The Value of Opportunity

I am sitting in the airport at Addis Abeba, Ethiopia waiting for My next connecting flight. Left Myanmar ten hours ago and have two more locations this trip to visit for potential sites for our aquaculture system. 

Myanmar struck me emotionally in a fashion I have not been used to in the past. I always thought if you worked hard, gave it your all, life would sooner or later open opportunities for you and the quality of your existence would improve. 

In Myanmar that simply is not true and I am now realizing that is not true in most countries around the world including the USA. Chance, circumstance, fate, or the luck of the draw can all deny the hardest worker, the most dedicated student, the opportunity to live as Plato once put it, "the good life". People work hard in Myanmar but a military run government here the past 50 plus years has created an infrastructure that simply offers little or no hope for a better life, not for the working adult nor for their children. 

But in America as well, where you are born, the cultural group in which you find yourself, even the pressure of a pre-determined peer group can deny even the smartest, the best looking, the most studious person a shot at " the good life". 

I have been very fortunate. I have exceeded my best and wildest hopes and dreams given my beginnings and initial station in life. I used to joke that I made things happen by "force of Wills". 

Reflecting on what I have seen these past few days and what I have yet to observe on this trip, it has become painfully obvious to me that without the help and kindness of certain "key" individuals that crossed my path as my life unfolded even my intelligence and my drive (forget good looks, they were not present), in all probability would not have yielded me the wonderful and comfortable adult life I have had and continue to experience. 

So, as we are about to grow this company, build sustainable shrimp and fish farms, and produce a good degree of wealth and opportunity, I am going to look for those who join our team, who cross my path, who are loyal, are self motivated, etc., I intend to make sure they have the opportunities to have that better, that good life. 

Theodore Roosevelt supposedly once said, "opportunity is rarer than ability". 

I think finally, I know what he meant.

Myanmar - Brief Update

Sitting in hotel in Yangon at this moment. Raining so hard words like " torrential" and " monsoon" sound like under statements. 

Myanmar is truly a fascinating place. Impoverished and so underdeveloped to the point of disbelief, a totally deteriorated infrastructure, extreme poverty, yet the people are literally the nicest and most polite people I have ever encountered. 

The fact that this is such a rich country both in natural resources and energy makes the intolerable conditions of the citizenry all that more appalling. 

Yet, there is a general feeling of optimism and even enthusiasm here. Everyone is convinced " the Lady" is coming into power, and with free elections promised in 2015 perhaps this country once the " bread basket of Southeast Asia" is on the verge of emerging into the 21st century as a new and free state. 

I have flown south to Dawei and hope to fly down to Myeik (near the Thai border) tomorrow. 

The beaches in the south are breathtaking. 

I have much to write and some great (and some tragic) stories to share as well as pictures to post once I get back to States. 

I am writing this post on my IPad 2 which is a challenge for me. Internet and wi-fi very unreliable here. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors. 

Incredible Buddhist temples everywhere and here Buddhist monks do not " play " at Buddhism. They live by the kindness of donations of rice and other food from the populace and they have no material possessions and sleep where they can find a dry place to lay down. And finding a dry place this time of year is no easy task. 

BUSY

I really like to try and keep this blog updated with a bit more regularity.

Unfortunately, the past few months have been very demanding time wise so I have had to write on the fly "so to speak".

Today is no different as I am doing last minute preparations before departing tomorrow to spend the next two weeks traveling to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East assessing potential future sites on which to locate our production facilities.

I am hoping to start construction on our first overseas production facility in October of this year.

But I digress, important things first.

Lori is now in the ONT-10 vaccine trial at the Mary Crowley Cancer Center (MCCC) in Dallas, Texas. She has received her first (of eight) weekly vaccines. 

The bad news is that she now has a small lesion in her liver, not good at all, and two new small lesions in her brain.

The good news is that the doctors at the MCCC are very confident that the vaccine will halt the liver metastasis.

She is their very first ever "brain met" patient but I and others on her medical team are very optimistic this vaccine will penetrate her brain blood membrane and halt the progression there as well. 

She looks great and her spirits are good which given everything she has endured is a testament to her strength and determination to survive. 

We will get our first results in eight weeks so now we continue to pray.

Dirt and earth work at Copano bay is going great. The first ponds for the first production module were sculpted last week. Very exciting to see the ponds themselves begin to take shape.

We had two very important visitors to the site last week. They are two members of our international group and they were favorably impressed with the progress they saw at Copano Bay and the progress so far of the mock production run at our Port Isabel facility.

I will be back in about 16 days. I will try and update this blog while on my trip but not sure where I will have "wi-fi" and where I will not.

Over the past 12 years developing this system and perfecting our production capability all of us (the core team) involved with making this happen have dealt with a lot of negativity.

From "egomaniac" partners, to "shyster" investors, to negative and condemning comments from traditional aquaculture types,(and more) we have endured them all and tried to keep our efforts under the radar and do what we knew we needed to do to make this all happen. 

(There is even one individual out there claiming he developed our system and taking credit in his promotional materials for work we did in 2006-2008 that he was not even aware of at the time it was going on. Now that is "ballsy".). 

As one of our management team puts it "it is better to let everyone discover what we are doing well, then to try and explain it to those who cannot even begin to fathom what we have done and what we have now achieved". 

We never tried to keep our work a secret. We know secrets do not last. As Ben Franklin once said, "two people can keep a secret, if one of them is dead". 

This past week an article in "Shrimp News" appeared that basically outlines our system and what we are attempting. 

Suffice to say, "the cat is out of the bag". 

As a consequence we have been deluged with requests for information from individuals who want to purchase our shrimp to those who want to be our "partners". 

It is kind of funny ("ironic" not "ha ha" funny) that as we tried to get financing and assistance the past 12 years and particularly since 2009, we could not generate a single serious potential deal from outside interests.

Then in 2010 when we decided to go forward using only our own circle of friends, family, and friends of friends to get us to where we are today, suddenly one small article appears and offers to help start pouring in.

This is an old story built one that bears repeating. Never forget the ones that got you where you are today. 

(You can count on the fact I will never forget those who made it possible for me to make this all happen). 

Everyone wants to jump on board when you win, but very few have the integrity, the courage, and the willingness to take a chance on the unproven. 

Those that do make all progress possible.

Reflections on June 1, 2013

Having June 1 fall on a Saturday allows me a very rare quiet moment to reflect on the past six months and what we have accomplished both personally and professionally. 

On the professional front we have made substantial progress on the site at Copano Bay. The heavy dirt work, moving almost 700,000 cubic yards, is about halfway done.

Sculpting of the first 8 ponds for the first module is beginning. The rigid air structure that will cover the entire 8 ponds has been ordered and is being fabricated. 

The office trailer is on site and should be ready for occupancy on or before June 7th.

On the international front I am very pleased to say we have executed all the agreements and and are now (as of 6/1) officially "in play internationally". I am very excited to be working with our new "partners" in the international arena.

I am preparing to do one of my first "around the world flights" for the first time in quite a few years. 

I used to do them quite a bit back in my earlier incantation as a global investigator of animal and environmental abuse. 

(see my blog "It All Started With Tarzan").

The past few years however, my travel has been more to one or two countries and then back to the USA.

On the personal front Lori is officially in the vaccine trial in Dallas. Her first preemptive chemo treatment is June 3rd and then she starts on the vaccine on June 6. We are all praying this works as it could give her a chance at long term remission. 

Since Lori first learned she has "tnbc" which was diagnosed in February 2011 she has had multiple doctors tell her she needs to go home and prepare for the end. In fact, over 14 months ago she was told by a highly respected doctor at a nationally renown cancer treatment hospital that she had less than 6 months and she should not waste her energy pursuing cutting edge clinical trials. 

I think the moral of that story is "Never listen to a doctor that gives you an expiration date". 

We are very optimistic that this vaccine, with is designed to use the patient's own immune system to learn to recognize the MUC cells associated with cancer and then destroy them, will work for Lori. 

(If it can penetrate the blood brain membrane it should work). 

While we wait these next eight-nine weeks to see if that is indeed the case we are still researching and searching the globe for the next option. We will be prepared in any case.

I am not big on what I  call "sappy inspirational" platitudes but the other day sitting at the Mary Crowley Cancer Center in Dallas, Texas I read this sign on their wall and it brought a smile to my face. So I am sharing it with you. It is actually very true.