Two Disparate Events

I have a few thoughts I want to share on two disparate but significant events of the past few days.

Our excavating company brought a few pieces of equipment on site today at Copano Bay. (We already had a CAT D9T on site). 

This has been overshadowed by its 146,499 lb., big brother, the D10T, (pictured just below) which was delivered to site on Friday. 

They also today dropped off a 45,700 lb., CAT 815F Soil Compactor and a 5000 gallon CAT613C Water Tanker. 

The Soil Compactor is a tamping wheel type unit, where the multiple tips on each wheel push down into freshly spread loose earth to compress it down as the machine drives over the top.

Today we began stripping topsoil, knocking down the existing pond berms, and compacting the soil in the fill area. The site will never be the same again.

By the end of the week the excavators will have three more 361 Scrapers on site and can begin the mass earthworks.

This contract allowed for 90 days from start to finish. We are hopeful it will be done in 75 days or less. 

We should be finished installing all of the infrastructure for all four modules in phase 1 as well as have the first module up and being filled with water by and September.

Less than two years ago we broke ground on a scaled down production module in Port Isabel, Texas to build a structure that could prove we had the capability to take our technology and our system to commercial and industrial levels.

Today, two week before the two-year anniversary of that ground breaking we begin the massive earth moving work and take the first step toward building our first commercial facility.

Lot of folks worked hard to make this happen.

Kudos to all.

My cat Buster dies this past week. He was one of four cats we adopted about 15 years ago. He was a great guy.

If you read this blog regularly you know how much animals mean to me.

A lot of people claim to be either dog people or cat people. I love all dogs. They are amazing friends and companions.

That said, I love cats just as much. I admire their intelligence, their physicality, and their attitudes.

Mark Twain supposedly once said, “if you could cross cats with mankind, it would be a step forward for mankind, but two steps backwards for cats”. I couldn’t agree more.

Buster went very easy. (I always thank God for the fact that most of our animals go very easily).

The last day of Buster’s life a veterinarian friend came by on the possibility that we might want to consider euthanasia for Buster, if he was in too much pain.

Ironically after three previous days of being somewhat uncomfortable Buster was having a pretty good day. He was in his favorite bed upstairs looking at a squirrel on the window ledge probably contemplating if he could catch it or not.

Our veterinarian friend opined that perhaps since Buster was having a “good day” it might be best to put him to sleep, (a euphemism I have always despised).

I have heard many pet owners over the years make a similar statement. It always bothered me. I mean, think of the logic. “The end is near and he may suffer at the very end, but right now he is enjoying the last days, hours, minutes of this very precious gift we call life, so let’s deprive him of whatever time he has left, let’s play God, and end it now. It will be better this way”.

I always wonder whom it will be better for? Certainly it will not be better for the living, feeling, creature that for the moment, is relishing the simple beauty of living.

Buster died about 6 hours later that evening. He went to sleep and did not wake up, still in his favorite bed, surrounded by everything he loved, and with which he was familiar.

I think it was definitely better that way.