Weekly News Period of Sep 4- Dec 15, 2003

Thus far I have been successful in not taking on additional debt while cash flow has suffered due to Cindy's bone marrow transplant.  I have compensated by reducing principle payments on existing loans and tried to minimize expenses as much as possible. 

As you might guess Cindy's transplant and hospital stay has taken number one spot on the priority list.  When your spouse is treading the valley of the shadow of death, things slow down and priorities shift to come to the aid of your helpmeet.  This process of slowing down began in September and continued through November until I could see she was coming out of harms way.  Thankfully the transplant appears to have been a perfect success and we have complete hope that she will be cured and return to a better than normal life.

So there really isn't much news to report since the beginning of September but there are a few items to make mention.

I have upgraded our computer systems with the intention of replacing a room full of Amiga machines and move our geophysical and geological capacities onto the emulated Amiga Environment.  A new 3 GHz desk top was purchased that runs the seismic processing software a clear 12 times faster than my fastest Amiga hardware.  In addition the machine has the capacity to run software in the Windows environment at 60 times faster than my code written on my fastest Amiga hardware.  The hitch is that I need to learn Windows programming.  So in the moments and hours at the hospital and in OKC I worked on just that.  It is a time consuming process to learn to use Windows from a programming point of view, about as hard as it was for me to grasp C in 1988, but I am slowly starting to get it.  It will take some more time, but I hope soon to be programming applications on the Windows machines directly.

Oil prices have been remarkably good and it is making it much easier to stay on top.  I hope to see more debt retired in the next six months and thus liberating cash flow to be put to work on other things.  An interesting concept I am working on is the establishment of an internal mock bank type system to provide funding for Gateway projects.  Instead of paying the bank interest, we pay ourselves the mock interest, and build an internal fund that would perform the same function as a bank credit line.  Except our internal bank would be friendly to our type of projects.  Of course our internal fund would be just as demanding on expecting the money to be returned to the account, in short and good order.  This could be the start of a good concept.  In addition our internal bank would be able to draw on our favorable existing lines of credit, and provide funds to Gateway for its use.  If I play my cards right, I can project the possibility to be able to drill a well in the fall of 2004, depending on a hundred factors, but at least it is a possibility.  If that can be accomplished it would be the first well we drill with our own internal funds.  Just like in 1998 we purchased our first round of leases without calling on the Shareholders for funds.  I'll have more to say on this as the year progresses.

My long time helper John Gallie has had his age catch up to him and he has had to stop working pending medical evaluations.  It started last spring where he began to be fatigued easily and had a hard time putting in a good days work.  Then he would be unpredictable, perhaps he could work two hours, or other times eight or ten.  In the summer he started falling over for no reason, and this has just be getting progressively worse.  I could compensate for much of his weakness, and hoped cooler weather would bring him to a renewed strength.  However that was not to be and in November began falling over at his house, and while doing simple things at home.  I found him sitting on the grass a couple of houses up from his home and he said he had fallen over three times that day, and so we decided to take him to the hospital.  So far they have found nothing wrong with him, from a physical point of view.  But I told him that until he could stand up and stay up, he better not work anymore.

So I advertised for a helper, and have be inundated with applications, I hired a kid named Casey, who is a good worker, but needs to get his drivers license fixed.  At this time I am still only interested in a part time helper.