Thoughts on a Sunday Night in Maryland

I have been at my house in Maryland the past three days. 

First time in a long time that I have had the opportunity or occasion to be back at my own house in Maryland alone, at least as far as human company goes. 

Oliver and Wigs, my last two surviving cats, 18 and 17 years old respectively, and Lily, our African grey parrot, now almost 20 years old still reside here with the young woman who takes care of them and the house.

The young woman who looks after the house has gone on her yearly retreat with her boyfriend and given the work load and schedule that I know I will be facing over the next year it seemed a great opportunity for me to spend some time getting back in some semblance of physical shape, doing some introspective reflection, and in short, catching my breath after the insanity and pressure of the past 6 years, both professional and personal.

I have hiked the wonderful scenic woodland trails here in Maryland each day and continue to marvel at the deer, the squirrels, raccoons, field mice, the multitude of bird species, and more and once again, am reminded of the beauty and diversity of nature and the incredible amount of sentient life on this planet. It always strengthens my faith in a "Creator".

On the personal front the latest news on Lori is not good, in fact, it is very bad. About 10 weeks ago tests showed once again progression of the metastatic "tnbc" in Lori's brain.

A new chemo cocktail was developed and after several battles with the insurance company (yes, that battle seems to never end), we got approval for payment and to go forward.  That combination worked very well for almost two months. 

But this cancer Lori has battled for 41 months is very aggressive and adaptable and last week her tests showed serious progression in her liver. 

Her pain has been increasing and her appetite decreasing neither of which is good and worse her memory and ability to recall things has declined.

So, in two weeks a "new" combination of chemo drugs will begin, 
(this time thank goodness already approved by the insurance company) and we will see what we can do about slowing or halting the liver metastasizes. 

We continue to pray for miracles and I personally want to thank the thousands of you who pray every day for Lori. The fact she is still with us years after virtually every oncologist in the USA said she could not survive 24 months with metastatic "tnbc" let alone 41 months is a testament to the power of those prayers.

Ironically, on the business front things are going very, very, well. 

Despite several ongoing frustrations with the piss poor quality of some of our suppliers, both in their manufacturing capability and in their installation, (and in my view in their integrity) we are making significant progress growing shrimp. 

Steve Groe, one of our major investors and a professional electrician, who has his own business in Iowa, has taken on the task of Chairman of the Construction Committee and between his efforts and those of Eduardo, I think we are beginning to perfect the construction and design side of the company, which has been our greatest frustration to date. 

I recently (July) wrote about my frustrations with American manufacturing and installation in a blog that had in the title, 
" Paradigm Shifts and 747's". 

Eduardo is now firmly entrenched as the VP of Operations, and has taken total control of production and we are expecting our first partial harvest next month. 

This will be the very first commercial harvest using this system that has taken over a decade to design, develop, modify, re-design, and build and I can only tell you I still believe this system is going to change the world.

And starting in October we will be beginning one project (building our system) in Asia and I anticipate at least 1 project in both the Middle East and Latin America to begin before years end.

At the end of this blog I am trying something new. I am going to try and put up a 5 second video taken of the shrimp being weighed last week. I have no idea if you will be able to access it but if you can watch it closely as it is very short and taken with a phone camera video. 

But if you can access it you will get to see a big shrimp jump and boy, can they jump. 

I do not give as much detail as I used to about what we are now doing with our system as we are now starting to attract too much attention from those who potentially could be in a position to benefit by copying our system. 

Though I may just be paranoid after everything I have been through. 

Jim Salmon, who heads up our sales and marketing and distribution company and who was a former Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute as well as a VP for General Mills and a great friend, says "we could give someone the plans and the instructions and it would still take them ten years to get to where we are today."

He may be right. 

But I have fought to much, worked too hard, and risked too much, and have a lot of people who have helped along the way  that I want to benefit now as we start being commercially successful, to take that chance. 

In any event, these are my current thoughts on a Sunday night in Maryland. 

I think someday very soon I am going to write a fun blog, with no mention of cancer or work or any serious topic in it at all. 

Maybe I will write an ode to John Wayne, still my favorite movie star after all these years, or maybe a treatise on the Zen-like spirituality of fly fishing. 

I hope you can access the attached brief but funny video.