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fab people

Joel Disini May 17, 2006 Wednesday

Joel Disini

TheLoneRider Site - Down!
I recently discovered that my site ranked no.l in Google's "mountain biking mountaineering" keyword search. I was ecstatic. Finally, my hard work in search engine optimization (SEO) paid off. I logged in today to check my site only to find out it has been pulled out by my webhost, Warped.com. Don't get me wrong. Those guys are great. Being with them all these years, they agreed to give me a pass from January to March in exchange for banner ads. I guess they could no longer sustain the arrangement. My site was pulled out. I can't blame them. I also have my hands tied. With foreign exchange zooming to dizzying heights, it became increasingly hard for me to continue shelling out US dollars for my webhosting fees.

A Sense of Mourning
I thought I had prepared myself for it, but when my site was already down, it felt like a part of me died. This site has been my alter-ego for the last 5 years. A great deal of my daily time is devoted documenting my local on-goings for live posting...and now it's gone. I'll shake out of it, but for now, I got the blues.

Joel Disini
Luckily for me, a generous offer was extended to me August 2005 by a certain Joel Disini. He is CEO of DotPH, the Domain Registry for the Philippines, and he also runs an ISP called EMC. He offered to host my site free for two years on any plan offered by his company. I graciously thanked him but said I was completely happy with my webhost. That was then.

Bike Fix
How did I ever come across Joel? I remember a brief episode in UP when I helped out a young kid who couldn't make his bike work. Helping out anyone on a bike is second nature to me. I've done it many times in the past. Peeps on a bike are all cut from the same cloth. No biggie here. Anyway, the father thanked me and I was gone. I don't even remember his face and that was that.

A Mt. Pulag Search
Some months later, I got an email from the father saying he searched the web for Mt. Pulag and came upon my site. From the pictures, he recognized me as the same guy who helped his son. That's when he emailed me, thanking me again and extending such a generous offer...that I initially declined. That was then when I still had a credit balance with my Warped webhost, but there's none left and I'm hurting for cash. A few weeks ago, I emailed him asking if the offer was still on the table. He said 'Yes'.

MindBlogger
I mustered enough audacity to avail of the most expensive plan they have - the MindBlogger, at US$150/year. That's a lot more money than my Warped host was charging me. But somehow, I felt I needed to find out everything Joel's company is offering and see how far I can push my site to leverage from it all...then I can talk about it further as I write about my journal.

Ending Thoughts
It turned out I could still continue my subscription with Warped. However, I'm left with a thought that a good deed I've done in the past potentially saved my butt. Is there a moral to all this? I'm tempted to say, "do good things because they'll come back to you ten-fold". But that suggests an ulterior motive for a good deed. A good deed is a good deed and that's where it stops. I'll leave the moral then as, "...just when you think the shit hit the fan, a pleasant curve ball can come your way. Life is full of unexpected surprises."

In Joel Disini, I'm just glad to come across a first-rate guy with a class act - a good samaritan in CEO clothing.

--- TheLoneRider

Update (Aug 3, 2000): With my coming down to Manila for my Dad's birthday, I touched base with Joel to see if he's available to get together. We finally met at Alterra Bike Shop along Libis. He's also in the market for a mountain bike. Hopefully, he'll get his bike and ride the trails with me in Sagada.

Comments? Email webmaster@thelonerider.com

Reader Comments:

Rosby Melencio
(11 Mar 2007) You're a very good writer. Candid and informative. I'll be visiting your site again soon. (I used to dive a lot in the late 90s & am also a graduate of U.P.)

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