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.