Thoughts on July 9, 2012

Been very busy past ten days.


Took a trip to meet with some of our investors and began serious discussions on how to fund initial expansion phase of the company. 


Meet a lot of really great people.


It is amazing, when you get away from the world of financial professionals and investment bankers and brokers and talk directly to the people in America that work hard, earn a living, and truly keep our economy afloat how nice and honest most people really are. 


I felt that after these last five days on the road talking to people about our project, our company, and what we need to expand and why I really do not want to have to give up control and ownership in order to secure the needed funding, I felt that these people "got it". 


I am optimistic we may be close to to getting that missing piece of the puzzle in play very shortly.


Of course, got back late Friday night and immediately woke up Saturday sick as a dog.


Today after three days of feeling like "hell" went to local clinic and tested positive for "strep".


Got massive antibiotic shot, a Z-Pak and stuff should start feeling better soon.


Lori is in the third week of her clinical trial using an Iniparib / chemo therapy that we are praying will shrink her metastasises and at least temporarily blunt the aggressive nature of her cancer.


She has an MRI on July 17th to see if we can get a determination if this treatment is having any effect. At the very least we are praying the lesions are not growing and it would be wonderful if they showed signs of shrinkage.


I am flying back to Maryland this weekend. I want to be there for the MRI on the 17th.


Saw that Ernest Borgnine died. Always loved anything he was in from "McHale's Navy" to "The Wild Bunch" to the last role I saw him, a small part in the Bruce Willis movie "RED". He was a convincing screen presence. 


On a more cheerful note, I have to say, I like "Anger Management", the new sitcom with Charley Sheen. Say what you will he is funny, convincing, and for me comforting to watch.  While "Two and a Half Men" may never be matched "Anger Management" simply "isn't bad at all". 


Existence is so much like the ocean. It comes and goes, individuals flourish and then are gone, but the vast body of humanity like the sea, remains constant.


I thought about Eratosthenes today, the Greek who in the third century BC using a measuring stick and an angel, calculated the earth to be about 24,700 miles around. 


Using similar techniques today we know the earth's circumference is 27, 902 miles.  Eratosthenes was a pretty smart fellow.


I have been reading at the buzz over the discovery of the Higgs Bosom or the "god particle" a tag line of pure hyperbole if there ever was one.  


It is impressive scientists have finally (they think) the missing piece,  postulated years ago to exist.


Basically this is the very elusive particle that if confirmed explains how matter acquires mass and how the universe is held together and if some are right may explain how this complex universe came from nothing via a "Big Bang".


I like science and think it really does give us insight into our our world of reality operates. That said, I have never seen the conflict between science and God as valid. 


Our world of reality is clearly not God's world of reality. 


It is amusing, (in my opinion), that some scientists ( and people)  are so loathe to allow for even the possible existence of God that having all of this, "the world, the entire universe, the complexity of life on this tiny little world alone, everything from "howler monkey's" to the possibly newly discovered "Higgs Bosom", having all of this develop from "nothing" is more comforting to their intellectual mind and reason than the possibility of "God" existing.


Actually thinking about it it may be less than amusing it is sad. I suspect as my Grandmother said, "we will never understand God while we are mortal so we simply must have faith and hope of God's existence".


For me, having God as the explanation as to how this all happened is a lot more rational than "it all started from nothing". 


Life is truly wonderful if you can accept that it is also filled with times of tragedy and grief. 

A Day of Significance

We reached 255 votes last night on Face Book so we have qualified to be one of the projects nationwide to be considered for a Chase small business grant of $250,000.


While it is definitely a long shot that we will get the actual grant it will be interesting to see how the project is viewed in the larger world of "social advocacy" outside of traditional business circles. 


Thanks to all that supported this effort. 

(This is the bumper sticker we posted on Face Book thanking all those who voted for us.)


On a far more serious note Lori receives her first treatment of the experimental chemotherapy, combined with the PARP 1 drug "Iniparib", regimen today at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. 


We are all praying that she has no adverse reactions and that her body responds very positively to this treatment.


Finally, we are very close to having all the ponds at the production facility really for re-stocking at full commercial levels. That should be completed over the next few weeks. 


Today, is truly a significant day. 

Roosevelt 1910

It borders on the ironic to say I have been under a bit of pressure lately.

Truth is over the past month just about every time when I thought I could not handle one more piece of bad news; it was delivered to me the next day.

Almost everyone friend and foe alike has weighed on what I am doing wrong, what I could do better, the sins and mistakes of my past, etc.

People can’t help it. It is just the way we are made. Criticizing, and second-guessing, and passing judgment on others, despite admonition from virtually all religions on these actions, the judgments are made and these practices by the self-righteous continue.

Truth be told when you have been through as much as I have and when you reach the point in your life I have, the opinions of others outside of your loved ones and those closest to you, don’t really register.

That said, this morning when I opened an e-mail from my long time partner and friend John Aquilino and saw the following quote from my favorite all time American President, I could not help but smile.

I am sharing it with you because everyone who has ever faced impossible odds, or has been bombarded by the nay-sayers or who simply strives to stand against the crowd, needs to have this in their quiver of resolve.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

Enough

If the planet is to survive and if we as humans are truly going to alleviate poverty, offer a real “quality of life” existence to all, and halt the rape and depletion of the earth’s natural resources beyond recovery, we need to develop real jobs that are profitable, eco-friendly and sustainable.  Period.  End of story!

NGO’s and the world press can only expose and admonish, to me they have both evolved into bloated, self indulgent, self serving, lobbying organizations no different than the companies they criticize for being greedy and lacking compassion and ethics as they march to make an unseemly profit. 

When you peel away all the rhetoric, ultimately governments can only punish and administer.  Creativity, innovation, and real solutions to the world’s problems must and will continue to come from the private or corporate sector.  This epiphany admittedly runs counter to current and widely accepted dogma.  But it’s true.

In order to pay the bills, to raise the quality of life for all, to stop the ceaseless harvest of the world’s dwindling natural resources, we have to learn to practice ethical capitalism.  Let me repeat that and underscore the word “ethical” associated with “capitalism.”

Indeed, it has taken me over a decade and a lifetime of risk and heartache to develop a highly efficient, eco-friendly, job creating, natural system that is efficient in producing high-end marine protein and that has applications to produce hundreds of millions of pounds (or kilos, whichever you prefer) of natural, antibiotic free, marine protein with no negative environmental foot print.

Ironically, now that we have removed all of the technological risk from our system and demonstrated for the third time the productivity and eco-friendly aspects of the system, we are now facing a not unanticipated barrier to growth and expansion.

Remember all those ads from banks and financial brokers and mutual fund and insurance companies that want to “lend and invest so the world can become a better place” or that “care about you and you and me and jobs” well, in the words of the late Jim Nabors through his great TV character Gomer Pyle, “surprise, surprise,” their slogans, their claims, their TV ads stating that they “desire to put their money behind a greener, leaner, cleaner, local business” is lip service, nothing more. 

So I have come to the inescapable conclusion that as important as it was to “build a better mouse trap” (and I apologize to all mice for the metaphor. I prefer “catch and release” as with bonefish played on my fly-rod knowing all the while that they are ultimately unharmed although a tad shaken), it is becoming just as critical that we broadcast our message to as wide an audience as possible through social media, being completely transparent, so we can overcome the cynicism of generations that have seen only the aforementioned lip service and few if any real solutions from any sector.

And for those of us who have lived in both camps, the NGO world and the world of private business, perhaps our only true opportunity to prove we can do what we say we can do, will be to find ways to employ that same phenomenon of social media to circumvent the risk adverse, staid, and unimaginative, (though very greedy, traditional sources of investment capital) and go straight to those of you who recognize that “talk is not action”, and that “if we want the world to be different than we have to begin to do things differently.”

Chase Grant

Okay so I have never really utilized Face Book. In fact, social media and I are still trying to understand one another.


Here's the deal, as you know we are trying to get our shrimp farm operations in Port Isabel Texas into an expanded commercial production. 

We recently engaged a company who works to secure funding for companies like ours, (companies, who do not have a historical income and expense record, but who do have proven new technology and an operating production capability). They are looking to secure a minimum of  2.5  million to a maximum of 10 million in funding to expand our production capacity asap.  

Until they secure those significant funds we need operating capital to keep operations moving and expand production slowly until we can build modules allowing from nearly a million to 10 million pounds per year.

To see our progress down at the Port Isabel facility go to www.globalbluetechnologies.net

Chase Bank along with a group called Living Social is offering 12 grants of up to $250,000 for small businesses.  We've registered. ( And it is probably a long shot, in any case), but as the old adage goes, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained".

The catch is that we have to have 250 votes of support before June 30 in order to qualify. Voting closes June 30th.  Voting is done only via Facebook.  Here's how:

 Click on the link:


https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com


Then scroll down and look at lower right hand side of page from Chase and click on the "log in & support" blue bar under the heading "Log in with Facebook".


This brings up your Facebook log in page:


Type in your Facebook password and this takes you to the:

 "Vote page" for "Mission: Small Business"

 At the bottom of that page there is a box for "company name."  Type in "Global Blue Technologies" that's us, or, in the state box type in "Texas" and city "Port Isabel." 

Then click the search button and GBT comes up on the list. 

 We would appreciate a "Vote" for us.  

If we get the grant and if we get our funding we will throw a huge shrimp feast at South Padre Island just down the causeway from Port Isabel.  It might be in two years but the fun will be worth the wait.

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas as always been one of my favorite poets. 


When I first was old enough to understand death as a part of existence, not long after I found his poem.. 


He wrote it for his dying father but I have always seen it as a 'call to action" to any one who has a loved one in peril. 


To me it offers hope, encouragement, and inspiration and allows me (while recognizing as a good friend of mine always reminds me,"none of us get out of here alive"), there is no glory or honor nor purpose in having one lay down and resign oneself to the end, regardless of how inevitable those around you say may be the case. 


God still does show us miracles and "hope" is still and will always be stronger than despair.


Today, I needed to remind myself that fighting against sometimes seemingly overwhelming odds can lead to that miraculous victory, that exception to the rule, that atypical response. Conversely, not fighting with everything one has surely leads to defeat and loss. 


So here is in my opinion Dylan Thomas' gift to us all. 


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieve it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

HOPE

I am back in Texas trying to regain my focus and get some work done on our aquaculture operation. 


Two weeks ago tomorrow Lori was told her cancer which had again metastasized in the brain and now also her lungs meant she had less than a year to live.


The past two weeks through the efforts and contacts of numerous dear friends and the interventions on Lori's behalf by absolute strangers, we have sound reasons to believe that diagnosis was premature.


In an amazing sequence of events we have gotten Lori into a clinical trial at Georgetown University Hospital in DC, where they will be using a new PARP1 inhibitor in conjunction with chemotherapy to try and attack these new "metastasises". 


This is a chemo treatment that is far less draconian than the "end of life chemo" prescribed by MDA. 


This drug combination was originally recommended by Lori's Maryland oncologist. 


John Aquilino, my close friend and business partner for 17 years, after researching this approach, had been absolutely convinced this was both the correct approach and an essential piece of the treatment for Lori in order to battle the return of the triple negative breast cancer. 


Through incredible networking we managed to get a national clinical trial that had been closed for a month re-opened for Lori. 


We were told this could not be done, however today she is having the baseline MRI required for the clinical trial and her treatment starts a week from today.  


The PARP1 inhibitor called "Iniparib" has been in different stages of clinical trials for the past three years and PARP1 inhibitors from many drug companies are being tested and providing some optimism that they may be one of the keys to eventually eradicating cancer.


In addition, through more effort we have researched and discovered a second stage treatment also in clinical trials that involve the ImMucin vaccine. This treatment in combination with the Iniparib and chemo treatment could be a 1-2 punch that (if Lori's system is responsive) could actually prevent the triple negative cancer form continually reappearing in other organs. 


Through the efforts of a wonderful researcher at the Mayo Clinic, who has taken a personal interest in Lori's case, we had Lori's tissue tested and she is a "strongly positive" match for the ImMucin vaccine. This is a very good thing and an indicator that she "should" respond well to the vaccine therapy.


We are now beginning the effort to have Lori accepted in an ImMucin vaccine clinical trial as soon as she has progressed far enough along in the Iniparib treatments.


In a very encouraging meeting with a brilliant neurologist at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland last Friday we were told, 1) our combination approach of the Iniparib therapy and then the ImMucin vaccine therapy was both scientifically sound and rational and 2) through the use of focused radiation (stereotactic surgery)  to limited area's should the Iniparib therapy not shrink the new brain lesion which is very small at the moment we would have plenty of time to have it removed at John Hopkins. He also was quite adamant that given Lori's overall physical condition, current state of her triple negative cancer, and her age it was very premature to even begin to talk about "how long she has".


It has been an emotionally brutal and grueling two weeks. Lori still has a lot she has to undergo in the weeks and months ahead. 


But with friends like we have and the ability of those same friends to open up doors that seemed closed and to literally move mountains, and with God's will, we all expect to have Lori here with her dogs, her other pets, and her son, and us for many years to come. 


In future postings I will probably write about the absolute vital need to be an advocate for those you love as you navigate the medical system, and the difference a single doctor can make, and indeed how when at times during the past two weeks when I felt I could not take another disappointment God answers prayers. 


But for the moment I am just taking a moment to appreciate that we now have a treatment pathway for Lori that gives us real hope.