One Year Later

- A year ago today, January 22, I posted my first blog entry, entitled Snow Day:

It's days like today that make me regret (somewhat) dumping Time Warner Cable in a fit of rage last year. NYRA has preemptively cancelled the weekend's racing in anticipation of the expected major snow. This allows the NYC OTB channel to televise out of town races from a multitude of tracks (though many are cancelled today), including those from Gulfstream and Santa Anita. However, Direct TV doesn’t get such local stations, and since TVG doesn’t carry the Magna tracks, the abovementioned tracks, the two most desirable ones, are not available to me. With Magna’s HRTV not carried on Direct TV, I’m out of luck. And since Dish Network now carries both TVG AND HRTV, it seems that I did a typically poor job of handicapping when it came to choosing a satellite provider.

But hell, it’s sunny and fast at Fair Grounds and Oaklawn, so what’s so bad?

Now that entry has gathered the blog equivalent of moss; the creepy spammers telling me how awesome my blog is and inviting me to come see their websites on anything from casino gambling to alternative energy electric chairs. Now, some 770 posts later, I’m a year older, but much, much wiser. One of the main things I wanted to get out of this was to learn as much as I could about anything and everything about the game and the industry and politics behind it, and thanks to the fine journalists and fellow bloggers whose work I now read on a regular basis, I have. Another was to meet and connect with others with whom I could share my passion for the game, and from whose wisdom I could enrich my own; and I’ve done that too, with all the wonderful and knowledgeable people I’ve heard from via email and the comments sections, as well as those I’ve met and gotten to hang out with.

Finally, I thought maybe I could do something about my handicapping as well. And I think I had a pretty good year (of course, if I kept records like I’m supposed to, I would know for sure). I think my picks here have been fairly respectable, doncha think? It sure would have been a nice way to end the first year if Danaslam had held on at 11-1....but I don’t feel quite as left at the gate as I did a year ago.

So I just wanted to thank everyone who’s out there reading. It seems I’ve picked up a few along the way, and your continued readership serves as an inspiration for me to continue. Thanks for visiting and please come again soon. Peace.