whose day-to-day job involves keeping people in her office from chewing up bandwidth by listening to internet radio stations at work. In that role, she is our sworn enemy, and yet we're helping send her on a mid January junket to the French Quarter. That's when I clearly saw that the hand of a whimsical God is in this give away business, and that made it all right. At least while Lorraine is out of town, the people in her office can listen to Radio Heartland.
So here's another one - a bit less grand, but well worth entering.
We have a pair of tickets to a John Gorka concert at the historic village hall in beautiful Marine on-St. Croix this Friday night.
It's not New Orleans, but there aren't huge tax ramifications to winning, either.
So sign up for it! And prepare your acceptance speech.
The window of opportunity closes at 1pm this afternoon, and we'll announce a winner tomorrow. Good luck!
Comments (20)
When I was in second grade I won a purple bicycle in a drawing at my elementary school. I have not won anything since and have come to believe I never will. It's tough to top a purple bicycle. But I'll enter anyway, just to keep the losing streak going ;)
Speaking of losing, I woke up this morning to discover that our water heater has finally thrown up its hands in frustration at our unrelenting need for hot water and left us to our own devices. Dale, can you play a warm song for me?
Morning Dale. Morning Mike. Morning Heartlanders. Wish I was free on Friday.. concert sounds fun. But I NEVER win anything anyway. I've been at my job for 20 years - we have lots of drawings for various things and my names has never been picked. EVER. The son of a friend of mine started in the mail room about year ago and he's had his name drawn twice. My guess is that even if only two of us entered the contest, the other person would win. So, best of luck to everyone else!
Please enter me in the drawing. I would love to see John Gorka! And I love listening to Radio Heartland before I head off to teach in the morning. :) Thanks Dale and the gang at Radio Heartland!
We're all winners this morning because it's Radio Heartland's one month anniversary! Prizes like this wonderful whimsical station in the sky don't get any better than that! Happy day to everyone.
Traci,
Thanks for listening and reading the blog, but you'll have to enter yourself in the drawing. I'm not allowed to do it for you. If you look at the blog entry, where it says "tickets for a John Gorka concert" in the text, click on those words and you'll be transported to a web page where you can fill out a form to enter the give away.
Also, where it says "window of opportunity closes", that's a link to the official contest rules.
Lora,
It sounds like the whimsical hand of God has gotten back at you for complaining so mercilessly about the cold guest bedroom you had to endure at your mom's house over Christmas. Love, Mom
Dale,
That was a fine piece of writing you submitted this morning. I hope you don't mind me stealing your material now and then for these posts.
Good Morning Heartlanders! While I won't enter the drawing, because I won't drive to Marine-on-St. Croix (as lovely as it is), good luck to you all!
Personally, I love watching my one award show -- the Oscars. I hole myself up in a room alone (my boys don't get it), and totally indulge in the experience. Watch the Red Carpet interviews and lovely dresses and outfits. Laugh hysterically at the opening bits they usually do, cry at the Memoriums, cheer with the winners and boo when I thought someone else deserved it.
Call me corny, but I love my one night of fantasy escape.
Cheers, Joanne
Hi, Dale!
Now, I'm not complaining - you're doing a fabulous job, just as I expected - but I'm not sure you have reached your bagpipe quota this past month. You've got to admit, this is the only place you could tune in and experience the occasional bagpipe.
Love,
Jean
In 1991 our office had a drawing for pairs of tickets to the Twins World Series home games. I won a pair to Game 7, thinking, "Great, I'll probably never even use these!" At the end of Game 6, when we found out that Game 7 was going to be played, I called my Dad to see if he was busy that night. If I never win anything again, that was one of the best nights of my life, sharing the Twins World Series win with my Dad.
Thanks so much for the Battlefield Band!!
I didn't get to hear the entire Saturday night broadcast, as I had to put my children to bed, but I really enjoyed what I did hear!
Anyway, to celebrate the the good fortune of the winner of the giveaway, maybe we could hear something from Dr. John's N'Awlinz: Dis Dat or d'Udda. ;-)
Several years ago I had stopped in to buy bagels for something or other - there was a box on the counter chock full of slips of paper...people trying to win a trip to Oslo, Norway. I added my name, figuring I'd never win (the bagel store was a chain, and surely there were thousands of pieces of paper shoved into boxes all over the Twin Cities). One morning I got a call from the radio station promoting the trip (admittedly, one I didn't listen to...it wasn't MPR) - and I had won the tickets. One week in Norway for me and my sweetie. It was fabulous - got to meet cousins still in the home country, see the old family farm (still a farm, not in the family), stare in wonder at the hills my great grandfather walked over with his brothers and a handcart to get to the fjords to come to Wisconsin...stunning. Never mind all the cool Viking stuff, the two churches (one a traditional stave church from dating back to the pre-Reformation era, the other merely as old as the country I was born in) where ancestors had married and been baptized, walking in the footsteps of Henrik Ibsen...Don't know that I'll ever top that for winning a prize - and I don't know that I need to. It was once in a lifetime - and it was grand.
And I P.S. (looking back at the blog heading) - I think I did say "oh my god" when I won. Probably several times. And then I went to Norway.
As a teenager in the 60's I won a case of outboard motor oil. Still not really sure what that is. Not so lucky, Connie
Oh my goodness -- an Ethel Merman alert! gotta love her ...
Radio Heartland is great for procrastinators.
Things I will do today that I don't want to do but will do anyway because I have great music to listen to:
Reach bottom of ironing basket
Do taxes (the gathering stage)
Pay bills (MPR included)
Plan supper using only the leftovers in the refrigerator
Re-pot plants that have gotten too big for their britches
Things I will do today that I love, which will be even more fun because of great music:
Make lemon bars with snow-day child
Bake six loaves of bread (Keep two, give four away)
Play board games with snow-day child
Look at seed catalogs (30-minute limit)
Things I have to do today without great music:
Shovel
Thanks, Dale and Mike, for helping me plan my day.
John Gorka, Marine, what could be better? Put my name in the drawing, please.
P.S. Would it be possible to hear the news a couple times an hour?
Sitting at a John Gorka concert in beautiful Marine on St Croix sounds like a wonderful time! Good luck to all who enter. I would love to enter the contest but I am sure that everyone on the road will be happy to know that I will not enter it. As I have gotten older, I have found that my night vision is not as good as it used to be. This is a premature condition of course.
My best friend's sister won the New York lottery when she and her beau bought a few lottery tickets and a pint of ice cream at a convenience store. They ended up getting married and now have 3 mostly angelic cherubs.
(They had to share their winnings with a bowling team from Jersey-but it was still a sweet windfall...)
So the moral of the story is:
A. If you share some ice cream with a friend, you might just get lucky.
Or
B. Either that- or married...
In jest and good humor,
Thanks for the laughs Dale and Mike!
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