Getting A Part Time Job
Once high school was over I set about getting a part-time job. I wasn’t really big on getting into retail or hospitality because I really didn’t want to have to deal with the general public. I ended up finding something that was actually pretty perfect me. I got a job as a shopping trolley collector at a major mall. I could be outdoors and keeping fit all while getting paid. I ended up doing it for about a year and it was actually a very physically demanding job. I would often times walk around for 8 hours in the middle of summer, hauling lines of like 20 trolleys at a time. All the while avoiding cars, pedestrians and breathing in disgusting fumes. My ass and thighs have never been as toned since I quit.

Starting University
I got a score that was way above my expectations at the end of high school and was able to get into the University of Melbourne to study a Bachelor of Commerce. Through the end of high school I was kind of aiming at RMIT Banking and Finance, which in retrospect may have been better given that it specifically was focussed on Finance and it also had a year of industry placement involved in it. I chose Melbourne though, because it has a bit more prestige and higher entrance score so it must be better right?

In first year I did a lot of economics, accounting and management subjects, not all that much finance. Though I had a constant fear of failure I actually ended up doing fairly well at the end of it all. I did make a few friends in first year, some of whom I still keep in contact with. For the most part though, Uni wasn’t all that much of a social experience. I generally wanted to go there and leave as soon as I could.

HoboClicks
Throughout the first year of Uni I was having my first success at running a web site for profit. I had a site called HoboClicks, it was a “get paid to program”, not unlike EmailCash and those types of things. Basically, I accumulated a membership database of about 500 people. They were the motivated to receive advertising by getting paid to click links and do surveys. Advertisers paid me to promote their links and in turn I paid some of this on to the members and kept a profit for myself.

I didn’t make a killing, but it supplemented my income from the trolley pushing job and by the end of the year I decided to quit and let HoboClicks support me. That didn’t really last for long, because I fell into poker not long after.

Meeting Hui
In my time at HoboClicks I accumulated numerous contacts within the industry of making money through the internet. One of them was Hui Zhang, who for just about my entire HoboClicks career I assumed was just a random Chinese scammer (there tended to be a lot of them). One day we actually go to talking in depth and I found out he lived in Sydney. Over the following months we go to know each other a lot better, he got me involved in a few other investment opportunities and then eventually in a way he showed me poker.

My Poker Story
It was late 2004 and Hui was in my ear about signing up to this poker site and getting a free $10. The web site was Absolute Poker and after much deliberation I decided I couldn’t lose so I gave it ago. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and I lost the $10 pretty much straight away, but the software was on my computer and the seed was planted. Not long after they started showing World Poker Tour Season 1 on Australian Cable TV. I got hooked on watching it and eventually went back to Absolute Poker and played a lot of free money sit and go’s and freeroll tournaments. At first I was so dead set against depositing any real money for fear of “becoming addicted to gambling”. As I played a long summer of free poker though I slowly educated myself that poker tournaments weren’t really that much of a ‘gamble’ if you had somewhat of an idea of what you are during.

I eventually took the plunge and deposited $50 into my account and ended up doubling it to $100 over the course of a month playing 2 or 3 $1 sit and go’s at a time. My real breakthrough though came when Hui scored me a free $20 at Bodog. I used it to play cash games instead of tournaments, and in no time I had turned $20, into three figures, then four figures… I slowly learned strategy and about bonuses and my move through the micro stakes was very slow. I have no idea what my win rate or stats were, purchasing Poker Tracker was still a while off.

Trust A Mate Poker Tour
At the end of 2004 and throughout 2005 I organised a heap of poker home game events. There were a core group of about 20 players who would come along and it was generally a lot of fun. We called it the Trust A Mate Poker Tour (named after a web site I run). We would go around to various people’s houses throughout the weeks and play a one or two table tournament. A lot of the time there was no cash involved, it was just for fun, towards the end we started to introduce money and things got a little more interesting.

In my next Bit About me I will take a look at the latter half of University and possibly life beyond study.

Without a doubt this was the most defining period I can think of in my life. It is the point where I transformed from child to adult and became who I am today and became friends with most of the people I keep in contact with to this day.

2001 – Year 10 – Highs And Lows
2001 was a very strange year, full of many highs and lows. I guess I will start by addressing the low point… In August that year as part of our school sports program we were sent ten pin bowling for the afternoon. We were filed onto buses to take us to the venue and I proceeded to the second back row of the bus. Just as we were about to leave, this girl (let’s call her call her Celia for the sake of this story) barged her way and sat down in the seat next to me, pushing me over to the window and away from my friends. Evidently her boyfriend and his mates were in the back row of the bus. Celia was from the United States, she had an attitude that would most people up the wrong way that is for sure. She was moody and always had this snarl on her face. One particular memory I have of her was when we were doing ‘Driver’s Ed’ and she had a complete tantrum because she already had her licence and no one else did (I guess in America they get it at a younger age).

So anyway, I asked her a few times nicely if we could swap seats, that way I could talk to my friends and she could still talk to the people behind here. She refused and her boyfriend, let’s call him Brian (aka #1 Douche Bag), started to have a few choice words to say to me. Brian had a temper, I decided I would try and aggravate him even more by making inappropriate gestures and faces behind his girlfriends back. Let’s face it, this isn’t atypical behaviour for a fifteen year old kid. I’m not saying that it is anyway acceptable, but at the time I wasn’t really considering what I was doing and my actions were more directed at annoying Brian than they were at making Celia feel uncomfortable. One of my friends sitting across from me also got involved, perhaps a little more extreme than what I was doing. A few days later, pulling faces and making gestures no more obscene that what you would find in an American Pie movie landed me in hot water though.

I was called in for a meeting with some senior school teachers and was asked to explain what had taken place. I have to be honest, I had completely forgotten about the whole thing at that point. It happened that later on that day while we were bowling, Brian had attacked me physically and I thought that was what it was all about. When it came to light what it was really about I was taken aback and didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t really have any reasonable excuse or explanation for what happened. Blatant sexual harassment. The school took the decision to suspend me and my friend for a few days each. I walked home that day in shock, I’d never really been in any trouble before, I was a goodie two shoes, took pride in the fact I was so clean I had never even had a detention and then suddenly I was told I wasn’t welcome at school for a few days.

I accepted responsibility for what happened and that what went down was wrong and took my punishment. However, I felt and still feel to this day some sense of injustice when it comes to matters of school bullying and harassment. Throughout my school life, I was picked on my fair share (I probably did my fair share of picking too). Later in 2001 I was threatened to be stabbed with a screw driver while in a class and I had an incident where my clothes were set on fire and my friend was beaten up for his accent. Both of which went unpunished because of lack of evidence. In 2002, someone from school gave my name and address to the police, not once but twice when caught offending. I had to go down to the police station and sign statutory declarations to say that it wasn’t me and for a few months I was getting calls from police to my home, which wasn’t pleasant. I subsequently received an apology letter from the guy who did it, but that was little consolation. I mean there are numerous other incidents that I view as just as serious as what I was punished for and seemingly they were got away with. My real belief is that I was a victim of gender prejudice. When an incident happens within a group of guys, it is just “boys will be boys, sort it out”, but when a trans-gender event takes place, a school will look to make an example. For fuck’s sake, people selling and buying drugs during school got less punishment than I did and they were probably serial pests as well.

I think I’ve written enough about the whole incident/punishment and now I want to focus on the positive of the whole experience. I really did learn a lot about life and myself from the whole experience. I developed a deep resent for the school, the principal and some of the teachers that were involved. My outlet for this was resent was an attitude of ‘I will show them’. My friend that was also suspended left the school at the end of the year and this may have been one of the best things that ever happened to me. He is still a great mate, but at school, he was holding me back. I’m sure that he would say moving schools to one that fitted him a bit better was one of the best things to ever happen to him too. In the most important years of high school I had very few distractions and this great drive to do well and get the best out of myself. I don’t think it is any coincidence that once I started to develop a positive attitude towards life and success, things really started to go my way.

One of the high points of my life happened in 2001 too. My football team the Brisbane Lions, who I invest my whole heart into every single season, won sixteen games in a row to claim a historic premiership. To put things into perspective, my dad supports the Saints and their last premiership was in 1966. Needless to say, to be at the game that day and for them to win was one of the highlights of my life. The Lions went on to create a dynasty that may never be matched in the modern Era. The followed up their 2001 victory with repeat wins in 2002 and 2003; in 2004 they fell agonisingly short of the four-peat, losing in the Grand Final. I had the privilege to be at all four games, and got to witness my team win three trophies, when many people only get to see one in a lifetime.

2001 was also the year that I took up Rugby League; it is also the year I retired from Rugby League. It was an interesting cultural experience and an adventure travelling to all kind of weird places on weekends to play a very foreign game. I gained a heap of knowledge about the game the year I played, and I developed the belief that anyone who plays it at the highest level has to be somewhat insane. The size of some of the guys that were running around in the Under 16s was out of this world. Here I was, a skinny 70kg gangly legs, taking on 120kg New Zealand Maori, Samoan and Tongan boys every weekend. I’m not afraid to say it; there were actually times I was scared to take hold of the ball. The team environment was amongst the best I’ve ever been in though. I was this weird Melbourne kid who had never played Rugby league before and these guys had been playing it their whole lives. The brought me in, embraced me and taught me a whole lot and were accepting of my mistakes. The highlight of my time playing was the one try that I scored. I was playing on the wing; I called for the ball, the guy who had been the nicest to me the whole season could easily have scored himself but instead passed it to me so I could score one. By the end of the season, I could barely get out of bed without my shoulder slipping out of its socket, so it was apparent I couldn’t play anymore. I still have a deep passion for the game though and follow the Melbourne Storm fervently, going to most home games.

2002 & 2003 – VCE
At the beginning of year 11 of school, the two campuses of my school merged together. This saw an influx of new and exciting people. This was when I first met Emmy, she was one of the first people from the other campus that I became friends with. About a year later we started a romantic relationship that lasts to this day (five years later). So, without a doubt, that was the best and enjoyable development of the last two years of high school.

2002 was the year I really got into Economics, prior to that I was thinking my career path would lie in the IT area. The logical thought processes that are behind sound economics are what really appealed to my brain I think. My passion for this subject ultimately led to my good school results and my choice of University course. Who knows, if I hadn’t decided to take Economics that year I may be computer programming right now.

One of the things I really treasure about these times are memories from the house parties that were thrown in these years. I experimented a little with alcohol and decided it wasn’t for me; I would dress up in all kinds of weird stuff (wrestling costumes for instance) and just have a really good time. Whenever reflecting on these times my friends all say I was always off my face… quite to the contrary I was hardly ever drunk, I’m just a fucking weirdo socially inept donk, what can I say?

Suburbanball
When a lot of people think back to me in the late years of high school one of the most prominent memories they will have is of Suburbanball. At the end of year 10 I discovered an informal street sport on the internet called Danball. It looked like my kind of game, so I set about getting some people together for a match. It was a real hit with the kids, and over time we developed a bunch of changes to the game and we re-named it Suburbanball.

The Suburbanball craze lasted a few years and went through many highs and lows. Through the wonders of the internet the game was spread to other locations around with world, with people setting up their own leagues. Back at home everyone eventually became too busy to get together for a game and the competition fell apart. I still play indoor Cricket and Soccer with most of the Suburbanball crew though.

Welcome To The World
I was born December 30^th, 1985 in Carlton, at the northern edge of the Melbourne CBD in Australia. I was the first born child and first grandchild for both sets of my grandparents, so I’ve always been the oldest of my generation in the family. When I was born we were living close to where we live now, but we moved into our current house when I was one year old, so I’ve only known one home my entire life really.

As a young kid I had blonde straight hair, now I have brown curly hair. From a very young age I loved sports. My dad would take me to training sessions and games of the local football team from before I could even walk. When I was three or four years old a new neighbour moved in and we soon became best friends and remained so until I was about 11 years old and he and his family set off on a round the world boat trip. He was a little younger than me, so he was in the year below me at school, but we were pretty much inseparable outside of school. Together we enjoyed an obsession for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hundreds of backyard cricket battles.

Early Schooling
I went to Kindergarten just around the corner; I don’t really remember much of that, other than some high quality crayon artwork that decorated the walls of our house for a few years. Primary school began at age five, from years Prep to 5 I went to my local public primary school. For the early years I really enjoyed it and had lots of great friends, but in the latter years things kind of fell apart for me, I fell out with friends, became a little unhappy, but at the same time grew to enjoy my own company than that of others.

Throughout this time I lived and breathe sports, football in the winter and cricket in the summer. At the time I supported my Dad’s team, the Saints and we would go to all the home games. I played for my local team, and was an alright player, I was one of the first of my age group to reach 50 games because I started when I was really young. Unfortunately, as I fell out with my friends at school, playing footy with them also became an unhappy experience, so I gave it up. I only played one season of cricket; I probably took it up too young and struggled to get into it. Informally though, I played heaps of cricket.

At the age of 9 I switched football teams to my current team, the Brisbane Lions. There were a number of reasons for the change, but in the end I am glad that I made it. I never really had the choice of whom to support when I young, I was kind of just thrust into it. For those international readers, Australian Football rouses the equivalent passions that Ice Hockey does for Canadians, Soccer does for the Europeans and American Football does for the Americans, so it is quite a big deal just to change teams, particularly to one that is based and the other end of the country.

The Next Phase of Schooling
I moved St. Leonard’s at the start of grade six and immediately became much happier. In some ways it was weird to join a school in the last year of primary, but in many ways it was good that I could form friends before an influx came the year for high school. That year I met a few people that I remain good friends with now. The next year I made lots of new years as well. Year 7 was a lot of fun with an influx on new faces and the beginning of high school learning. I travelled through many friendship circles throughout school, but there were a few people who I remained really good friends with throughout. I didn’t really enjoy languages that much and to me that was just a waste of time, just as a lot of other things taught in high school were.

At the end of year six I took up basketball, in a team with a few guys from school. I had never played basketball before, but it came pretty naturally to me in the end. I played in a team with Gordon and Mike P for a good number of years, two guys that I still play Indoor cricket and soccer with. I kept at basketball, playing for about 12 seasons (6 years). In that time I won two premierships and one most valuable player award. I never really played anything about B grade though, and mostly it was D grade.

In early high school I was pretty obsessed with professional wrestling, I’d watch it constantly, I’d read/chat about it online and I even got into running my own wrestling related web site that had over 300 members. I suffered a broken nose when a friend put a move on me and sent me face first into the ground and I killed three of my front teeth doing a flip move on the trampoline. As I landed the flip my teeth slammed down into my knee. Luckily at the time had, and still have a wire on my teeth, otherwise they would have fallen out. I think I probably grew out my wrestling phase and in a way it was later replaced by poker.

Ever since I was a little kid I was quite entrepreneurial. From setting up stores in the street, to running my own composting business, I wasn’t exactly normal in that way. When I reached the age of about 12 the internet was just beginning to come into vogue and I soon found that creating my own web sites provided an outlet for my ideas. It wasn’t until I was about 16 though that I had one that actually made me some money.

I got my first job when I was 15, working at the local video stores, I didn’t really stay there long enough to do anything other than sort and shelve videos. Mundane work combined with poor business practices saw me out of there pretty quick. Thankfully, I was never really a big spender of money so a part-time job really wasn’t that necessary during my high school years. Well, I think that gives a fair bit of insight into my life up until the upper school level of high school, stay tuned for my next blog in the series!