Gung Hee Fat Choy

Happy Chinese New Years everyone. "Gung Hee Fat Choy" or "Xin Nian Kuai Le" It's my year of the pig this time around! OINK OINK. Actually from what I understand, it doesn't necessarily mean good luck when it's your year, it may mean things will be more volatile. Which certainly looks like it may be heading in that direction....

For those keeping track of my curious life, it's been a little busy lately... my condo looks like a small hurricane went through it. Yesterday I came home from a whole day of meetings and just flopped down almost comatose. I didn't want to move. Lucky it was a good TV night of "Survivor" and "Grey's Anatomy"

If you're curious what's happened of the "Wounderful World" situation, the ring shop, Na Hoku, just ended up offering to fix the situation by replacing my rings with exact duplicates of the same quality & offering a $250 store credit.

I felt after a year of aggrivation, that just wasn't enough. I asked for a full refund and they gave it to me without so much of an apology. The store manager just pretty much said "Sorry it didn't work out" and that was about it. I got the sense everyone in the store just pretty much felt embarrassed about the situation and wanted me out of there ASAP.

In the end, I'm not so much angry at them anymore because I got all my money back. But I must say I'm very disappointed. I didn't ask for this situation, nor did I originally set out with the intention of asking them for some huge deal to fix this problem. But the way I see it, after all the bad blood they've received from me & everyone I know about this situation, they could have had the foresight to do something amazing for us to fix the problem just to be an example to everyone that they ARE human and they make errors, BUT they resolve the situation in a spectacular way. I mean, what good is a $250 store credit when I've lost all confidence in their store. DUH! This was a situation they could have turned into a positive PR opportunity.

As it stands, I'm not going to shop there anymore, and neither are all of my friends and family. Even my hairdresser said he's going to write a stink letter to them to express how much bullshit this whole situation was. Sounds funny doesn't it... you'd be surprised how good business people hairdressers are. They cut hair for hundreds of business people all the time, so they're good sources of insight.

Now I'm back to square one to find an engagement ring and wedding band for my fiancee. Oh well, maybe it's a blessing in disguise.

Business is going good. I've had a few fun print projects:
This was a 39" framed poster that will sit on the wall of the Hawaii State Teacher's Association wall showing their company vision statement. Fun little project. Those tropical Monstera fern leaves aren't technically native to Hawaii like the ULU "breadfruit" leaves, but they certainly look nicer from a design standpoint. Everyone there liked it and that's the important thing.


Little postcard-sized promotional pieces to be packed into the Aloha Run tradeshow this weekend. I actually volunteered some time this weekend to try to take some keiki action photo shots during the fun run this Saturday. I'm a bit nervous I'll just end up with 500+ blurry images, but what the heck, I gotta start somewhere.

Brochure piece. I gotta love the Internet because it makes projects like this possible. Quick turn-around job for a good client of mine in the Mainland. Although I would have LOVED the excuse to fly to the Mainland for jobs like these...shucks.

Our BNI chapter kick-off event yesterday was a HUGE success. We had something like 30 guests show up ranging from KITV4 reps down to professional landscapers and jewelry makers. It was a great networking opportunity and I may have picked up a few projects in the immediate future. Being involved in BNI takes up a good portion of time each week, but it pays off if you stick to it in the long run. If I calculate the opportunity cost of the time I'm putting into this, I may not be breaking even yet, but it's improving each week.... hopefully by the end of this first year the word-of-mouth I generate doing this type of networking will pay off with some big jobs.

Well, back to work work work.... where'd my play time go?