Post #1 - Hola Interwebz.......

Welcome to my blahhhhg. Me llamo Josh, and I can't believe I am about to start posting details of my life for all (more likely none) to see. I'm at a roadblock in my life. It's possible I've been here for years, but I'm finally getting the umlauts to do something about it, and I'm hoping that this is the outlet to keep me accountable. I'm a "do or do not, there is no try" kind of guy. In my eyes, I either excel or fail, and I struggle with the idea of mediocrity. Why do something half assed, right?

That being said, I want to become a great poker player. I want to improve my overall health as well, and I'm pretty sure there is a parallel between the two, so I'm going to set up a plan to achieve my goals for poker and myself.

Pokerwise during the month of December, I'd like to log 20 hours a week 4 tabling NL100, allowing me to play atleast 20,000 hands. I just bought Holdem Manager so that I can start tracking my play and learning how to plug leaks in my game. It's possible I will look to get some individual coaching or sign up for a coaching site, but I am undecided about that right now. I'd also like to play more large field MTT's. I've played a few of the 70k's at Pokerstars, and I really enjoy the change from the cash game grind I've been doing for the past year. I have ZERO knowledge of MTT strategy, so before I really dive in, I'm going to buy/read Harrington on Holdem 1 & 2.

Poker is a mental game that can be physically taxing as well. I was a Division 1 college athlete, so I'm not going to sit here and argue that poker is a sport, but the old saying about a strong body and strong mind holds true on the felt as much as it did on the court. Now, I don't ever expect to be in as good of shape as I was the summer before I went to college, nor do I want to be as strong as I was my sophmore year when I was the third strongest person on the team (did I mention that I was a point guard and not a power forward?), but I do realize that I am in the worst shape of my life and it needs to change now.

My wife and I bought a sweet elliptical trainer (gym quality), and I've been horribly inconsistent with using it. Starting today, I am getting up at 6am so that I have time to do 30 minutes before going to work. I also want to join 24hour Fitness so that I have a place to swim and work my way back into good enough shape to play in a competitive mens league or ultimately the pickup games at Fondy. If I can keep to the 6am elliptical and get set up at 24hour this month, I'll be happy that I'm on my way.

I'll update the progress on my goals each week and at the end of the month, but I hope to post semi frequently about the other things in my life as well.

-Josh