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Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL)
F4Q06 Earnings Conference Call
June 22, 2006, 5:00 pm ET
Krista Bessinger - Vice President, Investor Relations
Larry Ellison - Chief Executive Officer
Charles Phillips - President
Safra Catz - President, Chief Financial Officer
Kash Rangan – Merrill Lynch
John DiFucci - Bear Stearns
Tim Klasell - Thomas Weisel Partners
Peter Kuper – Morgan Stanley
Jason Maynard - Credit Suisse
Adam Holt – JP Morgan
Heather Bellini – UBS
Charles Di Bona - Sanford Bernstein
Robert Schwartz - Jefferies & Co
David Rudow – Piper Jaffray
Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to today's Oracle Corporation Quarterly conference call. (Operator Instructions). Now as it's time for opening remarks, I'd like to turn the conference over to the Vice President of Investor Relations for Oracle, Krista Bessinger. Please go ahead, Krista.
Krista Bessinger
Great, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to Oracle's fourth quarter fiscal year 2006 earnings conference call. With me on this call are Oracle's Chief Executive Officer, Larry Ellison; Oracle's President, Charles Phillips; and Oracle's President and Chief Financial Officer, Safra Catz. As usual, our prepared remarks will be followed by Q&A.
Before we begin, however, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion may include predictions, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward looking. While these forward-looking statements represent our current judgment on what the future holds, they are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation.
Please keep in mind that we are not obligating ourselves to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. Throughout today's discussion, we will attempt to present some important factors relating to our business that may affect our predictions. You should also review our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for a more complete discussion of these factors and other risks under the heading, 'Factors That May Affect our Future Results or the Market Price of our Stock.'
Our PDF copy of our press release and financial tables, which include a GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation, can be viewed and downloaded on the Oracle Investor Relations website at www.oracle.com/investor.
With that, I'll turn the call over now to Safra Catz, President and Chief Financial Officer.
Safra Catz
Thanks, Krista. Good afternoon, everyone and thanks for joining us. I'm going to be particularly brief today, because in many ways the numbers really speak for themselves. I'll focus on this call on the non-GAAP results for Q4 and for the year. Then I'll review guidance for Q1, then turn the call over to Larry and to Charles.
As I review today's results, I just want to let you know that currency was basically neutral this quarter. Slightly negative, one percentage point for the entire year, but neutral for Q4. Constant currency and US dollars will be very similar.
So with that, let's talk about Q4. New software license revenue was very strong, up 32% year-over-year, with revenue of $2.1 billion. Database and middleware license revenues were spectacular across all geographies, up 18% year-over-year in Q4, and 9% for the full year. Middleware was up 57% year-over-year for the quarter, growing much faster than BEA.
Applications came in very strong across the board, generating license revenues of $641 million, that is 83% up year-over-year, both in US dollars and constant currency. This compares to 14% growth constant currency in SAP's most recent quarter. Application license revenues for the full year were $1.3 billion, up 66%.
Now, I'm going to cut these numbers up a little bit for you, because with the acquisitions they are a little more complicated, so I'll give you a little bit of detail here. Siebel came in $81 million for applications license. That exceeded our expectations, a little less than double what we were expecting.
Organic applications license revenue, which we'll define as without Siebel and without Retek, which we bought last year, was great. It was $544 million in Q4, which is up 56%. Now our apps license growth rate was strong around the world with 73% growth in the Americas, 94% in APAC, and 108% in EMEA.
Our strength in Q4 was also very broad-based in terms of deal size. The volume of license transactions -- meaning the number of actual deals -- greater than $1 million grew 39%, which is a clear indication that Q4 was a strong quarter across the board, versus dominated by any large deals. It was a real volume game.
To sum up our new license business, it was clearly a great year for Oracle. As I said before -- and this is becoming a recurrent theme -- we continue to take market share across all our product lines. Growing apps faster than SAP, middleware faster than BEA, and database far faster than IBM.
Our product updates and support revenue was up 16% on a non-GAAP basis. These renewal rates are at, again, a very high margin and at an all time high, showing that customers continue to renew; renew every quarter, every year and are very satisfied.
Our revenue growth also remains very profitable growth. We intend to grow market share and profitability simultaneously. Q4 income from operations grew 18% to $2.2 billion, resulting in operating margins of 45%.
Now operating margins did tick down a bit year-over-year, about 1.5 percentage points, due to some high sales compensation expenses and marketing expenses, which were all basically triggered by very strong Q4 results. We do expect margins to improve in FY '07 with progress above the 40% margin we're reporting today.
We also grew EPS by 11% in Q4 to $0.29 on a non-GAAP basis. The fiscal year's EPS was $0.80, up 19% on a non-GAAP basis. I want to point out that this was achieved even though we had interest expense from the debt, a higher weighted shares outstanding due to Siebel, and a one point increase in our effective income tax rate year-over-year. The one point change in the tax rate equals over $0.01 in EPS. It actually had a $0.01 impact on our Q4.
In Q4, we bought back 123 million shares, nearly completing our Siebel repurchase. We intend to continue buy backs throughout FY '07 with the adoption of the 10B51 plan for the whole company and have plans to buy back an additional $1 billion a quarter in FY07.
Operating cash flows increased by $1 billion year-over-year while free cash flow increased 28%. DSO was 55 days, down two days from last year, showing folks are paying their bills. In summary, I could only say that a year ago we gave you guidance for the year, and we clearly exceeded it at every level.
As for Q1, our guidance is as follows. While we feel very good about our prospects heading into FY07, Q1 is typically our smallest seasonal quarter, being June, July, August. So we're going to set guidance as follows:
New software license revenue for the quarter are expected to be up 18% to 25% year-over-year. Total software revenues are expected to be up 18% to 20% on a non-GAAP basis. Software revenues on a GAAP basis are expected to be up 23% to 25%. Total revenue for Q1 is expected to be up 19% to 20% year-over-year on a non-GAAP basis. On a GAAP basis, it's expected to be up 22% to 24%.
Non-GAAP EPS for the first quarter is expected to be $0.16 per share as compared to $0.14 last year. GAAP EPS for the first quarter is expected to be $0.11 per share, up from $0.10. This translates into a non-GAAP net income growth of 11% to 15% and GAAP net income growth of 9% to 14%.
Now, this guidance assumes an annual effective income tax rate of 30%, up from 29.2% in Q1 last year, due to the shift in the mix of earnings from our foreign sub. That alone is a $0.01 for Q1.
It also assumes one point of positive currency impact, because that is where we stand right now; but with currency fluctuations, it's difficult to predict and we're not trying to predict, we're just telling you year-over-year where it is right now. It could vary from our current estimate.
Now in Q1, we're going to adopt FAS 123-R. Our Q1 GAAP guidance currently assumes comp expense of approximately $50 million for the option. We expect stock compensation to reduce diluted earnings per share in FY07, about $0.02 to $0.03.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Larry.
Larry Ellison
Thank you, Safra. I'm going to be even briefer than Safra. Q4 really was a great story with gains in market share across the board. In round numbers, our sales a year ago were just under $4 billion and this year, just under $5 billion; a growth of almost $1 billion year-over-year -- $900 million to be exact -- year-over-year. Extraordinary growth in the quarter, with as Safra pointed out, gains in the market share in every product line. We're growing our database business faster than dB2, we're growing our middleware business faster than BEA, and we're growing our applications business faster than SAP.
Let me focus a bit on the database business, because half the time I read a story about Oracle, people are quoting "Well, Oracle's database business is growing slowly and they are under attack from IBM and by Microsoft." It wasn't long ago where Gartner had Oracle and IBM dB2 neck-in-neck in their market share estimate. Well, it turned out that Gartner did a little bit of rethinking. Gartner's latest report showed Oracle's database business with a 49% share versus IBM at 22%. So, not only are we not close, according to Gartner, our database business is more than double our nearest competitor.
IDC has a somewhat more conservative point of view. IDC has our database business with a 44% market share versus dB2's 21%, but still more than twice the scale of IBM's business. So our database business is growing well, and very, very healthy, and very, very profitable. All of our product lines, we're gaining share in all of our product lines, and our top line growth was, again, nearly $1 billion quarter-over-quarter.
With that, I'll turn it over to Charles.
Charles Phillips
Thanks, Larry.
We had a really great quarter, and some tough comparisons in Q4 of the last year, but every region really stepped up. I am really proud of the way the field performed in the quarter. Let me give you a few facts around the major parts of our business.
The applications business growing 83%, clearly customers are more comfortable with our strategy. What they have seen is continued enhancements on existing products, and I think there is installed base pent-up demand as they're moving past wait-and-see mode into time-to-get-busy mode, and buying and deploying products.
We have 30,000 application customers – I think we've just scratched the surface of the up-sell and cross-sell opportunities – and the reason they've changed their mind is we've delivered substantial value around our existing products. So they've got new versions, middleware certifications that are supported in 145 countries, more industry functionality, analytic dashboard, search capability, on and on.
So just to give you an idea of what's happened over the last year or so in terms of new product shipment and this sense of improvement, with PeopleSoft we've shipped five functional releases, two operational dashboards, and 36 maintenance packs. That's in the last year.
JD Edwards, a major service pack released, two new tools releases, industry enhancements. Siebel, three analytics releases, three CRM on-demand releases, and more and more. Oracle E-Business [inaudible] update. We have also did a lot of integration with G-Log, in fact [inaudible] with our product lines. With G-Log we sold more in Q4 than we did all last year as a separate company for G-Log.
The product build is going to continue. We have new versions of the applications to be released this summer and into the fall. So PeopleSoft 9.0 comes mid-summer, JD Edward 8.12 midsummer, Oracle 12 early fall, and then Project Genesis, which is a comprehensive set of integrations across existing applications, that's in the fall as well.
So the customers are happy. We do surveys. We had a recent one of about 1,000 customers; less than 1% were considering any sort of migration. So we've done a complete 360 where the customers are happy with what they see.
From a competitive standpoint, we had 266 wins in the quarter over SAP in Q4. Organically, we've moved 56% against 15% last quarter. In the fiscal year, we had 585 wins over SAP. Additionally, 127 new SAP [inaudible] joined the SAP program. The total this quarter is just over 2,000.
Let me give you a sense of some of the wins in the quarter in terms of names: Kraft, Land o'Lakes, Proctor & Gamble, JDM Smucker -- and that's an important win – and CPG, institutions where SAP historically has been strong in; Sprint, T-Mobile. The Sprint one, with Nextel, was very important. That CIO was publicly fairly negative about the PeopleSoft acquisition in the beginning. Now, he was at our sales force kickoff saying we were his most strategic supplier. He now says he sees the advantage and the value, and encourages us to keep doing what we are doing.
And generally in telcos we are doing well. I think the acquisition of Portal and the STP announcements helped us: we won T-Mobile, Cingular, Enbridge and Mobil in the quarter. HP was a big win in the quarter. It used to be an SAP account; we're surrounding them and boxing them off, our largest apps deal in the quarter.
Ingersoll-Rand, the State of North Carolina, we have a lot of momentum with state and local governments. We haven't lost a state in almost two years. Nearly half of all the states are using Oracle products now in their applications area.
SunTrust, Starbucks are already existing customers who are buying more, McDonald's, Nike, J.C. Penney, The Southern Company. Utilities is a key vertical for SAP. We beat them head-to-head in that account this quarter. BP International, [CIAT], just a lot of good wins.
The same thing is happening in the mid-market, which we don't talk enough about. We have 19,000 mid-market customers. We have a lot of momentum there as well.
Switching to middleware, that's been a real success story. We told you about a year ago we thought it would be our next billion dollar business, middleware. We're here to tell you that, with our Q4 performance, we've crossed over $1 billion in middleware product revenue for the trailing four quarters. It's a billion dollar business.
We now have over 30,000 application service customers, that's 19% year-to-year growth. We're the fastest growing middleware suite in the world. We continue to do it with innovation. That product line has won over 145 independent awards in the last 12 months, and has 270 patents.
Within the middleware suite, I'd like to highlight security as having substantial momentum. Our acquisitions of Thor, OctetString and Oblix has given us the strongest security suite on the market. We've sold more Oblix now in Q4 than in the history of the company. So security is a hot product line, it's a door opener for our entire middleware suite, and that's been the sell strategy here: to use these best-of-breed components that are hot-pluggable, highly standard, and wedge into any account, and start where we can start, and then expand our presence there over time, and replace whatever is there.
Some big wins in middleware: Circuit City, Monster Worldwide, State of North Carolina, HP, Department of Defense, Comcast Cable, CTIC, which is the largest state-owned conglomerate in China -- a very important win there -- and several of those are BEA replacements.
Lastly, on databases, Larry mentioned we continue to gain market share there, but also have set the bar for performance. We announced a 64-node Linux cluster which is the new record for TPCH benchmark. We now hold the top five performance results of the seven top ten in TPCH benchmarks.
Also, on both the [inaudible] in Q1, our pipelines look healthy. In the pipelines, the individual deals above $500,000 is more than double what it was a year ago. The momentum is rising, the work force is extremely motivated and confident after seeing momentum build all year long. They handle the acquisitions extremely well and learn their products [inaudible] over a much larger installed base.
I think we are product rich and customer rich, and we are ready to go. With that, I'll turn it back over to Safra.
Safra Catz
I think we are ready to take questions, Operator.
Question-and-Answer Session
(Operator Instructions) We'll take the first question from Heather Bellini, from UBS. There is no response. We'll move on to Kash Rangan, with Merrill Lynch.
Kash Rangan – Merrill Lynch
Thank you very much. I'm curious to see what is driving the acceleration in license revenue growth. It is a very healthy trend, it sounds like, Is there a combination of factors that you would attribute the acceleration to?
Are you seeing any change in your pipeline, any change in the sense of urgency on the part of customers, just better macro economic conditions? Or is it individual product options on the database set like RAC, BI, really starting to get into the next phase of inflexion, if you will?
Charles Phillips
I'll take that one. I'd say it's a combination of factors. One is having best-of-breed products in so many areas. Secondly, the customers are now seeing the value of all those products being inside of Oracle. Now we can integrate them better, certify it with our middleware, better reporting, and owning all those products together is a better account ownership experience.
So we're a lot more important to customers now, that's the other thing. When we go see a customer they are eager to meet with us, they want to know our strategy, and we can get one conversation started. Almost any problem they have, we have a product for now. So it always expands way beyond where it first started. So the combination of having so many customers and these key products, I think it just put us in a new zone.
Lawrence Ellison
Let me reinforce what Charles just said. A while ago, we decided to really focus on selling suites of products, whether it was the E-Business Suite or our middleware suite. By suite we mean a bunch of products that are really engineered to work together; a single install, a single set of management tools, a single set of patching tools. It makes it much simpler. If you try to get a best of breed from 30 different suppliers, it is very difficult to actually run that environment, very difficult to patch the environment, very difficult to manage the environment.
We are winning out of best of breed. The integrated suites are winning, and Charles' point is, our individual components inside of our suites are offering the best of breed products. So, the components are very highly functional and the components are pre-integrated. The combination of those two things makes it a very attractive buy to the customer.
Kash Rangan – Merrill Lynch
Larry, since we have you on, could you elaborate on your comments in the press related to getting into the Linux operating systems business? How should we think about that?
Larry Ellison
Well, I'm thinking a general comment about Open Source. The interesting thing about Open Source -- and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it today -- the interesting thing about Open Source is it's free to everybody, even Oracle. So, Oracle could choose to just take a copy of anyone's Open Source, and as long as we could support it better than an Open Source company, we could suddenly leap frog them and become the number one distributor.
It was just interesting. It is interesting to evaluate Open Source and understand that they don't own any of their intellectual property. It is free for us to take and support, which we may in fact, do in the future.
We will now move on to John DiFucci - Bear Stearns.
John DiFucci - Bear Stearns
Thanks, congratulations. It's a pretty impressive quarter here. Safra had mentioned sales and marketing costs being a little bit elevated, but can you describe what's going on in the cost of services line? Oracle seems to have engaged more closely with its partners over the last couple of years; but we were a little surprised here. Not that the services revenue was that much higher than expected, but the cost there was a lot higher than we expected.
Safra Catz
Just because we've had now three full months of the Siebel On-Demand infrastructure, the infrastructure that we adopted is actually a very expensive infrastructure. We are actually currently working on reducing the cost. Siebel has some agreements with providers that really didn't benefit from the massive economy to the scale Oracle has. So that's at least part of it. We'll be moving that infrastructure. We wanted to do that as appropriate for the customers, but that's part of it.
In addition, we have been continuing the hiring in our consulting organization. We have what could only be referred to as a high class problem. We've got too much work and not quite enough folks to fill it. We have been really ramping up the hiring because there are so many new Oracle Peoplesoft, Siebel projects, et cetera. I don't want to leave anyone out, and so that's going on, too. I think a lot of this is going to sort of shake out through next year.
John DiFucci - Bear Stearns
Okay, just one quick follow up: Obviously, a really strong quarter here across pretty much all geographies and all product areas. I'm just trying to figure out -- everyone's looking at this now, I'm sure -- to see what is this an indication of? Obviously, Oracle is executing well, but what is the IT spending environment? What's happening out there? It's probably some of both?
Safra Catz
I think one of the things when we look at Q1, we are also trying to make an estimate on what to expect going forward. What we are seeing is very large volumes. What I mean by that is just massive number of deals. I'm not even commenting on the size of the deals, all of which are getting a little bit bigger we noticed, but just a very, very marked increase in volume.
What we can't tell, is whether that's an IT spending indication or it's a direct response to the state of the economy or it's really an answer to people getting more comfortable with Oracle, buying more products and more customers buying more products.
We can't split it out if it's the IT spending environment entirely -- it doesn't seem like it is. It does seem to some extent a little bit more Oracle-specific, but we'll see as the year plays out.
Our next question comes from Tim Klasell - Thomas Weisel Partners.
Tim Klasell - Thomas Weisel Partners
Yes, good afternoon and congratulations on the quarter, as well. The first question has to do with seasonality. You get to bring in a greater bundle to your customers to their much broader product suite. Do you think that this quarter's out-performance was maybe a little bit due to greater seasonality as you bring a greater product set? What should we expect for Q1? That's the first question.
Charles Phillips
The fourth quarter is our biggest quarter of the year every year, and we had a very strong performance a year ago. So it's nothing new here. I think if you are looking at the trend in the business and the number of transactions as Safra described, I think it's an indicator of a pretty healthy, broad-based business. So hopefully, this is the trend going forward.
Tim Klasell - Thomas Weisel Partners
Okay, great. This is normally the time of the year when you mentioned you had your sales kick off. How are you tracking towards cross-training the acquired sales people in the various products -- where you are going to cross-train them? As far as setting quotas and territories, how are you tracking this year versus maybe this time last year?
Charles Phillips
Well, a lot of that training got done during the year; that's partly why you saw the results you saw; that people learned how to sell the new products fairly quickly and they saw the opportunity. That's part of what's going on here. The sales force is more competent and they know how to deal with multiple products now, and then the specialization to keep the expertise in house. So all that's working.
The training took place at the sales force kick-off, we did additional training this week. That ends tomorrow, so we're going to be ready to go going into next week.
Our next question comes from Peter Kuper, Morgan Stanley.
Peter Kuper – Morgan Stanley
Thanks very much. Safra, in particular, we spoke a while ago, you mentioned renewals and maintenance contracts were Oracle-installed; they're not going to switch. I'm trying to figure out why there isn't more leverage on sales and marketing in particular, if we had to nitpick on one thing. I hear you are saying you're ramping up more sales force. Charles just mentioned getting more training and you said it is going to take a year, though -- shake it out next year for overall margin leverage.
Is sales and marketing a good place to start to focus to see the improvements? Or where should we be looking in the model to get some lift here?
Safra Catz
Well, I think first of all, there were a bunch of little anomalies. As I mentioned, marketing was higher than usual; but in many ways, that is upfront spending that will be completely undone in Q1, because OracleWorld actually makes money. So that is a piece of it.
Part of it is we have actually recalculated , everyone's sales compensation to our now larger base and larger target. So we won't be paying as much per dollar, because it won't be such a large over-achievement. So I think that is actually going to show up, really, right away.
As I mentioned a little earlier, the Siebel cost structure in their On-Demand is going to be rationalized rather quickly. So I think you are going to see it really quite quickly. These are the areas where -- when you over-achieve quite this far in new license, a few people make a lot of money.
Peter Kuper – Morgan Stanley
Wouldn't that, though, to that question then, see some spill-over into Q1? Things are going great; that's fine. Wouldn't Q1 be a little bit stronger, given this momentum? Or was it just a big rush year end, typical, like Charles was mentioning, and you're just being conservative here in Q1? Is that a fair assessment?
Safra Catz
It is hard to tell because we think we are being realistic for Q1. Q1 is always a tricky quarter for us. It is June/July/August. There is no forcing event for salespeople. August is vacation. We have World Cup this year, so Europe is half-closed as it is.
So we are trying to be conservative. Though clearly, that level of guidance for Q1 is not conservative as compared to our guidance in previous years. So it is actually aggressive guidance from just the numbers themselves. But when we look at the pipelines they draw this picture, which is why I felt I could give you an 18% to 25% increase in the Q1 which we think that is where we will come in.
Now in Q1, the reps are generally not in their accelerators. So as a result, comp expense is lower for that quarter. So we won't have the Q4 effect we had this quarter.
Our next question comes from Jason Maynard - Credit Suisse.
Jason Maynard - Credit Suisse
Congratulations, guys on making the full year revenue number. Larry, a quick question for you on the database business. Can you maybe talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of movement to RAC and some of the additions? Because obviously, Database plus 9 is a strong number and you guys are gaining share; but maybe talk about some of the dynamics behind that number?
Larry Ellison
Well, I think, again, we are still in the early adoption phase of RAC. A lot of our very large customers have moved to RAC because they need the performance. As we get the administration tools down to the point where using RAC is exactly as easy, from the point of view of the data center manager -- exactly as easy as using a single computer – we think virtually everybody in our installed base – well let's say half of our installed base – will move to RAC because it is just cheaper, more reliable and faster, as long as there is no administrative overhead.
So we think RAC adoption has been pretty good. But you ain't seen nothing yet. I also think that is true on the administration tools; good control and an aggressive enterprise manager, so we think we have a good deal of headroom on various opportunities with the options.
Our low-end products are doing very, very well. As you know, we've very aggressively priced low-end products to compete with everything from a free version to products that cost substantially less than SQL server but do more.
We think the whole database business can continue growing in the high single-digits, maybe even low double-digits in a good year.
Jason Maynard – CSFB
How much of the database improvement is predicated just on getting the European sales force on par with North America in terms of selling the options?
Larry Ellison
Well again, the United States is always the early adopters of new technologies. So it is not that surprising that the Europeans haven't sold the options as aggressively.
Again, as we move out of the early adoption phase into the mainstream phase, the European business is as big, if not bigger than our North American business. So we expect a huge amount , it is an even bigger opportunity for RAC in Europe, because it is under-penetrated.
Our next question comes from Adam Holt – JP Morgan.
Adam Holt – JP Morgan
Good afternoon. A couple of questions on the guidance. First of all, could you maybe walk through what some of your assumptions are for the first quarter in terms of what we can expect to consolidate from some of the recent acquisitions, in particular i-flex?
Secondly, on a going-forward basis, should we expect to get just quarterly guidance, or will you all be in a position to comment on the year, in the near term?
Safra Catz
We are going to go back to our historical practice of just giving you one quarter in advance. It will save us the constant reviewing for the year every time we do an acquisition, if we do any more. But we are going to go back to our historical habit of just giving it for the quarter.
For i-flex, which is the only one that we don't own 100% of, other than our Japanese publicly traded subsidiaries, we are including very, very little from that. We are still working out the exact consolidation methodology. We will be laying that out.
As it is anyway, we would only consolidate it two months in arrears, because that is the way the rules work out with an Indian company and with their fiscal year end.
Adam Holt – JP Morgan
Just one quick follow-up, if I could. Obviously terrific growth in options. Could you talk a little bit about what the database business grew ex-options in the quarter?
Safra Catz
Yes, maybe we could do that later on another call. Database for the quarter, just Enterprise Edition is up about 9%.
Our next question comes from Heather Bellini - UBS.
Heather Bellini – UBS
Safra, I agree with you. Your guidance for Q1, I think some people could be concerned that maybe it is a little bit aggressive. Could you comment, given the difficulties that Oracle has had in its Q1s over the past three years, what makes you feel differently with your guidance for this Q1 and the pipeline you are seeing?
Could you contrast that versus this time last year, just to make people more comfortable with that 18% to 25% increase?
Safra Catz
Yes, I actually read your report begging us to be as conservative as possible. You know, the thing that weighs is that I have to be realistic. The volumes -- and I mean not only size of deals, which isn't the big driver, it is the number of deals between $0.5 million and $1 million; between $1 million and $5 million; between $5 million and $10 million and under $0.5 million.
All of these in the pipeline are markedly so up that applying what we think to be realistic closure rates, we should be within 18% to 25%. Do I think we will be at 17%? No. Do I think it will be much more than 25%? No.
So we really gave you the most realistic view, even though we took into account that we always have a very hard time in Q1 because it is a June/July/August quarter. We feel that that is where it's going to come out.
Now, the thing we don't know will be closure rates, and we keep getting surprised on the upside on closure rates, including in Siebel.
Heather Bellini – UBS
Safra, just a follow-up would be if you could comment a little bit about if there's any sales force reorganizations that are going on versus what we have seen in the past as well?
Larry Ellison
There is nothing substantial going on. There is always some tweaking and raising quotas and targets, which of course helps in a lot of different ways. The territories have already been set. So it is a minor enhancement.
Our next question comes from Charles Di Bona - Sanford Bernstein.
Charles Di Bona - Sanford Bernstein
Safra, I was wondering if we could follow up a little bit on what you were talking about, the large deal pipeline? Looking back at last quarter, you mentioned up 39% on deals over $1 million, which is faster than your new license growth rate.
Is that relatively proportional between database and applications? Or is there a bias one way or the other in that?
Safra Catz
You know what? I actually don't know that number. I don't think we've even done that analysis. What I see internally is all the deals have gotten chubby. You can laugh at that, but pretty much everything has bulked up. Transactions just in general.
I think it is as a result of having a broader product line. So we have a lot of mix database and apps deals. We've got a lot of apps database deals that include middleware. We've got a lot of middleware that includes identity management. The entire pipeline has just gotten bigger. So individual deals are bigger, and just the number of deals is much bigger.
Charles Di Bona - Sanford Bernstein
Following up on a couple other questions that were made there earlier, the add-on growth -- you have not broken that out separately. Could you give us color on that and on what RAC in particular has been doing for your numbers?
Safra Catz
For the fiscal year -- that is what I actually think I have -- I am getting handed the quarter. For the quarter, it is up 30%. For the fiscal year, it is up 23%. Enterprise Manager was up 42%. Partitioning is up 20%. So the options all around are up 26%. So that's the basic numbers for the quarter. Enterprise Edition, as I said before, is up 9%.
Our next question comes from Robert Schwartz - Jefferies & Co.
Robert Schwartz - Jefferies & Co
You talked about your Q1 assumptions being driven largely by growth in the number of deals. I'm wondering what your assumptions are about closure rates historically versus Q1 a year ago or Q4.
Safra Catz
We have actually trimmed the closure rate a little. It is basically flat to where it was last year, which is what caused this bump-up in our guidance. So we didn't raise it even though our closure rates seemed to be rising. So we left it where it was last year, which as you know, was not a magnificent quarter.
Robert Schwartz - Jefferies & Co
You started to say something, Safra, about Siebel. It got cut off. Could you talk about your assumption for Siebel revenue in the quarter?
Safra Catz
I have to look back at what we have for the Siebel guidance. We did the whole thing in its entirety. For this Q4, we thought we would do 40-something and we did about 81 instead.
We are being pretty conservative on the Siebel numbers generally because, again, we don't feel we quite have our sea legs on what to expect. We have had two quarters of a lot of success.
Again, we don't know if it is a Q4 effect or if it is pent-up buying, even though, of course, Siebel had two wonderful quarters before we bought them. So we are staying pretty conservative on the Siebel numbers.
Krista Bessinger
I think we have time for one more question.
Our final question will come from David Rudow – Piper Jaffray.
David Rudow – Piper Jaffray
Nice job on the quarter. Given the increase in volumes, at what point can you tell -- whether it is one or two quarters out from now – if there is an actual increase in IT demand around ERP?
Larry Ellison
I think for sure what we are seeing is a shift in IT spending towards us. We are getting market share. Whether that is expanding the whole pie or not, I guess is the question. But from everything we've seen, we just have more products in more spaces and customers are more comfortable with us. Regardless, it seems like what happens is we are going to gain market share.
David Rudow – Piper Jaffray
On the database side, what do you expect growth to be for the year? Are you disclosing that now?
Safra Catz
Krista Bessinger
No, we haven't.
There are no questions at this time. I will turn it back to you, Ms. Bessinger.
Krista Bessinger
Great. Thanks, everyone for participating in today's call. There is going to be a replay that is going to be available for 24 hours. That replay number is 719-457-0820 with pass code 4257576. You can also access the webcast replay on the Oracle investor relations website. That replay will be available through close of market on June 29th. With that, thank you all for joining us again. I will turn it back to the operator to close.
That does conclude our conference today. On behalf of Oracle, we thank you for your participation. Have a great day.
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ERIKA GALLO, WOMAN OF THE YEAR for 45th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
"We and our surroundings are the environment"
Left to right) Eric Bauman, chair of the Democratic Los Angeles County Central Committee; 45th Assembly District Man of the Year Eric Garcetti, a Los Angeles City Councilmember; Erika Gallo, Caltrans; and Evelyn Metoyer-Williams, chair of special events for the Democratic Committee.
Erika Gallo, a Caltrans Associate Environmental Planner (Generalist) in the Division of Environmental Planning, was named "Woman of the Year for the 45th State Assembly District," on June 25th in Hollywood, representing Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg's District.
Gallo is passionate about turning the Lincoln Heights area of Los Angeles into a thriving community. As a board member of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council, Gallo said her goal is to transform her neighborhood from a place with mostly low-wage earners and sporadic violence into a safe, prosperous haven.
"It is starting to change slowly," she said. "I don't want my community to be left behind, so we're progressively bringing back community pride. We have a walking club now where people get out together and feel safe on the streets."
And as for the freeways, her full-time career with Caltrans began in 2001, under the supervision of Paul Caron, Mountain Area Projects/Biological Services. Before that, Gallo joined Caltrans' Summer Youth Employment Program in 1998 and has remained since.
"My role is to follow a project through, to review a project when it is first introduced to make a preliminary determination of what environmental impacts a project brings. An Environmental Clearance is generated when the project description is complete as its scope changes several times during its creation," says Gallo. "Once a Generalist requests and collects Specialists' studies and makes a determination, an Environmental Document is issued, without which, a Caltrans project cannot proceed."
Environmental Planners are responsible for Caltrans' compliance with environmental laws and regulations. Gallo is responsible for seeing that routine maintenance activities, such as clearing of drains and channels in the South and East Regions, are in compliance with regulations.
"The environment doesn't only include plants and animals; it includes historic structures, archeological marvels, people and the economy. We and our surroundings are the environment. Generalists and Specialists, those who are biologists, architects and cultural historians, work together as an interdisciplinary team," she says.
Gallo's personal interest in politics began at age 14, with organizing graffiti cleanups in her Lincoln Heights neighborhood and volunteering for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
The first in her family to attend and graduate from college, Gallo said her interests in volunteering and in politics stems from college, where she learned to be a leader and focus on goals. Gallo earned two Bachelor of Arts in sociology and social science, and completed a minor in Spanish from Mount St. Mary's College. She also holds a Master of Arts in Public Administration from CSU at Los Angeles.
Gallo was recently elected to fill one of seven vacant seats on the Central Committee of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. "I want to continue my community service."

subset: commoncrawl


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Subscribe for ad free access & additional features for teachers. Authors: 267, Books: 3,607, Poems & Short Stories: 4,435, Forum Members: 71,154, Forum Posts: 1,238,602, Quizzes: 344
In the days when Henry the Fourth of France was as yet King of Navarre only, and in that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the south-western corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League--in the days when every little moated town, from the Dordogne to the Pyrenees, was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these warring personages took place in the picturesque town of La Réole. And great was the fame of it.
La Réole still rises grey, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from Bordeaux. It is a small place now, but in the days of which we are speaking it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded by a castle which looked down on some hundreds of red-tiled roofs, rising in terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it was for the time as gay as Paris itself. Catherine had brought with her a bevy of fair maids of honour, and trusted more perhaps in the effect of their charms than in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful appearance of the town was as delusive as the smooth bosom of the Gironde; for even while every other house in its streets rang with music and silvery laughter, each party was ready to fly to arms at a word if it saw that any advantage could be gained thereby.
On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men were seated at play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked down from a considerable height upon the river. The hour was late; below them the town lay silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields, on vineyards, and dark far-spreading woods. Within the room a silver lamp suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the table, but left the farther parts of the chamber in shadow. The walls were hung with faded tapestry, and on a low bedstead in one corner lay a handsome cloak, a sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period. Across a high-backed chair lay another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of saddle-bags, were strewn half a dozen trifles such as soldiers carried from camp to camp--a silver comfit-box, a jewelled dagger, a mask, a velvet cap.
The faces of the players, as they bent over the cards, were in shadow. One--a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin--and a mouth that would have equally betrayed its weakness had it not been shaded by a dark moustache--seemed, from the occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. Yet his opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left temple, and the swaggering air that has at all times marked the professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On the contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two, there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes; and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge of his feelings or to learn whether the time had come for some experiment which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through the window would have taken the two for that common conjunction--the hawk and the pigeon.
At last the younger player threw down his cards with an exclamation.
"You have the luck of the evil one," he said, bitterly. "How much is that?"
"Two thousand crowns," the other replied without emotion. "You will play no more?"
"No! I wish to heaven I had never played at all!" was the answer. As he spoke the loser rose, and moving to the window stood looking out. For a few moments the elder man remained in his seat, gazing furtively at him; at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his companion, he touched him on the shoulder. "Your pardon a moment, M. le Vicomte," he said. "Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum will inconvenience you?"
"A thousand fiends!" the young gamester exclaimed, turning on him wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would not inconvenience? As for me----"
"For you," the other continued smoothly, filling up the pause, "shall I be wrong in supposing that it means something like ruin?"
"Well, sir, and if it does?" the young man retorted; and he drew himself up, his cheek a shade paler with passion. "Depend upon it you shall be paid. Do not be afraid of that!"
"Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered, his patience in strong contrast to the other's violence. "I had no intention of insulting you, believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de Noirterre are not wont to doubt his honour. I spoke only in your own interest. It has occurred to me, Vicomte, that the matter may be arranged at less cost to yourself."
"How?" was the curt question.
"May I speak freely?" The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, Vicomte, are governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Créance, for the King of France. Our towns lie but three leagues apart. Could I by any chance, say on one of these fine nights, make myself master of Lusigny, it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you understand?"
"No," the young man answered slowly, "I do not."
"Think over what I have said, then," was the brief answer.
For a full minute there was silence in the room. The Vicomte gazed from the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his companion, seated near at hand, leant back in his chair, with an air of affected carefulness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell rang one o'clock. Suddenly the Vicomte burst into a forced laugh, and, turning, took up his cloak and sword. "The trap was well laid, M. le Capitaine," he said almost jovially; "but I am still sober enough to take care of myself--and of Lusigny. I wish you good night. You shall have your money, do not fear."
"Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the Captain answered, as he rose and moved towards the door to open it for his guest. And then, when his hand was already on the latch, he paused. "My lord," he said, "what do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you have lost to me, and another thousand to boot--against your town. Oh, no one can hear us. If you win you go off a free man with my thousand. If you lose, you put me in possession--one of these fine nights. Now, that is an offer. What do you say to it? A single game to decide."
The younger man's face reddened. He turned; his eyes sought the table and the cards; he stood irresolute. The temptation came at an unfortunate moment; a moment when the excitement of play had given way to depression, and he saw nothing outside the door, on the latch of which his hand was laid, but the bleak reality of ruin. The temptation to return, the thought that by a single hand he might set himself right with the world, was too much for him. Slowly--he came back to the table. "Confound you!" he said passionately. "I think you are the devil himself!"
"Don't talk child's talk!" the other answered coldly, drawing back as his victim advanced. "If you do not like the offer you need not take it."
But the young man was a born gambler, and his fingers had already closed on the cards. Picking them up idly he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said doubtfully. "What then? Let us have it quite clearly."
"You carry away a thousand crowns," the Captain answered quietly. "If you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me before next full moon. That is all."
"And what if I lose, and do not pay the forfeit?" the Vicomte asked, laughing weakly.
"I trust to your honour," the Captain answered. And, strange as it may seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his cause and his trust, but the debt of honour incurred at play was binding on him.
"Well," said the Vicomte, with a deep breath, "I agree. Who is to deal?"
"As you will," the Captain replied, masking under an appearance of indifference the excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.
"Then do you deal," said the Vicomte.
"With your permission," the Captain assented. And gathering the cards he dealt them with a practised hand, and pushed his opponent's six across to him.
The young man took up the hand and, as he sorted it, and looked from it to his companion's face, he repressed a groan with difficulty. The moonlight shining through the casement fell in silvery sheen on a few feet of the floor. With the light something of the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He made even as if he would have replaced the hand on the table. But he had gone too far to retrace his steps with honour. It was too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to articulate, he played the first card.
He took that trick and the next: they were secure.
"And now," said the Captain, who knew well where the pinch came. "What next?"
The Vicomte compressed his lips. Two courses were open to him. By adopting one he could almost for certain win one more trick: by the other he might just possibly win two tricks. He was a gamester; he adopted the latter course. In half a minute it was over. He had lost!
The winner nodded gravely. "The luck is with me still," he said, keeping his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had leapt into them might not be seen. "When do you go back to your command, Vicomte?"
The unhappy man sat, as one stunned, his eyes on the painted cards which had cost him so dearly. "The day after to-morrow," he muttered at last, striving to collect himself.
"Then shall we say--the following evening?" the Captain asked courteously.
The young man shivered. "As you will," he muttered.
"We quite understand one another," continued the winner, eyeing his man watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. "I may depend on you, M. le Vicomte, I presume--to keep your word?"
"The Noirterres have never been wanting to their word," the young nobleman answered stung into passing passion. "If I live I will put Lusigny into your hands, M. le Capitaine. Afterwards I will do my best to recover it--in another way."
"I shall be most happy to meet you in that way," replied the Captain, bowing lightly. And in one more minute, the door of his lodging had closed on the other; and he was alone--alone with his triumph, his ambition, his hopes for the future--alone with the greatness to which his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step. He would enjoy that greatness not a whit the less because fortune had hitherto dealt out to him more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score of years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.
Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets, the Vicomte was making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair difficult to describe, impossible to exaggerate. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had seen a way of escape--and lost it for ever! No wonder that as he trudged through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath came quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as a hunted animal might look, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could have retraced the last three hours! If he could have undone that he had done!
In a fever, he entered his lodging, and securing the door behind him stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The impulse to confide his misfortunes to some one was so strong upon him that he was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a man's natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half friend, half servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at the foot of his bed, who carried his billets-doux and held his cloak at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed him in illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied in support of his suit.
The young Vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. "Get up, you rascal!" he cried impatiently. "You pig, you dog!" he continued, with increasing anger. "Sleeping there as though your master were not ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!" he added, gazing bitterly at his follower, "you are of the canaille, and have neither honour to lose nor a town to betray!"
The sleeping man moved in his chair but did not awake. The Vicomte, his patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on the ground. "Will you listen?" he said. "Or go, if you choose look for another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost all--money, land, Lusigny itself--at the cards!"
The man, roused at last, stooped with a sleepy movement, and picking up his hat dusted it with his hand, then rose with a yawn to his feet.
"I am afraid, Vicomte," he said, in tones that, quiet as they were, sounded like thunder in the young man's astonished and bewildered ears, "I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny--you have lost something which was not yours to lose!"
As he spoke he struck the embers with his boot, and the fire, blazing up, shone on his face. The Vicomte saw, with stupor, that the man before him was not Gil at all--was indeed the last person in the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and projecting chin, which the short beard and moustache scarcely concealed, were only too well known to him. He stepped back with a cry of despair. "Sir!" he said, and then his tongue failed him. His arms dropped by his sides. He stood silent, pale, convicted, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had agreed to betray.
"I had suspected something of this," Henry of Navarre continued, after a lengthy pause, and with a tinge of irony in his tone. "Rosny told me that that old fox, the Captain of Créance, was affecting your company somewhat too much, M. le Vicomte, and I find that, as usual, his suspicions were well-founded. What with a gentleman who shall be nameless, who has bartered a ford and a castle for the favour of Mademoiselle de Luynes, and yourself, and another I know of--I am blest with some faithful followers, it seems! For shame! for shame, sir!" he continued seating himself with dignity in the chair from which he had risen, but turning it so that he confronted his host, "have you nothing to say for yourself?"
The young noble stood with bowed head, his face white. This was ruin, indeed, absolute, irremediable ruin. "Sir," he said at last, "your Majesty has a right to my life, not to my honour."
"Your honour!" Henry exclaimed, biting contempt in his tone.
The young man started, and for a second his cheek flamed under the well-deserved reproach; but he recovered himself. "My debt to your Majesty," he said, "I am willing to pay."
"Since pay you must," Henry muttered softly.
"But I claim to pay also my debt to the Captain of Créance."
The King of Navarre stared. "Oh," he said. "So you would have me take your worthless life, and give up Lusigny?"
"I am in your hands, sire."
"Pish, sir!" Henry replied in angry astonishment. "You talk like a child. Such an offer, M. de Noirterre, is folly, and you know it. Now listen to me. It was lucky for you that I came in to-night, intending to question you. Your madness is known to me only, and I am willing to overlook it. Do you hear? I am willing to pardon. Cheer up, therefore, and be a man. You are young; I forgive you. This shall be between you and me only," the young prince continued, his eyes softening as the other's head sank lower, "and you need think no more of it until the day when I shall say to you, 'Now, M. de Noirterre, for Navarre and for Henry, strike!'"
He rose as the last words passed his lips, and held out his hand. The Vicomte fell on one knee, and kissed it reverently, then sprang to his feet again. "Sire," he said, his eyes shining, "you have punished me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is only one way in which I can show my gratitude, and that is by ridding you of a servant who can never again look your enemies in the face."
"What new folly is this?" Henry asked sternly. "Do you not understand that I have forgiven you?"
"Therefore I cannot betray Lusigny, and I must acquit myself of my debt to the Captain of Créance in the only way which remains," the young man replied firmly. "Death is not so hard that I would not meet it twice over rather than again betray my trust."
"This is midsummer madness!" said the King, hotly.
"Possibly," replied the Vicomte, without emotion; "yet of a kind to which your Grace is not altogether a stranger."
The words appealed to that love of the fanciful and the chivalrous which formed part of the young King's nature, and was one cause alike of his weakness and his strength. In its more extravagant flights it gave opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in its nobler and saner expressions it won victories which all his astuteness and diplomacy could not have compassed. He stood now, looking with half-hidden admiration at the man whom two minutes before he had despised.
"I think you are in jest," he said presently and with some scorn.
"No, sir," the young man answered, gravely. "In my country they have a proverb about us. 'The Noirterres,' say they, 'have ever been bad players but good payers.' I will not be the first to be worse than my name!"
He spoke with so quiet a determination that the King was staggered, and for a minute or two paced the room in silence, inwardly reviling the obstinacy of this weak-kneed supporter, yet unable to withhold his admiration from it. At length he stopped, with a low exclamation.
"Wait!" he cried. "I have it! Ventre Saint Gris, man, I have it!" His eyes sparkled, and, with a gentle laugh, he hit the table a sounding blow. "Ha! ha! I have it!" he repeated gaily.
The young noble gazed at him in surprise, half suspicious, half incredulous. But when Henry in low, rapid tones had expounded his plan, the young man's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a moment he was on his knee, mumbling the prince's hand, his eyes moist with gratitude. Nor was that all; the two talked long, the murmur of their voices broken more than once by the ripple of laughter. When they at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds of his cloak, had stolen to his lodgings, where, no doubt, more than one watcher was awaiting him with a mind full of anxious fears, the Vicomte threw open his window and looked out on the night. The moon had set, but the stars still shone peacefully in the dark canopy above. He remembered, his throat choking with silent emotion, that he was looking towards his home--the round towers among the walnut woods of Navarre which had been in his family since the days of St. Louis, and which he had so lightly risked. And he registered a vow in his heart that of all Henry's servants he would henceforth be the most faithful.
Meanwhile the Captain of Créance was enjoying the sweets of his coming triumph. He did not look out into the night, it is true--he was over old for sentiment--but pacing up and down the room he planned and calculated, considering how he might make the most of his success. He was still comparatively young. He had years of strength before him. He would rise high and higher. He would not easily be satisfied. The times were troubled, opportunities were many, fools not few; bold men with brains and hands were rare.
At the same time he knew that he could be sure of nothing until Lusigny was actually in his possession; and he spent the next few days in painful suspense. But no hitch occurred nor seemed likely. The Vicomte made him the necessary communications; and men in his own pay informed him of dispositions ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left him in no doubt that the loser intended to pay his debt.
It was, therefore, with a heart already gay with anticipation that the Captain rode out of Créance two hours before midnight on an evening eight days later. The night was dark, but he knew his road well. He had with him a powerful force, composed in part of thirty of his own garrison, bold hardy fellows, and in part of six score horsemen, lent him by the governor of Montauban. As the Vicomte had undertaken to withdraw, under some pretence or other, one-half of his command and to have one of the gates opened by a trusty hand, the Captain foresaw no difficulty. He trotted along in excellent spirits, now stopping to scan with approval the dark line of his troopers, now to bid them muffle the jingle of their swords and corselets that nevertheless rang sweet music in his ears. He looked for an easy victory; but it was not any slight misadventure that would rob him of his prey. If necessary he would fight and fight hard. Still, as his company wound along the river-side or passed into the black shadow of the oak grove, which stands a mile to the east of Lusigny, he did not expect that there would be much fighting.
Treachery alone, he thought, could thwart him; and of treachery there was no sign. The troopers had scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before a figure detached itself from one of the largest trunks, and advanced to the Captain's rein. The Captain saw with surprise that it was the Vicomte himself. For a second he thought that something had gone wrong, but the young noble's first words reassured him. "It is arranged," M. de Noirterre whispered, as the Captain bent down to him. "I have kept my word, and I think that there will be no resistance. The planks for crossing the moat lie opposite the gate. Knock thrice at the latter, and it will be opened. There are not fifty armed men in the place."
"Good!" the Captain answered, in the same cautious tone. "But you----"
"I am believed to be elsewhere, and must be gone. I have far to ride to night. Farewell."
"Till we meet again," the Captain answered; and without more he saw his ally glide away and disappear in the darkness. A cautious word set the troop in motion, and a very few minutes saw them standing on the edge of the moat, the outline of the gateway tower looming above them, a shade darker than the wrack of clouds which overhead raced silently across the sky. A moment of suspense while one and another shivered--for there is that in a night attack which touches the nerves of the stoutest--and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible laid across the moat. This was so skilfully done that it evoked no challenge and the Captain crossing quickly with a few picked men, stood in the twinkling of an eye under the shadow of the gateway. Still no sound was heard save the hurried breathing of those at his elbow, the stealthy tread of others crossing, the persistent voices of the frogs in the water beneath. Cautiously he knocked three times and waited. The third rap had scarcely sounded before the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in, followed by his men.
So far so good. A glance at the empty street and the porter's pale face told him at once that the Vicomte had kept his word. But he was too old a soldier to take anything for granted, and forming up his men as quickly as they entered, he allowed no one to advance until all were inside, and then, his trumpet sounding a wild note of defiance, two-thirds of his force sprang forward in a compact body while the other third remained to hold the gate. In a moment the town awoke to find itself in the hands of the enemy.
As the Vicomte had promised, there was no resistance. In the small keep a score of men did indeed run to arms, but only to lay their weapons down without striking a blow when they became aware of the force opposed to them. Their leader, sullenly acquiescing, gave up his sword and the keys of the town to the victorious Captain; who, as he sat his horse in the middle of the marketplace, giving his orders and sending off riders with the news, already saw himself in fancy Governor of Angoulême and Knight of the Holy Ghost.
As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps and polished hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the circle of whitefaced townsfolks, the picturesque old square looked doubly picturesque and he who sat in the midst, its master, doubly a hero. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on the rough pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang away to tell the news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this occurred, the Captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and triumph.
Suddenly the low murmur of voices about him was broken by a new sound, the distant beat of hoofs, not departing but arriving, and coming each moment nearer. It was but the tramp of a single horse, but there was something in the sound which made the Captain prick his ears, and secured for the arriving messenger a speedy passage through the crowd. Even at the last the man did not spare his horse, but spurred through the ranks to the Captain's very side, and then and then only sprang to the ground. His face was pale, his eyes were bloodshot. His right arm was bound up in bloodstained cloths. With an oath of amazement, the Captain recognized the officer whom he had left in charge of Créance, and he thundered, "What is this? What is it?"
"They have got Créance!" the man gasped, reeling as he spoke. "They have got--Créance!"
"Who?" the Captain shrieked, his face purple with rage.
"The little man of Béarn! The King of Navarre! He assaulted it five hundred strong an hour after you left, and had the gate down before we could fire a dozen shots. We did what we could, but we were but one to seven. I swear, Captain, that we did all we could. Look at this!"
Almost black in the face, the Captain swore another oath. It was not only that he saw governorship and honours vanish like Will-o'-the-wisps, but that he saw even more quickly that he had made himself the laughing-stock of a kingdom! And that was the truth. To this day, among the stories which the southern French love to tell of the prowess and astuteness of their great Henry, there is no tradition more frequently told, none more frequently made the subject of mirth, than that of the famous exchange of Créance for Lusigny; of the move by which between dawn and sunrise, without warning, without a word, he gave his opponents mate.
Sorry, no summary available yet.


text:
Great work! With your modifications it would make an excelent internet
gateway. Hope to hear soon about the progress. Let me know if I could be of
use as betatester.
However I am also curious if other people are using monowall as an internet
gateway. Anyone working with radius accounting and monowall? If so, what's
your setup?
I am currently trying freeradius on a laptop as a server (low power, small
and battery backup), just for some experimenting. My goal is to extend the
captive portal with a "subscription" page in which you can sign up. Probably
using a script (on a seperate server?) accessing the mysql database with the
user accounts. Anyone using a similar setup?
Best regards,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan De Graeve" <Jonathan dot De dot Graeve at imelda dot be>
To: "wifi" <northpark at home dot nl>; <m0n0wall at lists dot m0n0 dot ch>
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 9:10 AM
Subject: RE: [m0n0wall] doing more with radius
Read the list, then you would know that there is a new radius subsystem
coming up.
Search for radius.... ;)
Jonathan De Graeve
Network/System Administrator
Imelda vzw
Informatica Dienst
jonathan dot de dot graeve at imelda dot be
Always read the manual for the correct way to do things because the
number of incorrect ways to do things is almost infinite
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: wifi [mailto:northpark at home dot nl]
Verzonden: dinsdag 11 oktober 2005 23:19
Aan: m0n0wall at lists dot m0n0 dot ch
Onderwerp: [m0n0wall] doing more with radius
Hi there!
First of all, some incredible piece of software! Runs nicely mysoekris,
and I am using it for an open hotspot experiment.
I have used monowall and the captive portal succesfull together with a
radius server. However it was only used to give users access to the
internet. In latest beta version (and I asume the 1.2 version also,
havent tried it yet), you could also make a user database on monowall
itself, which is quite usefull, and radius can be eliminated for certain
So, it would be nice to be able to do more with the radius server,
having specific restrictions per user. (for example traffic shaping or
specific firewall rules).
Is anyone using radius and monowall for more then just giving access?
Any thoughts on how to extend the functionality of monowall for radius
Thanks, Taco
To unsubscribe, e-mail: m0n0wall dash unsubscribe at lists dot m0n0 dot ch
For additional commands, e-mail: m0n0wall dash help at lists dot m0n0 dot ch


text:
Rene Colon III Photographer
Bri FlowModel Female San Francisco, California, US
My Website: FACEBOOKMy MM URL: http://www.modelmayhem.com/bflow
Mayhem # 697169
About Me
Hi, my name is Brittney Flow; but I go by Ms.Flow. I am new to Model Mayhem, so I am learning the works. I am not up for nude, but I am open for new opportunities; such as, photo shoots, Runway Fashion shows, and a lot more. I have a Hair and Wardrobe Stylist, and also a Make up Artist. I have done Macy's Prom Fashion Show, which was also involved with Seventeen Magazine. I also participate in Mario B's Theatrical Modeling program @ Youth UpRising; With Mario B Productions, I have done several of Fashion Shows and Hair Shows as well.
I am looking for photographers who willing
To do TFP/TFCD [Trade Work]
Because I am trying to BUILD up my Portfolio.
Please Contact Me If You're Interested
In Runway or Print Work.
And at least send a message or a tag! This isn't myspace. Thanks!
Have you worked with Bri Flow? Add Credits for Bri Flow! >>
Credit Notes
*Wardrobe Stylist: Mario B.
Flashing Lights Fashion Show San Jose State University 2008
Madrid's International Fashion and Hair Show 2008
The 1st Annual Oakland Hair & Fashion Fair Show 2007
Allen Worth Theatrical Modeling Mario B Production 2007
Skin is In 2007
Art n Soul Festival
Bay Area-Rock the Runway 2007
Laney College Hair Show 2007
Say It Loud Fashion Show 2007
Macy's Prom Fashion Show 2006
Seventeen Magazine 2006
And many more!!!
Rene Colon III Photographer
Aldean Adams Photographer
Designer James Head Clothing Designer
JustAdorMe Model
Lucky_Just... Model
JOSHUA WASHINGTON Model
Loading Content


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Do you remember my hutch makeover!?! I love it when I get pictures of projects from you that showcase your finished projects! It makes me feel like a proud Mama. Savannah over at Classy Clutter did a great job, and I had to show you her amazing hutch transformation!
This project is a perfect example of being patient for the right piece. She says in her post that she searched for the right hutch for awhile before she found it. Refinishing furniture is sooo much fun! Sometimes it may take a few months of patiently searching before you find the "perfect" piece to refinish.
Here is her self-proclaimed "amazing hubby" helping her out with the initial steps! (I have one of those "amazing" guys myself!) I love that she mentions that when she brought it home, he had no idea that she had a project for him…that sounds familiar!
Similar to my hutch makeover, the original piece had glass doors that needed to be removed, and then her hubby had to install some moulding around the hutch to make it look finished.
She glazed her hutch, and then she sanded it to make it look more rustic. I like her variation. Her glaze also looks more brown than black in her photos. I love it. It gives it a more cottage feel. I know how much work these projects take, so I am soooo proud of her!
She sprayed her hardware an oil rubbed bronze, and it makes it pop right out!
Here is a better picture of her space.
Hop on over to her site and give her some ? and comments! Thank you Savannah for sharing your project with me!


text:
Mike Rankin |
Thursday, September 20, 2012
In this week's InDesign FX movie, I show how to make a composition that looks like rough paper cutouts that have been taped to a surface.
This technique is a fun approach to take when you want to convey a brainstorming or scrapbooking theme. In the video I used a photo of wood for a background, but the effect would work just as well (or maybe even better) with a background photo of corkboard.
One of the things that makes this effect a lot of fun to create is the spontaneity it allows. In contrast to the careful precision shown in the last InDesign FX video, Simulating Notebook Paper, you can work fast and sloppy with the rough, chopped-edge effect, since that's exactly the kind of look you're trying to simulate.
The basic technique involves starting with a silhouetted photo placed in InDesign.
Then you click with the Pen tool to create the rough, cutout shape.
Next, apply a light gray fill and a subtle drop shadow to give the appearance of paper.
Finally, create the illusion of tape and dog-eared folds to attach your cutout images to your background.
If you like the rough-hewn effect, you might also enjoy the peeling stickers and sticker and tape effects I've written about in the past.
I also have another member-exclusive movie in the lynda.com library this week called Creating Speech Bubbles where I show you how to create cartoon speech bubbles to place over photos in InDesign layouts. They're fun, easy to create, and infinitely adjustable thanks to the way they're constructed.
See you here again in two weeks with another InDesign effect!
Suggested courses to watch next:
• InDesign Secrets• InDesign CS6 Essential Training • InDesign CS6 New Features
•Deke's Techniques
Tags: InDesign, InDesign FX, Mike Rankin
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text:
Top Alliance Combat, Cage Fighting MMA! April 12th
Top Alliance Combat LLC
Saturday, April 12, 2014 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
We Have 12 great fights set up in total!
Food and drinks by the Irish City Pub, the venue is located in a safe area!
Mark "the Silver-Back" Inge will be facing Alex "Spartan" Nicholson for the main event and
Bobby "Bad-Motha" Tucker will take on Hector Tirado for a fast paced co-main event!
"I dont beleive that his [heart] is bigger than mine" - Bobby Tucker during an interview on MMA Mayhem Radio
"There are two things I hate doing, one is interviews, and the second is being the main event." - Mark Inge our main event fighter during an interview
Make sure to visit our website for more details, interviews and to follow us on Facebook and Tweeter!
The venue is the Jason T. Harper Event Center located at 96 Lake Dow Rd McDonough GA 30252
Date: Saturday, April 12th
Time: doors open at 4pm and the event starts at 6pm
Many of these fighters are on their way to the UFC and Bellator!
In order to purchase these tickets in installments, you'll need an Eventbrite account. Log in or sign up for a free account to continue.


text:
December 17, 2010
In the aftermath of the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, the Deepwater Horizon accident in April, as oil and gas bubbled out of a ruptured well and into the Gulf of Mexico, UC Santa Barbara researchers mobilized to contribute their expertise to the response effort and to add to our understanding of the complex science of spills.
The prodigious hydrocarbon seeps off the coast of Santa Barbara, which deposit globs of tar on beaches below the UCSB campus, are a kind of natural lab for scientists studying the fate and effects of oil and gas in the ocean. These predictable spills offer tremendous opportunities for research that's invaluable in the event of a disaster like the Deepwater Horizon accident.
Convergence spoke to three UCSB researchers who were involved in the spill response about their experiences on the scene, the lessons learned and the sleep lost.
|David Valentine, a professor of earth science who has studied how microbes break down hydrocarbons released from natural seeps, investigated the fate of the gas and oil that bubbled out of the fractured well and offered insights into the magnitude of the spill and the resulting hydrocarbon plume. He led three research cruises in the gulf in the aftermath of the accident—never far from the epicenter of the spill—and was due to return late in 2010.
|Mechanical Engineering Professor Igor Mezic specializes in fluid dynamics and is head of the Buildings & Design Solutions Group in UCSB's Institute for Energy Efficiency. When oil began chugging into the Gulf of Mexico, Mezic decided to turn his attention to predicting how it would spread. He figured out a new approach to the problem and was able to successfully forecast where and when spilled oil would wash ashore.
|Ira Leifer, a researcher with the Marine Science Institute and the Department of Chemical Engineering, studies hydrocarbon seeps and is currently investigating remote sensing technologies for detecting methane—a potent greenhouse gas—released from natural seeps. After the Deepwater Horizon accident, Leifer was appointed to a government panel tasked with investigating the oil spill flow rate and became one of the media's go-to guys.
How did you first get involved?
Leifer: When I saw the news that there was an oil well platform on fire in the gulf I contacted my colleagues to see what we could do in terms of remote sensing. That was my first involvement.
Mezic: I also heard about it from the news. Then I started to do some analysis on the oil movement and a company that was working on the cleanup contacted me because they'd heard what I was doing. They flew me down there because they wanted to use those predictions. That was late June.
Valentine: I'd been in contact with a reporter from the Los Angeles Times quite a bit in the weeks preceding the Deepwater Horizon accident because we'd done some work on asphalt volcanoes (on the floor of the Santa Barbara Channel). As soon as this hit we started talking about it. Since I'd just been talking about emanations from the bottom of the sea, I started to get calls about the oil spill. I went down there early in June.
What did you find when you first arrived in the area? How did it compare to your expectations?
Mezic: It was worse, absolutely. I thought it was completely chaotic.
Valentine: It was industrial chaos on a grand scale. I'd talked to several people who'd been out there so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect, but still, out on scene it was pretty bad. We wore respirators for most of the sampling we did close in (to the epicenter). That's how unpleasant it was. I was never more than 20 miles from the epicenter and the closest I got was 1,500 feet away.
More than the thick scum of oil on the surface, it was the sheer amount of activity. When I got there, there were three rigs and then probably 50 to 60 large vessels milling about. Some of them were running ROVs (remotely operated vehicles, used in underwater exploration), many of them had booms and were collecting oil and pulling it out and burning it, and there were others that did nothing but deliver water because nobody could make water out there. There were a number of research boats, there were crew boats bringing people in and out, just boats everywhere, so at night everything was lit up.
Leifer: It must have been quasi-apocalyptic.
Valentine: It was when they started doing some serious burning (some of the spilled oil was burned as part of the cleanup). We were there on some of the really heavy burn days. Those were the days when there were six, seven, eight burns going on at the same time. The flames were 30 or 40 feet high, just streaming up, and the entire sky got covered in smoke. Then it would rain and all that stuff came back down and your boat got covered in soot and ash.
There was a cloud that sat perpetually over the entire site because of that smoke. We'd have a clear day and there'd just be this one cloud. The funny thing was that it was a bright white cloud, not a dark cloud, so the metaphor failed on some level.
Leifer: I never got to the spill, per se, because it wasn't necessary. I did go down there but I was at Ellington Airport (in Houston, Texas), helping with the flight planning for the remote sensing work.
What comes to mind when you reflect on the spill?
Leifer: I think I had just about every emotion you can have. I'll throw in nausea as well, and not from the fumes.
Mezic: I got really angry about some of the things that were being said. After I started doing my analysis I found it increasingly upsetting that people were saying on the news that they'd been told that oil wasn't going to hit specific places, whereas our analysis was showing it was going to go exactly there.
"We have to be prepared in case something like this happens again. Get familiar with Brazil and the North Sea, because who knows where it's going to happen next? We need to be ready to respond."
David Valentine
Speaking of frustration, was it difficult to get the information and resources you needed? How did you deal with that?
Leifer: Clearly the spill response could have been far better implemented. If it had, my life would have been easier, and you can also say the spill response would have been more effective.
Valentine: We knew BP (which leased the Deepwater Horizon) wasn't going to provide critical information, so our approach was to go and figure it out ourselves. We tried to measure absolutely everything we could, take samples for everything, so we could pull the story together with information that was meaningful. We knew that even the samples taken on the government side of the response wouldn't be available for a long, long time.
Leifer: BP was providing convenient information that may or may not have been accurate.
Valentine: I did have to push to get funding to do cruises and get people out there to do all the measurements that needed to be made and all the science that I thought was important. There were a lot of phone calls to D.C. to say, "Hey, we really need this, what about a boat? Can we get a boat?" There was pushing to get a ship out there under our direction instead of somebody else's so that we could go out there and make these measurements.
I did get funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. Once we published our first Science paper, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recognized the importance of some of the things we were interested in so then they began to call us. That's where things stand now.
The media also started calling, didn't they?
Valentine: The media wanted a lot and I know Ira was in the same boat. They wanted to know what was going on and get some sort of informed opinion.
Leifer: Talking to the media takes up a lot more of your time than you'd imagine. Talking to four or five reporters can end up taking two or three hours. You want to communicate to the media for a whole bunch of different reasons and yet that interferes with what you actually need to do to help the spill.
Valentine: At the same time I found the media to be incredibly useful. If you develop a rapport with reporters, they provide you with information, you provide them with information.
There were a lot of press conferences and so on and there was information being relayed to them that didn't always get passed on to us. If I have reporters from the Los Angeles Times on speed dial, I can talk to them at 9 or 10 at night and ask them what happened and they'll say, "Oh they told us this, this and this." I learned a lot that way.
The oil skimming technology developed by Victoria Broje when she was a doctoral student at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management was put to work in the gulf. Broje came up with a new design for skimmers that use rotating drums to collect floating oil. By adding grooves to the drum surfaces, Broje, who now works for Shell Projects and Technology, made them much more efficient at collecting oil.
A new book by environmental studies scholar William Freudenburg examines the spill and the decisions and policies that led up to it. In "Blowout in the Gulf—The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America," co-written with Robert Gramling of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Freudenburg argues that the blowout was an accident waiting to happen, the product of "an atrophy of vigilance." As well as highlighting the risks taken by the companies involved in offshore oil drilling, Freudenburg takes aim at the federal government, which he says has done a poor job of regulating the oil industry and managing the country's energy resources.
Link: es.ucsb.edu/freudenburg
Was it worth it?
Leifer: From the point of view of helping with the response and the science of it—collecting data—I would have been happy to be even more involved, but it overlapped enormously with politics and I'm not a politician of that kind and that's the downside. The downside is really powerful people who may really dislike you.
Ask me this again after the Justice Department is done with its review. I don't worry about hate letters, but I do worry about hateful lawyers. They have teams of people who will pore over everything you've done, one side to support you, the other to try to prove your incompetence.
Valentine: I didn't have the same level of frustration as Ira did. I wasn't involved in the political side nearly as much. There have been a lot of benefits.
There's been research money—four grants so far, and they'll be more—and we had grad students and postdocs involved in some of the expeditions and they got some really valuable science out of this.
The higher profile cuts both ways. I've had calls from people from high school who I hadn't seen for years. I used to explain what I did to people and I'd just get a glazed-over look. All of a sudden that changed. There were some frustrations, but it was satisfying to actually be contributing to a national priority, as grotesque as it was.
Mezic: I don't know if there was really a downside for me, although it did take us away from our daily jobs.
Leifer: It did take over my life, just like (former BP CEO) Tony Hayward's, although I didn't have a yacht to get back to, just a pile of work that I was supposed to have been doing. I've been trying to catch up on everything that was promised before there was an oil spill, work that didn't happen in those six months. You can tell people, "Oh, I've been working on the oil spill," but that excuse gets old after a while.
Would you do it all over again?
Mezic: Definitely. It was one of the most exciting things I've ever done. You don't often get a chance to test something you've been thinking about for a long time. It was an opportunity for me to test something that was brand new and that's what science is about.
Leifer: After four months of 18-hour days, 7 days a week, personally I'll be happy if there's never another mega-blowout.
Valentine: Absolutely, but at the same time, I think we have to be prepared in case something like this happens again. Get familiar with Brazil and the North Sea, because who knows where it's going to happen next? We need to be ready to respond.
Leifer: Fortunately it's infrequent, which also means that what happens is relatively unknown. It's relatively poorly understood on the science side. It's one of the most complex sciences there is, and it's pitifully funded.
Aside from planning the science that needs to be done, there also needs to be a plan for the scientists, because burnout is real. You need to have multiple teams, replacement people. It's an emergency, you get asked to do it, and you do it, but scientists are humans, not super-machines, not robots.


text:
My name is Ben. I compose and make music, mostly for video games. I push myself training to compete in Spartan races, and have recently taken up Kendo as well. I went through a few rough years, learned the most i could from it, and took all that i learned to drive myself forward. I work at a retro game shop, and grew up on old nintendo, so i do a bit of retro game collecting. If I'm not working or training, im either out having adventures with my friends, or relaxing at home playing old nintendo. All that said, I'm just pushing ahead and always working to better myself and my life!
I also like bad jokes and puns.
-my friends
-my computer
-my music studio
-video games
Or if you like retro games, i could talk about oldschool Nintendo for days haha!


text:
Has The Great Bond Selloff Begun?: A Couple Thoughts
Mutual-fund investors are still yanking money out of bond funds, and they're not just fleeing munis any more. For the first time in two years, they're also shedding corporates and Treasurys.
The Investment Company Institute reported a little while ago that $1.66 billion flowed out of bond funds in the week ending Dec. 8, driven mainly by a $1.26 billion outflow from muni funds. Downtrodden munis have suffered outflows for five straight weeks now, the longest stretch in two years.
A new wrinkle in the latest data, though, is that taxable bond funds lost $401 million last week, their first weekly outflow since December 2008. Lest anybody think this is the start of the long-awaited great migration out of bonds and into stocks, equity funds lost $1.4 billion last week.
It looks like fund investors are putting their cash in money-market funds, mainly. This is consistent with the broader sense that nobody's making big bets on anything before the end of the year.


text:
In The Abbey 6 x 6 Acrylic Interior Landscape
painting by artist John K. Harrell
6 in X 6 in (15.2 cm X 15.2 cm)
This painting is already sold. However, I may have other paintings available.
More Paintings by John K. Harrell
More in Figurative Paintings
More in Figurative Paintings
More art in Today's New Paintings
Keyword Tags
abbey acrylic day figure harrell interior john john harrell landscape painting small
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The Daily Painters Art Gallery - www.dailypainters.com
© 2017 Daily Painters Gallery. All artwork is copyrighted by the individual artists.
Images may not be reproduced without the permission of the artist.


text:
Shrimp boat taking on water in Shem Creek
From our News Partners at WCBD-TV:
MT. PLEASANT, SC - A shrimp boat is taking on water in Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, according to the Coast Guard.
Another vessel called the Coast Guard, saying that a boat is taking on water that is tied up at Magwood Dock. People onboard the vessel say no one was on the shrimp boat but someone jumped on board to help out.
The North Charleston and Mount Pleasant Fire Departments brought pumps to the scene and are taking water out of the boat. The pumps will be out all night.
The owner of the boat is organizing divers to go down Tuesday morning to figure out the source of the leak.
No one was on board the ship at the time and no one was hurt.
Photo Credit: Christian Carollo Shutterstock


text:
Basic Member
Last Activity: 12-18-2009 11:25 AM
About Me
- About countevil
- Name
- Adam Leat
- Location
- South East - UK
- Occupation
- Director/Writer/Artist/Animator
- Biography
- I'm a student in Art & Design and Interactive Media. I'm hoping to move onto animation and Film Production. I allready have self taught skills in animation.
I've been messing around with film since buying my first camera several years ago. I've made a couple of short films mostly for school and college projects. However can never find help for making my own projects.
I have been studying art since a very young age (I attended art classes when I was young). I'm allways drawing things, that come into my head. I'm good at creating stories and often dream brilliant ideas (sometimes better than my concious ideas). I have many ideas I just need like-minded people to work with.
German Expressionism, Film Noir, Avant Garde film highly influence me. I love classic horror such as 'The Cabinet of Dr Caligari' and 'Nosferatu'.
My favourite film of all time is 'Blade Runner', because of it's amazing Film Noir atmosphere.
Time Burton is the most influential director to me. After reading his biography 'Burton on Burton' I was convinced that being a director was what I wanted to do.
Researching directors such as F.W. Murnau has been inspiring. He had such artistic vision that is lacking in many films these days. He could achieve so much without sound, it's amazing.
I aspire to become a proffessional Director/Writer. I would love to be able to write my ideas and then make them into films. If I could do that for a living, then I'd be happy.
- Favorite Film(s)
- Blade Runner, Se7en, Pulp Fiction, Night of the living dead, Shaun of the dead, Hot fuzz, This is spinal Tap, Hell Boy, Hellboy II Golden Army, Dawn of the dead, Flash Gordon, Sin City, Nosferatu, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, The Shining, Dr Strangelove, Akira, Tron, The Fith Element, Spirited Away, Withnal and I, STALKER, Apocalypse Now, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Dark City, 28 Days Later (Weeks Later sucked), Children of Men, Alien, Escape from New York, Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Dark Knight, The Fall, Labyrinth, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Time Bandits, Monty Python - Life of Brian, Holy Grail
- Favorite Director(s)
- F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Robert Wiene, Sergio Eisenstein, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, George A Romero, Jan Svankmeyer, Stanley Kubrick, Guillermo del Torro, Robert Rodriguez, Luc Besson, Quentin Tarantino, Terry Gilliam, Andrei Tarkovsky, Alfred Hitchcock
- Other Interests
- Film, animation, art, music, games