Humble Beginnings

As a professional journalist, writing this should be easy, but where to start?

Why write a blog nobody might ever read? A good question, and one to which I'm not even sure I have the answer. Best I can come up with is this, which also serves as some background information on yours truly:

My job has allowed me to build up a large reserve of what we call "days owing". I'm supposed to work a 5-day week like you regular working stiffs (!), but in covering sporting events around the world often end up working for seven days in a row (Open golf), two weeks straight (Wimbledon) or even three weeks (Olympic Games).

Those extra two, four and six days have all added up over more than 11 years with the same company, and reached a high point of 123 at one stage last year.

Recently the pressure has been on to clear some of this backlog (106 days at last count despite taking January and February off this year!) so I've taken the odd week off here and there - including New Year's Eve in Vegas baby :) - and now the whole of February and March.

During that time I plan on playing poker ~professionally, safe in the knowledge I'm still getting a regular pay check and have a job I can go back to with no worries. Hence the blog. Keeping this updated regularly as I build up to that time will be invaluable to get me into the right mindset (a horrible American phrase but what the hell) and keeping proper records, buying PokerTracker etc.

One of the meanings of the symbol ~ is apparently "poor approximation" so I'm not promising instant riches and World Series bracelets, but hopefully it'll be fun while it lasts.

Enjoy!