Sunday, August 24, 2008

redemption

USA Redeem team has finally redeemed their lost glory. having failed to win the global tournament in 8 years, they brought their A+ game against the Spaniards who also brought their A+ game. yan ang championship game! 4 point lang lamang ng US going into the last 2 minutes. sobrang ganda talaga ng game. D-Wade was phenomenal sa 1st half then Kobe Bryant took over nung 2nd half. don't be mislead by the final score, this was really a hard-fought game until the final minute. in the end the "Star Spangled Banner" was played on the medal ceremony.

it just showed how far the rest of the world has grown in the game of basketball. but as of now order has been restored. USA reclaims its position in the pinnacle of international basketball. U! S! A! U! S! A!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

murphy's law and jose rizal

life ain't supposed to be hard, right? no. but we can sit back and wait for that golden opportunity to just come by us, di ba? maybe. or how about this.. hard work and perseverance will definitely pay off later. yes. hopefully yes.

at my age it is a point where i seem so determined to really put my life in a direction where i wanted to see myself years from now. know what i mean? i could have done this on my earlier years but i wasn't that matured back then. "ubos ubos biyaya bukas nakatunganga" principle lang ako dati eh. not that i didn't enjoy those times mind you, i freakin' loved those moments :P pero siyempre times change. and so should i grow up. eto na yung mga stages na you're concerned about your future, not that you can control it but at least you direct it into a direction where you wish and dream it to be.

it's been almost two months since my friend and i decided to put up our printing business. and boy little did we expect we're in for the ride of our lives! investing into something, whether a relationship, career, bank account, business, house and lot man yan, is really challenging. it requires your time, dedication, your wildest thoughts, strength, talent (you're blessed if you have one), and money (if you weren't blessed with the former i hoped you're blessed with this one - pag wala pa din eh kawawang bata ka na hehe).

the company is actually a brainchild of my good friend Randy. he's been with the advertising business for 3 years and had, in my personal assessment, quite a handful of experience. printing was one of his previous jobs that company. he was fortunate enough start a partnership with a foreigner last year for the same business and they were doing good for some months. pero sabi nga sa murphy's law, "whatever can go wrong will go wrong". true enough this Korean guy went back to his motherland and pulled out all his machines and literally my friend's living. wala na siyang ibang kabuhayan but that tapos nawala pa. so to make the story short after sleepless nights and deep thoughts he decided to move on. with the little that he had left he hoped to start again. pano ako pumasok sa eksena 'ka nyo? eh we chanced upon each other one Sunday afternoon around June tapos kinuwento niya ang nangyari (ayang lahat ng isinulat ko sa paragraph na toh). Randy and i have been close like brothers through many years so trusting the guy and his vision did not come hard. so with the work experience that he has at yung konti kong perang naitabi sa bangko we decided to setup the business. ako pa naman yung tao na pag hindi natakot sa isang challenge eh it's not challenging enough. eh dito medyo tinamaan din ako ng takot so alam ko i'm up for something great. so off we go. we bought a large format printer, 44-inch, from his contact and a cold laminator naman na 60-inch from Hidalgo. tapos may dalawa kaming pc sa place niya and yung ibang former clients niya still had him do some printing jobs. so medyo naging okay ang simula namin. and to think the money that we invested is so little compared to those who had this same business. so siyempre i-expect mo rin na palabas muna lahat ng pera in the first 2 to 3 months and that's where we're struggling right now. good for me i still have my day job at least my salary is still enough to feed myself and my two siblings. lagi ko ngang binibiro na double job ako ngayon :P hehe.

on the course of these two months, we've experienced discouragements, frustrations, fatigue, shortage of money, and everything else we did not expect to happen. ewan ko ba, parang nananadya ang panahon. eto ha, Randy has his family (nanay at mga kapatid niya) living in San Andres bukid. two weeks before we started this business eh nadamay sa malaking sunog yung bahay nila. good thing is that 2nd floor lang ang nasunog. if that will not dampen your spirits eh mutant ka siguro.. sa ganitong business kasi dito sa atin eh 3rd party ink ang gamit kasi napakamahal ng original ink (P5K plus for a 220mL!!). when one of the 8 inks ran out, we had no choice but to purchase the original kasi wala pa kaming nahanap na supplier at that time ng 3rd party ink for our printer. eh may pending work for a client so it was so critical. kahit mabigat sa bulsa we had to come up with the moolah. and we had to buy it in Quezon city during a stormy Sunday noon kasi half day lang pala yung seller.. there is this system that you need to purchase para ma-convert mo yung printer mo into a continuous ink supply system o CISS. and for the printer model that we have, nahirapan kaming maghanap dito sa Manila. most of it kasi eh galing sa Shenzhen, China or sa UK. Randy does most of the research and he contacts immediately kung meron mag offer. we were ecstatic when he found one in Marikina, so tinawagan and ni-confirm na meron daw sila. so pinuntahan niya sa pusod ng Marikina, bumabagyo pa that time, bought the device and went back home. alam mo yung parang on fire ka tapos nabuhusan ka ng malamig na tubig? mali pala yung device and clearly the seller did not know what he's selling @&#$%!( nakakainis diba? what frustrated us more is that konti na nga lang yung pera namin (so we really were very careful in shelling out cash), napagod na yung kaibigan ko tapos we were 2 weeks delayed na i think on some of our deliverables that time. the morning after we went back to Marikina together para balikan yung nagbenta. coming from my night shift schedule i barely slept. kada upo ko sa jeep, sa mrt o fx kinuha kong tsansa para matulog. pagdating namin dun yung pinangako nilang meron eh wala naman pala talaga. pero at least binalik yung pera namin. kung made-describe ko lang ang naramdaman namin that time isusulat ko dito kaso hindi ko ma-describe. parang right there and then, our high hopes that this business will turn out very well could have really dashed out of the door. to be honest napaisip na ko nun, "ano ba tong pinasok ko?" "is this really gonna work?" i even thought of going to China myself para lang bumili eh. kaso bigla kong naisip wala pala akong pamasahe hehe. i think for about 15 minutes Randy and i did not utter words. ikinain na lang namin yung problema namin sa Jollibee (that's around 11AM na) and naisubo ko na yung huling butil ng kanin nung meh nagsalita na sa amin. sa totoo lang gusto ko ng umiyak nun nahiya lang ako puro bata yung mga nasa katabi naming table. isipin pa nila na boyfriend ko si Randy at nakikipag break siya sakin :P "papi, wag mo kong iwan.." hahaha :P

but you know what? little did we expect that there was still a glimmer of light we're about to see that day din. my friend started to flicker through the pages of his planner. it had some numbers of contacts he gathered from the internet. he called about 3 and i overheard him saying, "saan po ang office niyo sir puntahan po namin kayo... ah sa Malinta exit?.. andito pa po kami dulo ng Marikina pakiantay po kami..." before i can even ask a question we were on our feet again. pagod pero adventure talaga. to cut the story short, nagkaligaw ligaw kami, naubusan sya ng load, naubusan naman ako ng battery at muntik na rin kaming maubusan ng bait. wag kayong tumawa pero muntik na talaga. after about 2 hours we located the place and the consolation of all these unlucky things? the guy (sir Anthony) whom we met for the first time accomodated us like we have been friends for eons. cool guy, very approachable at napaka down to earth din. he gave us tips more than our weary minds can even remember. so for more than an hour kinausap niya kami and gave us more than what we need. di nga lang namin nabili yung CISS kasi one set dapat ang bilhin eh kulang ang pera namin. still he offered a cartridge with original ink that is about half the price compared sa labas. not bad huh. at least we went home after an adventurous day with a reason to smile a bit.

actually madami pa kaming problema ngayon. recently lang nagkasakit yung dalawang anak ni Randy, monthly bills, payment for the media, house rent, kakainin sa araw araw among other things. the thing that is most challenging for me eh yung maubusan ulit ng pera. there was one day when i only had P7.50 in my pocket and a whopping P62 in my atm account eh siyempre di ko naman ma-withdraw yun. that was like 4 days before my next salary so just imagine the worries. i literally had to flip thru my memory bank kung sino yung mga may utang sakin and i starting texting them. today, i only have P500, 5 days bago mag sweldo ulit. wuuuhhaaaa *sigh*..
hindi ko akalain mararanasan ko ulit toh after so many years. kumbaga since i started working eh i seldom had this problem. it is literally stepping out of my considerable comfort zone and put myself on the sacrifice line alongside my friend so to speak but this is exactly what i should expect the moment i agreed. pero i was born and raised in a poor family so these things are not new to me. there were even worse back then. pero really there's no other way than to move forward eh. it's either you stop or keep walking. Randy even joked one time na sana may video camera kami and na-document lahat namin ang mga paghihirap namin. yung mga misadventures namin. parang Ariel and Maverick lang ba. para when we look back we can just laugh at ourselves and appreciate better what we have in life.

it's been tough and it's getting tougher. but it's all good. it's all good..

post scriptum:

bumibili kami ng gamot ng anak niya kanina sa drug store, sinuklian siya ng tig beinte pesos, tinignan niya sabay sabi, "ngayon ko lang na-appreciate si Manuel Quezon." sagot ko, "dude, mas i-appreciate mo dapat si Jose Rizal dahil pag wala si Pepe, hindi mabubuo si Ka Manuel" :D

Friday, August 08, 2008

printing business

as Chinese regard number 8 to be lucky, i'd like to ride on that belief and advertise today (08-08-08) the business my good friend and i put up. it's small but it's large hehe. it's large format printing. we print just about everything you need into virtually any media you prefer:

photo paper
backlit
canvass
banner cloth
clear sticker, floor sticker (and other
sticker-based media)
blinds
streamers

(in the meantime, we focus mainly on indoor printing. but we also accept outdoor prints if needed)

we offer other services which include:

standee (sintra PVC board, carton, or other types)
murals
backdrops
framing
vehicle wraps

i'll post some pics of the tools we've already invested in and some of the things we did for our budding network of clients. parang ang dami na eh noh haha.

we're not getting any younger so things like this come up to mind. eh ayoko namang maging employee forever na umaasa lang lagi sa swelduhan hehe. tsaka for the future na rin. i'm not Chinese pero hopefully we get lucky with this endeavor. wag na kayo magpa print sa iba ha. sakin na lang :P contact me thru email or cellphone number below my avatar (right side). salamat po!