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Inspirations

Pictures from 

http://godessofsmallthings.files.wordpress.com, http://www.solarnavigator.net and carsmods.blogspot.com

The world is an inspiration. Honda took 2 famous icons and made the Freed. But to make it less obvious, they put the design at its backside. 

Moral of the story is..... there is none to be found here. 

A Prayer to God

Dear God of Climbing. Bless Your Soul. Bless the Limestones that were erected in your name. Bless the Jugs and Crimps and Slopers and Pinches and Pockets and Over Hangs and Under Clings that were molded in your form. Bless the nylon harnesses and the dynamic ropes and the titanium wire-gate quick draws that allow me to connect to You. And bless the Carbon Magnesium chalks that allow me to prolong that connection.

I have a confession to make. A few weeks back I posted something on my wall. I posted that thought out of anger and spite and frustration and disappointment. I posted that thought by mistake.
I lied. I lied to myself and to my friends and to my friends' friends and to the people all around the world who saw my post that day and the day after and the day after that. I lied. That was not what I really meant. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, O Holy God of Climbing. I'm sure you saw it that way too.

If you alleviate me of this disability, I make a solemn promise. I promise to uphold the codes of Climbing to the letter. If you return me my Godly powers, I promise to pass down your wisdom to others. If you bestow upon me your gravity-defying blessings, I will ensure your efforts will never go to vain. I will make known the legends of The Figure-4, The Figure 9, The Egyptian, The Double Dyno, The Double-Step Dyno, The Two Finger Pull Up, The Hand Jam and the Under Cross-Hand Dyno. The world will hear of these mythical movements. They will gasp in awe. They will embrace these movements. And they will once again applaud your existence.

Hear me, O Holy God of Climbing. Return me my Demi-Godness and I shall return you your Glory and Immortality.

Going Green: Responsibilities.

Little bit of important details one must know and get accustomed to when entering a jungle. If you find all these items down here troublesome and tedious, drop your bags, hang your shoes and forget about ever going into the jungle until you've learned to respect it. Trekking and camping in the jungle comes with responsibilities.

Trekking

1. Guys (the male kind), kindly keep your egos out of the jungle. If you have problem doing so then you should really reconsider entering in the first place.

2. Bring your own trekking poles. It's not cool to go into the trails with a parang and happily chopping up tree branches to use as walking poles when your knees start to give way. Know your limits. If you're weak in the knees, bring your own poles. The cheap ones from China barely costs RM 50 each. Don't be cheaper than that.

3. See the trail, follow the trail. Some trails have red and white ribbons tied onto tree branches, some have yellow or red tags stuck onto tree trunks. Bushwhacking is not recommended under all circumstances, unless you're very experienced. But if you're experienced, you might not need to read this post anyway. Every once in a while turn around to check the trail you came from, in case there are forks you could not spot from the other angle.

4. Engraving your names onto tree trunks? Seriously? Who LOVE who else? You probably didn't cause the tree it's life by engraving your less-than-uneducated names onto the trunk, but please!

5. Avoid using bushcraft in the trails, unless absolutely necessary. Don't know what's bushcraft? Good. Keep it that way.

6. If travelling in a group, stay in a group. There's no shame in asking for a break, even if that girl in front of you is clearly better than you. It's more important to stay in the group.

7. Trek Leader (in front) and Sweeper (at the back), always do a rough head count of everyone in between. Make sure everyone is accounted for, and if not, call for a search immediately.

8. If lost, stay on the trail and stay where you are. Blow the whistle if you have one. If not, call for help without reciting your friends' full names along with their fathers'. Of course the first thing to do if you have a Celcom network is try using your phone.

9. Please keep ALL your rubbish to yourselves, biodegradable or not. This is not negotiable.

10. If you have to take a poop or pee while trekking, I suggest you do it out of the way, as in NOT on the trail. But make sure you have another friend or two to stick around just so you don't get lost while looking for a good spot. You might smell bad, and it'll help now more than ever if you or your friends are smokers.

11. The squirrels are cute, those wild mushrooms look cool, could I take that fuzzy little thing home? No, no and NO! Imagine if 5000 people go past that section of Mount Kinabalu and all want to take home a squirrel as souvenir. What's left there?

12. When going into nature and enjoying it's beauty, please enter ONLY with the same nature we have all been given: with legs (or anything similar in kind). 4x4 truckers have no respect for nature whatsoever. You'll agree once you've seen how much damage these people have caused the natural balance all in the name of 'sport'. If you guys wanna learn problem solving, go to Club Med.

13. Hashers you're not forgiven as well. Shame on you, throwing all those papers around the trail. Biodegradable, yes. Eye-sore, also yes!


Camping

1. Bring tents with adequate poles and pegs to avoid using materials from your surroundings. Yes, the idea of camping is not to McGuyver your way through but to enjoy nature while doing as little damage to it as possible. Which also includes skewers for your little marshmallows.

2. Some damages are inevitable but can be minimized. When selecting a spot to lay your tent, please remove all dried leaves and twigs. This will disturb the balance of the site, but it will also ensure you don't sleep on scorpions and centipedes.

3. Contrary to popular beliefs, boxing your campsite with yellow sulfur will not keep snakes and scorpions out. I've seen sulfur lines stained with snake's slither marks. And did the shopkeeper tell you it's poison to people as well?

4. If you're camping at the beach, avoid having your tent's entrance facing the sea or the opposite. You'll be catching the worse winds into your tent and eventually damaging it's structure.

5. Avoid starting campfires. They consume too much wood, generate too much fume and you only sit around it to talk cock. If you have to use campfires, keep them small. Small enough to generate enough ambers to bake that cake or chocolate banana, and nothing more. Harvest fire fuel only from dead trees, as it should be. Keep fires well away from tents, and sheltered from winds. Keep a pail of water and/or sand nearby. Fires are more unpredictable that you think. Before sleep, please make sure the ambers are cold to the touch. I've seen fires restart by strong winds with almost dead ambers. Many times. Feel like it's a tedious task? Then don't start fires.

6. Do not start fires using those white-colored solid fuel. They're very kuno and extremely poisonous. Challenge yourself to a 3 match-stick start, or use those organic fire starters satay guys use on coals. Cap Ayam.  I've seen people use kerosene or petrol. This is what will happen: Big ignition, much black smoke, fire  returning to it's original size. Because all you're burning is kerosene, not the wood.

7. Set bio ditches for excess food and the other bio ditch for your pee and crap away from tents. Pee and crap have to be down stream from the spot where you pick up river water, and at least 200  yards (180 m) away from any water source.

8. It's dinner time, and it's raining. Should you cook in your tent? Why not? But do you want to cook your tent instead? More so if you're using an MSR. So under no circumstances shall you cook in your tent.

9. I know. The Marlboro Man sleeps outside his tent at night. He's also dead from excessive smoking. Snakes are cold blooded. When the night gets too cold, they need to find a warm spot to adjust their temperature. And guess what? You're nicely cuddled in your sleeping bag, warm and cozy. You wake up in the morning and feel something cold and scaly wrapped around your legs inside the sleeping bag. Good riddance.

Business: The Epic Fail Cycle

Time and time again we see businesses fail. Wanna know why? Simple. Here are examples of reasons why businesses fail to take flight, or die after a few years of operation. 

1. Fail-To-Planners

Okay here we have the biggest misconception in the history of mankind: There's no need to study business in order to run one. Sure, we see some good companies in the world founded by Engineers and Doctors (The REAL ones). What about the ones we don't see? The countless millions that just open shop, and inevitably die the next day? We don't because they don't live long enough for us to notice. 

Problem with these Fail-To-Planners is their perception of business. They collect about RM100k, spend it all on rentals, interior design, and what-nots. They have the coolest idea in the world, that's to make their restaurant Different from others'. Their restaurants became so different nobody wanted to eat their food! And what about operational costs? Don't know what's that? And the first 3-5 months of running the business on a loss while developing awareness and getting people to visit your little cafe? Why 3-5 months? Simply because it takes that long for people to notice your cafe's existence and actually try it out. 

7 out of 10 will close-shop by now. "Material prices too expensive. Location not good enough, all the realtor's fault. Partner left. Market not ready for our kind of product. Too niche. Customs don't allow us to import dolphin meat". All rubbish! If you've splurged all your initial modal on fancy interiors and famous chefs, where are you gonna get the money to sustain operating on a loss? I bet you didn't know you need to do that for 3-5 months right? 

2. Fail-To-Marketers

You spent half a million on that dream restaurant of yours, and you refused to hire proper and professional marketing and advertising teams to run your campaign for you. "Ridiculous la! I also know how to take pictures and post flyers la! Save the money, I do myself". And all your staff will ever do is swat flies day-in day-out. Do not underestimate the power of marketing and advertising, and what the professionals can do that you'll never be able to figure out. Simply because they got that 'Useless Degree'. Coca-Cola tastes like shit. They're one of the biggest companies in the world simply because they turned that shitty sugar-water into the coolest drink in the world through marketing. Fosters Beer is by far the crappiest beer in the world. Same thing: marketing. And Absolut Vodka? Who would've thought the Swedish can make anything other than boring cars and cheap furniture? 

You've got that Million stacked up behind the restaurant. But how many hundred thousands will you be ready to lose before finally calling it quits? 

3. Fail-To-Sustainers

By far I think this is the most important criteria of failing in business. Why? Because it's like doing CPR on your dying wife from Ipoh to KL, and she ends up dying in the hospital, surrounded by doctors. 

This is the Epic Fail Cycle of how your business will now die:

Problem: Not enough customers to sustain business. Running on loss

Solution: Blame it on bad season. Reduce costs to maintain. 

Result: Food quality sucks. Not enough waiters to handle the crowd. Your remaining loyal customers don't return.

Solution 2: Maintain existing operations. Jack up prices to make up for loss, and hopefully can break-even.

Result: What some more?! Nobody will return la! 

Solution 3: Spend cautiously on ridiculously stupid marketing campaigns to lure near-freeloaders to eat at your place and hang out there for longer periods.

Result: You've just attracted the one crowd you never want in your restaurant: Free Loaders. Too many people eat only during those times, and those who hang out will hog the already limited number of tables you have, ordering Ais-Kosong one after another for at least 3 hours. 

4. Fail-To-Leavers

This I cannot blame you. Some people are born leaders, others try to make it, but majority of the people out there don't even know how to spell the word LEADER. Being a leader is being able to inspire, NOT direct and manage. Many don't quite know the meaning of these. 

You're already 65. Rich like hell, and wanna retire and go on holidays with your wife before either or both of you die. You've been training this Protege for years now. You've seen him work, and he's good. You leave the company for good. 2 months later, it faces bankruptcy. You've got no choice but to return. You end up working until 83, retire and die swallowing an ice cube the next day on the way to your first holiday with your wife. 

Advice

When things don't go right in your business, inject funds. Or find ways to make your business run more efficiently so costs can be cut from there. Don't ever direct extra income from your customers. Don't reduce workforce on sales departments (waiters included as they're your closest hands to the customers), as they're the ones who actually make money for you. This will only end in a further INCREASE in losses, for sure. If anything, INCREASE commissions on your sales teams to encourage them to work harder! 

Marketing and advertising teams are out there for you to use. Don't stinge on them. Whatever their advise, absorb and process. Don't try to act smart and do them all by yourself. They can sell ice to Eskimos, and you can't even sell food to hungry people.