Our Marriage!

Our wedding dinner is tomorrow! Managed to squeeze some time off to make a post. Tomorrow is our customary wedding dinner and ceremony. Going to be a splendid and happy day for both us. There are so many activities going on, got to go, cheers!

I forgot about time.

I have been so busy working since I got back from Thailand, hours slips by without notice. It seems that day after day, my working hours is growing. Today I worked 15 hours and I still can’t finish the production line setup. Customer demands are ridiculous with such little man power.

It is tiring but I have no choice. There is not much people that can help, my subordinates are not experienced in line setup. I feel that my patience is growing thinner and getting pissed easily. Even my boss can sense my burning fire and tend to avoid me when he sees me working.

Now I understand how Pig felt when she worked this many hours and many days back when she was in Jabil. Got to get some sleep, got a long day tomorrow. I can’t screw this one up, it is way too important for me and many more.

I am coming back soon, 24th Jan.

Hurray, I am coming back to celebrate Chinese New Year. 2 more days and I will be flying back. Cheers to Cow year!

The company product’s transfer is not really completed, I think it barely touches the 30% mark. But there is no choice, we have to get back to start work next Wednesday. The production line have to get started regardless of how the training went. Customer is pushy and we are left without choice. We will only have 2 days break during this holiday.

I am way too tired to update the blog daily. We worked like mad. We barely have enough sleeps. I have tons of photos and stories to share when I get back. Good night.

In Bangkok – day 2-4.

Bangkok is freezing!

I never expected this but Bangkok is not hot as people in Malaysia thinks, they have winter season too. From December to end February, wheather can drop to around 20C around night.

I love it here. I can walk around on midday and I wont sweat a bit! Although, I regret bringing t-shirts and short pants anticipating a very hot wheater. The cold wind blowing makes me shiver during the morning and night time.

The Pig would love this weather, I am sure of it. Next year, I will bring Pig over here. She loves to walk around weather like this. The environment is very close to Genting Highlands back home. North Thailand might be even colder during this time. Too bad Pig cannot come this round, the schedule is too tight. I miss Pig!

Work at company is serious load, we worked from 7am to 8pm daily. In fact, we even work on Saturday yesterday, as company’s big boss request more effort. I think this is good because, if we work more hours, we can be back for Chinese New Year celebration. The team at Thailand is dedicated and much very willing to teach than I expected. This is good news for us all.

Next posting will have photos of the food we eat and the places here. For now, I am leaving for Chatuchak, weekend market soon. I am excited because this is the first break day we had over last week. See ya.

In Bangkok – day 1.

The travel is tiring, after half day work, 3 of us rushed to the airport to board a plane to Bangkok around 5.30pm. The flight is slightly bumpy and the drive to the hotel is jammed most of the way.

We ate some noodles along the side way, brought some street snacks and got back to hotel around 9.30pm. I unpack and started installing instant messengers on the useless notebook IT team provided me. I have to download them at snail speed on the hotel so called broadband.

Anyway, the hotel is superb, I have been here once and I like it very much. Is about 11.40pm now and I am going to sleep. Got a big day tomorrow. I don’t know what to expect but I hope for the best. Pig is sick today so she can’t go online and chat with me. Sob, poor Pig.

2009 first post.

7 days past the new year, I finally making my first post. I have been taking good rest since the long new year break and spending more time with the Pig. Afterall, factory workers like us have many holidays due to plant shut down.

Lucky for us, we still have a job. Friends all over town are either experiencing pay cut, company shuts down, retrenchment and etc. People are losing their job all over the place. Even Pig’s factory have announced 2nd retrenchment exercise in 2 months. The entire company employee are forced to 6 days leave per month. If you run out of annual leaves, pay cut will occur and approximately 25%. A serious blow to everyone working there.

Well, for one good thing, the Pig have joined a gym. She is determined to cut down weight and be fit once and for all. She is fully determined this time. She is loaded with a great book (You Can Be Thin by Marisa Peer) life changing book, she understands how calories works now, there is a plan and a strong will. I am sure she will reach her goal in time for our wedding photo shoot by end of February. Cheers to Pig.

As of me, I will be leaving to Thailand again for product transfer tomorrow evening. It will be a 2.5 weeks schedule if everything goes well. If not, I might have to spend Chinese New Year there. I guessed there is not helping it because with current situation, if I refused, there are at least 500 Engineers waiting to take my place.

Times are bad, I have to do what ever it takes. This is the most important project for me, I screw this up and I will lose my job. I have faith in my team, I can pull this off, I have to. Too bad I can’t bring Pig along, the schedule is too tight and with Chinese New Year around the corner, there is no break for me. Pig will have to sit this one out.

The night before 2009!

At Moggy’s shack.

Eating before drinking.

Flaming Bryan (burning Jack Daniel). Drinking down a burning shot of with a straw. I tried one, shiok!

Round one. Ganesh squeezing Sasi’s boobs, I wonder why?

Round two. Me hitting Sasi’s head with a box.

After 1 Jack Daniel, 1 Chivas and an Indian liquor. Knocked out, barely 30 mins past the new year. Moggy and Pong lying on the floor! Dead drunk. Bryan was out in the living hall.

I was drunk and Pig says I was hitting everyone with the box. Pig happily snapping photo away and drove me and Tree home. What a great way to end 2008.

Welcome 2009, year of the recession.

Mayday, mayday…

I setup my small cyber cafe business about 1.5 years ago to learn how to do business. Mostly Tree thought me most of the skill and sold me sufficient second hand equipment for the startup. It was my very first commercial business.

Through this process, I learned so much about legal issues, planning, execution, resources planning, employee to boss relationship, customer relationship, promotion, product sustainability and lastly profit & loss.

Initially during the first 3 months, sales were excellent. Way better than I expected. Profit were soaring and it kept getting better as it towards public holiday like Raya. Then there were challenges such as police raiding and I believed some dirty play by the competitor, revenue started to drop tremedously. The honeymoon period stop and it was looking bad during early 2008.

I did some revamping and business was going back to green but it never went back to the glory days. Furthermore, due to upcoming recession that is looming, revenue have dropped at least 60% since past 10 months. Higher electricity tariff is like adding salt to bleeding wound.

The Government is not thinking when they decided to allow TNB (electricity provider) to raise the rates when the fuel prices is high. Now that the price of oil have dropped hugely, the electricity bill remained. On the smaller economic point of view, it is killing the small businesses like mine.

When small businesses closes down it has a rapid ripple effect to the economy, even donkeys can understand that. For the sake of one corporate company higher profit, the mass public have to suffer. Fuck them.

So far, I am still able to keep my business profitable on monthly basis by implementing shuts down on least profitable day and reducing electricity usage by lowering air conditioning usage.

This may be a small profit business but is my first child and I love it. If I can’t even manage my small company, I have no chance to be successful moving forward. I will do everything I can to maintain it because as forecast goes, the account books will go red in next 3 months. I have some plans to keep it afloat and survive the recession.

Fingers crossed.

Busy spring cleaning.

The Pig and Cow are busy doing spring cleaning. Is part of our culture to clean up, rearrange and donate items we no longer need. Is also the time where Pig will draw out her resolution of the year.

I think I will do one too just right before new year but I rarely do resolutions. Hmm…I will think about it.

Ip Man – Movie of the year!

I rarely watched Cantonese movies on the cinema because I felt most of it are under rated movies and is not worth it. However the trailer for this latest movie, Ip Man (short for Yip Man, Cantonese name) is so good, we decided to watch it anyway since there is not much good movies lately.

It is the best movie I have ever watched this entire year. The movie is flawless, the storyline was short, simple but exciting, and the acting was at highest grade. There were combination of humor, passion, super kung-fu moves and it inspires the audience.

Donnie Yen has my newly profound respect for this acting and his talented kung-fu skill. I used to his acting was lifeless and just beat the crap hell out of you. He is by far the better kung-fu actor than Jet-Li. His moves and expression are lively and realistic.

Go watch this movie (http://www.ipman-movie.com), then go buy the original DVD and watch it again. Movie of the year for me, knocks off Wall-E from the top spot.