More Junkmail from Bob!
Monday, August 14, 2000Important Stuff.
For the web version,click here.
Pets.com?
Pets.com is an interesting company. They started business about a year and a half ago, selling pet supplies on the internet. In January, they paid a lot of money for a Superbowl ad. Last February they went public and sold $82 million in stock at $11 per share. That was good, but now they only have $37 million left. That's not so good. In June, they bought Petstore.com, a competing pet supply dot-com that was on the verge of going broke.
The market cap (total value of all the stock) of Pets.com is now about $26, even though they had about $37 million in cash on June 30. But they've been losing about $10 million a month so far this year, so there's a good chance the stock's not overvalued at $.75 or so. They're expected to keep losing money through 2001, assuming they last that long.
The interesting thing about this company is that they're not alone. There is similar data on dozens of other internet companies. Don't these people realize that a company cannot continue to lose money indefinitely and still stay in business? Even more baffling, don't investors realize that? I keep wondering if I'm missing something here...
Pictures of Yesterday
I took some pictures Northwest of Pryor yesterday. Here's a locust, a.k.a. cicada:
Is this a seventeen year locust? I'm not sure whether it is or not. Seventeen year locusts are supposed to tunnel around in the dirt for seventeen years before coming out into the sunshine to sing and mate. I wonder who found this out. Did someone wait around seventeen years to see? How do we know if one of these guys got anxious and came out to party after only 16 years? Are cicada killers the enforcers for the 17-year rule?
Actually, a locust looks more like this. (A locust is really a type of grasshopper, unless you live in Locust Grove.)
Here are a couple of web sites that will answer your (and most of my) cicada questions. They are pretty interesting bugs!
http://www.cicadamania.com/
http://insects.ummz.lsa.umich.edu/fauna/michigan_cicadas/Periodical/Index.html
Here are some other pictures of yesterday. A former road:
A former traveler of the former road?
Some weeds:
This would be a weed, but since it's yellow it qualifies as a wildflower.
Some tree houses:
And finally, butterflies. I used to have a butterfly collection, about a hundred years ago. I might start another one with pictures instead of the butterflies themselves. Here is a start -- a small blue one and a medium-sized brown one. I'm pretty sure those are the official names.
OSU
My eldest toddler Brian is heading out to college this week. I am not nearly old enough to have a kid in college, but he's going anyway.
Eta Carinae
Here's a picture I didn't take. It's of a gas cloud around a star that may go supernova "real soon now." To translate for non-programmers, that's any time in the next million years.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0008/etacarinae2_hst_big.jpg
Vote Mugwamp!
The Republicans recently had a convention attended by Joanna Reese. Not to be outdone, the Reform party decided to have two conventions at the same time. Pat Buchanon mounted a hostile takeover of the party, and some of those stubborn reformists decided not to go along with it. It probably wouldn't matter, but the winner gets to spend $12 million or so in federal money. Sounds fun! Maybe I'll try to take over the Mugwamps next year. The Democrats are starting this week. I think they won't be nearly as creative as the Reform party.
Instead of dealing with who stands for what, the presidential candidates are doing their best not to take stands on issues. The press, because of no real political news and a severe lack of hurricanes, is reporting on political strategy. This is pretty meaningless since the strategy changes according to the most recent polls, and it deals with image rather than fact and policy. If I decide to turn on the TV I think I'll look for Green Acres reruns.
Speaking of green, here are the Greenland Weather forecasts:
http://www.wunderground.com/global/GL.html
24' runway?
Last Thursday a guy named Howard was flying his Lancair in Oregon when it's only engine quit. He had a choice of landing in the trees or on a highway. He picked the highway. He managed to miss the oncoming traffic, but ended up in the bed of a semi going his direction. When he came to a "stop," he was still going about 65 mph. He and the truck driver weren't hurt, but the plane and the truck took some damage.
http://www.avweb.com/graphics/crash/flatbedland.jpg
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