It’s not often I have to choose between two different TV shows to be featured on, but that was definitely the case back in October 2016.

I had just become one of the Top 40 finalists to co-host with Kelly Ripa, as she was holding a contest for non-famous people like me to help her out for a week. (That was before she ended up choosing Ryan Seacrest, of course.)

While that was an exciting week for me, as I also happened to be in San Diego for my brother-in-law’s wedding, I was in the midst of a potential ultimatum in choosing whether I would be on Live with Kelly, for a week, or, be featured on this show no one had ever heard of here in America: This Time Next Year.

The dilemma was that both TV shows had a part in their contract that disqualified me from being in the other: Live with Kelly would not allow me to be affiliated with any other show with ABC, or one of its affiliate networks, which Lifetime actually is. At the same, Lifetime’s contract for This Time Next Year said I couldn’t appear in another TV show during the next year.

So for a whole week, while I was on vacation in California, I had to make a decision:

To gamble, and continue to be considered as a temporary co-host for Kelly Ripa, or throw that shot away by choosing to be on the Lifetime show.

But at the last minute, the decision was made for me: I had not advanced past the Top 40 into the Top 20 for Live with Kelly. Therefore, I officially ended up signing the contract for This Time Next Year on The Lifetime Network.

Whereas I did intentionally audition online for Live with Kelly, that was not at all the case with Lifetime’s This Time Next Year.

Instead, back in June 2016, I had lazily thrown together this blog post and video after my sister had sent me a picture of a package of Campbell’s Go Soup, asking if that was me on there.

What’s funny is, the blog post went unnoticed by most of the world. But three days later, a talent scout working for the producer of This Time Next Year reached out to me through email, Twitter, and Facebook.

Whereas most people deliberately auditioned for a spot on This Time Next Year, I stumbled into it by publishing a blog post that no one read except for the one person who really needed to; and that was the person whose job it was to find some more light-hearted stories for This Time Next Year.

The timing was perfect. I had just published that story when a talent scout just happened to be Googling “finding my doppelganger. And that’s how I became the comic relief for Episode 6, Season 1 of This Time Next Year.

The moral of the story: It pays to have a blog and YouTube channel.

Coming up in March, Toyota is flying me out to Florida for a all expenses paid “dad vacation”, as I will be test driving cars in between going to Major League baseball games. Why?

Because I have a blog that people read. People who don’t know I exist can easily accidently find my website, when they are looking for the most random things.

Stay tuned, as I have many more fun, behind-the-scenes stories about being on This Time Next Year; in which my episode aired on February 27th, 2018.