Locator: 49205AI.
Spoiler alert: a great lead-in but ran out of time to finish my thoughts on this. So, you will be disappointed how this rambling ends.
About two blocks down the road from us a huge new HEB grocery store is going in. It was announced maybe three years ago. I don't know, I can't recall, but certainly there were rumors and then the announcement two to three years ago. It's a big, big deal. It's going to be a huge HEB grocery store.
HEB is one of only a handful of Texas state icons:
- HEB (including Central Market)
- Bucc-ee's
- Dallas Cowboys
- Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
- South Padre Island
And that's it. So, it's a big deal when a new HEB goes in.
Rumors / announcement / news, maybe two years ago, maybe three years ago.
Then last fall, autumn of 2024, we started seeing surveyors and wooden stakes going into the ground where the new HEB was going to go.
Then, they broke ground earlier this year, maybe it was March. I chronicled the first week and every week after that for awhile before I got bored.
So, today, huge progress. We're starting to see cement walls going up.
Real progress. So, I asked Google Gemini when this new HEB was supposed to open. Answer: second half of 2026.
So, two years of construction, from when the wooden stakes first went in until the grand opening.
Two years for a grocery store.
Hold that thought.
Stargate. Abilene. Announced in the Oval Office January 21, 2025 -- could be off a bit on the date, location but it's close. Fact-check it, please.
So, today, September 23, 2025, the largest data center (fact-check please) in the world is operational. The project was announced in January this year. Announced. I don't know when they broke ground; sometime after the announcement,obviously.
Today, it's operational.
And that's just the first cluster in a series of data centers in the Stargate Project.
Seven months from announcement to breaking ground to being operational.
It will take two years to build a grocery store -- and the half of that footprint is devoted to parking. LOL.
Cost of that Stargate campus? $2 billion all in?
The cost of an HEB grocery store runs from $20 million to $40 million depending on size, site, and specials.
Two years to build a $40 million grocery store; eight months for a $2-billion-large-data center.
Oracle is leasing this facility. Say what? We'll get back to this later.
Oracle is taking the lead on TikTok.
I am beginning to think that mom-and-pop investors can't invest in AI fast enough. I'll come back to CNBC later.
I have to quit, but I think folks know where I'm going with this.
See disclaimer.
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Disclaimer
Brief
Reminder
Briefly:
- I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.
- I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.
- I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
- See disclaimer. This is not an investment site.
- Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.
- If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.
- Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.
- I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple.
- And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution.
- I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom.
- Longer version here.
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A Musical Interlude
