Day 1

"They tell me I'm gainin weight, I tell 'em I'm gettin paid..." - Lil' Wayne

Nothin to somethin. That's the goal here. I have no idea who I will end up showing this blog too, but the idea is to share my vision and my experience with those who care enough to read. Hopefully it will be a good read and at the same time if at all possible I hope that some can learn from my experiences, problems and accomplishments.

Background: From urban Seattle... grew up doing nothing but playing sports in the South End and Central District of Seattle. Played on travelling baseball and basketball teams and always aspired to be a professional ball player. Attended Franklin High School in South Seattle where I played basketball and baseball and as a senior gained a small bit of recognition from colleges for both sports, but quit basketball to pursue baseball full-time.

The University of Southern California sent me a recruiting letter of interest for baseball when I was a senior and, eager to get out of Seattle, I applied to go to USC for academics, hoping that I could walk on to the baseball team. Unfortunately for me the Trojans won the national championship that same year and had more than enough of their recruits sign to play at SC. About a month after I got to USC I found out that baseball wasn't happening.

Aside from sports, my other interest was journalism and luckily USC has one of the top journalism programs on the west coast. That combined with the fact that I was surrounded by sunny weather and beautiful girls was a good enough mix to keep me at SC.

About midway into my freshman year I start kickin it with a friend named Juice who was relentless in convincing me to start rapping (I wrote rhymes but never tried to record them). So I got on my hip hop grind, falling in love with the art of emceeing and writing and I haven't stopped since. Some of my music can be found on myspace. As far as my music has gone...I've been featured on a few mixtapes, a documentary pilot filmed for HBO (never aired) and I've done a few shows here and there (there including Japan).

Anyways after college I started working for L.A. Times at the high school sports desk, which paid $10 an hour for about 20 hours a week. If you've ever been to or lived in L.A., the cost of living does not allow for someone to survive on a $300 paycheck. So that didn't last long and ever since then I've been working for miscellaneous jobs trying to climb the pay scale with very, very little succes.

In the mean time my debt has accumulated. I've also jumped on the poker bandwagon and watch it all the time on TV, even bought a coupld books about the "sport." So, due to the facts that I hate working 9-6 (I'm late to work about 95% of the time) and I need extra money (my paycheck is pocket change), I will be playing some Texas Hold 'Em in pursuit of the American dream.

So here we go. Rap, life, sports, work, and cards.

Welcome to my world.