I'm Jon Zahlaway. I live in a Boston-area suburb about 15 minutes north of the city. I was born on January 17, 1970.

As a child, I thought I was going to be a member of the rock group KISS when I grew up. That didn't work out.

As a teen, I thought I was going to be a cop. I enlisted in the army and served from July of 1988 through January of 1992. Most of that time was spent working as a military police K-9 handler at Ft. Irwin, Calif., located in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

By the time my tour of duty ended, I knew I didn't want to be a cop when I grew up; I wanted to be Howard Stern. I returned to Massachusetts and enrolled at Salem State College, where I majored in communications and hosted a weekly college-radio show.

Occasionally, I listen to tapes of my old college-radio show. They are mostly bad. Regardless, my quest to be Howard Stern was misguided, since, as it turns out, there already is a Howard Stern.

Located across the hallway from the college radio station was the college newspaper. Since getting paid to talk for a living seemed increasingly less likely, getting paid to write for a living seemed like the next best thing, so I signed on as a Staff Writer, then as Living/Arts Editor, and, finally, as Editor-in-Chief.

I graduated in 1996 and immediately went to work as a reporter for a local newspaper. I covered city-council meetings and wrote about things such as housing developments and sewage problems—and, at one point, about local singer Gary Cherone, who, during my tenure as a reporter, became the third frontman for Van Halen, my all-time favorite band.

I enjoyed writing about Van Halen more than I did writing about city-council meetings, housing developments and sewage problems, so—long story short—I relocated to Arizona, where I took on the role of Managing Editor and Art Director for The Inside, Van Halen's official magazine. Highlights included spending the day with the band at Eddie Van Halen's home studio (a.k.a. 5150), and having all-access passes for the group's 1998 tour. For the most part, this was a dream come true.

The part that wasn't a dream come true: Van Halen with Gary Cherone was not Van Halen with Sammy Hagar, nor was it Van Halen with David Lee Roth. The album tanked, the tour ended, and I needed to make something happen before my career arc mirrored the band's.

I landed a job as the editor of phoenix.citysearch.com, part of a network of online city guides owned by Ticketmaster. After a year of that, I worked my way into a staff-writer position with liveDaily.com, Ticketmaster's music-news website. We left the desert and returned to Boston, where I worked from the boston.citysearch.com office on Canal Street and ate lots of Italian food.

By early 2002, the Internet, much like “Van Halen 3,” had most certainly tanked, and the staff of liveDaily became the latest members of the “Laid-Off Club.” We took a stab at launching our own start-up, SoundSpike.com. The good: I taught myself how to build a website, a skill I now sell on a freelance basis. The bad: We made approximately $0.

The SoundSpike thing was not a wash, however, as it earned me a return to liveDaily.com, where I am now the Senior Writer.

My wife Kim and I were married in Philadelphia in 1998. She has a master's degree in social work—which is helpful, since I am a basket case who has been diagnosed with ADD—and works part time as a clinicial consultant at a program that provides services for adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome and related social pragmatic disorders (and, no, I don't exactly know what that means, either). Our son, Zack, was born June 11, 2003. Our daughter, Jadyn, was born July 12, 2005. I am convinced that they are the most adorable, wonderful and gifted children to ever set foot on the planet. I am also convinced that they are occasionally possessed by Satan, and that he uses them to, among other things, insure that Kim and I can't string together more than two hours of sleep at any given time, and to see to it that our patience is pushed to the breaking point at least three dozen times per day.

We live in one of the most expensive regions in the country. Did I mention that I'm a writer and that Kim is a social worker? The simple act of making the monthly mortgage payment generates more suspense than a Tom Clancy novel.

So, to recap: Nearing 40, not a member of KISS, not Howard Stern, married with children, broke.

At this point, it's all pretty much riding on this whole writing thing.

Thus, the blog.

To contact Jon Zahlaway, email jonz [at] zahlaway [dot] com.