A big update
So, wow, where to begin. The last time I posted anything on here was at the time that Buddy died. That was a bad scene which still lingers. Some days more than others. With Buddy, no matter what happened, I always felt like I had a companion. Yes, he wasn't human, but the unconditional love and comfort that he provided was more important than I realized. I miss him a lot.
As of November 19th (just after Buddy died) I was once again gainfully employed. About a month before, I was speaking to my friend Shin. I mentioned to him that I was looking for a career opportunity. He said he might have some contacts. A few days later he got back to me saying that the President of one of the ventures that he was investing in might be looking for someone like me. A few days later Rob and I met, and he hired me on the spot. The company was a start-up venture serving as an agent middle-man providing equipment, supplies and services to the nationalized oil company of Malaysia, Petronas (you may remember their twin towers from the Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones movie "Entrapment").
I was told that Petronas relied on the mega-conglomerates like Halliburton for this, and they had found that Halliburton and others were severely gouging them with pricing and overhead. Because of the nationalized status of Petronas, the government does not allow anyone to bid on contracts unless
they have an agent located in Malaysia. This is something that very few companies in the industry take the time or expense to do, therefore there was an available niche for someone like this new company. They had already opened a small office in Malaysia.
My perspective of Rob at the time was that he was an extremely successful entrepreneur. He said he was on the board of a few different corporations and had amazing connections. One of his companies was a partnership with a former major league baseball player, owning a teak and mahogany plantation in the Dominican Republic. He also said that he had a successful software company in Japan. We seemed to hit it off right away and initially had a good time and built a great rapport in just a few short weeks. The representations of his past success gave me a high level of confidence in this new adventure.
Well, that all changed. Soon after starting, I got weird feelings from the guy. He was a perpetual liar and teller of tall tales. I went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and saw that the office there was legit, so I felt a little better. But as time went on, I got more and more suspicious. The person that I hired as an Office Manager/bookkeeper was being asked to do a bunch of shady stuff...multiple bank accounts, transferring funds around, kiting checks, etc. We both started focusing on specifics and figuring out what was going on. Over the next couple of weeks, we figured some stuff out. Doing a background check helped a lot. We found out and determined that he is an extremely intelligent entrepreneur, a genius & salesman, to smart for his own good--he basically uses his talent for scam. He raises capital for various ventures, and boy does he raise the capital!! but instead of actually using the money for it's supposed intention, he uses it to foot the bill for his own overindulgence!
He brings in guys to work for him all the time, making promises of future fortune and how he has all these prospects lined up, the employees help bring in prospective clients/investors, then he closes the deals. But in the end the employees never make a dime, yet he continues to roll in the big bucks(other peoples bucks)---he scams virtually any and every investor he can lure in out of hundreds of thousands. He lives in a million dollar home in the Sammamish Highlands, has a 58 foot yacht, a $100k mercedes, and that's only a fraction of his lifestyle. The problem is, since he's really just a con man, he's always looking over his shoulder hoping no one catches on to him, he just has to continuously scam more and more to maintain his life and lies. As a result, if he were found out, all his fortune could be taken away just as quickly as he got it.
After he gets the capital sometimes he'll take a portion of it and pay one of his other investors--making it appear as if he's starting to make the guy some $, then he keeps the majority for himself, then eventually claims the investment took a dive (which is always a risk)--but in reality, he never invested anything, or that he's rolling over to another investment. Occasionally an investor figures out the scam and he ends up having to collect money on a new scam investment--only to take it and pay off the guy who's becoming too inquisitive. Obviously there's an abundance of more intricate and elaborate details to his methods, but you get the general idea, the bottom line resulting in "scam".
If the guy were to start using the $ properly, and if he would simply use all his talent to do things legitimately then everyone would undoubtedly make a fortune. The money does come in, the guy is an absolute genius, but for whatever unexplained reason he just continues on the shady side of the road.
I knew that I was going to get out at the beginning of March because he was starting to ask me to participate in his deceit by creating false press releases, covering for him with his wife because he was with one of his 3 girlfriends, etc. I wanted to walk out at the moment, but I had to be realistic about an income. So I went on the job search during March. On March 31st, I got a call from the regional recruiter from a company. I did a preliminary phone interview on 4/1, and then went for an in-person interview with the regional manager that afternoon. I didn't hear anything back from them, but on Thursday 4/7 with the knowledge that Rob (my boss) was coming back from Malaysia the following day and I couldn't play the game anymore, I went to the office, packed my stuff up and resigned. Five hours later I got the call offering me the job. A leap of faith on my part, that worked out well. I started the next Monday, this last Monday and things are going well.
I will look back on the whole thing and will always appreciate that I got to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - a place that I probably never would have experienced otherwise. I also was able to advance my HTML programming skills. I created 3 websites on my own, and took over and modified a 4th.
So now I am out of the free-for-all world of a start-up and am now into a structured thing with this company. I am participating in a 4-8 week MIT (Management-In-Training) program. After finishing the first week, I know that I am going to easily kick butt.
So that is the job thing...the other cool thing that has been going on is that I have gotten big time into the wrestling scene in Washington outside of my own previous participation. I started officiating back in January and did the whole district/regional/State for high school tournaments. Since then, the Freestyle/Greco-Roman season is into swing so I have been doing a bunch of traveling around the state on the weekends. Getting to visit towns that I probably would never have visited otherwise. Small towns out in the middle of who knows where, but it's been very cool.
I'm trying to think of anything else interesting that has happened over the last 5 months, but basically I have been consumed with the work and wrestling thing. Plus, I think that this has been wayyyy more than enough for a post...only subsidized by the fact that it is the first one in such a long time.
Peace and out...
Dave
As of November 19th (just after Buddy died) I was once again gainfully employed. About a month before, I was speaking to my friend Shin. I mentioned to him that I was looking for a career opportunity. He said he might have some contacts. A few days later he got back to me saying that the President of one of the ventures that he was investing in might be looking for someone like me. A few days later Rob and I met, and he hired me on the spot. The company was a start-up venture serving as an agent middle-man providing equipment, supplies and services to the nationalized oil company of Malaysia, Petronas (you may remember their twin towers from the Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones movie "Entrapment").
I was told that Petronas relied on the mega-conglomerates like Halliburton for this, and they had found that Halliburton and others were severely gouging them with pricing and overhead. Because of the nationalized status of Petronas, the government does not allow anyone to bid on contracts unless
they have an agent located in Malaysia. This is something that very few companies in the industry take the time or expense to do, therefore there was an available niche for someone like this new company. They had already opened a small office in Malaysia.
My perspective of Rob at the time was that he was an extremely successful entrepreneur. He said he was on the board of a few different corporations and had amazing connections. One of his companies was a partnership with a former major league baseball player, owning a teak and mahogany plantation in the Dominican Republic. He also said that he had a successful software company in Japan. We seemed to hit it off right away and initially had a good time and built a great rapport in just a few short weeks. The representations of his past success gave me a high level of confidence in this new adventure.
Well, that all changed. Soon after starting, I got weird feelings from the guy. He was a perpetual liar and teller of tall tales. I went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and saw that the office there was legit, so I felt a little better. But as time went on, I got more and more suspicious. The person that I hired as an Office Manager/bookkeeper was being asked to do a bunch of shady stuff...multiple bank accounts, transferring funds around, kiting checks, etc. We both started focusing on specifics and figuring out what was going on. Over the next couple of weeks, we figured some stuff out. Doing a background check helped a lot. We found out and determined that he is an extremely intelligent entrepreneur, a genius & salesman, to smart for his own good--he basically uses his talent for scam. He raises capital for various ventures, and boy does he raise the capital!! but instead of actually using the money for it's supposed intention, he uses it to foot the bill for his own overindulgence!
He brings in guys to work for him all the time, making promises of future fortune and how he has all these prospects lined up, the employees help bring in prospective clients/investors, then he closes the deals. But in the end the employees never make a dime, yet he continues to roll in the big bucks(other peoples bucks)---he scams virtually any and every investor he can lure in out of hundreds of thousands. He lives in a million dollar home in the Sammamish Highlands, has a 58 foot yacht, a $100k mercedes, and that's only a fraction of his lifestyle. The problem is, since he's really just a con man, he's always looking over his shoulder hoping no one catches on to him, he just has to continuously scam more and more to maintain his life and lies. As a result, if he were found out, all his fortune could be taken away just as quickly as he got it.
After he gets the capital sometimes he'll take a portion of it and pay one of his other investors--making it appear as if he's starting to make the guy some $, then he keeps the majority for himself, then eventually claims the investment took a dive (which is always a risk)--but in reality, he never invested anything, or that he's rolling over to another investment. Occasionally an investor figures out the scam and he ends up having to collect money on a new scam investment--only to take it and pay off the guy who's becoming too inquisitive. Obviously there's an abundance of more intricate and elaborate details to his methods, but you get the general idea, the bottom line resulting in "scam".
If the guy were to start using the $ properly, and if he would simply use all his talent to do things legitimately then everyone would undoubtedly make a fortune. The money does come in, the guy is an absolute genius, but for whatever unexplained reason he just continues on the shady side of the road.
I knew that I was going to get out at the beginning of March because he was starting to ask me to participate in his deceit by creating false press releases, covering for him with his wife because he was with one of his 3 girlfriends, etc. I wanted to walk out at the moment, but I had to be realistic about an income. So I went on the job search during March. On March 31st, I got a call from the regional recruiter from a company. I did a preliminary phone interview on 4/1, and then went for an in-person interview with the regional manager that afternoon. I didn't hear anything back from them, but on Thursday 4/7 with the knowledge that Rob (my boss) was coming back from Malaysia the following day and I couldn't play the game anymore, I went to the office, packed my stuff up and resigned. Five hours later I got the call offering me the job. A leap of faith on my part, that worked out well. I started the next Monday, this last Monday and things are going well.
I will look back on the whole thing and will always appreciate that I got to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - a place that I probably never would have experienced otherwise. I also was able to advance my HTML programming skills. I created 3 websites on my own, and took over and modified a 4th.
So now I am out of the free-for-all world of a start-up and am now into a structured thing with this company. I am participating in a 4-8 week MIT (Management-In-Training) program. After finishing the first week, I know that I am going to easily kick butt.
So that is the job thing...the other cool thing that has been going on is that I have gotten big time into the wrestling scene in Washington outside of my own previous participation. I started officiating back in January and did the whole district/regional/State for high school tournaments. Since then, the Freestyle/Greco-Roman season is into swing so I have been doing a bunch of traveling around the state on the weekends. Getting to visit towns that I probably would never have visited otherwise. Small towns out in the middle of who knows where, but it's been very cool.
I'm trying to think of anything else interesting that has happened over the last 5 months, but basically I have been consumed with the work and wrestling thing. Plus, I think that this has been wayyyy more than enough for a post...only subsidized by the fact that it is the first one in such a long time.
Peace and out...
Dave