Sunday, November 3, 2013
The Midnight Run
The
Midnight Run
Well my friends there are few things worse
than being sick while you are traveling.
Oh wait, I think there is…if you are traveling over 10K miles away, AND
you are in AFRICA!!! Well lucky for us
we are in the beautiful and very sophisticated (1st world) country
of South Africa. If you have to get
sick on this continent, this is the country with which to do it.
Ken, Don and I had just gotten back from
the Apartheid Museum. Don is Don Agee
the CFO with our JV partner AGES worldwide.
We had planned to go to an area called
“New Town” for some good local jazz music. Don and I were having dinner and we were waiting
for Ken, but he did not show up for dinner.
Once we realized he was 15 minutes late for dinner I thought he had
fallen asleep….nope! He was violently
ill, not to go into any details, but after multiple over the counter attempts
to get it under control, we quickly realized that he had to go to the emergency
room; he was loosing a large amount of fluids.
The owner of our Manor, (Marnel) who is a delight, was just wonderful,
she got her car, and Don and I helped get Ken to her car then we were off. Ten minutes later we arrived at a hospital
that was first rate and well staffed. I
had Ken with his arm around my shoulders as I was going right by the desk to
through the “hospital staff only” doors and walked him right into exam room
number two. At this point, I was not
asking anymore and the nurses knew better to even ask, as I guess my look was
one of ….don’t even! I helped get him
down, we got his vitals, and the nurse agreed to give him an IV and an
anti-nausea injection before the doctor came.
That helped a great deal. We
waited an hour, and finally the doctor came in and they did some blood work,
and we had to wait another hour for the results. Meanwhile Ken’s IV was finished and he was
starting to get nauseas again, so round two with the anti-nausea
medication. Once the blood results came
in we saw the white cell count was too high indicating a bacterial
infection. The Doctor came back and said;
“Now I am going to give you some Jet Fuel.
(Not kidding)” It was another liter of IV fluids with about six different
injections of a variety of vitamins, and by the time he was done the IV liquid
was Pink, and all this stuff was going into Ken’s veins. Meanwhile I am thinking whoa…but at the same
time, I figured these guys have definitely seen this before, because they knew
exactly what to do. After that bag was
done it was 3:00 AM, and Ken was feeling much better, and I called for our
driver and he came to pick us up. Side
note, our driver is from Zimbabwe, and I have advised the Manor owner that I do
not want anyone but him…his name is Russell and he is and was fantastic,
caring, and protective of us…the perfect person to have as a trusted guide in a
foreign land. When we come back, I will
stay at the same place with the same driver I cannot say enough good things
about both. Ok, back to Ken, so now it
is 3:15, Ken is totally spent and my adrenaline is running out, and the Doctor
said that we need some prescriptions to pick up, we had to go to ANOTHER
hospital to get them filled because the hospital where Ken was being cared for
had a pharmacy, but it was closed, and the only pharmacy that was 24-hrs was
some where else. The last thing Ken
wanted to do was wait another minute, but if this was bacterial, we needed
those drugs, ASAP, so off we go. Ken is
not a happy camper, the pharmacy was extremely efficient and there was no wait.
We made it back to the room at 3:45 AM
and Ken fell fast asleep. One more side
note: the doctor and nurses were so
awesome, they wanted to give us their cell phone numbers and as we were driving
to the manor, they kept on texting me “are you at home yet?” and “please advise us when you are home safe”
Very cool. Now, I am not going to
answer this question, but we obviously did not have RSA medical insurance, so
how much do you think all of this cost?
Remember, 3.5 hours in an emergency room, two IV’s probably no less than
six intravenous meds, a complete blood work up, and three prescriptions and
full retail price. What was the total
cost? Please use the comment section to
post your comments and later in the week I will let you know total cost.
I have lots of pictures that I will upload, so stay tuned. It is off to Rustenburg tomorrow, so stay tuned. Cheers,
Will
Friday, November 1, 2013
Here is my partner's bio (CV)...you may have to copy and paste it into your url.
http://chflaw.com/kenneth_cassutt_attorney.html
Platinum
Today we visited with the largest platinum mind in the world. They are headquartered in London and have revenues in excess of $40 Billion. It was an excellent meeting. In fact after we finished our meeting we received a phone call from one of their executives asking to meet with us on Tuesday. Very cool. This has been a great week. Next week we will be meeting with the department of energy policy, ESKOM (they supply 80% of the power for the entire continent of Africa!!!), the World Bank, and many more....it is starting to roll. Hopefully, we can get all of our questions answered before we come back. So far so good. We shall see. Stay tuned.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tomorrow's agenda
Tomorrow we are meeting with the two largest platinum mines in the world. They use 25% of all of South African's available power to do the processing of platinum, and they are very interested in our business model. Should be a good few meetings. We have to get up very early. It has been a very busy week thus far. No complaints. Talk to you soon.
Our travels today...all going very well.
Russell, our driver, he is awesome.
This is the University of South Africa, the tuition is free
Ken and I on the way to visit with the Department of Trade and Industry...it was and excellent meeting.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The sounds at night and dinner
We just finished eating a venison appetizer and an ostrich steak. It was simply amazing. Now i am writing to all of you and hearing all types of wild life in the bush. It is really something - they are SOOO loud! Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.
The flight and beyond
October 28, 2013 We are off!
I am writing this somewhere well off the coast of South America in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We are
flying in a Boeing 777-200 LR (Long Range).
I have no idea what time it is and don't care. I can see that we still have 11 hours to go
to our destination – dinner is over and so is the movie I was watching. I really lucked out on my seats; I am
setting in an aisle seat with NO BODY in my row!! The flight attendant told me that I should
buy a lottery ticket. I can see first
class from my seat and each seat has a separate cabin type structure and the
seat conforms to a bed…very cool, but the price of such a seat is not so cool
(~$10K). So now that I have the two
seats open to my left, I can stretch out as well and my seat cost about 1/10 of
the price of first class. The triple 7
is a great aircraft, and it is huge.
Hearing those engine turn over was awesome….the immense power. Very cool – OK I am going to try to get some
sleep.
October 29, 2013. OK, this is officially the longest continuous
flight I have ever flown, and we still have four hours left. So, that would make it about 12:30 Jo’burg
time. I was able to grab a quick shave
etc…and I feel much better. All in all,
this has not been so bad especially having the entire row to myself. So, let me take a quick moment and let all
of you know what the heck I am doing all the way down here. I started a company over four years ago with
my partner Ken Cassutt from Santa Fe’.
It was our intent to find unique and profitable green technologies. A year after we started our first venture, we
started a second one called Emissions Tech Partners, Inc. (ETP). Through our general discovery with the other
business, we found a green technology that focused on stationary emitters of pollutants
(C02, S0x, N0x, and other harmful green house gases). This technology was invented by a company
called Skyonic. Their website is www.Skyonic.com They have patented a process whereby they can
transform pollution into everyday products such as baking soda, chlorine,
bleach, hydrochloric acid, limestone, and more.
Ken and I met Skyonic about 2 ½
years ago and we both quickly realized that they were on to something that
could truly be a revolutionary process as well as a bipartisan solution to
green house emissions. Fast forward to
May of 2013. Skyonic was awarded $128
million to build the first conversion plant of its kind in San Antonio,
Texas. They broke ground on it one month
ago and it should be operational and producing a bunch of baking soda in
Sept/Oct 2014. In addition, Skyonic has
a very impressive board of directors comprised of GE, BP, Conoco Phillips, as
well as a few other big names in the business.
They were also awarded a significant grant from the US Dept. of
Energy. Now that they have been able to
prove that this process works on a commercial scale, other countries are now
very interested in working with them, but Skyonic cannot be everywhere at the
same time, so they have to be very selective with the projects they choose and
their locations. They are in a variety
of phases with other projects in China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, and South
Africa. Skyonic has authorized ETP to
work on the South African project and this trip is specifically intended for us
to gather some very specific information about they type of coal they burn, the
composition of the pollutants, as well as many other very detailed
questions. Once we gather all of that
information, we will come back to the U.S. with our data in hand, and meet with
Skyonic and collectively we will develop a financial model that should be
presented to many parties in South Africa sometime in January or February.
Another interesting point, we have developed
a very close relationship with another company that is extremely well connected
inside South Africa, and through their help and our own independent work we
have been able to line up some great meetings.
I will share with you about those as they come about. If all
goes well, we will establish a South African based company to run the
operation, and Skyonic as advised us that they see an advantage working with
ETP on other projects through out the world.
Clearly, this is all I want to do for the rest of my life. We are still in the early stages, but
everything seems to be very promising and no risk, no reward. But the coolest thing is being a part of this
solution and having even the smallest impact.
It is humbling to say the least.
I promise that tis blog will NOT be all
work related because all work and no play makes me a dull boy! So, I plan on spending most of this blog
discussing the culture, food, animals, etc..
Of course I will touch on some of the meetings, but I will not bore you
with the technical details. However,
there is a great article that was recently published that does dive pretty deep
into this technology and its profound reach…so if you would like a copy of the
article please shoot me an email wonka44@gmail.com
and I will get it over to you as soon as I can.
We now have 3 hours and 15 minutes
left. I will sign off for now, and put
something up when I get to the hotel.
Cheers!
Sunday, October 27, 2013
FYI on this blog. If you want to post a comment keep two things in mind, (1) this blog is being seen by many people and (2) I think you have to set up a google account in order to comment or ask questions. It is very straight forward, only takes a couple of seconds and it is free. OK, the Taxi shows up tomorrow a 5:00 AM. My next post will be from my Hotel on Tuesday I hope all of you have a great week!
Well, I am off. Tomorrow morning I will leave Seattle at 7:35 AM and arrive in Johannesburg the next day at 3:35 PM. It will be about a 25 hour trip all together, then we have a pretty significant ride to the hotel. I will post pictures and thoughts throughout my trip. I will also let all of you know what the heck I am doing halfway around the world. I will write something on the VERY LONG flight over...OMG!!!!
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