You CAN take it with you.

I attended the funeral of my first cousin yesterday. He was the Marine's top shooter and held that record for 3 years. His name was Aubrey Brooks and he was the son my mother's sister. Aubrey was a most successful business man and almost certainly the wealthiest of all of my relatives.

When my brother called me to tell me that Aubrey had passed away and that there were some special arrangements made for his funeral, I have to admit that I laughed out loud instead of crying. Among the many requests that he made, the one that stood out the most contained a list of things that he ordered to be put in the casket with him.

He had a flask of whiskey, a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, a buckeye and most importantly, a check for a million dollars that I'm sure was a good check.

I only had one business venture with Aubrey but I felt that it was worthy of note here as some of you Vietnam Veterans will get a kick out of it. It had nothing to do with combat but in the end, combat was the thing that brought the venture to a screeching halt.

I had worked as a distributor for a rock crusher manufacturer for many years. Along the way, I learned a lot of things about particle acceleration, instantaneous deceleration and the resulting product that was produced when a rock is impacted against a stationery object when flying through the air at 6,000 feet per minute. With that, I learned how to take stone, gravel, glass, sand and other materials from their present state and reduce them in size to something more usable.

I needed some money to help design and build a machine that would take the "down hole rock cuttings" from a drilling rig and reduce them in size so they could be re-injected down the annulus of a well. This is part of the process that occurs after the drill bit cuts the stone into little pieces and pumps them back to the surface with the mud that was recirculating throughout the drilling process.

The point in all this was to eliminate the need to pump the cuttings overboard into a barge that would take them from offshore wells to a disposal site. We all know about the EPA so I won't get into that part of the equation. I'll simply say that producing a machine that would eliminate that step was worth millions.

To make a long story short, I will simply say that I made the geometric changes in the crushing chamber to accomplish this task, built a prototype, tested it, had the Department of Transportation witness the results and began the work to market the machine. Since we were going to sell it on an international basis, I named it the "International Collider".

I went to a friend in Opelousas, Louisiana and after telling the story about the machine and the application of it in the oil and gas industry, he told me to get on with the project and build one in his shop. I did that and made arrangements to take it to an oil field service company for testing and approval by the Associated Petroleum Institute. When it passed, you can well imagine the excitement that was shared by all.

We had a production well set up in Navisota, Texas and through that, we were to confirm it's suitability for 24 hour per day operations, something we had already proven in other applications such as stone quarries and gravel pits. As soon as that was finished, we were off to the Middle East to put the machine to work there. I figure to make a ton of money as there were lots and lots of drilling rigs working there every day.

As I was anxiously awaiting my orders to leave for the Middle East, Saddam Hussein showed his ass.

My dear friend, Laddie James (rip), was most anxious to get the show on the road as he was an innovator himself and a most successful man in his own right. Unfortunately, my departure was brought to a screeching halt when Saddam shot the Scud Missile across the border and into the base where our troops were stationed during that time. Laddie didn't want to risk one of his guys so he ordered the project to be put on hold until all that ended. I saw a fortune fly out the window with all of that and learned a great deal about hating dictators at a different level than I had before that time.

I guess that's about it for today but I just wanted to leave this little note about a guy who helped me along the way, the kind of guy that "took it with him". So long Aubrey and thanks for all the help.

Cousin Tim