Prognostications and other thoughts

3rd Quarter 2006

Twain — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 12:12:00 +0000

Mkt Cap #'s from 1 week past earnings

Yahoo:
Revenues: 1.58 billion (+19%)
Net income: 202 million
Net Revenue: 1.21 billion
Mkt Cap: 34.9 billion

Google
Revenues: 2.69 billion (+70%)
Net income: 733 million
Net Revenue: 733 million
Mkt Cap: 147 billion

Ebay
Revenues: 1.449 billion (+31%)
Net income: 281 million (+10%)
Net Revenues: 1.049 billion (+22%)
Mkt cap: 46.9 billion

Lily's Vocabulary

Twain — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:20:00 +0000

Keeping track of Lily's hilarious vocabulary

First word: "Duck"

Current mis-pronunciations:

Salami: "Some Lami"
Lobster: "Lom Ster" as in lobster + monster
Music: "Mucous" or "Ugus"
Gloves: "Glubbs"

Update 10/27/06
"Don't let the bug beds bite"
"tuh-sert" instead of "desert"

Turning 40

Twain — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:38:00 +0000

So, on Thursday, Sept 14th, I was hoping to head out of work early to go on a 3 day mountain bike ride/camping trip with 4 of my best friends to celebrate turning 40 on Sept 15th. Unfortunately, at work, there was a prearanged flag football game.

Well, my team was down, 28-7. It was time to get serious. The ball was handed off to me and I started running. Billy was coming at me so I cut left, then right, jumped, came down, and somehow I think my cleat stuck. I think my leg somehow bent back and to the left, kind of like this guy:

Needless to say, I crumpled to the ground. The pain was mounting and I thought about the damn mountain biking trip--i don't think i'll be able to ride. Unfortunately, I couldn't get up and needed to be walked off the field...and then to my car.
I called my sister and brother-in-law. He is an ER doc and she is a GI doc. Went to their house for motrin and crutches and he snuck me in to the local ER for a knee immobilizer. Meanwhile, my friends decided to cancel the trip, which was probably for the better as it hit 27 degrees that night.

Here's another picture of the knee; the one on the left is normal, the one on the right is, um, not.
And here is it larger.

2nd Quarter 2006

Twain — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 13:37:00 +0000

Yahoo
Revenues: $1.576 billion
Net Income: $230 million
Mkt Cap: $36.47 billion

Google
Revenues: $2.46 billion
Net Income: $721 million
Mkt Cap: $118 billion

Ebay
Revenues: 1.411 billion
Net Income: $250 million
Market Cap: $33.72 billion

Bad day for Yahoo! Stock

Twain — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 03:35:00 +0000

For context, it's a good idea to listen to the archived conference call. Terry/Sue should be given big props for saying/acting that this company is in it for the long haul--that they aren't driven by quarter to quarter but long term.
Seems like the investment community didn't want to hear it though:

Yahoo Stock Falls to Biggest One-Day Drop
Thursday July 20, 1:47 am ET
By Michael Liedtke, AP Business Writer
Yahoo Stock Price Tumbles by Nearly 22 Percent, Marking Its Largest One-Day Drop Ever

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Yahoo's stock price plunged by nearly 22 percent Wednesday, marking its largest one-day drop ever after the Internet powerhouse postponed a pivotal change to the advertising formula that propels its profits.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company jarred Wall Street with the unexpected delay late Tuesday after announcing solid second-quarter results that mirrored analyst estimates.

On Wednesday, Yahoo Inc.'s shares plummeted $7.04, or 21.8 percent, to close at $25.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The downturn surpassed a 20.9 percent downturn in Yahoo's stock in October 2000 after the company warned investors it was about to be hard hit by the dot-com bust.

The wipeout erased about $10.4 billion in shareholder wealth.

At one point, Yahoo's shares sold for as little as $25.04 -- the cheapest since April 2004.

Here's Yahoo's problem as Wall Street sees it: the owner of the Internet's most trafficked Web site keeps raking in more money as advertisers continue to shift their spending online, but it still lags well behind search engine leader Google Inc.

And now it looks like Yahoo won't be closing that gap as soon as management had promised.

"I can sense the frustration of investors," said Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. "It's discouraging and disheartening, especially because Yahoo didn't really give a good reason for the delay."

Rashtchy is maintaining his "outperform" rating on Yahoo's stock, although he lowered his 12-month target for the shares from $42 to $36.

Other analysts weren't as forgiving. For instance, JP Morgan Securities analyst Imran Khan downgraded Yahoo's stock to "neutral" and expressed doubts whether the company will even be able up to live up to its financial projections for the rest of the year. He also believes Yahoo is destined to fall further behind in its technology race with Google, which will provide an update on its progress Thursday when it is scheduled to release its second-quarter results.

Yahoo's bad news didn't take a big toll on Google, whose shares dipped $4.05, or 1 percent, to close at $399 on the Nasdaq. Google's market value of about $120 billion is now more than three times greater than Yahoo's.

Despite Wednesday's harsh backlash against Yahoo, the company isn't exactly struggling. Second-quarter revenue rose 26 percent to $1.58 billion and, after stripping out windfalls and accounting changes that pushed up last year's results, earnings rose 8 percent to $164 million.

Numbers like that are just one of the reasons market observers like ThinkEquity Partners analyst Stewart Barry view Yahoo's stock as a bargain right now.

Wednesday's sell-off wouldn't have been so severe if Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel and his management team hadn't delayed a much-anticipated change in the company's formula for displaying ad links by one to three months.

Investors have been eagerly awaiting the new ad platform, hoping the improvements would enable Yahoo to do a better job displaying short ads. The clicks on those ads, which typically appear as text on the top and sides of Web pages, are critical because they trigger commissions for Yahoo and its partners.

Google's financial growth during the past two years has outstripped Yahoo's partly because it has developed a better formula for determining which ads to display alongside search results -- an advantage that even Semel concedes.

"We are not monetizing as well and it is costing us a lot of money," Semel said Tuesday in an interview.

Because Google closely guards it technology secrets, its advertising formula remains one of the Internet's great mysteries.

But this much is clear: Google has been far more adept than Yahoo at analyzing what people are entering into a search box or reading on a Web page and then quickly deciphering which ads are most likely to gain attention to possibly garner a revenue-producing click.

Although Yahoo holds an advantage over its rival in serving up visual advertising, search advertising for now is the biggest moneymaking channel, which is why Yahoo has been working on fixing its biggest shortcoming for more than a year under a project code-named "Panama."

In May, Yahoo raised hopes by telling analysts it planned to start rolling out the search advertising changes in the third quarter and complete the process in the fourth quarter.

Yahoo now doesn't expect its new approach to be fully deployed until early next year. Semel said Yahoo didn't want to risk a hiccup as advertisers ramped up their spending for the holiday season.

"We feel terrific about (the new formula) and know the importance of it," Semel said. "There is nothing wrong or nothing we are upset about."

Yahoo still boasts the Internet's largest audience with 402 million unique users. But it has been losing favor among investors as Google has widened its lead in the lucrative search market.

Through June, Google held a 44.7 percent share of the U.S. search engine market, up from 36.9 percent at the same time last year, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo ranked second with a 28.5 percent share, down from 30.4 percent a year ago, comScore said.

Wow. Times they are a changin'

Twain — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 05:46:00 +0000

I just got back from a one week vacation to Cape Cod. Wonderful trip--more on that later.

Regardless, amazingly, a lot has changed at work in this past week.

Satya, Jason, Brian, and David, have all quit. It is/was their last week. All of these guys were in Yahoo! Shopping at one point or another. Fuggin A.

Butterfly Release!

Twain — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 15:27:00 +0000

Aunt Sinda bought a butterfly kit for Lily.
We watched the caterpillars grow and grow then turn into pupaes, hanging upside down.
About a week later, they emerged from their chrysalises. Their wings even dripped some meconium as they dried. They ate sugar water and juice from cut oranges. A few days later, Lily released them.

External Hard Drives-Cheap insurance?

Twain — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 05:13:00 +0000

My Sony Vaio RS420 is only 1 1/2 years old, yet it's already been replaced by newer Sony Desktops.
In any case, it's been acting kind of funky of late; unexpectedly shutting down for no reason. I decide it was time for some cheap insurance--for all the priceless data that's on the hard drive.

I just received my Seagate ST3400601CB-RK. It's an external hard drive that has 400GB of storage and has both fire wire (faster) and usb 1 (much slower) compatibility. Since my original hard drive is only 120GB, I figure this should be future-proof for a while, and at around $300, it seems reasonably priced. Wow, remember the days when $1/meg was a big deal; this is $.75/gig!.

In any case, it's cranking away at it's first backup; estimated at 2 hours. But once the first is done, incremental backups should take just minutes. Pretty cool.

Uvas Triathlon 5/21/06

Twain — Sat, 27 May 2006 05:26:00 +0000

Got 5 hours of sleep then headed down to Uvas resevoir for a triathlon on Sunday at 5:30 in the morning (same day as the Bay to Breakers) for this mini-triathlon. 3/4 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 5 mile run.

It was raining and I was late getting there. I was *totally* not in to it and contemplated just turning around and going back to sleep. But I went through the process. The swim was suprisingly comfortable and I started enjoying it. Got out on the bike and it started feeling much better; was passing others quickly. Unfortunately an elderly person decided to drive her car in the middle of the race which held up a bunch of us riders--then the rain started coming down heavily. Nervous Nelly, I slowed up on the descents and a few of the guys I'd passed went by. Ended up passing them all on the flat sections, averaging 20+_ mph, and went on to run. Wow--only 5 miles; by mile 2 I was feeling pretty psyched---this is a short run! Despite my aching achilles, managed to clip off a respectable 6:46 pace. Ended up finishing 12th-age group and 44th overall.

Finished the race, ate some food, and was home by noon.

These shorter races are actually a lot of fun.

Wildflower 2006 triathlon

Twain — Wed, 10 May 2006 15:46:00 +0000

Yet another glorious Wildflower Weekend. Because of the new age-rank system, I was able to compete with my long time pals, Derrill (sunday) and Larry (saturday), in the same waves. This meant I was in the 40-45 age group. We haven't competed together since 1992, so it was quite a reunion

Here are the results:
- Linda Gallo was the first woman out of the water with a 24:29 1.2 mile swim. She ended up 7th with a smoking 4:54. Awesome!

- My arch nemisis, Keish Doi, was up only 30 seconds on me after the swim+bike but then he managed to destroy the run with a 1:33 time-7:17 pace, finishing in 4:53.- I was out of running shape and the achilles was really hurting-lost 19 minutes on the run to Keish ending with a personal worst of 5:14. My best time was way back in 1991- 4:47. I haven't gone under 5 hours since 2000.

- Jimmy had a PR of 6:07 with no IV after!

- Larry put in a very respectable time despite not being able to do any training over 2 hours and a serious hamstring/glute injury, finishing in 5:25 (his PR is 4:34)

International course-- Keish talked me in to doing the shorter course on the second day. He ended up putting 1:30 into me, swim+bike

- Was amazed to see Derrill swim past me after the first turn!

- I had a good bike, averaging nearly 20 mph but then had to drop out of the run in the tranistion area. It was (and still is) difficult to walk, let alone run

- Derrill turned in a 2:35 and Gary a 3:30, Keish 2:23 (10th place).

It's incredible how hard it is to stay in shape through the years. During my 20's, I placed top 10. 30's-top 20. Ugh, now it's "top 30". It becomes less about racing and more about just "enjoying the event".

Training for the race, I increased swimming year over year but came up short in running and cycling. The deficit in bike/run definitely was costly.

Results for Long Course:
Swim: 84% more yardage in training. 4% faster swim time
Bike: 5% less mileage in training. 3% slower bike
Run: 21% less mileage in training. 5% slower run
Overall: 3% slower.

Q1 Numbers

Twain — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:40:00 +0000

Here's how Q1 '06 Stacked up
Stock NetIncome NetRev RevYOY MktCap
YHOO 160 M 1.57 B 34% 47.5B
EBAY 248 M 1.39 B 35% 49.3B
GOOG 592 M 2.25 B 79% 133.0B

Car review: Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Twain — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 05:58:00 +0000

Our '98 Land Cruiser is in the shop for a major tune up/smog cert. I decided to get a rental car, and for $9/day, Toytota 101 gave us the Highlander Hybrid. Wow. This is probably the most all-around capable car I've ever been in.

Road Test:
- 0-60 in 6.6 sec according to Motor Trend. My Audi A6 4.2 is supposed to do that in 6.7 seconds. So I tested both (in the rain). According to my stopwatch, the Highlander did it in 7.66 seconds. The Audi in 7.67.
- Driving through mud. There is a section of dirt I park in to go running. It is now a saturated mud bog because of the rain. When I drive the big old Land Cruiser in there, it starts to slip and slide as the huge tires get gummed up. The Audi, with it's also huge low profile tires, overcompensates with it's anti-skid control and also bogs down in the mud. The Highlander, with taller/skinner tires just dug in and plowed through with the least drama.
- Braking in wet/Anti Skid control. The Anti Skid is much more advanced in the Toyota. It doesn't kick in as abrubtly as the Audi's.

Specs:
Gas mileage: claimed 27/30 mpg, though a lot of owners have complained it "only" gets 25 mpg. That's 127% better than the Land Cruiser and 47% better than the Audi.
If you drive 15k miles a year, at 3$ a gallon:
- Land Cruiser (11 mpg): $4091
- Audi (17 mpg): $2647
- Highlander (25 mpg): $1800.
Over 5 years, the Highlander would save nearly $11,500 vs the Land Cruiser and $4,235 vs the Audi in gas costs! There is a site that describes exhaust emissions; the Land Cruiser would dump over 6000 pounds in a year; the Highlander, 3000 pounds.

Cargo Capacity: This is what's great about the Land Cruiser; it hauls all of our camping crap; 60 cubic feet behind the middle row. The Highlander is 50 cubic feet.
The real test is putting the baby jogger in the back without having to disassemble; easy with the Land Cruiser. I tried in the Highlander-didn't quite fit. Then I noticed that the 2/3, 1/3 rear seats are on rails and you can easily move the seats up. Presto-baby jogger fits!

3rd Row Seating: The Land Cruiser has removable 3rd row seats. They have terrible leg room but workable in a pinch. At first I thought the highlander didn't have a third row-it is so cleverly packaged, they fold in to the floor. Leg room is definitely worse, but still available for small kids.

Rear Seat Comfort: The rear seat of the Land Cruiser is our daughter's playground. She has all of her toys back there. It has enough leg room to be comfortable for me, even if the front seats are all the way back (I am 6 feet tall). Guess what-the Highlander felt just as roomy. Also, you can actually recline the rear seats!

Front Seat Comfort: I really like not being too cramped. The audi feels spacious. Highlander-even more! The only thing wrong with the Highlander is the steering wheel doesn't telescope.

Navigation: My Audi has a first gen nav system. It's useless and impossible to operate. The Land Cruiser has none. The Highlander has the bad-ass ones with the real time map. Impressive.

Sound System: Though not great, the amp has more watts than either the Land Cruiser or the Audi. Upgrading speakers would make it rock.

Safety: The Land Cruiser has front air bags. The Audi and Highlander have front plus front/rear side airbags. In crash tests, the Highlander received "Good" and "Excellent" ratings; the Audi received "Good" and "Fair" ratings.

Driving the Highlander.
So, like the Prius, hybrids are different. When you start them up, it's silent. The Highlander doesn't have the goofy key fob/sensor, just a regular key. Perhaps the biggest drawbacks is the weird feeling of the continuously variable transmission. It sort of lurches as it changes ratios. And the noise of the engine(s) under power isn't pretty. But when cruising, it's incredibly quiet.

Availability:
The most amazing thing-after years of waiting for these things, dealers actually have a ton of them. On the phone, the sales rep said their asking price is $42k fully loaded. But without prompting, he said he'd easily drop to $39k. They have 2.9% financing and really low lease rates as well.

What's wrong with it?
The Highlander is kind of butt-ugly. There isn't a lot of road feedback through the steering wheel. It doesn't "feel" as fast as it is. It doesn't have as much room as the Land Cruiser. It doesn't have real 4wd capability (tho, does that really matter?). And there aren't a lot of used ones--getting a used one will only save aout $3k.

I love our land cruiser but want to unload it before it becomes unsellable as gas prices keep climbing. It's got 120k plus horrid gas mileage. Now if I can only convince my wife...

IRD Compact Cranks

Twain — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:59:00 +0000

(click for larger image)
Larry Norris ordered these IRD compact cranks. Here's how they compare to the Ritchey Carbon Compacts.
- They are lighter and weigh as claimed, 545 grams.
- Finish is slightly better. Look at the pedal hole for the non-drive side; carbon runs completely to the edges. This must mean they have separate molds for each arm length-unlike ritchey.
- Tolerance between thickness of the chain ring and crank itself is higher. Meaning there is less of a ridge between the crank and the chain ring.

I guess IRD has been doing carbon cranks a little bit longer than Ritchey. Not sure what final retail prices are for either so the verdict's still out on value.

Escape of the lomster!

Twain — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 16:34:00 +0000

Our lombster escaped from the fish tank sometime last night. Poor fella spent the night scrambling around. He seems to be doing alright back in the tank.

UPDATE: Lombster R.I.P.
So I put the crayfish back in the tank and his little feelers were twitching away; it looked like he was getting rehydrated. He even moved a little. 45 minutes later, he wasn't moving at all. He received an appropriate burial in the back yard.

The "lombster" was actually a blue crayfish, fairly common pet store pet. We got him at ~2 inches long. He was very happy in the tank and molted 4 times. He was 5 inches long (7 inches including pinchers) at the time of his demise.

This is the "eulogy" from my dad:
Dear Sad little family of Meins up on the hill.
Lost a magical being who entertained us all with his naughty ways and the thrill
of seeing him clamber out of his den to seek out his kill
though more often than not it looked like a pill
Magical colors had he(or she?), it lived mostly under the Rock,"Look PopPop:under the Wok!" "Not now Lily we'll go out later to walk, not now.." "NO POP POP the Lombster, under the WOK.!"
I'll miss the little guy who grew so fast and pleased us a Lot.