Here we go.
All right, welcome to this week's Water Talk.
I have with me today my dad.
So much to say about my father,
but at this point in my life, one of my best friends.
My dad taught me how to surf when I was 12 years old.
We had been around the world together.
I could go on and on about my father,
and I love him so much,
and it's an honor to have him here with me today.
So thanks for doing this, dad.
Thank you.
Yep.
So Neil Delemater, my father,
when you are at home these days,
which we've all spent a lot of time at home,
where do you like to go,
and what do you like to eat when you're hungry?
Where do you want to get something to eat at these days?
Well, I usually,
I'm pretty much of a vegetarian,
so I drink a lot of milk.
So some of my meals are just,
consists of a glass of milk on the run.
I know a lot of people don't think that's the meal,
but quite often I'm okay with just a glass of milk
on the run.
That gets me going, you know?
Otherwise I eat mostly vegetarian diet
with a little bit of fish.
Yep.
You've been that way my entire life.
I have never seen you eat meat.
So you've always been that way my whole life.
So awesome.
Okay, so dad, what are you doing these days,
and how did you get into it?
Oh, well, lately these days,
I've been doing a whole lot of work around here.
This house is 50 years old or more,
and 60 years old,
and these things don't take care of themselves.
So every once in a while,
you're hit with a whole bunch of things at once,
which lately it seems like everything's just been
needing repair a lot.
So it's been a lot of yard work lately,
and replacing slider, and painting,
and fixing plumbing, and all that sort of thing.
That kind of thing goes in waves.
Sometimes you don't have to do anything for five years,
and then all of a sudden it'll hit you all at once,
and you'll be just busy for six months.
And so lately I just,
I'm just now coming out of one of those busy periods.
Now everything's kind of like buttoned up,
and fixed, and painted,
and everything like that for a while.
So we're kind of getting ready to go
into coast mode here for a while.
So that's what I've been doing with my time.
Well, that's great.
Well, you certainly earned it
for those of you who don't know my father.
My father was a teamster,
worked in the union for 37 years,
and he has now been retired for 14 years, I believe.
And so now you're doing that.
That's wonderful.
So what are some things that you wish you had known
when you started out?
So like if current Mr. Neil Delemater
could talk to 25 year old Neil Delemater,
what are a few things that he might say?
Well, the one thing that does kind of bother me,
they say not to have any regrets.
However, I do have a couple of regrets.
And one of them is that I never finished college.
So I say if I was talking to a 25 year old Neil Delemater,
I'd tell him to finish college.
So it's, it isn't absolutely necessary to do that.
I mean, I've done pretty good for myself,
even though I didn't finish college,
but I think it would have been real good
if I would have finished college,
but that's just not the way it happened.
So anyway, my life took a different turn.
So you've always been a very curious person.
One thing that people don't know about my dad
is basically my entire life,
I'd come home when I was a kid.
And after working as a teamster,
you would come home and read the dictionary,
and you would read a different word every day.
And you would always tell me what the word was.
And so you've always been curious.
So what was the word that you would use
to describe your life?
And what is something that you're curious about these days?
Like what are you interested in at this stage in your life?
Well, I just, by the way, the word for today is fractious.
Fractious?
Yes.
Look up, every time I, I've been reading a lot,
and I just finished a book by Colin Powell,
he was a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and he was the highest ranking general in the army.
He retired in about 95, 93, like that.
But anyway, one of my favorite things to do
is look up words that I don't understand.
And it's easy now, because you just Google it,
and you don't even have to type it in,
which makes it even easier.
So there's no excuse for someone
not to know the meaning of words.
So that's, you know,
that's what I like, this part,
one of the things I like to do.
Yeah, you've also gotten into stocks,
you're really enjoying your stocks, that's great.
Yeah, we like doing some stocks.
Today was not a good day, but
it seems like all the money we made in the last three months,
we just lost it.
But that's okay, it'll be all right,
it'll straighten out, you gotta.
Yep, so what is something that you have failed at,
that you want to talk about?
Ooh.
There's things we fail at that we don't wanna talk about.
So I always say something you fail at
that you want to talk about.
Nothing really comes to mind right now.
Yeah, yeah, great.
Well, I know for myself, it's a long list, so.
So we'll take a little bit of a right-hand turn.
What would you describe as like your
understanding of like the water
that you're using,
understanding of like the water situation in the world, Dad?
I know that a lot of people are needing good,
healthy drinking water,
and I do respect you for what you're doing.
I think it's very necessary.
Being a Vietnam veteran, I saw I had malaria myself,
which isn't from water, but
there's a lot of people, no,
people need good, clean drinking water.
It's almost like I think it should be a basic right
for people to have that.
Unfortunately, our governments
aren't always able to provide that for us.
Yeah, so you're right.
In 2010, the UN, I believe it was UN Article 426,
they made water for the first time was recognized
as a fundamental human right.
So that's an important milestone in the UN,
United Nations recognizing that as a global issue.
However,
it's still being charged as a commodity, as you know.
Here in the United States, we get a water bill
and we pay it.
And so it's been fun to see that
and so it's been fun to start to get into,
building infrastructure projects
where we're able to bring the price of water down
for people that really need it.
So dad, you have actually been with Meets El Salvador
last March.
And what did you think about what you saw there?
Well, I know that people,
a lot of them can't afford the water, you know.
And that's a problem.
I don't wanna speak to something
I don't completely understand.
I do know that they're probably busy right now
trying to solve it.
So I say something that,
you know, people might be offended
because I might say the wrong thing.
So.
I know, I know.
There's no right answers to these questions.
It's always, one of the reasons why I like doing
these conversations is because most of the important things
that I've learned in my life have come through,
just having nice conversations with people.
A lot of times we learn different ways.
Some of us learn when we read books,
that's one way to learn.
Some of us learn by listening.
Some of us learn through conversations.
So I know in my life, a lot of the significant things
that I've learned have come about
in what I call sort of spontaneous dialogue
or spontaneous conversations that I have with people.
Part of what I do and part of my passion
is to raise minds and to help
us think differently about this water issue.
And so I'm a conversational person
and I believe that a lot of the best things can happen,
just one really nice conversation at a time.
And it was wonderful to have you with me on that trip.
It was an honor really.
My friends still say, man, your dad went?
Yeah, yeah, my dad went.
So that's been wonderful.
And you-
The old guy, huh?
Yeah, no, you're a legend.
You're a legend.
I'll brag, my dad is, my dad's 75
and he has surfed now for 60 years.
That's six decades.
So my dad has also lived in California his entire life,
including a short stint on Catalina
where my grandfather was the only plumber on the island
when my dad was in elementary school.
So my dad spent his entire life living in California,
seeing a lot of change.
And so it's fun to keep having this conversation.
It's also been fun for you and I to use our love
for the ocean and our love for surfing
to go on some trips and try to help do,
help install these systems different places.
That's been fun.
In fact, we're supposed to head to Indonesia in March.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, Ryan.
I know you are.
And this is a big excuse just to go surfing.
A lot of people think it's a big excuse to go surfing,
but I think we'll do some work too.
It's fine that they think that,
it's not the first person who's accused us of that.
It's fine.
Yeah, well, I think, you know, with these rising sea levels
that there's plenty of water out there for us.
You know, they just need to convert it to drinking water.
Yeah, there sure is.
Sure is.
So we get to be a part of the front end
of building that infrastructure
and helping bring the price of water down
and helping people along the way.
So that's been really, really fun.
We're just right at the beginning of this.
So it's been great.
And yeah, I love you so much.
I could talk to you all day.
I do often talk to you all day.
For those of you who don't know,
I still spend a lot of time with my dad.
We surf together, we ride bicycles together.
And dad, thank you for coming on
and chatting with me today.
Is there any last words that you would like to say there?
To who?
Everybody, just any last words that we should hear from you.
Well, I guess, this thing is, you know,
just don't give up on things, you know,
if you get discouraged or you feel like giving up,
don't give up, just keep going, you know,
even if you have to take a day off or something,
but just keep forging ahead, you know,
whatever it might be, you know.
You'll always win if you have persistence.
Thank you, dad.
Love you so much.
Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
That's it.
All right, bye-bye.
Have a good day.
Thank you.