Welcome brotha. Glad to see you started an OP (especially since you told me about this thing and I got the idea from you!). Good luck on your journey...we basically started at the same time and we're about the same age so I definitely relate to you.

I don't know if you checked the Noob HU Tournament thread yet, but I left you some notes about making the switch to PokerStars. I was on FTP at first also...but I couldn't beat the rake (well, I did, but I found it unnecessary). I like the rewards better on FTP but I won't really be able to start getting them until I graduate in levels anyway. I plan to move back to FTP once I get up to 25NL or 50NL. Anyway, good luck. Hope to see a consistent post from you!