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Rockport man's creations include articulating crab
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| Doug Fontenot built this articulating crab to use in marketing a new business which never came to fruition. The contraption speaks, moves, and entertains. Photo by MIKE PROBST |
By SANDRA MUSGROVE, Contributing Writer
Years ago a wonderfully talented painter and sculptress talked about the sadness she felt when she encountered students, and others, with magnificent visions and plans, but who lacked the talent, energy or knowledge to make their visions become reality. Often, their dreams faded or failed.
Very few successfully fulfill all they imagine, dream, or envision. When they do, they're a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett. However, some are content with reworking plans, willing to make them possible to achieve. Others perfect one, two, or three of their best, but when they're great, they're great, like a Henry Ford.
As years pass, the saddest of all beings is the person who fears he or she is unworthy of attempting to create - for any reason. If a vision doesn't exist, it must be the first creation. Volumes in both psychiatry and psychology have been written about this subject.
Aransas County resident Doug Fontenot was born in 1949 in Cuero. He graduated from Cuero High School. After graduation he became a Navy medic, serving three years during the Vietnam War.
After attending college for awhile, Fontenot moved toward his own career path. He went to work in Louisiana as an X-ray technician on a variety of oil related projects.
Though he never completed his engineering degree, his dad's influence as a degreed engineer was absorbed, almost intuitively, throughout his childhood.
Periodically, Fontenot took engineering classes, but never completed the requirements necessary to graduate.
While living in Louisiana he met and married his wife, Elaine, who is currently a bank officer at Rockport's Prosperity Bank. They have two children. Ann is a resident of Austin. Travis lives in Rockport, is married, and gave them their first grandchild, Trinity.
In 1976 Fontenot and his wife moved to Rockport.
“In this (oil structure building) business, we follow the money and I've continued to live and work in the area since,” said Fontenot.
Today, after years spent chasing emergencies out onto the rigs, he works as an ultra welding inspector, using ultrasonic testing equipment to build jackets (i.e. - for oil drilling platforms).
“I love my work,” Fontenot said. “Some day I'll retire, I assume. It's what I'd love to do, just as my father did.”
Fontenot talks about his future at home, saying, “We'll stay right where we are. We're thinking about remodeling, just fixin' up, maybe a big sun porch. Staying right here, in Rockport is just fine.”
Fontenot has big visions - the kind he can also create and construct. After building a double-deck sun porch on the channel next to his Copano Cove home, steps seemed a problem. He decided to fix a lift, with “stuff” on hand. His engineering skill came to the forefront. With the pressure of a garden hose - or kitchen faucet, PVC pipe, and a plastic chair, he rigged his first lift. It supports up to 360 pounds, carrying someone, or something, 20 feet up.
It cost pennies to build and to operate. Do you need a crab retainer lift, a neighbor's handicap lift, a wheel-chair dock-lift, or a boat lift?
One can ask about his “hydro-lift” invention.
With big vision, energy, and talent - it was accomplished.
The next idea was cooked up during plans for a new business. An unemployed friend, a Cajun crab cook, talked one day with Fontenot's daughter about starting a weekend catering business.
Fontenot's mind suddenly envisioned “articulated crab claws, then a body, painted, then a voice ...”
Work on his idea was begun, but it wasn't completed before his friend and daughter found jobs elsewhere.
He now has a magnificent, fully-articulating crab the size of a large SUV roof. It has three-foot long claws which move, along with the crab's eyes and mouth, with the aid of another hand-built contraption.
What's next?
A huge oyster, with pearl?
A specially-designed shrimp?
Fontenot's visions are large, and so are his creations.
Very few successfully fulfill all they imagine, dream, or envision. When they do, they're a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett. However, some are content with reworking plans, willing to make them possible to achieve. Others perfect one, two, or three of their best, but when they're great, they're great, like a Henry Ford.
As years pass, the saddest of all beings is the person who fears he or she is unworthy of attempting to create - for any reason. If a vision doesn't exist, it must be the first creation. Volumes in both psychiatry and psychology have been written about this subject.
Aransas County resident Doug Fontenot was born in 1949 in Cuero. He graduated from Cuero High School. After graduation he became a Navy medic, serving three years during the Vietnam War.
After attending college for awhile, Fontenot moved toward his own career path. He went to work in Louisiana as an X-ray technician on a variety of oil related projects.
Though he never completed his engineering degree, his dad's influence as a degreed engineer was absorbed, almost intuitively, throughout his childhood.
Periodically, Fontenot took engineering classes, but never completed the requirements necessary to graduate.
While living in Louisiana he met and married his wife, Elaine, who is currently a bank officer at Rockport's Prosperity Bank. They have two children. Ann is a resident of Austin. Travis lives in Rockport, is married, and gave them their first grandchild, Trinity.
In 1976 Fontenot and his wife moved to Rockport.
“In this (oil structure building) business, we follow the money and I've continued to live and work in the area since,” said Fontenot.
Today, after years spent chasing emergencies out onto the rigs, he works as an ultra welding inspector, using ultrasonic testing equipment to build jackets (i.e. - for oil drilling platforms).
“I love my work,” Fontenot said. “Some day I'll retire, I assume. It's what I'd love to do, just as my father did.”
Fontenot talks about his future at home, saying, “We'll stay right where we are. We're thinking about remodeling, just fixin' up, maybe a big sun porch. Staying right here, in Rockport is just fine.”
Fontenot has big visions - the kind he can also create and construct. After building a double-deck sun porch on the channel next to his Copano Cove home, steps seemed a problem. He decided to fix a lift, with “stuff” on hand. His engineering skill came to the forefront. With the pressure of a garden hose - or kitchen faucet, PVC pipe, and a plastic chair, he rigged his first lift. It supports up to 360 pounds, carrying someone, or something, 20 feet up.
It cost pennies to build and to operate. Do you need a crab retainer lift, a neighbor's handicap lift, a wheel-chair dock-lift, or a boat lift?
One can ask about his “hydro-lift” invention.
With big vision, energy, and talent - it was accomplished.
The next idea was cooked up during plans for a new business. An unemployed friend, a Cajun crab cook, talked one day with Fontenot's daughter about starting a weekend catering business.
Fontenot's mind suddenly envisioned “articulated crab claws, then a body, painted, then a voice ...”
Work on his idea was begun, but it wasn't completed before his friend and daughter found jobs elsewhere.
He now has a magnificent, fully-articulating crab the size of a large SUV roof. It has three-foot long claws which move, along with the crab's eyes and mouth, with the aid of another hand-built contraption.
What's next?
A huge oyster, with pearl?
A specially-designed shrimp?
Fontenot's visions are large, and so are his creations.
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| Odyssey shines with lights on after school program |
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ZAGDA wrote on Feb 14, 2009 3:53 PM:
Instead of presenting this to the scientific world in a peer reviewed journal, these guys publish it in this book in an attempt to sway public opinion. I could go on as many of the statements in this article are misleading, or blatantly ludicrous. Suffice it to say, it looks to me like this book is much more about influencing public opinion than any scientific review of whether human activity is causing climate change.
It is sad some people will believe this as fact. "