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Shares of SAP AG (SAP) are up $1.86, or almost 3%, at $74.18, after the company this morning reported Q1 revenue that topped analysts' expectations but missed on the bottom line, and reiterated its outlook for this year's growth in cloud computing and software revenue and for operating profit.
Revenue in the three months ended in March rose 22%, year over year, to €4.5 billion, yielding EPS of €0.58. Analysts had been modeling €4.3 billion and 63 cents.
SAP emphasized the success of its subscription revenue for cloud computing, which rose 131% to $509 million. That amount was boosted by the rising dollar, inflating the return in euros, as growth on a constant-currency basis was 95%.
The company said its margin on such software declined 5 points to 66%, as it spent more to support its "Hana" database product.
Hana, said SAP, "continues to be a major growth driver for the Company":
This quarter the number of HANA customers surpassed 6,400, almost doubling from just one year ago. SAP S/4HANA's robust early traction – more than 370 SAP S/4HANA customers year-to-date – was a major catalyst in HANA's broader market adoption across all industries and regions.
The company noted a new item in its report this quarter, "new cloud bookings," which is revenue that is "contractually committed," in some cases reflecting the amount of a contract recorded for a given period.
New cloud bookings were up 121%, year over year, at €120 million. $35 million of that was from last year's purchase of billing software vendor Concur.
The non-cloud stuff, "software licenses," and "software support," rose more slowly, up 12% and 17%, respectively, or 1% and 7%, on a constant currency basis.
More detail is available in the interim Q1 report.
Among Street notes out today, Mark Moerdler of Bernstein Research reiterates an Outperform rating, and a $75 price target, writing that the company is no longer "bleeding in the core":
Software License revenue came in at €696M, 9.8% above estimates (non-IFRS). Note that even on a constant currency basis, Software License revenue grew 1% Y/Y which reverses recent trends of decreasing Software License revenue. We believe that these results are very important since one of the investor concerns was bleeding in the core. If SAP can maintain a flat to up Software License revenue while driving Cloud growth it will help, we believe, with investor sentiment.
FBR & Co.'s Daniel Ives reiterates a Market Perform rating, and raise his price target to $76 from $65, writing that the reiteration of the forecast was important, and noting "the cloud business showing impressive strength, while the next iteration (e.g., S/4HANA) of its all-important core suite run on SAP HANA appears to be adding tailwinds for the core license business."
However, Ives is skeptical of the balancing act the company must do between cloud and traditional wares:
Although SAP appears to be embracing the shift to the cloud and continuing its expanded focus beyond just the application layer, we believe the company has challenges, as it is late to the cloud and must ensure focus on successfully integrating the Concur acquisition while trying to balance growth and profitability, with other software stalwarts (e.g., ORCL, MSFT, IBM, etc.) fighting for market share in this intensely competitive cloud landscape. Overall, while we believe SAP posted a solid March quarter, the company's core on-premise software business continues to face an uphill battle, in our view, as SAP looks to reinvigorate growth with its newer product cycle.
Shares of software giant SAP AG (SAP) are down 33 cents, or half a percent, at $66.64, despite a positive note from Oppenheimer & Co.'s Brian Schwartz, who raises his rating to Outperform from "Perform," with an $80 price target, writing that a 20% decline in the share price since August has produced "a rare discount market valuation."
Specifically, "SAP's current valuation multiple is now on par with ORCL shares, a rare event that has happened only twice in the past ten years," he writes, moments that were soon gone. He offers this table of relative valuation multiples with respect to Oracle (ORCL) (click for larger image):
The good news in the stock's decline is that it means investors have come to terms with SAP's "cloud transition risks," as he terms them:
We believe the Street finally acknowledges that: 1) Enterprises rapidly wanting to procure cloud products from SAP over licenses do impact SAP's operating margin results from slower revenue recognition, higher commissions needed to incentivize SAP sales reps to sell its cloud products, and different distribution models. 2) Changing customer procurement preferences for consuming and deploying new software (replatforming for the cloud) necessitate faster acquisition-driven cloud product development. 3) Operating margin expansion is not automatically attainable every year, particularly during a model transition and scaling of a cloud business. 4) EPS estimates may be reduced again from adding Concur's contributions to 2015 expectations and from potential stretching of intermediate-term profitability targets.
Now that investors are acknowledging risk, he thinks they should acknowledge the opportunity, which is that "significant organic cloud business opportunities within its base over the next 12-24 months."
Schwartz lists the many ways in which SAP has cloud advantages:
We believe SAP has significant cloud business opportunities within its existing base as most customers have not deployed an integrated cloud solution (i.e., travel bookings, corporate employee expense, vendor management, field services, spend management, eCommerce, HR, CRM) from a single supplier since Concur has previously been a strong competitor against both SAP and Ariba (and Fieldglass) for most of its existence [...] Most best-of-breed SaaS providers do not have data centers located throughout the world like SAP. For example, salesforce.com just last year launched a data center in England and announced that it will stand up new data centers in France and Germany in the future. We believe the lack of global data centers by the best-of-breed SaaS vendors gives SAP room in the cloud, especially in Europe and APAC, where data location is meaningful to buyers [...] We are positive on the HANA opportunity in data management for SAP and think the product should provide a long-term lift to growth rates. We believe that most ERP customers have yet to expand the value of their ERP system by deploying an integrated cloud solution encompassing travel bookings, spend management, field services, eCommerce, CRM, HCM with an in-memory computing option for data management such as HANA.
The "bottom line," he writes, is that "AP can organically grow its cloud subscriptions and support revenue at a 35% CAGR over the next three years, which is 500bps higher than the current valuation growth demarcation line (30%+ growth) in the SaaS companies universe."
Shares of supercomputing and data center technology maker Silicon Graphics (SGI) are up 65 cents, or 7.3%, at $9.64, after D.A. Davidson's Mark Kelleher today raised his rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral, and raised his price target to $12 from $10, writing that after a loss of a big chunk of business from a "large cloud customer," which he thinks was Amazon.com (AMZN), "we believe SGI is positioned to return to growth mode."
In particular, the company has inked a partnership with software giant SAP (SAP) to support Big Data and data analytics applications, and SAP's "Hana" in-memory database program.
Kelleher thinks that could prove meaningful for the company:
SAP must work closely with providers of hardware to ensure HANA functions are met to specification, and, to do this SAP 'certifies' hardware platforms that it has proven will work with its HANA software. In January of this year SGI announced that it would be working with SAP to develop a HANA appliance, which is now in beta testing and needs to be certified by SAP as an 'approved' hardware platform for HANA. We expect such certification to be granted by the end of September. At that point the SGI HANA platform will be listed on SAP's web site as certified (a list of SAP HANA certified vendors can be found here). Integration partners will then be able to sell SGI's HANA platform, called the UV300H.
The Hana appliances might sell for $150,000 to $200,000 a pop, opines Kelleher, and as a result, "we believe SGI can generate in the neighborhood of $10 million of revenue in the back half of fiscal 2015 (March and June quarters), growing to an annual run rate of approximately $50-$60 million per year, with gross margin of 40%."
Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:
Cisco Systems announced it will spend $1 billion over two years to build an "intercloud," as it calls the effort, in partnership with carriers such as Telstra and Allstream, and a variety of other tech firms, such as Ingram Micro (IM). The project will be based on the OpenStack freely available virtualization and storage software that many Internet services have been taking up at a rapid pace; it will also use SAP's (SAP) Hana in-memory database. Some of the services will be hosted by Cisco itself in its data centers, including some "platform as a service" and "infrastructure as a service," two common that companies such as Amazon.com (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Nick Earle of Cisco, who is a senior vice president for cloud sales, tells me that there will be three buckets of spend inside Cisco for the billion dollars, including engineering, building out Cisco's own data centers that will host and sell the Cisco cloud services, and third, the go-to-market organization of several hundred people to work alongside Cisco's 20,000-strong sales force. Earle likened the effort to the "Star Alliance" cooperative deal between the airlines.
Regarding Amazon and Google, Earle said the two were not really at the application layer, a hole in their offering that he said Cisco could fill with things such as SAP's Hana, or Microsoft's Office365 product. Earle said Cisco's 65,000 resellers around the world help Cisco get to scale much quicker, in part by hosting the service, in part by packing it for other vertical markets.
More details at Cisco's "Cisco Live," the company's partner conference, in May.
Cisco shares are off 12 cents, or 0.6%, at $21.52.
In case you missed it, Apple (AAPL) is working with Comcast (CMCSA) to develop a streaming video set-top box service, according to a piece over the weekend by The Wall Street Journal's Shalini Ramachandran, Daiuske Wakabayashi, and Amol Sharma, citing multiple unnamed sources.
The service, which is not close to an agreement, the authors write, is distinguished by Apple's intention to have special use of last-mile connections to stream video at a higher quality than services such as Netflix's (NFLX).
Speaking of Apple, Pacific Crest's Andy Hargreaves today reiterates an Outperform rating on Apple stock, and a $635 price target, writing that his "checks" of component suppliers and carrier stores suggests "iPhone unit volume could exceed our estimates of 39.7 million in March and 33.6 million in June." Hargreaves thinks "replacement rates remain extremely strong and that Apple is gaining share of high-end customers."
Speaking still further of Apple, DigiTimes's Aaron Lee and Joseph Tsai this morning write that the company intends to have batteries for the iPhone made on fully-automated production lines this year "to reduce its manpower demand," citing multiple unnamed sources. The move is in response to rising wages in China, among other factors, the authors write.
Apple stock is up $3.93, or 0.7%,a t $536.80.
Shares of Pandora (P), meantime, are down $3.02, or almost 9%, at $30.99, after Billboard late Friday reported Apple is considering offering a version of its iTunes Radio service on Google's Android operating system, according to TheFlyontheWall.
Shares of LG Display (LPL) are down 4 cents at $12.10, despite a bullish note from Nomura Equity Research's James Kim, who raised his rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral, with a ₩36,000 on the ordinary shares traded in Seoul (034220KS), from a prior ₩24,000, writing that prices for television panels have bottomed this month, and that inventories have stabilized, while TV panel average size is set to rise on the backs of ultra-Hi Def set sales. Kim also believes "a new smartphone launch from its biggest customers in 3Q," likely a reference to Apple, should boost sales.
Shares of NetApp (NTAP) are down $1.54, or 4%, at $36.26, after Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty cut her rating on the stock to Underweight from Equal Weight because of pressure from the "Three Cs" as she calls it: cloud, compression, competition, which are cutting spending on storage equipment. She cut her revenue expectation for the fiscal year ending April of 2015 to $6.14 billion from a prior $6.24 billion, estimate, below consensus of $6.54 billion. Huberty believes EMC (EMC) is doing a better job weathering those storms given a broader product portfolio.
Chip maker Nvidia (NVDA) will tomorrow host its analyst day briefing, and some Street observers are revving up their models for what to expect. MKM Partners's Ian Ing reiterates a Neutral rating on the shares, writing that the "core" business "is strong (GeForce GPUs for gaming) plus there are "irons in the fire," in GPUs (automotive) and in Tegra (K1 mobile supercomputing). However, Nvidia's wireless investment remains a stubborn overhang and we believe Tegra 4i (4G) and GRID GPUs (cloud) have room to disappoint."
Nvidia shares are down 9 cents, or half a percent, at $18.45.
Shares of SAP AG (SAP) are up $1.86,or 2.5%, at $77.19, after Citigroup's Walter Pritchard this morning raised his rating on the shares to Buy from Neutral, and raised his price target to €62.00 from €57 on the ordinary shares (SAP) traded on Europe's Xetra exchange, writign that Street estimates have bottomed, in his view, and year-over-year comparisons should be easier this year, while demand appears healthy based on the recent Cebit technology conference in Germany.
Regarding estimates, he is modeling revenue of €17.7 billion this year, Ebitda of €6.92 billion, and EPS of €2.96 on a reported basis, and €3.52 per share on an adjusted basis.
The Street is currently modeling €17.82 billion this year and €6.5 billion, and €3.50 per share.
SAP, writes Pritchard, was held to high, high expectations in 2012 and 2013, as people predicted big strides for the company — thinks such as its Hana database taking over the market:
2012-13 was filled with inflated expectations: first cloud, then HANA and finally subscription transition dreams. Meanwhile, macro conditions, lack of new products in core and some execution challenges drove mixed results. We continue to believe cloud guidance (€2bn in FY15) is too high, investors seem to agree, and we think it is unlikely SAP does an acquisition simply to meet this goal. Shares have meaningfully underperformed all relevant indices and stand at lowest relative valuation in 4 years.
Hana exuberance, especially, had gotten out of hand, he writes:
Much focus around HANA has been on the differentiated in-memory architecture and advantages the technology has over traditional relational databases, such as provided by Oracle (ORCL). In fact, significant ripple has been felt by Oracle shares as HANA has become a proxy for innovation in database that ultimately could challenge Oracle's dominance in database. In the context of the $30B database market, HANA, in theory, has the potential to be a large business. While it is early in the product's development, we see little evidence that HANA can live up to this excitement [...] With such intense focus on this product (despite it representing just 12% of software and cloud subscription revenue) and specific guidance from management, many investors began to build in HANA lines to their models with long-term potential based on % share of the $30B database market. Management noted on a January call that it would no longer break out HANA revenue in 2014, to the disappointment of many investors that had begun to track this line-item. This has taken the wind out of the sails of the product, especially its opportunity on a standalone basis (calculated as a % of database share). We believe less focus on HANA drives focus back to the core, which was always going to be the most important driver of business. In this way, we think the spotlight being off HANA is healthy.
Meantime, he writes, the company is, in fact, making solid progress in areas such as cloud computing, even if the company hasn't met the loftiest of expectations:
The 2011 SuccessFactors acquisition and then 2012 Ariba acquisition drove excitement around SAP participating in the secular growth of software as a service. Even through these businesses have generally performed well, they represent just 14% of revenue. Relatively lofty cloud revenue goals that look likely to be missed have turned investors sour on cloud. We believe execution has been reasonably good, as ability to leverage the core to sell into is meaningful. We continue to expect 30% cloud revenue growth in 2014-2015, although this will put SAP short of its goal of €2B (we are at €1.572B, slightly below street, although some street estimates are still north of €1.6B). We spent six days in the last two weeks visiting clients across Europe and almost universally the investors we spoke with don't believe that the €2B goal is achievable.
As I wrote this morning, Pritchard already has a Buy rating, and a $39 price target, on shares of Oracle. Oracle will report fiscal Q3 results tomorrow afternoon, after the closing bell.
SAP's ordinary shares today traded up 2.3% to close at €55.56.
Shares of enterprise vendor SAP AG (SAP) are up $2.50, or 3.4%, at $76.25, after the company this morning reported Q3 revenue in line with analysts' estimates and profit that topped consensus.
Revenue in the three months ending in September rose 2%, year over year, to €4.05 billion, yielding EPS of €0.78, excluding some costs.
Analysts had been modeling €4.08 billion and €0.77 per share.
SAP noted that its revenue from cloud computing software and subscriptions, combined, rose 7%, and co-CEOs Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott remarked that "We now are the second largest enterprise cloud company with an annual cloud revenue run rate exceeding €1 billion."
"We continue to gain market share and grow significantly faster than our primary competitor in all regions."
Sales of SAP's Hana in-memory database rose 79%, year over year, to €149, and the company said it is on track to make $1 billion in Hana sales since the product was introduced.
There were no ratings changes today, that I can see, but estimates were being trimmed here and there.
Mark Moerdler of Bernstein Research, who has an Outperform rating on the shares, and an $89 price target, notes that software revenue was 1% below consensus, while cloud revenue was 2% higher.
Writes Moerdler, "Given mixed results from other enterprise software companies including the recent guide-down by Citrix1 we believe the regional improvements by SAP combined with strength in HANA and Cloud will be viewed positively by investors."
He thinks there's more good news to come from Hana:
Management specifically called out HANA wins including over 2,100 HANA customers and 450 SAP Business Suite customers. We believe most of these 450 customers are still early in the process and will only generate significant HANA revenue over time as they put more of the Suite operational on HANA.
Nomura Equity Research's Rick Sherlund, who has a Buy on the shares, and a $68 price target, writes that although the 2% growth in software license revenue was below consensus, nevertheless, it was "much better than investor apprehensions we were hearing about."
While Hana shone, the shift to cloud computing clearly is having an impact on SAP's traditional license software business, he writes:
The HANA in-memory, columnar database had revenues of €149M in the quarter, well above our estimate of €102M and up 90% yoy in CC. SAP continues to expect HANA software revenue of €650–700M in 2013, up about 75%. The core Business Suite running on HANA now has a reported 450 customers. We estimate that SAP's core license revenues may have been down about 5% CC y/y, depending on the mix of products, as SAP faces headwinds as the market moves from traditional on-premise software to the cloud. SSRS growth is guided to a least 10% CC in 2013, which we think is about 8% organic CC.
Jefferies & Co.'s Ross MacMillan, who has a Hold on the shares, and a $78 price target, notes that "a number of the underlying metrics were strong":
I) HANA license revenue of €149M (+79% Y/Y); ii) Cloud billings of €218M (up >30% sequentially); and iii) Ariba TTM network spend of €500B (up 8% sequentially). Detail by Geo: EMEA license was strong at +10% Y/Y cc; APJ rebounded from 2Q13 weakness to +3% Y/Y cc and Americas was -6% Y/Y cc. We note Americas cloud subscription growth is the strongest of the 3 regions suggesting an ongoing shift toward cloud solutions in the region.
Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:
Shares of Apple (AAPL) are up $26.50, or almost 6%, at $493.91, continuing pre-market gains, after the company this morning said that it sold 9 million of the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C in the first weekend of availability since the phones went on sale on Friday in the U.S. and elsewhere — though that presumably includes pre-sales of the 5C that began a week earlier.
The company also said in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, that it sees results for the fiscal Q4 ending this month "near the high end of the previously provided range of $34 billion to $37 billion," and that it "expects gross margin to be near the high end of the previously provided range of 36% to 37%."
Cowen & Co.'s Tim Arcuri, reiterating an Outperform rating, and a $550 price target, writes that the number of announced downloads of iOS 7, 200 million, also tops the 100 million downloads of iOS 6 at this time last year. Arcuri thinks the 9 million number is higher than the buy side's expectation for 7 million to 8 million units, and "this result validates Apple's decision to maintain focus on profitability versus market share."
Note that several suppliers to Apple are getting a lift. Shares of wireless chip maker RF Micro Devices (RFMD) are UP 33 cents, or 6%, at $5.82, after Canaccord Genuity's Mike Walkley this morning reiterated a Buy rating, and a $7.50 price target, writing that the "teardown" analysis of the iPhone 5S published by iFixit on Friday showed "dollar content gains for RFMD in several SKUs" of the device, and the same for the iPhone 5C, including that "RFMD appears to have won the main antenna switch module (ASM) in the Australian version of the iPhone 5S and 5C smartphones with the 1495 8020 module."
Another regular supplier catching a bid is Cirrus Logic (CRUS), up $2.09, or over 9%, at $24.06.
Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) are down 28 cents, or 3%, at $8.45, following a 17% drop on Friday afternoon, after the company announced preliminary results for the FYQ2 ended this month well below expectations, and said it will reduce its handset portfolio to focus on enterprise and "prosumers," and will cut 4,500 employees, as it takes a nearly $1 billion charge for unsold inventory.
The stock today got two downgrades, from RBC Capital's Mark Sue and Jefferies & Co.'s Peter Misek, but it also got two upgrades, from R.W. Baird's William Power and Credit Suisse's Kulbinder Garcha.
Misek, cutting his rating to Hold from Buy, and cutting his price target to $8 from $15, writes that a survey he conducted in the last three weeks "indicate substantial value for BBRY's MDM [mobile device management] business, but that the handset business will be sub-scale going forward, meaning units, ASPs, and margins will be under pressure and lead to a negative value for the handset business (vs. our prior $0 estimate)."
On the other hand, Baird's Power, raising his rating to Neutral from Underperform, and assigning an $8 price target, asks, "how much worse can it get?" and responds that "Foremost, we believe our operational concerns have largely played out. The stock is now more likely to be driven by M&A rumors and sum-of-the-parts arguments."
Shares of Oracle (ORCL) are up a penny at $34.06 after CEO Larry Ellison last night gave the opening keynote at the company's OpenWorld developer conference taking place in San Francisco this week. If you missed the keynote and would like to watch a replay, you can catch it on the Web site for OpenWorld.
Nomura Equity Research's Rick Sherlund this morning writes that Ellison focused on Oracle's forthcoming "12.1C" database, a so-called in-memory database.
Writes Sherlund, the announcement is a positive, and relative to SAP's (SAP) own in-memory database, Hana, "the advantage of Oracle is it is compatible with existing Oracle apps and infrastructure and Oracle claims to deliver over 100 times the performance over its traditional approach."
Enterprise software maker Informatica (INFA) this afternoon reported Q2 revenue that topped analysts' estimates and profit per share that was in line with expectations.
Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 17% to $222 million, yielding EPS of 31 cents.
Analysts had been modeling $220.6 million and 31 cents.
Software revenue rose 18% to $91.4 million, with license revenue up 13% at $80.1 million, and subscription revenue up 70% at $11.3 million.
CEO Sohaib Abbasi said the results reflected "more strategic customer decisions" as clients "aspire to become data-centric enterprises."
Informatica management will host a conference call with analysts at 5 pm, Eastern time, and you can listen to the webcast of it on the company's investor relations Web site.
Informatica shares are down $2.14, or almost 6%, at $37.06 in late trading.
Update: On a conference call following the report, Informatica management projected Q3 revenue of $220 million to $230 million, and EPS of 30 cents to 33 cents. That is better than the $220 million average revenue estimate of $220 million, and about in line with the 32-cent average estimate of analysts.
Shares have recouped some losses following the call, now down just $1.20, or 3%, at $38.
Update 2: On a phone call following the conference call, Abbasi was kind enough to spend a few minutes discussing the results and the market. Regarding the merely in-line earnings number, which I said seemed perhaps to have prompted disappointment initially, as did, perhaps, the lack of EPS upside in the Q3 forecast, Abbasi said that the company is "in investment mode" to develop broad sets of new capabilities for big data and analytics, and "we are focused on revenue growth at the moment."
Abbasi demonstrates a great fluency with the many types of data analytics and big data out there. There are systems from Teradata (TER), there is the open-source Hadoop software, there are ad-hoc query programs from Tableau Software (DATA) and Qlick Technologies (QLIK), there are programs sold by the major IT vendors, such as Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) "Vertica," etc. All of these different systems are experiencing some uptake within companies, and the mixture of them all at the same time is creating complexity that he maintains Informatica can solve with its own software. (Qlik is a partner to Informatica.)
"One client, a large financial, told me, "It's insanity right now in analytics, and you guys bring sanity to it," claimed Abbasi of a recent customer meeting. He pointed out that this customer has Oracle (ORCL) database implementations, but also SAP's (SAP) Hana in-memory database, is playing with Hadoop, and also considering hosted analytics services such as Amazon.com's (AMZN) "RedShift" offering of its Amazon Web Services.
"You need something that will allow you to take the data and move it to any one of these systems you want, and then to move it back and forth between the systems, or else you are re-crafting your data every time you implement it in any of the systems," he said.
In another corner of Big Data, Splunk's (SPLK) software can help detect not so much relationships, as with analytics, but "correlations," noted Abbasi. There, too, the companies wares can be an aid in connecting the way those correlations happen across multiple data sets.
Shares of SAP AG (SAP) are down $2.20, or almost 3%, at $73.80, after the company this morning reported Q2 revenue and earnings per share that missed consensus expectations, and cut its outlook for software revenue growth, citing troublesome economic conditions in Asia-Pacific and Japan. But it also said its sales are being affected by the shift of some clients to buying SAP's products run as a service, the so-called cloud computing movement.
Shares of competitor Oracle (ORCL) are down 17 cents, or 0.6%, at $31.98.
Revenue in the three months ended in June rose 4%, year over year, to €4.09 billion, yielding EPS of €0.73, excluding some costs. That is below analysts' average estimate for €4.2 billion in revenue and 75 Euro cents per share. Excluding the effect of currency shifts, revenue would have risen 8%.
The company's revenue from cloud computing subscriptions and support fees rose 166%, year over year, to €183 million, on an adjusted basis, while software revenue fell 7%.
Co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagermann remarked that "We are gaining market share in a challenging macroeconomic environment, and with the HANA Enterprise Cloud, we are resolute to capture the future as the cloud company."
The company noted in particular it saw "strong cloud subscription and support revenue growth in North America."
The company said that "difficult macroeconomic environment in particular in Asia Pacific Japan and the rapid transition to the cloud have resulted in lower software revenue expectations," with software and cloud revenue declining 7%, combined, in Asia-Pacific and Japan.
But it said it is confident it can see software revenue rise at least 10% this year after a 3% fall so far for the first half. That is down from a prior forecast for 11% to 13% growth.
It also projected cloud computing revenue to more than double to €750 million. Revenue from the company's "Hana" database program will also double, it said, to €650 to €750 million.
Nomura Equity Research's Rick Sherlund, who has a Buy on the shares and a $68 price target, sums it up as "Cloud good, but still small," referring to the company's cloud computing efforts.
Sherlund says revenue from the Hana database system of €102 million was below his own €120 million, adding "This is the slowest annual growth quarter HANA has reported, although admittedly against a difficult compare."
He sees Hana having been up against tough comparisons, and also sees evidence of cannibalization by the cloud of the company's traditional software lines:
Of the components of license revenues, HANA was up 21%, less than our estimate of about 40%. The Business Suite on HANA was released in May and did not likely have time to drive through HANA sales, so while management reaffirmed guidance for HANA for the year, this will be skewed to the back half of the year as it was last year. We think mobile likely did not grow much y/y with a tough compare as well, implying that the traditional SAP license business was probably down 5% – 10%, or flat to down 5% on a CC basis. The cloud revenues (now about 4.5% of total revenues) were up 166% reported and 171% cc but if we add back Ariba to last year we estimate organic growth of about 28% reported and 32% cc. This was above our estimate and we are likely seeing more cannibalization of SAP's traditional on-premise license business for CRM and procurement and HCM. This cannibalization is likely to accelerate as the company undergoes a multi-year transition to the cloud.
Bernstein Research's Mark Moerdler reiterates an Outperform rating, and a $91 price target, calling the report "Not so great":
We are disappointed with the weak results, which were still better than other software companies, and believe SAP faces a tough macro environment and some pressure from the cloud but we remain optimistic on the prospects of HANA and the cloud business and the long term opportunities of the company. We note that the company recognizes the opportunity in the cloud and is driving its products and sales toward its cloud offerings.
Barclays's Raimo Lenschow, who rates SAP shares Equal Weight, calls the report "not great but no disaster either."
The report supports his view SAP "is stuck between product cycles," noting that "HANA was light at €102m (vs. Barclays at €119m) as pricing was changed according to some channel partners. This leaves the core down 7-8% for Q2 and 1H."
As we have flagged for a while we think it will be tough for SAP to grow license revenue this year. We believe management did the right thing by lowering the guidance and moving SSRS from +11-13% to at least 10%, with license + Cloud guidance not included anymore (was 14-20% constant currency). The new guidance still implies that license revenue will grow by 2%y/y in 2H13 and implies a modest 2H improvement. Normal seasonality would imply a FY license number of €4,580m or 8% below the VARA cons. Given this license outlook, we think SAP will have to prove to the market that i) the Business Suite on HANA cycle is large enough to compensate for the decline in the core and ii) it is a credible Cloud player. Both will likely be difficult to prove in the short term and that will keep SAP range bound around our price target, in our view.
Nomura Equity Research software analyst Rick Sherlund today offered up his thoughts on evolution of the database market, including developments with International Business Machines (IBM), SAP (SAP), and Microsoft (MSFT), and Oracle (ORCL), in particular, the battle for control of the "in-memory" database frontier.
IBM, for one, last week announced its "PureData" database project for its DB2 database system will support the open-source "Hadoop" standard for very large database projects. And something called "BLU Acceleration" allows for so-called in-memory databases.
SAP's "Hana" in-memory database is now doing not just data analytics, but also transaction processing, he writes. Sherlund thinks this is a "major breakthrough," but will require lots of forthcoming development. Something may be heard at the company's Sapphire conference in mid-May in Orlando, Florida, he speculates.
Sherlund thinks running transactions on Hana will help SAP's ambitions for "cloud computing":
The strategic significance of running the Business Suite on HANA is that this will enable new real time business processes intended to transform a customer's business into a real time enterprise. This would potentially extend the growth of Business Suite, which most investors have assumed will soon be in decline as customers move to the cloud. We believe SAP will announce a private cloud hosting service at SAPPHIRE, offering to run a customer's applications on HANA at an SAP data center. SAP can offer enough capacity to run the average workload but also offer to scale out and offer higher capacity to meet peak workload requirements. This private and hybrid cloud strategy should be complementary to the market interest in moving to HANA, with unlimited compute capacity available on demand, as a service. The hybrid cloud would be say the ERP system running on HANA at the SAP data center and say the CRM system running on HANA at the customer site and these systems will need to work together as if they were running on the same site.
As for Microsoft, its relational database product, SQL Server 2012, is getting more competitive with add-ons called "xVelocity," offering both analytics capabilities and "column store extensions," he thinks. That can be combined with in-memory database ability through Microsoft's "Project Hekaton," he writes, Greek for "hundreds." This may help Microsoft in the analytics market:
The system appears to place the most frequently accessed tables in-memory and less frequently accessed data tables on disk. Directionally, Microsoft is gearing up for the big data analytic market opportunity and ability to have SQL Server function as the transactional system with the performance advantages of an in-memory system, yet offer the familiar SQL Server platform for developers and customers. This is expected in the next major release of SQL Server, which is likely in 2014 or 2015.
Oracle hasn't brought in-memory to its flagship database products, instead confining the function to its "Times Ten" product line. He wonders how quickly SAP will try to make an end-run around Oracle, selling Hana increasingly in place of Oracle DB:
Were Oracle to promote TimesTen as the primary platform for in-memory, we think it unlikely that SAP would support this with its Business Suite. Were Oracle to offer extensions to its Oracle 12C database that are compatible, then the Business Suite might offer some of the same advantages on Oracle as it does for the HANA. It is unclear if the new real time business processes that SAP is developing with its customers are written specifically for HANA. So the core Business Suite might run on Oracle, but the new real time processes might not. We would need to clarify with SAP [...] Gartner is also of the view that SAP will stop selling run time licenses for Oracle as their competition heats up in the database market. Already, we are told that SAP is not promoting the Oracle database platform versus SQL Server and DB2 or its own ASE database.
Update: Following the publication of this report, Sherlund requested that I remove reference to some remarks by Gartner regarding market share of databases supporting SAP applications, remarks that were not on the record. Sherlund tells me in an email that he believes Oracle has 41% dollar share of databases supporting SAP applications. He believes that has declined somewhat over the years.
Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron's veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: firstname.lastname@example.com.


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dot Indian snakecharmer
Joined: Aug 2006
Location: San Francisco
Oddometer: 899
phenominal report! great story teling as well. i am jealous
"One measure of a man is what he does when he has nothing to do." - Robert Fulton
Joined: May 2006
Location: Portland, Oregon
Oddometer: 5
Those are terrific photos and a good story. Thanks guys.
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: Pedernales R., Tx Hill Country (Ihadthisavatar1st)
Oddometer: 1,768
Obviously a fantastic adventure.
Almost makes me want to go to Mexico.
I had no idea you could get that many pics on one page.
Kudos and ratings.
Beastly Adventurer
Joined: Mar 2006
Location: Portland, OR
Oddometer: 8,554
I must be a lightweight, in addition to not being able to cut it during the night-time charge into Durango I also didn't take many pictures. A whopping two all day, both at the gas station at Crucero La Zarca (about 120 miles North of Durango) where as Gusty mentioned there was no premium.
Gas was to be the one annoyance I had with the KTM all trip. The 950 is new to me, I got it a month before we left. I first had to pull the octane plug at Ignacio Zaragoza (a couple hours south of Casa Grandes) on the second day in Mexico. That whole area is a bit of a premium void. This was also where the attendant, realizing my Spanish was less than optimal, tried to short me 100 pesos on change from a 500 note. Fortunately my grasp of the decimal system is better than my grasp of Spanish but it was amusing. This was the one time it happened all trip, !#$%er
I couldn't tell if the bike ran badly or not on regular. Right after Ignacio Zaragoza we started climbing on Hwy16 and it ran like utter crap and was noticably down on power but there is also only regular gas at Samachique (there is a premium pump but it's locked and not been filled for years) and the bike ran like a champ on the return leg from Samachique to Creel and I was pushing it hard. There was maybe less pure climbing here than previously but the whole issue left me perplexed.
What was more obvious was the cost. All the gas stations in Mexico are like Pacific NW liquor stores, the product is state controlled but the stations are independantly owned. Prices were the same everywhere we went. 8.6pesos for 92 and 6.8 for 87. Thats over a 25% premium for premium combined with the KTMs less than stellar fuel economy meant that a 92 octane fill-up cost me about 150 pesos per 150 miles to Gustavo and Brians 75 pesos. In the end for the more pedestrian sections I ended up using regular and just retarding the timing but still this was 100 pesos to their 75. Oh well, I have better suspension
What I should have done and didn't was keep a fuel log with refil quantities, mileage, av speed and elevation. Would have been useful.
Anyways. now that I'm done with this tangent, here are the two pics (drumroll ....) from Crucero La Zarca:
The first is of a family of like 8 people packed into a tiny pickup:
The second is of the little blue shack where Brian and I got drinks. Brian was quite impressed by the full-service nature of this establishment. As we approached the owner turned back, went inside and put on his apron to serve us. He also had a little bucket of fresh water where he dipped the soda cans to clean them and a white rag which he dried them off with.
Soda is a bit of an odd thing in Mexico. It's even more prevalent than in the US and heavily consumed (though mostly it's all sold in glass bottles which get reused). Also, there are no 64oz BigGulps. Coke has the market hold, very little Pepsi products. I think I drank more soda in 2 weeks in Mexico than I have in the last 5 years in the US (no joke). The whole soda thing (plus of course the Nescafe tragedy) was to Gustavo's friend Noel, a large conspiracy being forced upon the Mexican population
Talking of consipiracies .... it's possible that I wasn't in the best of moods upon arriving at Durango. Tired after the Banzai night-time donkey dodging ride plus worried about leaving the bikes parked outside of the Hotel on a busy street (turned out to be totally unfounded). Gustavo decides that rather than find somewhere decent to eat, we'll go to Sanborns (a department store chain owned by Mexico telecom magnate and all around Bill Gates wannabe Carlos Slim). Lets just say that the Pasta Alfredo was't a fulfilling experience. If I ever run into Mr Slim I'm gonna have to ask whats the deal with canned mushrooms in Mexico. But Brian and I did get to rail on Gustavo for his riding so that made me feel a whole lot better.
After this we went outside to the square. I don't have any pics but it was busy and lined up on one side were a selection of the rattiest sportbikes I've seen in a while. If you've wondered why you don't see many Katana 600 and 750s in the US anymore, I can put you out of your misery and tell you most are living out their waning years in Durango.
After this Gustavo went off to call home and Brian and I wandered around eventually running into a truly excellent coffee shop called Cafe Brazil where we got talking to the owners (one Brazilian - who would have guessed - and one Mexican who met at the University of Texas at Austin). I loved this place. We'd return there in a couple of days on the way back from Mazatlan.
crazybrit screwed with this post 03-29-2007 at 07:22 PM
Gnarly Adventurer
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Oregon coast
Oddometer: 451
Well, the bolt holding the bar which crosses behind the rear fender did vibrate off. Fortunately the bolt on the other side, altho half-way backed out, stayed in long enough that the cross bar came home with me.
I had a spare M6 bolt that would hold the cross bar steady, but the part that was really hard to replace was the little "mushroom" that the lower part of the bag slides on to.
We went to the hardware store in Creel after returning from Divisadero to look for a longer bolt which could maybe be jury-rigged with some washers and spacers to act like a Givi "mushroom" but, , we found only SAE hardware. So much for the metric system being the standard everywhere except the USA.
Later I came up with other temporary bag mounting options, but the trip to Durango was a looong day, and having the bike always pull to the left really put a kink in my neck and shoulders.
P.S. Clean your mirrors more often
Gnarly Adventurer
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Oregon coast
Oddometer: 451
Divisadero, Flying Rocks, and more
Tony and Gustavo have pretty well covered our day with the MotoAventuras guys, but I have a couple of photos to add.
A panoramic view from Divisadero: (click for higher-res)
The Hotel Divisadero had a really cool entrance door:
Here's a picture Tony and Gustavo would have a hard time taking:
I bought two 10-peso bracelets from the girl on the left at the old cathedral in the very small town:
There was also a little boy who was very insistently begging for "un peso". This may have been the most poverty-stricken area that we actually stopped at (we drove by some very primitive places but didn't stop), and I felt a bit awkward showing up with a bunch of bikes probably worth $100,000 all together. (OK, the 2 V-Stroms don't contribute much to that total) I'm still not sure if there's anything I can do to help, but I am going to try to keep this in mind.
A couple related observations:
- I think Tony and Gustavo both mentioned something Noel talked to us about: CocaCola advertises extensively in Mexico, and Mexicans are, jointly, Coke's biggest customer. In the Valle de Hongos there was another boy who came over to beg after we parked. He obviously didn't have a lot, but I did notice when we first arrived that he had a big bottle of Coke. He probably doesn't have a source of clean drinking water, but he chose to spend what money he has on Coke instead of bottled water.
I'm not sure why I find this as disturbing as I do. Maybe it's because I have a 2-Dr Peppers-a-day habit (For any other Dr. P addicts, let me tell you, there is no Dr. P in Mexico.) But more likely, it's all part of my frustation with Coke, CitiCorp, and other big corporations using "free trade" agreements ... never mind, this is probably not the forum for this.
- The drive home from New Mexico in the truck was really striking because there are lots of new shops and homes being built near the interstate (to go with the many that are already there). I don't know why anyone would want to live in the oppressive heat of Phoenix or Tucson or Palm Hills, CA, or any of many other places we passed on I-10 and southern I-5, but it was clear from driving by these places that lots of money is being spent and shopping is The American Way. If you ever wonder about those statistics about trade deficits, disproportionate use of resources, and global warming pollution, just drive along I-10 for a while. I felt like I went from poverty and subsistence to the land of endless shopping.
OK, that's depressing and political... back to bikes, pictures, and food. Who says the R1?00LT isn't a dirt bike?
Again, there are lots more of my pictures here.
Dinner that night was at The Parador, a hotel and restaurant in Creel. I had the house special Molcajete. A molcajete is a traditional bowl that is hand carved from volcanic rock. In this case, the rock holds a bean and tomato soup with large strips of steak and cheese, plus slices of avocado. It was really delicious.
Jose Lois provided dessert for everyone. He brought stuffed, sun-dried guayaba (guava), a specialty of the Puerto Vallarta area. He gave Tony and I some extras so we could take them home to our sweeties.
Gnarly Adventurer
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Oregon coast
Oddometer: 451
Creel to Durango
We got up early (yes, Gustavo, it was early) and had breakfast with a few of the MotoAventuras guys at the hotel restaurant. Hector bought breakfast for everyone as part of his bid to host the 2008 MotoAv gathering in Guatemala. Thanks, Hector, but the Olympic Committee doesn't accept bribes...
We were on the road before 9 -- OK, maybe it didn't turn out to be as early a start as hoped for, but there were a lot of people to say "goodbye" to.
The road to Samichique was awesome again. It stayed interesting for another 100 or so miles, then we hit Mexico 24 -- yikes! That may be the road in worst repair that I have ridden.
Nice lunch in Parral, then a long grind to Durango. I only took one picture the whole day, the cathedral on the main plaza in Durango:
I think it's very handy to have a clock on the cathedral
Tony had his first really bad meal of the trip at Sanborns, but then he and I discovered Cafe Brasil on Hidalgo St. wandering around after dinner, and it made up for the dinner.
Durango has some very nice old buildings. Usually my Spanish is good enough to parse out signs, but the plaque on the historic government building was way too much for me. I couldn't tell if the government had commandeered the building from a rich guy, or if they just liked the architecture of this guy's house so much that they made the gov't building look just like it. Either way, it happened a long time ago
Motociclista Errante
Joined: Jun 2004
Location: Sometimes in Hillsburrito
Oddometer: 2,292
Durango to Zacatecas
This day was going to be a short day of riding, leaving us enough time to explore Zacatecas in the afternoon. We ran into some road construction on the road to Zacatecas, which slowed the pace in the first few miles, as they are turning the road exiting Durango into a four lane highway.
But, every day has to start with a good breakfast, and we found El Zacabon to be a good place to have breakfast. El Zacabon has been in business for 25 years (not sure all of them at this location) and is a favorite of the locals for some very good reasons.
Tony and Brian were happy customers too:
We made a few failed attempts at finding the bolt Brian needed (it was Sunday, all the "good" places were closed), and around 10:30 finally got on the road to Zacatecas.
As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot of construction at the Durango exit:
The detours around the construction zones weren't always this nice or wide, you often had to wait for oncoming traffic to pass before you could use it:
We got to Zacatecas a little before 2 PM and quickly found the hotel. I picked the Maria Benita because it had parking (Tony was worried about street parking in Durango , I had parked the V-Strom on the street in front of Hotel Roma many times without any issues, and I was certainly not worried this time, since there was this shiny new KTM parked next to it... ), but it turned out that the parking garage is around the block without direct access to the hotel. The hotel staff suggested our bikes would be better off in the hotel courtyard, or today, in the shopping mall, since it was closed for the holiday.
There was only one problem. There were three stairs to hop over before entering the shopping area...
Getting ready to pick Brian's bike up the stairs:
It wasn't that difficult, but the bash plate hit on one of the stairs:
My V-Strom is a little heavier:
Tony, we could have really used your help here, buddy... :
Bikes parked away from the street:
Zacatecas was established in the mid 1500s. It was settled to mine the silver deposits that were originally found by indigenous Zacatecos in the hills around it. IMHO, it has some of the finest colonial buildings anywhere in Mexico, the historical center is nicely preserved without feeling like a tourist trap. It's a really nice working city that happens to have fantastic buildings and history. Since the city center dates from well before the automobile, it's a perfect city to explore on foot. Once you get outside the city center, it's sprawl central, but you generally have no need to visit those newer neighborhoods, even if you are a seriously cheap bastard (who me? ) you can find decent accommodations within walking distance of the city center.
Wandering around Zacatecas:
Tony and Brian with Zacatecas' cathedral and La Bufa in the background:
Teatro Calderon:
We were hungry, so I suggested Acropolis as an option that would probably be acceptable for Tony. I have to note that there was full disclosure of my "culinary adventure" there early in January, but they decided to brave the odds and try it:
There was no reason to worry. I didn't really think there was anything wrong with the food at Acropolis, it was just a bad combination that night. The food was very tasty.
We wondered into the cathedral next door:
It's pretty austere compared to some of the cathedrals further south (Santo Domingo in Oaxaca comes to mind).
The facade is magnificent:
Given that Zacatecas is a silver jewelery center, Tony used the opportunity to buy some souvenirs:
The end of Av. Hidalgo:
Newer neighborhoods on the hill:
I wanted to visit museo Rafael Coronel (the building used to be a convent - Convento de San Francisco), but it was closed by the time we got there:
Wandering around Zacatecas:
Teleferico La Bufa - the cable car to La Bufa:
We took the last car up and walked down the hill back into town.
Museo Rafael Coronel:
At the top of La Bufa there is a chapel for la virgen del patrocinio, patron saint of the miners:
Sunset from La Bufa:
Plazuela Francisco Gotia is sort of the communal living room of Zacatecas, there is almost always something going on there:
One of the nicest hotels in town is La Quinta Real de Zacatecas. It's built in an old bull ring, and they have done a magnificent job at it. It's certainly worth a visit to see the place. We decided to go have dinner there while we were visiting it.
Dinner at Quinta Real:
Tony enjoying his wine (at least until we got the bill ):
The place was very nice. The food was OK to good but the service mediocre at best. It started with the unavailable water. Well, I am not sure that it's not available, but repeated request to get three glasses (or even bottles) of water did not produce a single glass of water until we left. Then there was the wine bait-and-switch thing. It made for the final straw in our remarkably unimpressive dinning experience. Considering that we spent a lot more on dinner than we did on lodging in Zacatecas, it should have been a lot better than that.
I still highly recommend going to see the Quinta Real, The place is gorgeous. Go have gorditas at Doña Julia and later go have some drinks at the Quinta Real bar.
On our way out I noticed that the Quinta Real parking lot was at full capacity:
Man, can they pack them into those lots. I hope those parked in the back don't have plans to leave early tomorrow...
Gustavo screwed with this post 03-30-2007 at 06:50 AM
Gnarly Adventurer
Joined: Feb 2006
Location: Oregon coast
Oddometer: 451
Durango to Zacatecas
We had a nice breakfast at a place off the south-west corner of the main square. Here's the government building now that it's light again:
We also walked by Cafe Brasil again, but it's only open from 4P to 11P. We did see that it is housed in the former home of Delores Del Rio, who was the first Mexican actress to make it big in Hollywood, back in the 1940's
The road from Durango to Zacatecas is pretty boring, but at least I set up my luggage differently so that the bike wasn't pulling to the left all the time. It was Sunday, so the metric bolt place in Durango was closed when we stopped on the way out of town. There was a lot of road construction near Durango -- they are widening the road considerably.
Zacatecas is an interesting old town, now grown considerably. The old part of town is on some hills, and steep cobblestone roads make for some interesting riding. Some of the streets are just too steep, and they have stairs on them.
We had some fun checking in at our hotel. They let us park the bikes in a part of the building which is sort of a mini-mall. Monday was going to be a holiday, so the shops would still be closed then. I didn't take a picture, but I know Tony and Gustavo did. The interesting part was getting the bikes up one wide stair-step and two normal stair-steps with a ramp that only worked for one step. With the help of a couple of guys on the hotel staff, we got them up, but my bash plate or center stand hit their nice marble stair. The guys didn't seem too concerned.
After settling in, we walked around town in tourist mode. There are a few cathedrals in Zacatecas, and we visited a very nice one.
We ate a nice lunch in a restaurant called Acropolis in the near building.
My "artsy" photo:
Tony's colorful shirt seemed appropriate for the colorful houses in Zacatecas.
There is a museum in this old nunnery, but we were there too late and it was closed.
More of the nunnery
Cool statue on someone's roof with a view of La Bufa in the background.
Hmmm, between the Tony's shirt picture and this one, I am thinking that WebShots is darkening my photos. These are brighter on my computer. Darn free photo hosting services -- you can never get your money back!
Anyway, perhaps Gustavo can explain La Bufa better... on top of this hill there is a shrine and the tower you see, which looks more like some kind of fort. Which one is La Bufa? Maybe they both are, plus there are a few shops up there. You can ride a cable car up there, and we decided to do just that. Those lines in the middle of the picture above are the cable car cables, and it was a bit wierd to see the cable cars going overhead.
Before you can ride the cable car, you have to hike to the top of the other hill. This street was almost all stairs:
We arrived at 6:05, and the cable car was supposed to close at 6. They let us in, tho, to wait along with 30 or so other people, one of whom was a big fan of the soccer team that was playing on the TV in the waiting room. Luckily he rode on a different car. Here's the view from the cable car loading platform:
And the cathedral from the cable car:
Another "art" shot of the view back down the cable car cables with the sunset reflected on them:
My pics of La Bufa itself didn't turn out that well -- Tony and Gustavo probably have some.
We walked down the hill to our hotel while I used Tony's cell phone to call my wife. $8 for 12 minutes, what a bargain, eh? TelCel (I think), owned by the same guy that owns the Sanborns chain, Tony's friend Carlos Slim, has had pretty much a monopoly on cell phones in Mexico, and the prices tell the story. However, we did see some presence of Telefonica Movistar (MotoGP sponsor of years past). Apparently, their coverage is still very limited, but maybe they'll build up to being competition and bring the prices down.
At the hotel we washed up a little and spent a couple minutes checking email on the hotel computers. One of them had a keyboard where the b key didn't work. I, rian, had a hard time entering my name and password.
My dad had recommended we check out a couple of places, so we walked over to La Quinta Real for dinner. This is a La Quinta hotel built in an old bull-fighting ring. As if that didn't provide enough ambiance, there are some old aqueducts nearby. We arrived well after dark, but I tried a long-exposure shot while we were waiting for our table:
You can see one of the cathedrals through an arch in the aqueduct -- the view was very cool.
The food was pretty good, but didn't quite match up with the 5-star service they were trying to present. Unfortunately the whole appearance of good service was ruined for us by a controversy over the price of the wine we drank. Tony had selected a 270 peso bottle from the wine menu. The waiter, who didn't seem to be the wine steward, appeared with a tray with 4 different bottles on it, and said Tony's selection was not available, and the 4 bottles he had were the only other choices. Maybe they were the only similar choices. He did not bring the wine list back. Anyway, Tony picked the one that he understood to be 340 pesos. The check arrived with a charge for a 540 peso bottle of wine, and it took 15 minutes and 4 or 5 negotiation sessions to get the charge corrected.
Between the wine controversy, and us never getting any water despite asking for it a couple times, we were not happy with the service. It was a nice bottle of wine, though.
Back to the hotel pretty late, and we need to get an early start for the ride tomorrow.
Motociclista Errante
Joined: Jun 2004
Location: Sometimes in Hillsburrito
Oddometer: 2,292
But seriously, you shouldn't even consider going to Mexico. Really. It's not good for you. Ask Pilot. Or, if you don't believe him, read this.
Beastly Adventurer
Joined: Mar 2006
Location: Portland, OR
Oddometer: 8,554
Gustavo, are you going to talk about your new-found passiing strategy on the start of the ride to Zacatecas?
Anyways, these are the only two pics I have that are distinctly different.
Stopped into Tucky Tucky ice cream for an afternoon treat where I saw this sign. I guess discrimination laws are as common place as guardrails in Mexico
Cool aquaducts, this one not far from La Quinta Real
Motociclista Errante
Joined: Jun 2004
Location: Sometimes in Hillsburrito
Oddometer: 2,292
Beastly Adventurer
Joined: Mar 2006
Location: Portland, OR
Oddometer: 8,554
Joined: Jun 2004
Location: Portland
Oddometer: 8,802
I don't have much time to post, but there is a fantastic Hostal (small hotel, not hostel) in Zacatecas. It is owned by a family who has a couple KLRs (and other bikes), and they are Horizons Unlimited folks. They helped me get some missing parts on the bike, stored the bike in their courtyard (with their bikes) and gave us a great room at a reasonable price.
It's right in town, too.
Alaska 2006 | South America 2007 | USA coast-to-coast 2008 | 2009, what happened?
2011, We lost fellow PNW adventure rider Ken Morton (DreadPirateKermit)
Motociclista Errante
Joined: Jun 2004
Location: Sometimes in Hillsburrito
Oddometer: 2,292
Sheeesh, some people's kids.
I think the place Ted is referring to is Hostal del Carmen, Av. Juárez No. 222, Zacatecas, Zacatecas. Tel. (492) 922-1430. I am not sure what rates he gives to motorcyclists (or he gave Ted and Tamara), but what I found online said MN$575/night for a double. Not really that cheap, but if you get other help there because they are riders, it may be worth the extra cost...
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When the sting of a rubber ball overshadows a love of the game of dodgeball, kids tend to opt for another form of entertainment. There is a safer alternative, though: Ga-ga, a game that originated in Israel half a century ago but has been a summer camp classic for more than a decade, retains the basic rules of dodgeball but loses the rubber ball, the above-the-waist hits and eliminations, and the potential blows from the kid with perfect aim and a cannon for an arm. Played in an octagon-shaped pit (the Ga-ga pit) similar to an above-ground pool, a Nerf-like soccer ball is tossed into the rink. Once the ball hits the ground and everyone yells "Ga-ga," all participants attempt to bat the balls downward to hit an opponent below the waist in order to eliminate them (in some games, only below-the-knee hits result in eliminations). Balls can be hit off the pit walls or directly at another player. There is no throwing or catching, and kids hit above the waist stay in the game. Whether the players opt to fly solo or form teams, the game continues until all opponents are eliminated.
Ga-ga has many variations and can also be played in an open area such as a backyard or park with a few rules changes. Increasingly, there are venues with Ga-ga pits available for league play and birthday parties. Pictured above is one of the eight playing pits at Ultimate GaGa in Syosset, Long Island, the first indoor arena to feature the action-packed game.
Also see: Retro Sports for Kids
Find birthday parties featuring classic games in the NYC area
Amber Greviskes is a frequent contributor to NYMetroParents. She lives in New York, and has also contributed to "Parenting" and "BabyTalk" magazines.
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Take a trip with your family to a railroad museum or train exhibit in the New York City area, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester, and beyond, where young and old train lovers can ride trains and explore the scenic area aboard a train.
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Specifications for the Rapala Scatter Rap Shad Lures can be seen in the Specifications tab above.


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Panzer General Online offers deep tactical single player campaigns with historically inspired battles. Lead American troops through the Italian campaign, from the landing in Sicily to the battle of Monte Cassino. Command German units during the Allied landing in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. After honing your skills against the AI, you can face other players worldwide in the different multiplayer modes. Conquer the top of the leaderboards and prove that you are the savviest general! Play Panzer General Online through our partner BlueByte!
|Blue Byte
|Release Date
|July 17, 2014
|Internet Connection
|Flash Version


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It appears that the controversial move by Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to retract a paid position for a Wiccan prison chaplain was merely a harbinger of much bigger things. The CBC reports that Toews, who oversees Canada's penitentiaries, has eliminated all paid part-time chaplain services, effectively making government prison chaplaincy a Christian-only affair."Inmates of other faiths, such as Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jews, will be expected to turn to Christian prison chapl … [Read more...]
Canadian Government: Non-Christian Prisoners Must Turn to Christian Chaplains
Being a Religious Minority (in Public Schools)
What's it like to be a religious minority in a Christian-dominated culture? Jews on First has published a must-read in-depth exploration of what it's like for Jewish students going to public schools in the South, consistently exposed to peer pressure and conversion attempts by their Christian classmates, behavior often (directly and indirectly) supported by faculty."It can be the little stuff, like my classmates wishing me to have a 'blessed day'. I know that really means that Jesus … [Read more...]
What Does the Growth of Unitarian Universalism Mean?
There's a certain truism that's been adopted by commentators and analyzers of religion in the United States (and more broadly in the West), that liberal Protestant Christianity is in a demographic death spiral, and thus liberal forms of Christianity itself are in danger of winking out of existence. Conservative columnist Ross Douthat, author of "Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics," made waves this past Summer by asking if liberal Christianity could be saved. "...if conservative C … [Read more...]
Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.The Somerset Guardian reports on a Clutton History Society meeting, featuring a talk from historian Ronald Hutton, author of "The Triumph of the Moon:A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft." Quote: "After the summer break Clutton History Society resumed its monthly programme of … [Read more...]


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Matt Belvedere is a veteran journalist at the intersection of where live television news programs and the Internet meet—developing and managing an online and social media presence for CNBC's flagship morning show, "Squawk Box."
Following years of cable and major market live TV news production, Belvedere started in 2007 the award-winning video department at usnews.com, the website of U.S. News & World Report. He also managed online strategies there at a time when the magazine was transitioning to a digital first organization.
Belvedere was nominated for a local Emmy as the Producer of morning ratings leader "News4 Today" at WRC, the NBC-owned station in Washington, D.C.
Prior to WRC, he started his career in TV production at CNBC, where he returned in the fall of 2011 as a producer on "Street Signs," before joining the digital team.
—Follow Matt Belvedere on Twitter @Matt_Belvedere
Wal-Mart is fast becoming a "fierce threat" to Amazon's dominance of online shopping, a leading retail analyst tells CNBC.
Slow and steady wins the race. That lesson from the Aesop fable about "The Tortoise and the Hare" can also apply to the stock market, according to stock picker Oscar Schafer.
AT&T is in active talks to buy satellite-TV provider DirecTV and may complete a deal in the next few weeks, according to media reports.
As the Washington Monument reopened, billionaire David Rubenstein—who paid for half the repairs—spoke to CNBC about the project's public-private partnership.
Geithner tells CNBC the foreign merger situation showed the need for the administration's 2012 corporate tax reform plan that failed to win support.
There are a lot of tailwinds for the stock market right now, hedge fund manager Dan Arbess tells CNBC.
The high levels of public and private debt would only be really worrisome if interest rates were not so low, Harvard economist Ken Rogoff tells CNBC.
Happy Thursday and welcome to one of our favorite days of the year here at the Morning Six-Pack: Draft Day.
Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush tells CNBC that investor David Einhorn's disclosure of a short case against his company allows him to get out and educate investors about its value.
The 2008 financial crisis could be just a precursor to a more severe economic fallout on the horizon, closely followed contrarian investor Marc Faber tells CNBC.


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GET READY FOR THE WINTER!!! Stock up on Ice Melt early this year! We carry Road Runner Ice Melt in different sized packages, Preston Ice Melt, and Industrial Ice Melt!!! We also have lots and lots of ROCK SALT!
Concentrates has been serving Portland & PNW with organic and conventional feeds, fertilizers, salts and commodities since 1938. We are family owned and have expert friendly staff just waiting to talk with you.


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Learn how to protect yourself from Internet scams. Read our online fraud prevention tips
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We all know alot of the rules changed for Greco-Roman wrestling since Athens 2004. Some we like and some we don't. I just want to get an idea of which ones you all do and don't like.
We all know alot of the rules changed for Greco-Roman wrestling since Athens 2004. Some we like and some we don't. I just want to get an idea of which ones you all do and don't like.
I don't know what the old rules were, but i think they should change the rules to ensure that one wrestler can't get the advantage situation being on top first and bottom second for all three periods. They should make it a rule that if one wrestler wins the better position the first two periods the other wrestler should be gauranteed it for the last period.
I don't like the 'win 2 out of 3 periods' rule
I don't like the '2 30-second par-ter things every period' rule
I don't like the 'reverse body-lock start'
I don't like the 'getting a point for not getting scored on for 30 seconds' rule
I don't like the 'last person to score wins the period' rule
I don't like that the announcers don't know what the rules are
I'm undecided about the 'push-out' rule.
There's no such thing as a pretty good aligator wrestler.
I hate there are no tied periods (why isn't a 1-1 period a tie?)
I hate the way the clinch starts (It is awful to watch and it seems that a quick start/jumping the whistle is the most important Greco skill)
I hate that only loser to finalists get to the repechage (In Judo the losers to the semi-finalists get to go)
I am nuetral on the reverse body lock position.
I like the pushout rule and the 2 out of 3 periods
I like the reverse body-lock position par terre.
I like the 2 out 3 periods.
I don't like the pushout rule.
I don't like the "last person to score wins the period"
I don't like that if you can't score in the par terre position, your oppenet gets a point.
I was gonna write something, but I decided that sully pretty much summed it up for me.
I also don't like that you only get 1 minute per period to actually set something up and score.
That goes for freestyle too. 2 minute periods is a joke.
I hate the whole idea of a "clinch". It's a manufactured position and it's B.S. Wrestle until someone scores in OT. If it takes an extra ten minutes, then so be it. But at least someone will have won the match instead of simply winning a coin flip, or ball grab.
The only reason for a tiebreaker would be if all three periods are tied. If this happens then go to a sudden death OT period. If it is still tied after an OT period, then I am OK with some crzy made-up clinch type position.
Also, if you lost the ball draw in period one, you should automatically get the choice on a tied 2nd period. This would end someone losing 1-1, 1-1 because they lost the draw twice.
i am sorry but it is embarrassing to see these olympic wrestlers walking around with their arms spread open on the mat saying what is going on, and its in every match these wrestlers dont seem to have a clue what the refs are doing


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Tiger Woods Surpasses $100 Million In Earnings
By Sports Talk Florida
News Desk
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News Desk
Follow @ SportsTalkFLA
NORTON, Mass. (AP) — Tiger Woods has become the first $100 million man on the PGA Tour.
Woods finished third Monday in the Deutsche Bank Championship and made $544,000, pushing his career total to $100,350,700. Next on the list is Phil Mickelson, who finished fourth at the TPC Boston and has $66,805,498.
Woods has 74 wins, second all-time to Sam Snead. He has played 277 times on the PGA Tour, with an average of $362,276.89 per start.
Source: AP


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About Omega Atrocity
- Birthday 04/24/1994
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- Location Western NC
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Omega Atrocity's Activity
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Your childhood NBA team?The bobcats unfortunately. I was 10 during their first season. I've grown up with a horrific basketball team.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Anyone else a total sucker for the NBA Summer League?Yeah I'm definitely gonna watch it
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agentThis basically. I think Biz will be a good backup center for a while, but that's all. I'm very worried about our center position.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agentSo I'll say something to both sides. I like Biz, but he isn't elite defensively. He is elite at blocking shots, there is a difference. I remember a Detroit game where he gave up 4 or 5 lobs to Drummond. Now of course Drummond is good, but that's not something an elite defender would do. And to those saying it's smart, please elaborate. We're over the cap, this frees up no space and doesn't make any sense at all to me. Long term I don't think it effects us much, but it's still a puzzling move
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agentPure speculation, but it might be just to save cash out of MJ's pocket, which would be a travesty.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agentIt's not really that, it's that we are over the cap anyway so there is literally no negative in extending the QO to him.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agent0.000001%. You can sign the player long term after you extend the QO.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Greg Monroe NOT meeting with Hornets...We don't have cap to sign him, so no reason he would even meet with us. Which is fine, his defense is rough and I'm not a big fan of his offensive game. New York can have him.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Biz is a free agentNot a fan of this move unless we free up room to go after someone. If we're not doing that this is a stupid move.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Positions of need/change?I think we are pretty set honestly. We might bring Taylor back, but I think it's more likely that we use the MLE to go after a backup wing.
Omega Atrocity added a comment on a blog entry A case for Bismack BiyomboI think it would be stupid to not at least give him the QO. We have no cap space regardless, and we can see what his value is before just letting him go.
And yeah, Marvin Williams shouldn't be on this team, but that's a different topic entirely.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Do you want more Huddle Hornets content?Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I plan on writing a salary cap breakdown once we make a decision on the QO's for Biyombo and Jeff Taylor.
Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic Do you want more Huddle Hornets content?So I did it. If anyone is interested I caved out a bit of time and wrote a blog post about why we should retain Bismack Biyombo.
Omega Atrocity added a blog entry in Thoughts From a Charlotte Basketball FanA case for Bismack BiyomboOne of the few moves the Hornets will be making in free agency is whether or not to re-sign 22 year old big man Bismack Biyombo. After playing out all 4 years of his rookie scale contract, the team now has to make a decision on whether or not to extend the qualifying offer to Biyombo. For those unfamiliar with the way the rookie contract system works in the NBA, every rookie first round pick (Biyombo was pick 7 in 2011) drafted that comes over immediately is given a two year contract, with two team options for years three and four. After the rookie deal is played out, the team can extend the qualifying offer to the player, making him a restricted free agent. The player and team then have several options on where to go from there:
The player can choose to simply play out the QO, becoming an unrestricted free agent the next offseason (The only player to ever decline offers and do this is Greg Monroe)The team can offer the player a new contract which, if accepted, starts immediatelyThe player can accept another team's offer, giving the original team (Hornets in this case) 3 days to decide whether or not they wish to match the contract
Bismack Biyombo came into the league as an incredibly raw prospect, playing basketball for a very short amount of time before becoming an NBA player. Draft Express said in an article written on Biyombo pre-draft:
Knowing he would be a project when he was drafted with the 7th pick in the 2011 draft, the Hornets pulled the trigger on him anyway. After two seasons of starting and being the main center for the Charlotte Bobcats, the organization decided to sign free agent center Al Jefferson to a contract, making Biyombo the backup big man on a better team. The last two seasons Biyombo has been used as the backup center, and has done largely the same statistically as his two years starting, even with less minutes. Biyombo even started 21 games this past season when Jefferson went down with a calf injury. The team did not suffer a drop off, and actually went 11-10 with him in the starting lineup.
Bismack Biyombo is a defensive presence that is very good at protecting the rim. Biyombo averaged 2.9 block per 36 minutes last season, and has averaged 2.7 blocks per 36 minutes for his career through four years. In comparison to the other perceived great rim protectors in the NBA:
Tyson Chandler through four years: 2.2 blocks per 36DeAndre Jordan through four years: 2.5 blocks per 36Anthony Davis through three years: 2.7 block per 36Serge Ibaka through four years: 3.5 blocks per 36As you can see Biyombo is in some fine company as far as blocking shots goes. In fact, of players playing over 1000 minutes last season, Bismack Biyombo ranked 4th in blocks per 36 minutes. Biyombo is quite obviously an elite shot blocker at the NBA level already, which is very impressive considering the fact that he is 6'8".
Another part of the game where Bismack Biyombo shines is in his rebounding prowess. Biyombo averaged 11.8 rebounds per 36 minutes last season, and has averaged 10.4 rebounds per 36 minutes on his career. Again, lets compare that to four of the perceived nest rebounders in the NBA through their first four seasons:
Kevin Garnett through four years: 8.5 rebounds per 36DeAndre Jordan through four years: 10.8 rebounds per 36Dwight Howard through four years: 12.2 rebounds per 36Andre Drummond through three years: 14.9 rebounds per 36Again, it's pretty apparent that Biyombo is a very good rebounder. I wouldn't classify him as elite, but he very good at rebounding.
So, despite Biyombo's many offensive flaws (he can hardly catch a basketball), I believe the front office should extend at the very least the qualifying offer to Biyombo. Biyombo's qualifying offer is $5,479,933. For a team that's over the cap and not in a position to offer anymore than the MLE and bi-annual exception to free agents, there is no reason Biyombo shouldn't receive it. With the acquisition of Spencer Hawes in the earlier trade with the Clippers, and the drafting of Frank Kaminsky, the Hornets do have a frontcourt logjam at the moment. But Biyombo provides defense and rebounding that no one else on this team can provide. Couple that with the fact that $5 million will be nothing with the cap going up and the Hornets organization would be making a mistake letting this promising big man go just because he is offensively limited. He has an elite skill, and that alone makes him valuable.
Note: All stats used in this post are from basketball reference
This is the first blog post like this I've done. Please do provide feedback on this, positive or negative. I hope to provide a few more of these, including a cap breakdown when free agency starts.
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Omega Atrocity added a post in a topic How could the Hornets pick Justice Winslow...I never said it wasn't bad, just not the worst. And I still do't think it's the worst, even thought we had a horrific draft.


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We'll Be Here For You
Check with us tomorrow morning for any cancellations, delays, or other weather related items on the morning show. We always keep you up-to-date with school closings/delays and/or business cancellations with the help of our sponsors-W-K Collision Center, Lifepointe Church, and Coldwell Banker Monsees Realty- Pat Monsees and Kathy Nickel. Check the weather tab for updates as we get t


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by Lauren C. Williams Posted on April 7, 2015
If you've ever wondered what it feels like to get unwanted physical attention, this game takes you there.
by Lauren C. Williams Posted on March 20, 2015
"We aren't doing this because of Gamergate. This is not because of that; this has been a long time coming."
by Andrew Breiner Posted on March 13, 2015
You can choose whether to fight the faceless trolls with a flurry of character attacks, or take them down with a perfect argument.
by Amelia Rosch Posted on December 3, 2014
The video game is being pulled from 300 store shelves after a petition against it garnered tens of thousands of signatures.
by Lauren C. Williams Posted on October 23, 2014
Day said she's kept quiet out of fear of getting doxxed or hacked.
by Annie-Rose Strasser Posted on October 15, 2014
Because of Utah's concealed carry laws, the school was unable to assure Sarkeesian that metal detectors and pat-downs would be used to check attendees.
by Lauren C. Williams Posted on September 18, 2014
AEI defends male gaming culture from the feminists out to destroy it.
by Lauren C. Williams Posted on August 28, 2014
Anita Sarkeesian was driven from her house after getting death and rape threats online for her latest webisode critiquing "women as decoration" in video games.
by Andrew Breiner Posted on August 7, 2014
Game time!
by Lauren C. Williams Posted on June 13, 2014
Video game developer Ubisoft incited controversy this week after it decided not to add a female character to its new game Assassin's Creed Unity because it was "double the work."


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Talking Points for Thanksgiving Dinner
We all have that one family member, and with the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, perhaps you'll be sitting next to this loved one for the traditional dinner feast. Here are useful talking points that will help you set the record straight about two hot Smart Grid topics.[read more]
Five Energy Moments To Be Thankful For In 2014
As we wind down the year 2014, there have been a few moments – some forward thinking and others outright overdue – in the world of energy that we can look back on and be thankful. Overall, countries around the world took a good step forward in the direction of a cleaner planet.[read more]
The Oil Markets as a Thanksgiving Turkey
This week BP released their Statistical Review of World Energy 2014. This is always a big event for energy wonks. My goal is always to flesh out important tidbits that were perhaps overlooked by the media. Here are some of the major findings from this year's release that have been reported.[read more]
Eight Ways The Drought Is Influencing Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time of plenty – or, maybe more accurately, of vast over-consumption — from the meal to the midnight shopping rampage afterward.But across the United States this year, "plenty" has not been enjoyed by many farmers. A historic drought devastated crops over the summer, causing a spike in grain prices that led to farmers...[read more]
Why not make Black Friday a Green Friday?
Black Friday via Shutterstock
As we approach one of the biggest shopping days of the year, take a minute to think about the things you can do to make searching for the perfect gift a little friendlier on the planet (and your wallet).Here are nine ideas for making Black Friday -- and the rest of the holiday season -- a little greener and less stressful. Try one. And...[read more]
Five climate events to be thankful for
Lynn Englum, one of the interns at the Center for American Progress, has been doing some brainstorming in preparation for this year's Thanksgiving feast. She's come up with this list: Let this Thanksgiving be a time for reflection, as there are several events within the past year worth reminiscing. These five occurrences have increased...[read more]
Ethanol Dominoes: Happy Thanksgiving Edition
More in our sporadic series on ethanol dominos* from the TimesOnline (November 3): When Americans sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks' time, they will not be expressing gratitude for the surging price of the food on the table. The price of only one main ingredient in the traditional meal has remained stable over the past...[read more]
|More coming soon...
"In that case I do wish that the EPA would take Global Warming seriously. A 30% improvement, by 2030, in just the coal burning CO2 emissions is far too little. I think that the official position was that the improved efficiency was not intended to imply a reduction in the coal industry's output. That is plain ridiculous. If ALL the USA's coal burning ceased, and all 1000 million tons of US coal ..."
"It is amusing how Non Republicans who have always derided Previous Popes and Catholic doctrine in their opposition to abortion, should now suddenlyapprove of the current pontif. Talk about have your cake and eat it.If I were to advice republicans, I would have them change their focus from "Climate Change" to abundant sustainable Carbon free energy. Republicans should side-step the question ..."
"It is amusing how Non Republicans who have always derided Previous Popes and Catholic doctrine in their opposition to abortion, should now suddenlyapprove of the current pontif. Talk about have your cake and eat it.If I were to advice republicans, I would have them change their focus from "Climate ..."
"Bruce It's the irony, and it's like this: The Church has been riddicled too many time in the past, thereby denigrating its moral authority, by non-republicans (using terminology similar to the poster's), for me to now take non-republicans as anything other ..."
Scott Edward Anderson is a consultant, blogger, and media commentator who blogs at The Green Skeptic. More »
Christine Hertzog is a consultant, author, and a professional explainer focused on Smart Grid. More »
Elias Hinckley is a strategic advisor on energy finance and energy policy to investors, energy companies and governments More »
Gary Hunt Gary is an Executive-in-Residence at Deloitte Investments with extensive experience in the energy & utility industries. More »
Jesse Jenkins is a graduate student and researcher at MIT with expertise in energy technology, policy, and innovation. More »
Kelly Klima is a Research Scientist at the Department of Engineering and Public Policy of Carnegie Mellon University. More »
Jim Pierobon helps trade associations/NGOs, government agencies and companies communicate about cleaner energy solutions. More »
Geoffrey Styles is Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC and an award-winning blogger. More »
The Energy Collective
- Rod Adams
- Scott Edward Anderson
- Charles Barton
- Barry Brook
- Steven Cohen
- Dick DeBlasio
- Senator Pete Domenici
- Simon Donner
- Big Gav
- Michael Giberson
- Kirsty Gogan
- James Greenberger
- Lou Grinzo
- Jesse Grossman
- Tyler Hamilton
- Christine Hertzog
- David Hone
- Gary Hunt
- Jesse Jenkins
- Sonita Lontoh
- Rebecca Lutzy
- Jesse Parent
- Jim Pierobon
- Vicky Portwain
- Willem Post
- Tom Raftery
- Joseph Romm
- Robert Stavins
- Robert Stowe
- Geoffrey Styles
- Alex Trembath
- Gernot Wagner
- Dan Yurman


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We stayed here whilst walking Offa's Dyke. The B&B is very well located in the centre of Montgomery. The landlady is friendly and helpful, and gave us tea and biscuits when we arrived. Rooms are quiet, clean and comfortable, and breakfast was very good.
- Also Known As:
- Llwyn House Montgomery, Wales


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The other day I tuned in to one of my favorite shows, The Daily Show (some of the best reporting on TV, which isn't saying much), and I was shocked by what I saw.
Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, was interviewed. After the commercial break, not once, but three times, he said it. He dropped the f-word: folks.
What he said earlier made his use of the word particularly interesting.
In the first segment, before the commercial break, Obama was talking about getting ready for a debate. One of his staffers said, what you have to understand is, "this isn't on the level."
That's why people are so frustrated with politics, he said.
The media-political complex feeds people a ration of lies, cramming them down our throats as though fattening us up for the slaughter.
It wasn't a news flash, but it was nice to hear it acknowledged.
He continued: the insiders, of course, know it isn't true, and most people watching know it isn't true, and meanwhile we have all these problems, which are true.
Then he used the word folks. Nothing wrong with the word itself, you understand, but there's a time and place. And from the lips of a politician is always the wrong time and place.
Obama grew up in Hawaii, went to school in New York, and lives in Chicago. Folks is not part of his vocabulary. And to be perfectly fair, Obama is only taking a page out of the current president's handbook. Folks is also a favorite word of George W. Bush.
Bush, a native of Connecticut, has mastered the word folks. In a Herculean feat of political manipulation, he, largely through the use of the word folks, has managed to convince millions of people that the son of a political dynasty and graduate of both Yale and Harvard is "just folks."
Just when in the interview Obama got so folksy helped reveal the secret power of this magic word.
Obama went the first six minutes of the interview without using the word at all. Then, after the commercial, Stewart brought up the celebs. Hollywood is apparently in Obama's corner, and Stewart asked if that was a point of concern for the candidate.
Stewart referenced Martin Sheen opening for Howard Dean in 2004 with an American Indian proverb in front of a bunch of Iowans.
Obama spotted the mistake there right off. The "folks" in Iowa, he said, don't want to see celebrities, they want to talk to you, "kick the tires," get it straight from the horse's mouth and decide for themselves if you're honest.
Then Stewart asked him if there were any Republicans he could stand. Some of them, such as Mike Huckabee, are decent "folks," he said.
Finally, he referred to the damage U.S. foreign policy has done to our reputation with "folks" around the world.
They don't say folks in Hawaii or in New York or in Connecticut. But they do say it in Iowa (and in Ohio). As soon as Iowa, site of one of the first two primaries, is brought up, out comes folks. By using it, Obama is implicitly saying to the folks out there in the cornfields, "I'm one of you, not one of those silly celebrities."
By making nice with certain Republicans, he's implicitly telling Republicans, I'm "decent folks," too.
And then he says we regular Americans, with a bit of good, old common sense, are against the war and against the lying Washington insiders who started this thing.
Obama, like Bush before him, got folks from a political consultant who tested it in states like Iowa and Ohio. He could have made similiar points with the word people, but it would not have been as effective.
But I don't blame Obama for using the word. The fact is a good leader and I'm not saying Obama is one, I don't know, but a good leader has to find a way to get people to identify with him. If he doesn't , neither he, nor his issues, are going to get very far in professional politics.


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DES TAYLOR's PULPHOUSE COMIC ART EXHIBITION
13 Mar 2014 – 12 Apr 2014
Event times
Starts at 7.30pm
- 8 Great Newport Street
- London
- United Kingdom
- www.orbitalcomics.com/events/
Travel Information
- Leicester Square
A series of pulp inspired pop art , pin-up, comic book sketches and Limited Edition prints
AboutArtist Des Taylor (creator of graphic novels THE TROUBLE WITH KATIE ROGERS & THE VESHA VALENTINE STORY) is back again with a selection of Pin Up art inspired from his love of the Pulp film and book era. Expect to see fabulous Good-Girl art and exclusive prints to promote his next comic book release "SCARLETT COUTURE INVESTIGATIONS" from TITAN COMICS
Art form
Have you been to this event? What do you think? Join the discussion here!
Remember, you can include links to your instagram pictures and to videos.