Ok, I think having that HIV post as the first thing to read from me this year is not the message I want to bring across at all. So, I guess it is time to do a bit of a review of the last year, which was VERY eventful.

In January, I was working on a new business venture together with a friend of mine. It is a software which makes it possible to download and watch Internet TV/Video Streams with a slow connection – a great tool for people living in Thailand as the Internet here is in general pretty slow and unstable. However, there were a few people determined to ruin our business, and we (he) ended up getting tired of constantly having people trying to ruin things for us. In the same time my partner got involved into a new business which took his attention off our project, and he was the one who was supposed to do the marketing – you know I am not a good sales person – I am the geek behind the computer.

So, back I was doing website work for others, but because I was planning on doing the business with my friend, I had no work lined up. I went flat broke, which is a horrific thing to be when having a toddler to feed. To save money we moved out of our beautiful rental home into a… dumb. It’s probably the worst place I have ever lived in, and I have lived without electricity or running water before… this was just horrible. We had wet walls from all the rainfall, and having a baby that is really dangerous, as babies are easy to develop asthma in those conditions.

My friend, the one who started that new business that took all his time and attention from our project, came over just two month after moving, and asked me why I don’t buy a house? I think I gave him a pretty sarcastic look, and said something like: Even if I had the money to buy a house, I would not buy something in Hua Hin, as the prices are just way too high compared to other areas (country side). Just as an example, in Hua Hin 1 rai (1,600 square meter) costs at least 2million Thai Baht, while it costs about 20,000 Thai Baht where Wan’s family lives… anyways, he then said: what about if you would only have to pay 10,000 Baht a month for 15 years (lease purchase agreement) for a 3 bed room house with a swimming pool, would you then buy a house? OF COURSE! I said, I pay 8,000 for this hell hole I am living in right now! So he said, ok, let’s meet tomorrow and I show you the house! The houses are a little out of town (13km) in an area called Khao Tao (Turtle Mountain), which happens to be one of my favorite places to go to the beach. There were a few more houses for sale under the same conditions and they were really nice, so I asked him if I could also take 2 houses… of course I could, but I had to move quick. Of course at that stage I could and would not take 2 houses, as that would put me at a monthly cost higher than the house I had to move out of due to being low on cash. So I had to come up with some plan, and as things happen to play out, I was offered a full time job working as a webmaster. The pay was good enough to be able to pay both houses and live on a small budget if I had to, but of course I was planning to rent out the 2nd house. With that job in hand, I went directly to sign the papers and got me those houses.

At the end of the first month of my new job my boss came to me saying: I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, you get half your salary, the bad news is you got to wait for the 2nd half. This of course meant big trouble for me, as I had to make the payments on the house AND I needed money to live. The deal with the houses is, that if I default on 2 consecutive monthly payments, all money paid will be seen as rent and I lose all rights to ever own the houses. So, I HAD to pay for the houses, leaving me with a few Baht to my name. I bet you can guess how that made me feel, so I told my boss that I did not take this job because I love it, I took it because I wanted stability in my life and this situation is just unacceptable for me, and IF this should happen again I will have to quit. So, the next month comes along and the unthinkable happens, I didn’t get my salary again, and I didn’t even get half of the salary – I got NOTHING! I cannot even put in words how that made me feel.

I talked to a friend of mine for whom I had done web work before, and as it happened to be he had a lot of work for me to do. He sent me the money to sort out my house payments and leave enough money for my wife to live, as well as money for a flight ticket to come up to Chiang Mai and work with him. I can not even imagine how things would have turned out if it weren’t for my friend. While being in Chiang Mai I got a few phone calls from my “ex-” boss asking me to come back. The work I had done for them had increased inquiries though their website a lot and he wanted me to continue upgrading their site to it’s full potential. I was promised that they got the financial situation under control, so I finished the first part of what my friend needed me to do and came back to Hua Hin, just to be told they still can’t pay me last months salary but want me to continue. I honestly didn’t know what to think of this situation, however after the “meeting” I walked out of the office, called my friend in Chiang Mai, and flew straight back there to continue working with him.

After I returned from Chiang Mai, I starting working on some website projects I had been offered and moved into the new house. It was an exciting time, and even though there were quite a few things wrong with the house that needed to be rectified by the developer, I was really happy to finally be able to say I live in my own four walls. At that time I got a phone call from a guy (now friend) who I helped before getting his laptop working again (Thanks David!) and I told him about the houses and that I wanted to rent one out. As it happened to be, he was looking for a place to rent, and I think he fell in love with the place the moment he saw it. He wants to live in the house for the rest of his life he said… it almost sounded to good to be true. As of November, he is now my neighbor, and the first thing he did is to create a FANTASTIC garden, with huge (palm-)trees and a koi fish pond that curves around one corner of the house with a waterfall and underwater lights and the hole shebang. I actually envy him… if I were a bad person, I’d probably kick him out now! hehehe

Over the years of doing websites, I have created a little side business for hosting and domain name registration. At the end of 2009 I decided to turn this into a real business. I setup a complete system where people can order their web hosting and pay online via credit card or paypal etc, and the hosting is being setup automatically after the payment has been received. I created many different hosting packages to serve everyone’s need, and soon people will also be able to register domains on the fly via this service. Have a look: Affordable Web Hosting

Right before New Years I finally was back to the financial situation I was in at the beginning of the year, but this time with enough jobs lined up for the coming months to not having to worry about where to get the money to pay for the houses and buy food.

I have had quite a few people ask me how I can live like this, being constantly in the edge of being broke… all I can say is that I can live with it quite well as long as I know that I got friends who will save me should I be in danger of falling over, or catch me if I did fall over the edge.

So… I hope this explains a bit why I haven’t found the time or energy to update my homepage.
I wish all of you a wonderful 2010 with lots of fun and success with whatever you are doing.