July 1998

Filtek was formed on the 5th day of February 1984.  Our primary role was to introduce a cheaper alternative for repairing arcade games, pinball machines and juke boxes.  This was done quite successfully for several years.

In August 1996 Filtek was moved from the Midvale workshop to the more central location of Belmont, Western Australia, which also incorporated a showroom.  Immediately upon reopening, Filtek had filled a gap in the Western Australian used games market by selling " the Classic pieces" that our industry had endured in the early 80's, video games like Space Invaders, Pacman, Moon Patrol, Defender, and many many more. Pinballs machines such as Meteor, Addams Family, Fish Tales, Terminator II, Pinbot and Banzai Run began to get sold at a rapid rate too.  Only in the latter months of 1997 did Filtek also begin selling some on the later model games such as Daytona, Sega Rally, and Alpine Surfers.  This completes the full spectrum of the industry. Essentially Filtek still does the repairs it always has done in the past. We just had to move with the times and sell product. Customers no longer wanted to deal with one company for repairs and one company for sales.

Now called Filtek Australia, our future is looking good with many home market and operators as good clients. Business has now expanded to International customers via the world wide web. We also have a number of different service technician's, all of which work in their own chosen repair field, i.e. one contract technician does chassis repairs, power supplies and coin mechanisms, another tech does board repairs, another tech does Pinny's and so on. Between all the staff at Filtek Australia we have a combined 50 years experience in the amusement industry. 

Change is something that is hard for us all to do and sometimes accept. However we at Filtek Australia realise that to survive and keep the competitive edge in our industry, change is part of our life blood.  Filtek Australia staff are always bouncing new idea's off of Operators. If we move with the times, the times will move with us. We are here for the long haul, no matter what changes have to be done.

We survive in our state with the combined efforts of operators and other technicians. All putting in every effort to do what ever is necessary to keep the games going.

June 2001

We are now finding that we deal a lot more with international customers, rather than our older customer base consisting of Professional Operators and the home market throughout our state in Australia. We often here the story that goes along the lines of this:

" Roughly ten years ago I was on holiday at a friends house and they had an old cocktail machine, I spent (To my wife's disgust) nearly the whole holiday on the machine playing Galaxian. I spent more time on the machine than sightseeing and and sleeping combined. 

I was very amazed that you could even buy this sort of thing for home, I mean, I knew you could play the things at any corner deli, but to actually own one for home was something I had never considered. My mate got hit with a barrage of question's, Where did you get it from?, How much did it cost you?, Can you put other games in the machine?, What did your wife say when you bought it home?"

We also get a lot of the next line, they have been pulled into the industry via the above and then next does happen a lot: 

" Anyway from that day on I've been collecting video games and pinball machines, the house looks more like an amusement arcade than a house." 

Let this be a warning to you, our industry is addictive!

A special thanks to "Stewie" (he knows who he is) for the above, it was inspired by him, they are his words. However we do hear them all the time.  

Repairs

On to the repair side of things. We don't mind a bit that you do a bit of tinkering around when you have a fault on your machine. But please after you (or your electrician mate) have played with it and made it worse, tell us what you (or your electrician mate) did. This way we don't have to diagnose what you (or your electrician mate) did, we can just  fix what you (or your electrician mate) did, then we can fix the original fault. Don't tell us "I didn't touch it, it just stopped working." we can tell when you put the connector on the wrong way, believe us okay. We have, a lot of work on most of the time, and this is what has prompted us to start a Work In Progress (WIP) page. You can check when your game got here for repair, what the current problem is, and when it is likely to be finished. Please remember though, we don't quote on any jobs, we are far to busy for this, we just fix the game and get it out.    

Repeat Business

Filtek Australia is here because of the repeat business we get. If we could indulge a few more minutes of your time we would like to let you in on a short story about the place:

In 1996 we were 4 days from closing the doors. No business was coming in the door and we had all but made up our mind that we were going to shut the doors except for one customer we had been working on to buy some gear. We had tided up the books for the accountant, we had taken all the personal possessions away, and had all the systems in place so that we could begin to shut down the business, get real jobs and continue our lives paying off a debt that we considered at the time to be huge, from a bad business decision.  This was the first turning point for the business.

 That customer we had been working on, came in and bought four pinball machines. With enough profit margin to cover the rent we stayed open for "just a few more weeks." (I can still hear myself saying that now)  Well this customer referred us to everyone he knew, all his mates came in and bought some gear and their mates came in. Professional Operators, seeing that we were moving some stock came in through the door, and pretty soon we had started a mailing list to Professional Operators throughout Western Australia. It had a monthly newsletter (on real paper too! ) and a stock list of everything we had.  By mid 1998 we were ready to hit the international scene (we thought) by getting on the Internet. (Just while we are on that subject of the internet, we were very anti the internet at first, it wasn't until our competition rang us and told us we had to be on the internet, and he pointed out the cost saving for our business that we listened to him. He even helped us out with computer we had at the time to get it on the net. We never did thank him for that, We must get around to it. "Slick,......Thanks mate!") Anyway we just toyed with the net for awhile getting about 1000 hits in the first year of being on the net. (Not bloody much we can tell you, but we justified it by saying it equated out to 20 extra customers coming through the doors per week, in a year. At the time that was "wooooo whooooo") 

The next turning point in the business happened soon after the net was really starting to work for us. At about the beginning of the year 2000 we were in serious trouble again, the accounts we had with the Professional Operators of Western Australia had blown out to in excess of $64000.00. A lot of money in any ones language. So me made the decision we knew would kill off a lot of our business, (but we didn't know it was going to be as bad as it was going to be) we stopped all accounts, and put everyone on COD. No matter who they were. Boy, did this offend a few people, people that thought they were our mates rang us and abused us, we put it down to this, "how could they be our mates and make us hold on, this long for our money." Well if we knew what we knew about the next two months after that we would not have done it. We went from over 400 customers dealing with us on a regular basis, (paying bits and pieces off there account at a time) to 15 customers that did pay there account. We can tell you now, business does not look good when you have 15 customers. We were at that crisis point again, no money and asking the question again to ourselves "When do you think we should close the doors". (however we were getting a lot of people send us the money that they owed us, telling us that they would not be able to use us again, because of your new money system.)   All we could do was give those customers that we still had, the best service we could. (Lets face it, there was nothing else to do anyway) It's funny you know, we have to come to realise that the customers that pay thier way in the world, are also the customers that whinge the least, and are the most successful. These people soon put us onto their mates in the game. (They tried to keep us their little secret, but word gets out eventually) After about another 8 months or so, we knew this was the right decision to make, to get the customers to pay up front. Because we have cash flow, our suppliers have cash flow, they are happy with us, and we are happy with our customers for paying. The bastard that invented the 90 day payment plan needs his arse kicked.  So you see we are happy for the return business, because everyone knows the rules. If they don't like the rules, they can go elsewhere.  

Special Thanks

Even though we had our small stream of customers coming in the door and the amount was growing steadily, we had racked up some debt whilst we had 15 customers. We asked our suppliers to bare with us for a while, and that "We will pay, we just need some time." We must have said this about 5 times a day for awhile. Some of the big distributors of the day put our accounts on "Stop", we have no loyalty to those companies today. Others let us go knowing the sort of people we are, we were good to our word. We still use those businesses now, but they had faith, for the return of that faith, we have loyalty. These people know who they are but we will mention a couple to say thanks: Steve at Highway Games, thanks for everything mate, and Slick from Jomac Amusement Repairs, the man is a life saver. These businesses are the good guys in the industry, let me assure you. We have met one or two more since this event, but we can tell you we have met a lot more of the rogues as well.

At about the same time as all this was happening, a guy with absolutely nil electronics  experience came through the door and wanted to know if he could learn how to be a tech for this industry. Now we have to tell you we get asked this about once a week. Normally we get rid of them fairly quickly, but this guy was persistent and he pushed all the right buttons, his big claim to fame for me was that he could do websites. Finally, some one that could up date my website, and he wanted to do it for free, as long as we passed on to him what little knowledge we had. We decided we would give him a go because it was going to beneficial to us both. Well in about a week he knew more than us on board repairs and my website was starting to look good. He did everything he could to get that website whipped into shape, throwing up heaps of ideas and implementing them. All this whilst working a fulltime job at night time, and fixing boards on Fridays during the day. This tech (as he is now) still thinks he just jags repairs, he thinks every repair is a fluke, we don't know anyone we could hand a Sega Rally boards to, that have two different graphic faults on the boards and have them both fixed on the Friday evening that he comes in. Steve would have to be the best board repairer in this state when it comes to the older classic boards working in the industry. The newer boards (like Sega Rally) he might not be the best, but then again, he doesn't have all the expensive equipment at his finger tips either. We are glad we met this fella when we did.  With all the changes he has made to the web site and the suggestions he has made, it is certainly paying off now. Thanks Steve.

One more thing has happened if we can indulge you a little further, (scroll down it's not that far to go.) and that is stability. Filtek Australia has been through it fair share of tech's in the last five years, some have been on drugs, some have been really weird and some have claimed to be able to fix anything from the Singapore Airline Control Tower to Photo copiers. But mainly they were just weird. That is until the Aceman came along, this place had no stability. The Aceman (as we call him) or Jason (as his mother calls him) has been the back bone, that has been able to  provide that stability that Filtek Australia so desperately needed. As the Lead Technician at Filtek Australia, we don't think we could get a better guy running the show.  He knows his games, he knows his repairs, and he knows how to deal with people.

We don't think we have missed anyone out, but if we have sorry and thanks.

May 2002

Operating

Filtek Australia has not operated machines on site for one main reason before. And that was simply this, we didn't want to operate machines on the sites of the very customers that were buying from us.

Well times have changed, and all but a handful of nice guys (meaning we can count them on one hand) are still operating machines, with enough rogue operators out there to upset any harmony we had in the industry. We have decided to get in on the act of operating. We don't knock off sites from our customers, and we have told them that we will be operating sites. We have also told them that they will be for sale for the price of three months gross take of the site.

We have to say that we were sick of operators telling us how hard it was to find sites, and telling us that we had no idea how hard it was. You know the type, "Doom and Gloom" all over the place. Well we went out for two hours on a Thursday evening and got three sites. Yeah one was only a fish and chip shop pulling $35.00 a week, and the other was a Deli doing even worse on $15.00 a week, just those two site out of the three were only making $50.00 a week between three machines that were worth about $2200.00 collectively, but hey, the machines are better out there than sitting at home not earning a thing. That's $1000.00 a year in our pockets. (Only need another 50 sites like those to earn enough to live on hahahahaah) Anyway we saved the best till last here: The third site we got, pulled us over $600.00 per week. And it was just an ice cream shop.

You can never under estimate a site. It's easy to over estimate, what's the worst that can happen here, you might have to pull out some stock, but you wont know if it's any good unless you try the site.... We mean what's it going to cost you.... This is the way we look at it: take the site, no matter the bucks it takes, and use it for storage until a really good site comes up, and haul all the gear you have out on site and you know works perfectly (Because you have had it out on the shitty little site basically being tested each week in preparation for the big site) to the new site. How hard can that be.      

something else I just noticed when I was looking at the dates I post things on this page, it's about ever 11 months that I revisit it to update a few things. So it would be about every 11 months, I suppose, that we get a "turning point" in our history. Back soon hahaha.

September 2002

"G"

Aceman has left us to pursue a career in computers. So it's out with the old and in with the new. Gerry, or "G" as he signs his emails, has come to fill the spot. A computer industry person that was looking for a challenge. We thought "Hey!, we can't pay this guy even 20% of the huge (Nobody is worth that much!) kind of income he was on, so if you wanna give it a try, by all means, step into the technician shoes, and see how they fit." and bugger me.... he took those shoes, tried them on and got straight into it. I mean.... I have seen computer geeks (No offence) before try their hand at our industry, and they have all, every single one of them failed dismally, leaving a trail of destruction that can only be measured in dollars. This guy, "G" has been able to fix problems on pinballs, with no trouble, (It would help that G is not a geek though, more a operations type, co-ordinator if there is such a position around) and I have thrown in some curly problems, like..... "This Guns & Roses pinball blows a 5Amp fuses for no apparent reason whilst playing the game... fix it, let me know how you are going" Well two hours later, he has traced the problem to the magnets, they come on in a game, and blow the fuse, the reason they blow the fuse, is that when the magnets are activated, on the same line as them, a GE89 lamp holder has been screwed into the wood, (Not factory) and the screw, is touching a staple leg under the wood surface. So when the magnets, and two different light sources come on all at the same time, it takes out the fuse. (Which should have been a 3AMP SB fuse by the way). Even some of the best tech's in the industry would have been stumped on this one for day's because that's how long the problem sometimes took to come up. Literally days. You literally needed, two different lights sources to be on at the same time as the magnets. New technician position filled, no problem.

G, has taken quite an interest in the business / industry, and wants to get involved in answering some of the many emails, and newsgroup questions that come our way. (rec.games.pinball) He wants to be able to ask the pinball faithful some questions, and perhaps answer some of their questions. So you may see your emails getting answered by G in future, which will take a huge load of myself, over time.

Over all, the times ahead are starting to look good. Almost makes you want to look around, and wait for that huge problem to come up from behind and smack you in the head. Narr, I might just sit back in my chair and smile a little, it feels like I haven't done that for years.

March 2003

"What can you say....."

And then just when you think your faith in humanity is looking to start the healing process, along comes another idiot.

From the start..... We had a customer come in, and he wanted a couple of his machines for his new house in Ellenbrook. He seemed like a nice guy, just wanted a small cockpit driving game and a pinball. Not hard... and he picked out the two pieces he wanted. 

Now the guy was a little strapped for cash at the moment, so we didn't slug him the full amount for the machines up front. He said he was able to pay them off over a few weeks on a sort of Lay By system. (that we don't normally do) the guy had paid us a couple of hundred dollars and taken the driving game. Now he was starting to pay off the Pinball machine that he asked us to put aside, nothing flash (a older Lost World pinny) but none the less a pinball machine. With just over 10% paid, we thought we could hang on for the guy for a little while, no sweat.

Here is where it gets interesting..... Now we haven't come into work on a Saturday for years. Well this particular Saturday, we decided to come in and do a bit of a tidy up. I thought, "well I am here... I might as well deliver this Incredible Hulk pinball to that guy down the road, that we just finished repairing on Friday, that way it will free up some of my time on Monday". So I loaded up the Incredible Hulk pinball and dropped it off to the customer. On my way back into the yard, I noticed a truck was down in the loading bay, and had just loaded something up. I came up to the front office and asked Sharon (the Receptionist & Minister for Home Affairs )if she knew what was going on with the truck that just left. "Nope.... didn't know anyone was there" came the reply, soI took off after the truck, but, he was gone, long gone, the truck was now outta sight, and I didn't know which way to go with it.

Still, just for go measure when I came in to speak to Sharon and ask her about the truck the first time, I had already written down the buggers rego... just in case.... Victorian Registration PPO - 973 (Bloody Victorians hey:-) Anyway... I rang the cops and told them what had happened, and they put it across the two way that we had a pinball stolen by a young guy in his mid 20's, white truck approximately a 3.8 tonner, with a red taut liner.

At this point I had done everything I could, and I was really pissed off that someone would have that bigga balls to do that. I mean, the receptionist was here, and I had just done a delivery. Now of course with this comes with the mandatory, "what if's.... What if I had only spoken to the Incredible Hulk customer for a few minutes less? What if that woman that had cut me off didn't, I would have been here just a few minutes earlier. What if Sharon had been outside, What if Sharon had just had the lights on in the building? But the fact remains I wasn't, and she didn't. A Pinball had just been stolen from Filtek Australia, and I watched it leave on a truck. The pinball we had just sold the day before, (Trident by Stern) had just left the building.

At this point I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I went home, pissed off, and looking at every truck that I over took, or went passed me, for a red taut liner and a tail lift with Victorian rego.

When I got home, it kept bugging me that he (The little thief) had stolen an old Stern Trident Pinball, instead of a Stand Up Simpsons Video Game that was right next to it. If he was not industry related, surely he would have gone the Simpsons, they are still popular. But no... he went the old Trident. He had to have some knowledge of the industry, and how we work our system here. So I went to our "Work In Progress" page on the website and changed the section that said "Ready for Pick Up" and wrote down this:

 Stolen from yard, Truck Rego PPO 973 (Victorian Rego) White truck with a Red Taut Liner. At 3.05 PM on the 8th of March 2003. Single Male occupant short light coloured hair in his mid 20's. Truck had a tail lift. Reported to police on the same day at 3.20 PM. I/R# 08030315234246.

My weekend was stuffed, but at least I thought I had covered all the bases and done as much as I could.

On Sunday night at 10.00pm I got a phone call from a Police Officer Graeme Harvey, who told me that a very strange occurrence had just happened. He told me that a a person had just rang him and confessed to stealing a pinball machine from our premises. The police officer went on to say that it wasn't often that you got people ringing up to confess they had stolen something, but the officer had his name address and telephone number, what did we want to do. My first instinct was to just get the Trident Pinball machine, so of course the machine part of the deal was set in motion to be recovered. It was to be dropped off by the offending person tomorrow at 10.00am or to be taken to the nearest police station to him that night. I opted for him to drop it off to us in the morning at 10.00am. I wanted to meet this guy with balls so large. Then the Police Officer gave us his name. Not that I would put the name here on this webpage, but the guy was a customer that was paying off a machine. Yep, you guessed it, it was the Lost World Pinball customer. Nice guy hey. We go out of our way to get him want he wants, and he steals a different pinball off us.

Our theory as to why he rang the police to confess, is that he went on to the Work In Progress page on the website to check how much he had to pay off his machine, (basically... how much do I have to sell this stolen Trident pinball machine for to pay off the Lost World pinball machine)  and he noticed that the machine he had stolen (the Trident) had new details next to it, and it was only Sunday. (One day after he had stolen it) We must have been at Filtek and caught him in the act.

To end this on a good note, yeah we got the machine back, slight damage, but at least the backglass was still intact.

New Partner

Oh yeah one more thing, Filtek Australia has just taken on a new partner. Gerry, (the tech mentioned above) has just bought in as a part owner of Filtek Australia. Cant complain, he can fix stuff, he has customer liaison ability and he has some fresh new ideas for us. So over time, you may notice a couple of small changes and a couple of big ones. Hopefully this will lead us to taking a larger share of both the international and local market game sales. 

One change that have already been looked at, done, and completed was our first container of pinball's in from another country. (Pic's can be viewed on our "Sight and Sound Page") we got in a container of all 90's model pinball machines so that we could sell them into our choking pinball market. If we had more pinball's we would be able to sell them. So we bought more pinball's, 17 in fact. (Not quite a full container, but a container none the less.) Take a look at the sight & sound page, and get the Power Point Presentation of the pinball's as they were being unloaded.

Lots happened in March didn't it.

April 2003

This is another one of those "changing direction" moments in a business. As you can imagine, taking on a partner is going to have some immediate changes. The problems with running Filtek Australia have been addressed, and we have decided to become operators first and foremost. (For the benefit of the home market this means we are going to operate machines out on site. i.e Pinball machines, drink machines, video games.... and so on) The decision was reached after one too many customers complained about the invoice value for getting their machine repaired. Our receptionist is not here to take abuse from people that love the fact their machine is working perfectly, but they don't like the amount it cost to get it to that point. 

Customers wanted a perfect machine, but wanted it done for nothing. We have had enough of this, and are turning to the fun side of industry, that being operating machines. We will still be doing repairs for our valued customers, however, doing repairs will no longer be our number one priority. Any customer that doesn't like the bill, is welcome to go elsewhere, we want our customer base for repairs to be at a level that we only have the customers who appreciate our efforts, and know we are good at what we do.  Of course we will still be selling parts to the people that want to buy parts from us, and we will still be selling equipment to anyone that wants to buy from us. It's the repairs we now no longer wish to make a priority. Sorry to all the people that don't and haven't complained about the cost of repairs in the past, and we know it's the same old line "A few have wrecked it for the rest" but we have to have our place of business a fun place to work. Abusive customers don't make the day fun.

The priority for us, is Operating machines first, selling equipment and parts second, and repairs will happen when we get time in between.

October 2003

With our round at a manageable level, (On a side note: it amazes us how people / operators say it is hard to find good sites, we have found 12 good sites in 6 months.... sure there are a heap of other sites out there, and we have tried a few with limited success, but these 12 sites contain 8 Pinball Machines, 1 x Kiddie Ride, 2 x Video Games, 3 x Driving simulators, 5 x Drinks machines, and 1 x snack machine. These were not hard to get, the percentages are some of the best in this country.) Anyway we have decided to take a look at something new. Whilst doing our drink machines run, we have found a new energy drink to Australia, and it seems to be doing well.

With the drinks doing so well, we have gotten into the "Drink Distribution business" without even trying. Almost by accident, these drinks have getting asked for by pubs and clubs all over the metro area. This has taken myself away from my normal duties of organising the repairs to be done, making sure the round is being maintained, doing sales of amusement equipment, and answering all the emails. People have been emailing asking if everything is okay over here in the west... the simple answer "Yeah, it's no problem, we are just going through a small restructuring stage." Gerry will be now in charge of the workshop, internal sales, and answering the emails. I of course wont be just sitting around, I will be out selling Go Fast to the pubs and clubs... yeah... that will be a hard job ;-)....... this stuff sells itself. Anyway, I will be out on the road allot very soon. Gerry will be in the hot seat now. I suppose it will be like Filtek Australia is under new management.... Funny when you look at it like that really. Anyway, we will give this a go, and see where it takes us.

June 2004

   Well, we nearly sold the business last month, as we were about to sell it to a couple of guys we were telling them what we do and what we make, and in the process talked ourselves of selling it to them... We thought we wanted to sell the business, but as you take a step back, realise what you are saying and what you are doing when you are selling it to someone, you think... this is too much fun, what am I doing... what else could I do that would make us this money whilst having fun at the same time?.....

Anyway, enough talk of selling, we decided to fix the place up a bit, sort of appeal to the home market customers that come in a bit, and in the process, make the working environment better.

First step, lets get the van out their advertising to the locals.... check this out:

Reckon this will attract a bit of attention or what? Put the green glow lights under the car so that people can notice the glow, then read the van, painted a few bits of black plastic white, and take a look at her now.

Got a few more things on the agenda to attract the local market, putting up a few walls in the workshop and showroom area will happen in the next couple of months, getting a sea container for storage, huge signage out the front of the workshop, a bit of sign writing on the Ute wouldn't go astray either, with one long term project set to start to be put together in the next couple of months that should change the way we do business for good.

Stay tuned.

October 2004

Well, what a difference a few months can make... one wall is up, one to go.....

.Out with the old... in with the older... "G" our previous technician and business partner has taken a turn for the worse and got himself in a very sick situation... so to cut a long story short his doctors have told him to "have no stress, and just concentrate on getting better" so with that... "G" is gone... left, sold his share in the business, and is concentrating on just getting better, however long it takes....

I said "out with the old and in with the older".... Jase the Ace... is back... we are still operating machines, but selling the site with machines... It is hoped that we can get some new customers involved in the industry, we maintain the new sites we get whilst we are waiting for them to be sold.... so we always have new site, and the operators of Perth can get themselves new sites from our "Sites for sale" page.... Parts have become our biggest focus of late... finding the right parts at the right price.... If we dont have it listed, we do our best to find you the obscure parts you are looking for...

Speaking "The right price" we have formally launched our new discount card... check it out..... could be good to grab one for your next parts order..

Check out the site and sound page on the website, and click on "Discount Card" PDF and download it....

December 2004

To Stay or Not to Stay...

Well, it's been awhile coming... but this showroom seems to be costing us more money that we are making from it. It might be time to move on.... Nobody comes in anymore... every one seems to shop on line...

So we weighed it up...

Reasons for staying....

We have a showroom for people without the net

We have a showroom for people that like to "Touch" what they want

Having a premises gives you credibility when dealing with suppliers.

Basically it was all about credibility.... Credibility costs money... Money that customers are no longer prepared to pay for.

Reasons for moving to "Online" only

We are dealing with "Tyre Kickers" that waste far too much time when they come in.

Rent expense will be gone

Because "we can" move our business to home... (This is the biggest reason)

Less fuel costs

Less phone costs

Less insurance costs

Back yarders that have an internet presence only, can always beat our prices as they have no "Real" expenses.

We ourselves no longer go to shops... we shop on line for everything..... we have become what we are ourselves

I get to build a big shed in our backyard that I will be able to call "The Toy Shed" and use the Toy Shed for everything I need.

So we have decided to keep the round... keep the parts online for sale, keep the website so we can still sell gear... on a "Site unseen" basis.

With the basics weighed up.... It's time to move... here are some of the things we are gonna have to do to make this a smooth transition.

Let the wife know what's happening. - Done 22nd of December 2004

Let the staff know what's happening. - Done 23rd of December 2004

Clean up the workshop so that everything is ready to move.

Get everything powder coated before we leave.

Get the quotes for a shed and driveway.

Website... fully overhauled with new colours and new name.

Lay a concrete slab and driveway in the back yard.

Get the shed put up.

Let the landlord of this place know we are moving.

Let creditors know we are moving... and to relax... they will get there money...

Let the people know that have things here on consignment to come and pick their gear up.

Rip out the air conditioning from the workshop and get it installed in the shed.

Deck out the shed with insulation on the walls.

Cladding on the walls

Benches put up.

Test Rigs set up.

Shelving from the workshop put in.

Get everything out of the workshop and into the shed.

Wireless internet connection from the home office.

Should all take about 6 - 8 weeks from start to finish... pfft... yeah right... Lets start it today... 22nd of December 2004.

Would have to get all this done whilst we keep the round going, so funds keep coming in. If anything else needs to be added in that I have forgotten about... I will add it in... just so we can keep a record of what's happened.... I am actually looking forward to it...

June 2006

Well, it's been awhile hasn't it. Just after the above was being put into practice, "The Big Move" shit hit the fan.

January 19th, the wife and 1/3 business partner left the business and the marriage. Serious stuff considering we had been together for 15 years. 7 weeks after this, the other 1/3 business partner decided to leave the business because he couldn't handle the increased workload. (I wasn't functioning too well. (Yeah I know... I use to say "Don't worry mate, there is a new one on every corner" however, unless you have been there you probably wont understand the feelings and what you make it mean when your wife bails on you.)

It would have been okay if the business partner just left, but when he left owing me $20K it was a bit of a drama for me. And that's what the business had become, it had gone from a "we" to a "me". All the staff had either been sacked or had quietly moved on... My immediate goal was to effectively look after my little girl (then 6, now 8).

I wasn't much of a dad when I had the business, and that's part of the reason the wife bailed. Now, the daughter comes first. And I am now able to make decisions on what I am doing and how things will go.

I've erected a very small shed to house all the parts that were in Filtek. All the high turn over stuff. All the gear is still just shoved into my carport, a storage shed, and a mates carport (Thanks Guru :) )

Basically it's gonna go like this.... we are gonna sell off everything. All the boards will be eBayed. the boards page will be deleted (If it hasn't already by the time you read this) along with all the non working PCB's as well.

All the parts will be sold off when they are found and categorised. If your local, and I mean "Local" give me a call on 0438 345 835 to view the parts I have found so far. Mainly pinball parts.

As for everything... when it's gone, it's gone, and there will be no restocking of anything. The prices that are listed on the pages within will stay the same until sold out.

I have a few machines on site, and I am willing to move them onto a person that is as passionate about machines as I was. I don't want to let down my sites with someone that treats the machines like an ATM. If your interested give me a call. Also the website name and address. If your up for the challenge you can take over the website for a price of course. Everything is for sale. You can have the website, and a list of where everything is purchased from around the world, including the buy prices, the sell prices, and who to buy it from. Just about every part you can think of, and where it's bough from is on a Excel spread sheet I have kept close to my chest for years. $5000.00 AUD will get you that list the website and the domain name. Basically the price of a good pinball machine, and you will have everything you need to run a successful parts business on line. I personally would like to see a consortium of pinball enthusiasts take over, and maybe get a chat room going on the site. However, I realise once it's sold, it's sold.  Same phone number as above if your interested.

Of course the rest of the site is up to date now, and all the sites for sale are just that... up for sale. If your local, take a look, a great deal of the sites have been sold if they had pinball machines on them. (One enthusiastic Pinball collector bought the lot) the Vending Machines are up for sale, and I more than welcome any serious buyers to come around with me one week to see just how much vending machines pull coin from sites. I am in a new field now, and these machines, whilst the coin is good, it's time for me to move on.

As things happen I will announce it here. I have to say I have been amazed at the amount of people that still visit the site. 12 months ago it had just cracked the 200 000 visitors to the site, now we are over 300 000 visitors. nearly 300 visitors a day, from a site that hasn't been touched in 18 months.

Finally, to all the customers that stayed loyal, even past the end, thanks for coming, thanks for being patient whilst I got my life together. I wont forget.

To all the people that made life just that little bit harder whilst I was "getting there" I have already forgotten you.

GAME OVER BOYS.

November 2006

The next instalment on the road.... It's all good, I've decided not to sell out of the business completely, I'm keeping the snack and drink vending machines that I have left. The cash flow from that business is surprisingly hard to live without actually.

I've got a new girlfriend :) my daughter is doing fantastic at school, and I work from the time I drop her off at school, to the time I have to leave to pick her up. (It's tough doing 5 hours straight :) and of course I have my vending machine round to do as well. for one week a fortnight I do my round, on the other week I schedule in work. You know what the most amazing thing is.... I am working less, earning more, not stressing out about the money, the bills, pissed off customers, spending real quality time with my daughter. I know it's easy to say I should have done this years ago, trouble is I was told to do it years ago... I just didn't listen.... The wife left, and the legacy is.... I was forced to choose a different life, one I didn't know.... one I am very proud to say, I made the effort to make it work, and it works better than I thought it ever would. Took nearly two years. Some men never fully recover from a long term realtionship. I was never gonna let that happen to me.

The X - Wife and I get on great. Not just for the sake of our little girl together as you might be thinking or expect, but to make sure we are both doing okay.

Thanks for all the kind words you guys have been emailing me.... Just letting you know, it's gotten better.

P.S: The website and list of suppliers is still for sale. When I get serious about stuff, I might just email it to a few distributors and see if they want the name.

May 2007

Well what a few of months. The Snack and drink vending machine business is now on the market. I put it in the local paper for sale and I have narrowed it down to three serious buyers. Interesting how two are in a conversation of money... and I don't really have a conversation about money anymore... it'll be there when I need it... it's always has been. As soon as that sells I will be looking to tidy up a few loose end debts and cruise for awhile...

Just read the above statement about the new girlfriend. I've had a few since then.... and I am noticing a common theme, not that I am chasing someone from this profession, but.... a nurse, a x-paramedic, another nurse, and now a training doctor... what's with that? must be I am looking for the caring side of them. :) Anyway... I have settled down after a spate of different ones... This one is will to take herself on when we recognise that something doesn't work. Gotta be happy with that.

I bought an investment property that I'm renting out, things are a little tight, but we (myself, my daughter, and the new girlfriend) are happy. 

I've decided to start eBaying everything that's left over from this business as soon as I get the vending machine business sold... That'll give me something to do for a few months... photographing all this stuff.... eBay... who would of thought all this cool stuff would end up selling on eBay.

I'm doing a lot of courses with Landmark Education... I have to say that since I have been doing these courses my life works... I've been doing things in my life I wouldn't normally have done... like the investment property... Life just occurs differently, the conversation in my head has gone from "Is this it... is this as good as life gets?" to... "Yeah.... bring this shit on... what else can I do..." those life long goals you don't think are possible to attain... or they will always be dream's this education gives you the tools to get what you want. Email me about it if you want to know more... I dont get a free set of steak knives or commission of any kind... I just attribute the last two years of my life working as well as it has been to this education.... anyway....

Keep sending me emails for what you want... I'll get to the orders slowly... sorry it's just me now... no staff to call on so it will take time...

Thanks for reading this far

Russ

Dad / Boyfriend / Business Builder

Filtek Australia