To do something you haven't had time to do before.
She's going to work on weekends to catch up with some reports she has to finish.
I stayed late at the office last night to catch up with everything.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
get over
get over something/get over somebody: to get better after an illness, or feel better after something or someone has made you unhappy. To recover from something.
She was only just getting over the flu when she got a stomach bug.
It took him years to get over the shock of his wife dying.
It took her months to get over Robert when he finished the relationship.
He got over his illness after a very long an expensive treatment.
I finally got over the divorce.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
blood is thicker than water
It's a German proverb and it means that family ("blood") relations are more important than relations with friends.
When my best friend and my brother got in a fight I had to help my brother; blood is thicker than water.
Friends will come and friends will go but your family is always there for you; blood is thicker than water.
How Can 'The New York Times' Be Worth So Little?
(from www.businessweek.com by Jay Yarow and Jon Fine)
On Wednesday, New York Times Co. (NYT) reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, and on Thursday the stock continued in its steep descent. At the end of trading it stood at 12.48, or virtually half the price it commanded one year ago.
This part of the story is unsurprising, given how the Street is slamming any newspaper stock. What's startling is something else: If you back out much of the rest of the company's portfolio, you arrive at a surprisingly teeny valuation for the vaunted New York Times itself, despite all the respect the brand commands.
At its current $12.48 stock price—down 46.3% from a year ago—Times Co. has a $1.79 billion market cap. To put this in perspective, CBS recently acquired tech publisher CNET, a much weaker media brand, for $1.8 billion. Add in the company's $1.1 billion of debt, subtract $42 million for its cash on hand, and the company's total enterprise value—a valuation measure that totals up those items in such a fashion—is just $2.85 billion.
In a research note published on July 9, Lehman Brothers (LEH) analyst Craig Huber estimated the Boston Globe and the 14 regional newspapers the company owns could be sold for $575 million after taxes. Huber valued the 17% stake in the Boston Red Sox, after taxes, at $152 million and the Times's portion of its new headquarters building in midtown Manhattan at $750 million after taxes. The company paid $410 million three years ago for Web property About.com; according to an estimate by tech blog Silicon Alley Insider, that could be sold for approximately $600 million today. That sounds low to us, since About has consistently reported increasing revenues. Let's conservatively kick that up to $700 million and assume a 20% tax bite on the Times's $290 million gains in that sale, which is $58 million. So $642 million, aftertax, for About.com.
Totaling up those figures gets you to just over $2.1 billion. Subtract that from the enterprise value, and you get $750 million for the company's remaining assets.
Surprising Numbers
Does anyone really believe that Times Co.'s other assets—The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and its New York City radio station—could be worth only $750 million?
For that matter, does anyone believe The New York Times alone, given its august news franchise and extraordinarily well-trafficked Web site, is only worth $750 million? Remember that in May, Tribune Co. sold Long Island's Newsday—a respectable paper with a circulation less than half that of the Times—to Cablevision in a deal worth $650 million.
"Valuations have fallen to unprecedented levels that have no relationship to reality," says Edward Atorino, media analyst for Benchmark Capital. "Wall Street is saying there is no future to a lot of media companies." Atorino happens to disagree: "The Times isn't going away for a long, long time.... I think [its valuation] is overly negative. All it's going to take is advertising bouncing back." However, he's in the minority. Most media analysts are less sanguine that the Times will be able to regain lost advertising dollars, and for the foreseeable future newspaper companies are bracing for revenue drops at least as bad as the double-digit losses they've suffered through this year. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
In the company's July 23 earnings release, Times CEO Janet Robinson blamed the sliding revenues and earnings on the economic slowdown as well as "secular forces playing out across the media industry." That release was followed a few hours later by a ratings downgrade, in which Standard & Poor's (which, like BusinessWeek, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies) warned it may cut its rating on Times Co. to junk. If this happens, the interest expense on Times's debt will rise.
Dividend Concerns
There are a multitude of reasons why selling off major parts of the company don't necessarily make sense. In his note, Huber speculates that the building and the Red Sox stake will appreciate in price, "so what would be the rush to sell these assets? To get a one-day or one-week pop in the stock price?" Selling so much of the assets would also whack the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization—EBITDA—a standard cash flow measure. This would endanger the juicy dividend that many in its controlling Sulzberger family live on, and scare off dividend-driven investors.
Currently, the company pays a fat dividend yield over 7%, which costs it $133 million annually. On Mar. 22, 2007, Times Co. jacked its quarterly dividend by a staggering 31%—looking to put a floor on its slumping stock price. "This dividend increase, which is another important step in creating value for our shareholders, puts our dividend yield and payout ratio significantly above that of the S&P 500 and others in our industry," said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the company at the time. The stock has since been cut in half.
Cut the dividend, and you shore up finances. But then the stock would fall further.
That would place even more pressure on the Sulzberger family, which has supervoting shares that allow it to control the company. That control is exercised by eight family trustees. In order to change the terms of Times Co.'s governing trust, a supermajority of six trustees must agree. While there are no signs that will happen anytime soon, or ever, the Times has shown it's not wholly immune to outside pressures. In response to a sizable minority stake amassed earlier this year by Harbinger Capital Partners, it agreed to allot the hedge fund two board seats.
In case you're keeping track, the stock price has sunk 30% since then.
On Wednesday, New York Times Co. (NYT) reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, and on Thursday the stock continued in its steep descent. At the end of trading it stood at 12.48, or virtually half the price it commanded one year ago.
This part of the story is unsurprising, given how the Street is slamming any newspaper stock. What's startling is something else: If you back out much of the rest of the company's portfolio, you arrive at a surprisingly teeny valuation for the vaunted New York Times itself, despite all the respect the brand commands.
At its current $12.48 stock price—down 46.3% from a year ago—Times Co. has a $1.79 billion market cap. To put this in perspective, CBS recently acquired tech publisher CNET, a much weaker media brand, for $1.8 billion. Add in the company's $1.1 billion of debt, subtract $42 million for its cash on hand, and the company's total enterprise value—a valuation measure that totals up those items in such a fashion—is just $2.85 billion.
In a research note published on July 9, Lehman Brothers (LEH) analyst Craig Huber estimated the Boston Globe and the 14 regional newspapers the company owns could be sold for $575 million after taxes. Huber valued the 17% stake in the Boston Red Sox, after taxes, at $152 million and the Times's portion of its new headquarters building in midtown Manhattan at $750 million after taxes. The company paid $410 million three years ago for Web property About.com; according to an estimate by tech blog Silicon Alley Insider, that could be sold for approximately $600 million today. That sounds low to us, since About has consistently reported increasing revenues. Let's conservatively kick that up to $700 million and assume a 20% tax bite on the Times's $290 million gains in that sale, which is $58 million. So $642 million, aftertax, for About.com.
Totaling up those figures gets you to just over $2.1 billion. Subtract that from the enterprise value, and you get $750 million for the company's remaining assets.
Surprising Numbers
Does anyone really believe that Times Co.'s other assets—The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, and its New York City radio station—could be worth only $750 million?
For that matter, does anyone believe The New York Times alone, given its august news franchise and extraordinarily well-trafficked Web site, is only worth $750 million? Remember that in May, Tribune Co. sold Long Island's Newsday—a respectable paper with a circulation less than half that of the Times—to Cablevision in a deal worth $650 million.
"Valuations have fallen to unprecedented levels that have no relationship to reality," says Edward Atorino, media analyst for Benchmark Capital. "Wall Street is saying there is no future to a lot of media companies." Atorino happens to disagree: "The Times isn't going away for a long, long time.... I think [its valuation] is overly negative. All it's going to take is advertising bouncing back." However, he's in the minority. Most media analysts are less sanguine that the Times will be able to regain lost advertising dollars, and for the foreseeable future newspaper companies are bracing for revenue drops at least as bad as the double-digit losses they've suffered through this year. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment.
In the company's July 23 earnings release, Times CEO Janet Robinson blamed the sliding revenues and earnings on the economic slowdown as well as "secular forces playing out across the media industry." That release was followed a few hours later by a ratings downgrade, in which Standard & Poor's (which, like BusinessWeek, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies) warned it may cut its rating on Times Co. to junk. If this happens, the interest expense on Times's debt will rise.
Dividend Concerns
There are a multitude of reasons why selling off major parts of the company don't necessarily make sense. In his note, Huber speculates that the building and the Red Sox stake will appreciate in price, "so what would be the rush to sell these assets? To get a one-day or one-week pop in the stock price?" Selling so much of the assets would also whack the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization—EBITDA—a standard cash flow measure. This would endanger the juicy dividend that many in its controlling Sulzberger family live on, and scare off dividend-driven investors.
Currently, the company pays a fat dividend yield over 7%, which costs it $133 million annually. On Mar. 22, 2007, Times Co. jacked its quarterly dividend by a staggering 31%—looking to put a floor on its slumping stock price. "This dividend increase, which is another important step in creating value for our shareholders, puts our dividend yield and payout ratio significantly above that of the S&P 500 and others in our industry," said Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the company at the time. The stock has since been cut in half.
Cut the dividend, and you shore up finances. But then the stock would fall further.
That would place even more pressure on the Sulzberger family, which has supervoting shares that allow it to control the company. That control is exercised by eight family trustees. In order to change the terms of Times Co.'s governing trust, a supermajority of six trustees must agree. While there are no signs that will happen anytime soon, or ever, the Times has shown it's not wholly immune to outside pressures. In response to a sizable minority stake amassed earlier this year by Harbinger Capital Partners, it agreed to allot the hedge fund two board seats.
In case you're keeping track, the stock price has sunk 30% since then.
Friday, July 25, 2008
ONCE YOU'RE LUCKY, TWICE YOU'RE GOOD. The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0. By Sarah Lacy
(from www.nytimes.com by Katie Hafner)
Published: July 27, 2008
The drumroll leading up to the publication of Sarah Lacy’s book about the 20-something entrepreneurs who brought us such familiar Web sites as Facebook was certainly impressive. For months, Lacy demurred when asked to reveal the title yet talked up her project at every opportunity, causing the prepublication buzz in Silicon Valley to build. By golly, it was as if the author herself had created the next YouTube.
With the stance of an insider given unparalleled access to her subjects, the starry-eyed Lacy tells the stories of a half-dozen or so young entrepreneurs who started Web sites like Facebook and YouTube, all driven by user-generated content. Together, those sites created a post-Google version of the “participatory” Web known as Web 2.0.
Lacy has chosen to include, among others, Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old founder of Facebook, the wildly popular social-networking site; and Max Levchin, 33, a co-founder of PayPal, the online payment system that eBay bought in 2002.
This disjointed grab bag of gossip has its elucidating moments, but as the definitive tale of the rise of Web 2.0, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” serves as a reminder that the latter-day equivalent of Tracy Kidder’s 1981 book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” the gold standard for technology nonfiction, has yet to be written.
The title promises an incisive, illuminating examination of just what it is that engenders serial success. Indeed, Lacy delivers on that promise with her profile of Marc Andreessen, who helped build one of the first Web browsers and made millions with Netscape, the browser company. He then started a software company, which Hewlett-Packard bought last year for $1.6 billion. Now 37, he has Ning, a social-networking company for which he has high hopes. Lacy draws a fascinating portrait of Andreessen and his need not just to best himself but to equal the successes of his mentor, Jim Clark, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who financed Netscape.
Otherwise, the title seems to bear little relevance to the book. For Lacy’s other subjects, repeated success has yet to be determined. For example, it is unclear whether Levchin’s new company, Slide, which makes “widgets” — small, single-purpose applications for Web sites like Facebook and MySpace — will end up making him more millions. And Mark Zuckerberg is still firmly entrenched in his first company. Yet Lacy seems hesitant to dwell on these points.
The writing is, at best, informal. For instance, the last time I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, in spite of how computer trade journalists might choose to use the word, “architect” was not recognized as a verb, to say nothing of “rearchitect.” And Lacy’s fifth-grade teacher would no doubt wince at the profusion of incomplete sentences. (“Probably a good thing few women work there.” And “The time Jay and Marc were chatting when Sumner Redstone sauntered up.”) Then again, everything happens so quickly in Silicon Valley that perhaps there is no time to write a proper sentence.
Some of the reporting is impressive in its sheer detail. Lacy obviously spent a great deal of time with these celebrated entrepreneurs. Her descriptions of their business meetings come complete with snatches of you-are-there dialogue, à la Bob Woodward. The reader also learns who wears boxers, who cuts his hair in a hip style and who shucked his nerd-wear in favor of jeans and Pumas.
But the details don’t add up to much. The reader hears a great deal about Levchin’s fear of swimming but surprisingly little about what has driven Levchin, who is from the former Soviet Union, to start companies. And rather than following a straight narrative arc, Lacy jumps from one story to another, then doubles back again — to confusing effect.
Paradoxically, it is when Lacy gets impersonal, and dispenses with her name-dropping tone (she refers to Zuckerberg throughout as merely “Zuck”), that she is at her best. Her explanation of how venture capital works is instructive and clear, perhaps one of the best yet written for a general readership.
And she skillfully describes a tension intrinsic to the Web 2.0 world: thanks to low start-up costs, the newest entrepreneurs don’t need venture capitalists, and even view them with disdain for the role they play in diluting individual wealth. Yet Lacy offers vivid descriptions of meetings between entrepreneurs who eventually wind up strapped for cash and of the venture capitalists with the means to help.
A columnist for BusinessWeek.com and a co-host of “Tech Ticker” on Yahoo Finance, Lacy has a tendency to throw out numbers in too cavalier a fashion. For instance, she describes “the mighty $195 billion Google juggernaut” that bought YouTube in 2006. But at the time of the deal, Google’s market value was far less than that.
Lacy’s book is an outgrowth of an article she wrote for BusinessWeek in 2006. The unfortunate headline on the cover — “How This Kid Made $60 Million in 18 Months” — proved an embarrassment to the magazine. The cover photograph was of a young man sporting headphones, a T-shirt and a 5 o’clock shadow, smiling broadly and giving two thumbs up to the camera. It was Kevin Rose, who would become one of Lacy’s principal subjects in this book. Rose, 31, is a co-founder of Digg, a Web site that allows its users to collectively decide which news accounts on the Internet deserve top billing.
As it turns out, the $60 million referred to the estimated value of Rose’s stake in the company. He didn’t make 60 million of anything, and until the company is sold or goes public, the $60 million in question is as good as Monopoly money.
One of these days, perhaps by the time Kevin Rose does indeed become wealthy, someone will write a richly textured book that chronicles with insight and acumen the rise of the most recent crop of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Sarah Lacy’s “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” is not that book.
Katie Hafner, a former technology reporter for The Times, is the author of “A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano.”
With the stance of an insider given unparalleled access to her subjects, the starry-eyed Lacy tells the stories of a half-dozen or so young entrepreneurs who started Web sites like Facebook and YouTube, all driven by user-generated content. Together, those sites created a post-Google version of the “participatory” Web known as Web 2.0.
Lacy has chosen to include, among others, Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old founder of Facebook, the wildly popular social-networking site; and Max Levchin, 33, a co-founder of PayPal, the online payment system that eBay bought in 2002.
This disjointed grab bag of gossip has its elucidating moments, but as the definitive tale of the rise of Web 2.0, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” serves as a reminder that the latter-day equivalent of Tracy Kidder’s 1981 book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” the gold standard for technology nonfiction, has yet to be written.
The title promises an incisive, illuminating examination of just what it is that engenders serial success. Indeed, Lacy delivers on that promise with her profile of Marc Andreessen, who helped build one of the first Web browsers and made millions with Netscape, the browser company. He then started a software company, which Hewlett-Packard bought last year for $1.6 billion. Now 37, he has Ning, a social-networking company for which he has high hopes. Lacy draws a fascinating portrait of Andreessen and his need not just to best himself but to equal the successes of his mentor, Jim Clark, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who financed Netscape.
Otherwise, the title seems to bear little relevance to the book. For Lacy’s other subjects, repeated success has yet to be determined. For example, it is unclear whether Levchin’s new company, Slide, which makes “widgets” — small, single-purpose applications for Web sites like Facebook and MySpace — will end up making him more millions. And Mark Zuckerberg is still firmly entrenched in his first company. Yet Lacy seems hesitant to dwell on these points.
The writing is, at best, informal. For instance, the last time I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, in spite of how computer trade journalists might choose to use the word, “architect” was not recognized as a verb, to say nothing of “rearchitect.” And Lacy’s fifth-grade teacher would no doubt wince at the profusion of incomplete sentences. (“Probably a good thing few women work there.” And “The time Jay and Marc were chatting when Sumner Redstone sauntered up.”) Then again, everything happens so quickly in Silicon Valley that perhaps there is no time to write a proper sentence.
Some of the reporting is impressive in its sheer detail. Lacy obviously spent a great deal of time with these celebrated entrepreneurs. Her descriptions of their business meetings come complete with snatches of you-are-there dialogue, à la Bob Woodward. The reader also learns who wears boxers, who cuts his hair in a hip style and who shucked his nerd-wear in favor of jeans and Pumas.
But the details don’t add up to much. The reader hears a great deal about Levchin’s fear of swimming but surprisingly little about what has driven Levchin, who is from the former Soviet Union, to start companies. And rather than following a straight narrative arc, Lacy jumps from one story to another, then doubles back again — to confusing effect.
Paradoxically, it is when Lacy gets impersonal, and dispenses with her name-dropping tone (she refers to Zuckerberg throughout as merely “Zuck”), that she is at her best. Her explanation of how venture capital works is instructive and clear, perhaps one of the best yet written for a general readership.
And she skillfully describes a tension intrinsic to the Web 2.0 world: thanks to low start-up costs, the newest entrepreneurs don’t need venture capitalists, and even view them with disdain for the role they play in diluting individual wealth. Yet Lacy offers vivid descriptions of meetings between entrepreneurs who eventually wind up strapped for cash and of the venture capitalists with the means to help.
A columnist for BusinessWeek.com and a co-host of “Tech Ticker” on Yahoo Finance, Lacy has a tendency to throw out numbers in too cavalier a fashion. For instance, she describes “the mighty $195 billion Google juggernaut” that bought YouTube in 2006. But at the time of the deal, Google’s market value was far less than that.
Lacy’s book is an outgrowth of an article she wrote for BusinessWeek in 2006. The unfortunate headline on the cover — “How This Kid Made $60 Million in 18 Months” — proved an embarrassment to the magazine. The cover photograph was of a young man sporting headphones, a T-shirt and a 5 o’clock shadow, smiling broadly and giving two thumbs up to the camera. It was Kevin Rose, who would become one of Lacy’s principal subjects in this book. Rose, 31, is a co-founder of Digg, a Web site that allows its users to collectively decide which news accounts on the Internet deserve top billing.
As it turns out, the $60 million referred to the estimated value of Rose’s stake in the company. He didn’t make 60 million of anything, and until the company is sold or goes public, the $60 million in question is as good as Monopoly money.
One of these days, perhaps by the time Kevin Rose does indeed become wealthy, someone will write a richly textured book that chronicles with insight and acumen the rise of the most recent crop of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Sarah Lacy’s “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” is not that book.
Katie Hafner, a former technology reporter for The Times, is the author of “A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano.”
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Astrid y Gaston - Restaurant Review
Astrid y Gaston has been with us for 14 years. They first started serving French food but now it has been redesigned and now the restaurants are vessels in which Peruvian food and ingredients are making themselves known. There are several Restaurants around Latin America in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, and one in Madrid. One is opening soon one in Mexico and Argentina as well.
Carolina explains that the purpose of the restaurants is to make Peruvian food known the best way they know: serving a quality meal. When they pen a restaurant in another country, they make time to travel around it learning the culture, their flavors and trying to find an ingredient they can include in their menu. To make sure they have the same flavors in every restaurant they open, they make the bases of their sauces in Lima and export them; this lets them to raise the bar on Peruvian food.
Reservations can be made either online or by phone. This is a must. They rarely have a table for the same night so one has to reserve with at least two days in advance. This not only due to the remodeling taking place, which will finish 10 days from now, but because of the food and service they provide. When you come through the door, you are greeted by a kind smile.
The maître d’ or hostess will take your name, look up your reservation and take you to your table. I suggest coming a bit early and enjoying a couple of drinks at the bar. On your right hand side we find the waiting area and, through an archway, the bar. It seats 40 and has some unusual drinks. The bar itself is made with marble and wood. On the back they have boards with some suggestions on food and drink. The very friendly waiters will also help with this important decision. The main dining area has a combination of earthy colors and colorful paintings; I found it resembled the sierra. When it opens it will seat around 85. There is also the cava, a smaller room which seats 40 people. On the walls you have the wines you can choose from and some books which several customers have eyed. It is used in several occasions as a private area for 30 to 40 people.
The tables are dressed in white with unique dishes made especially for Astrid y Gaston. A special treat if you are seating near the waiter’s station in the main dining room, is that you can see the desserts being made and the kitchen in the back, closed with a glass so smells and noise won’t disturb your meal. We had lunch at the bar. As usual we had a couple of drinks first: the Uruwas, a cocktail made with fresh granadilla juice and pisco, quite soft and fresh, the Candela made with ají Amarillo and mandarin orange, a spicy drink with a very intense yellow color. And finally one made with pureed Rocoto, not as spicy as the ají Amarillo but very good and fun to drink. They also brought us some home macerated olives and fresh goat cheese with spices. Don’t be afraid to try the goat cheese. It is not as strong as goat cheeses usually are.
First we ate the Camarones de Homenaje al Sur: a shrimp tartar with huacatay, onions and some tomatoes served over potatoes confit and acompanied by a tiradito with moye pepper and erizo sauce. A good combination. The tartar was soft and fresh, the potatoes added a bit of sweetness to the shrimp. The tiradito, also fresh, was light and the sauce went well since it wasn’t heavy nor overpowering. Then came el Atún y el Camote. I love the name, it sounds like a story. The pieces of Tuna sealed with spices were placed on a bed of different styles of cooking yams. There was the puré, then the pastel, the cannelloni made with huacatay stuffed with yams and fideos, everything was bathed with a purple corn reduction, topped with pineapple. Just by looking at this my mouth started to water. The tuna was cooked just right, and the yams were excellent, I liked that you had different textures in the same plate. The purple corn sauce was very well done, thick and it went well with the fish.
After they delighted us with a wonderful bread basket. They were all home made breads made twice a day. There were some quinoa crissinos, ají and onion bread, Corn bread, potato bread and the last one made with rocoto and huacatay. You can tell the potato and corn bread are made with more potatoes and corn than flour because of their heavy texture. Remember to not fill up on bread because there is more to come.
The main course was one of Carolina’s favorite, the Cochinillo de leche with an asado and cacao sauce accompanied by a carapulcra and a blanquillo with morcilla. The pork had a soft crunchy skin and the meat was extremely tender and juicy. The carapulcra made with yellow and black potatoes had a soft flavor that went well with the cochinillo. Last but not least the blanquillo, like a peach, was a good break from the powerful sauce. The portions are large and one could easily get full after a meal like this, but I suggest you save some room for dessert or at least share one with your guests.
Carolina brought out a sampler dessert plate. There was warm Pastel de Choclo with Mazamorra Morada. It was soft and warm, it blended well with the Mazamorra. The Arroz con Leche de Lúcuma was airy and smooth, you could taste the lúcuma in every bite but didn’t have its sandy texture. The Mousse de Queso served with Sorbete de Ají Amarillo was a good surprise, the ice cream tasted like ají but wasn’t spicy like the drink. On the far end were the Trufas de Chocolate calientes. They are fried and when served the center is still melted and warm. In the middle of the plate there were three sorbets; Tuna, Star fruit and Lemon. My favorite was the tuna sorbet fresh and it was like biting into a sweet prickly pear.I went there years ago when they served French food, I had a fish with potato ‘scales’. It was excellent and so was the Crème Brulée we had for dessert; it is nice to know that eventhough they have changed styles the food still maintains its quality.
The Chef is Carolina Rodriguez, the head Chef for Latin America, is one of the many people who grew with the brand. When she graduated from the Cordon Bleu about 9 years ago she had the misfortune of breaking her foot, therefore could not work in the kitchen, but she did not let this become an excuse for not doing anything. She made it into a challenge and started giving cooking classes; which evolved into a small company. However fate had other plans for her. A friend of her told her Tanta was opening and were looking for a person to become the head of the kitchen. She applied and was hired almost on the spot. After a couple of years she was invited to be part of Astrid y Gaston in Colombia as a sous-chef. Needless to say she was delighted.
The Chef is Carolina Rodriguez, the head Chef for Latin America, is one of the many people who grew with the brand. When she graduated from the Cordon Bleu about 9 years ago she had the misfortune of breaking her foot, therefore could not work in the kitchen, but she did not let this become an excuse for not doing anything. She made it into a challenge and started giving cooking classes; which evolved into a small company. However fate had other plans for her. A friend of her told her Tanta was opening and were looking for a person to become the head of the kitchen. She applied and was hired almost on the spot. After a couple of years she was invited to be part of Astrid y Gaston in Colombia as a sous-chef. Needless to say she was delighted.
After only seven months they asked her to open another one in Ecuador and train the staff. After this she went to Venezuela, then Panama. Carolina has been travelling from one restaurant to another organizing, training and creating new menus. She loves her work and never imagined she would get so far so fast. She is proud of her Peruvian heritage. When listening to her talk about her career you can tell she loves the kitchen and is proud of working in this restaurant, as are all her teammates.
While there I met, Eduardo Paz, the chef for Astrid y Gaston in Peru. He started his culinary path with Outback steakhouse in San Isidro in which he worked there for two years. Then a friend told him Astrid y Gaston was hiring and went for the interview; he’s been a part of the family for 10 years. He started in the frios entrée section of the restaurant which allowed him to work side by side with Gaston himself. He learnt all the new dishes Gaston was making and at the same time had to keep making everything the customer ordered. After seeing how well Eduardo was in the kitchen they rotated him in different kitchen areas. Then they gave him people to train, which is a huge responsibility.Finally he became the head of the kitchen where he’s been ever since. As I was touring around I met Doris, head of the pastry area who’s been there for three years and Ronald the maître d, who’s been a part of the family for 13 years. They only have two trainees at a time, a quite sought after spot; they have a waiting list! Their idea is to train a future family member and not just a cook who will leave after training. They want him or her to learn the skill, be able to develop themselves in the kitchen and stay with them.
The Facts: Astrid y Gaston. Address: Cantuarias 175, Miraflores. Phone number: 242-4422 / 242-5387. Hours: Monday – Saturday 12.30 pm – 3.30 pm; 7:45 pm – 11:45 pm.
Website: http://www.astridygaston.com/. Online Reservation: Yes.
Valet Parking: Yes. Menu in English: Yes (on web page as well). Reservation recommended: Yes, about a two day wait for dinner. Cards accepted: ALL major cards. Business friendly: Yes. Handicap accessible. Catering for special dietary needs: Yes. Service Charge: S/. 11.00. Descorche: Free. Expect to spend: $ 45.00. Full bar: Yes. Outdoor seating/terrace: No.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
What's Google News worth? $100 million
Google vice president Marissa Mayer says Google News might not make money on its own, but it drives $100 million worth of search.
(from http://www.fortune.com/)
HALF MOON BAY, Calif. - Google News is free and has zero ads. So what’s it worth to Google? About $100 million.
That’s the figure Google (GOOG) vice president Marissa Mayer, who heads search products and user experience, threw out during a Tuesday lunch session at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif. How does she put a value on a product that doesn’t directly make money? The online giant figures that Google News funnels readers over to the main Google search engine, where they do searches that do produce ads. And that’s a nice business. Think of Google News as a $100 million search referral machine.
Mayer’s observation about Google News sheds some light on the company’s broader strategy for driving traffic to its search engine – a strategy that has helped the company build a dominant market share lead over rivals Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT). It’s not all about the search engine itself. Google is happy to build popular products that don’t make any money on their own but tie users into a broader Google ecosystem. It’s like Vegas casinos that offer cheap buffets to get people into the building, knowing a lot of them will end up playing slots.
Mayer said that’s the way Google thinks about monetizing digital consumer health records. The company is one of many working to make it convenient for people to store and access their medical records online, a move that proponents say will improve health care by empowering consumers. But Mayer said that after some internal discussions, Google brass decided not to put ads on health record pages.
Salesforce.com (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff, who was sitting in on the lunch session, challenged the decision: Why not let consumers opt into health record ads? Mayer said it’s not worth it. For one, the inventory of health record ads wouldn’t be sizeable enough to draw serious ad dollars. Add to that the criticism Google would draw from privacy advocates, and there’s not much point.
But that doesn’t mean Google’s doing health records as charity. Mayer and the rest of Google leadership are counting on the Google News model: If people come to Google for their health records, they’ll end up using the search engine to buy prescriptions, find doctors, whatever. And in the process, Google will cash in.
to wonder
(QUESTION) To ask yourself questions or express a desire to know about something.
Why don't you call home? Your parents will be wondering where you are.
He's starting to wonder whether he did the right thing in accepting this job.
Will this turkey be big enough for eight, I wonder?
"Have you decided where you're going next summer?" "I've been wondering about (= considering) going to Florida."
Friday, July 18, 2008
Steve Ballmer took over Microsoft.
Steve Ballmer took over Microsoft:
"I have four words for you:
I LOVE THIS COMPANY!"
TAKE OVER (GET CONTROL)
To assume the control or management of or the responsibility for.
To get control of a company by buying most of its shares.
She took over the job after he left.
The first officer took over the ship when the captain suffered a heart attack.
Bill Gates retired and Steve Ballmer took over Microsoft.
The company he works for has recently been taken over.
He took over from the previous superintendent in February.
She took over as manager two weeks ago.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Polanski Asks Prosecutor to Review Film’s Claims
(from http://www.nytimes.com/)
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: July 17, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Will Roman Polanski be bailed out, finally, by a film?
Mr. Polanski, the director of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown,” fled the United States 30 years ago on the eve of being sentenced for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Now, Mr. Polanski and his lawyer have asked the Los Angeles district attorney’s office to review a new documentary in which a former deputy district attorney claims to have coached the judge in the case.
In the film, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” the former prosecutor, David Wells, describes advising Judge Laurence J. Rittenband to send Mr. Polanski to prison for a psychiatric review, though Mr. Wells was not involved with the case.
Mr. Wells also points out to the judge, who died in 1993, what Mr. Wells considered defiant behavior by Mr. Polanski. Mr. Wells, in an interview in the film, says he showed Judge Rittenband a photograph of Mr. Polanski with two girls taken in Germany before his sentencing. “ ‘Judge,’ I said, ‘Look here. He’s flipping you off,’ ” Mr. Wells recalled.
Mr. Polanski has been a fugitive since 1978 when he fled to France to avoid a possible prison sentence or deportation.
In a phone interview on Tuesday, his lawyer, Douglas Dalton, said Mr. Wells’s self-described contacts with the judge appeared to violate California law and legal ethics. At the time, Mr. Wells worked in the Santa Monica courthouse of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, but, after some initial involvement, he was not assigned to the Polanski case.
“There could be a motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct,” Mr. Dalton said.
“We want to develop information about the extent of the ex parte contacts, what other communications Wells had, whether anybody else was aware of them, that sort of thing.”
In general, Mr. Dalton acknowledged, fugitives have little standing to press conventional appeals. But, he said, California law would permit either a judge or the prosecutor’s office to seek remedies on behalf of Mr. Polanski, including dismissal of the case, if either believed the judicial process had been corrupted.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney, Stephen L. Cooley, said she was not aware of any plan by Mr. Cooley’s office to change its stance in the case because of Mr. Wells’s comments.
In a phone interview from his home on Tuesday, Mr. Wells denied that his contact with the judge had been improper, saying it occurred in open court during routine discussions of cases.
“I didn’t tell him to do it or that he should do it,” Mr. Wells said of the judge’s decision to put Mr. Polanski in prison for 42 days for psychiatric review. “I just told him what his options were.”
Charles Whitebread, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said it would be unusual for a judge to reopen the case. “That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be justified or couldn’t happen,” he said.
In an e-mail message this week, Mr. Polanski, 74, said he would not make any decisions until Mr. Dalton had finished reviewing Mr. Wells’s actions. “I’m not ruling anything out,” he said. “I believe that closure of that entire matter is long overdue.”
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
Published: July 17, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Will Roman Polanski be bailed out, finally, by a film?
Mr. Polanski, the director of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown,” fled the United States 30 years ago on the eve of being sentenced for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. Now, Mr. Polanski and his lawyer have asked the Los Angeles district attorney’s office to review a new documentary in which a former deputy district attorney claims to have coached the judge in the case.
In the film, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” the former prosecutor, David Wells, describes advising Judge Laurence J. Rittenband to send Mr. Polanski to prison for a psychiatric review, though Mr. Wells was not involved with the case.
Mr. Wells also points out to the judge, who died in 1993, what Mr. Wells considered defiant behavior by Mr. Polanski. Mr. Wells, in an interview in the film, says he showed Judge Rittenband a photograph of Mr. Polanski with two girls taken in Germany before his sentencing. “ ‘Judge,’ I said, ‘Look here. He’s flipping you off,’ ” Mr. Wells recalled.
Mr. Polanski has been a fugitive since 1978 when he fled to France to avoid a possible prison sentence or deportation.
In a phone interview on Tuesday, his lawyer, Douglas Dalton, said Mr. Wells’s self-described contacts with the judge appeared to violate California law and legal ethics. At the time, Mr. Wells worked in the Santa Monica courthouse of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, but, after some initial involvement, he was not assigned to the Polanski case.
“There could be a motion to dismiss based on prosecutorial misconduct,” Mr. Dalton said.
“We want to develop information about the extent of the ex parte contacts, what other communications Wells had, whether anybody else was aware of them, that sort of thing.”
In general, Mr. Dalton acknowledged, fugitives have little standing to press conventional appeals. But, he said, California law would permit either a judge or the prosecutor’s office to seek remedies on behalf of Mr. Polanski, including dismissal of the case, if either believed the judicial process had been corrupted.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles district attorney, Stephen L. Cooley, said she was not aware of any plan by Mr. Cooley’s office to change its stance in the case because of Mr. Wells’s comments.
In a phone interview from his home on Tuesday, Mr. Wells denied that his contact with the judge had been improper, saying it occurred in open court during routine discussions of cases.
“I didn’t tell him to do it or that he should do it,” Mr. Wells said of the judge’s decision to put Mr. Polanski in prison for 42 days for psychiatric review. “I just told him what his options were.”
Charles Whitebread, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said it would be unusual for a judge to reopen the case. “That’s not to say that it wouldn’t be justified or couldn’t happen,” he said.
In an e-mail message this week, Mr. Polanski, 74, said he would not make any decisions until Mr. Dalton had finished reviewing Mr. Wells’s actions. “I’m not ruling anything out,” he said. “I believe that closure of that entire matter is long overdue.”
Woodpeckers
A Texas woodpecker and a New Mexico woodpecker were arguing about which place had the toughest trees. The Texas woodpecker said Texas had a tree that no woodpecker could peck. The New Mexico woodpecker accepted his challenge and promptly pecked a hole in the tree with no problem. The Texas woodpecker was amazed. The New Mexico woodpecker then challenged the Texas woodpecker to peck a tree in New Mexico that was absolutely im-peck-able (a term woodpeckers like to use).
The Texas woodpecker expressed confidence, said he could do it and accepted the challenge. So the two flew to New Mexico where the Texas woodpecker successfully pecked the so-called im-peck-able tree with no problem. Both woodpeckers were terribly confused. How is it that the New Mexico woodpecker was able to peck the Texas tree and the Texas woodpecker was able to peck the New Mexico tree, yet neither was able to peck the tree in their own state?? Huh?After much woodpecker pondering, they both came to the same conclusion:. .....Apparently your pecker gets harder when you're away from home.
The Texas woodpecker expressed confidence, said he could do it and accepted the challenge. So the two flew to New Mexico where the Texas woodpecker successfully pecked the so-called im-peck-able tree with no problem. Both woodpeckers were terribly confused. How is it that the New Mexico woodpecker was able to peck the Texas tree and the Texas woodpecker was able to peck the New Mexico tree, yet neither was able to peck the tree in their own state?? Huh?After much woodpecker pondering, they both came to the same conclusion:. .....Apparently your pecker gets harder when you're away from home.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Bill Vlasic from The New York Times talks about the record decline in automobile sales in the US economy (July 1st, 2008)
This is Backstory, a daily conversation with NYT reporters on the stories they’re covering. I’m Jane Bornemeier editor of New York Times radio.
JB: Today I’m talking to Bill Vlasic in Detroit about the record decline in auto sales. The numbers went down substantially for Ford, GM, Toyota and Nissan although GM’s decline was less than expected. Honda was the only bright spot. Bill thanks for talking to me today. Car sales numbers are in, and in some ways they’re just as bad as expected but at least in one case GM is not quite as bad as expected so... (...) these numbers for us if you will…
BV: Well it’s truly one of the worst months that the auto industry has seen in many years. It looks like they’ll be selling well under an annual rate of 14 million vehicles which we’re used to years of 60 million vehicles so you can get the idea that these are severely depressed…it’s been building throughout the spring with hypes in the gas price and difficult conditions of the economy so the auto makers are sort of staring at their worst numbers that they’ve had in quite some time and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be an immediate turnaround the rest of the summer…
JB: What is the answer for the car makers? What did they do about this?
BV: Well, things are moving very quickly…The gas prices were unanticipated obviously and the companies were not well prepared for it, in the sense that they still were manufacturing lots of pick-up trucks and large sport utility vehicles obviously they’ve been popular for quite some time and now…nobody wants them anymore… they can’t afford them and they’re moving very dramatically the consumers into small cars and lighterweight crossover vehicles…The problem is that companies can’t ship their production that quickly, they’re taking a lot of productions out of the big vehicles but they can’t just turn down the bigger and put more small cars out there….so it’s a cruel irony this past month that consumers are demanding small cars and they can’t make them fast enough for them…
JB: Of the big car makers which one is in the best position to make this kind of transition relatively quickly?
BV: Well…you know the one car maker that it’s done extremely well this year’s been Honda…Honda never built full size pick up trucks, never built a very large sport utility vehicle and never made a VA engine and their sales have consistently been strong and in fact it looks like the Honda Civic is on its way to be the best selling vehicle of any kind in the country…Toyota had a tough month…Toyota has invested heavily in the big vehicles…built a new truck plant down in Texas which they opened a year or so ago…and they’re having some of the same problems the American automakers are…with slower sales of the big stuff…they do though have more hybrids and small fuel ignition cars so they’re not being hurt as badly…and on top of that Toyota is a very healthy company financially…so they can weather this downturn better than General Motors, Ford or Chrysler…
JB: And speaking of Ford, Ford had the worst performance so talk a little about how much of a problem this is in the longer term for Ford…
BV: Well Ford had a very difficult month; their sales are down 28% , they have had just very ( …) numbers on the pick-up sales and the SUV’s…they’re doing well in the small cars but again...they can’t keep up with demand, they weren’t ready for it so they’re squeezed pretty badly…To their credit Ford went into the credit market a couple of years ago and borrowed substantial sums of money to reorganize their business and weather just this kind of situation so…while they’re heavily heavily in debt they do have a lot of cash which should be able to keep them operating and following their new product plan and hopefully beat this race against time to remake the company…
JB: Talk a bit if you would about how the trouble in the car industry both reflects and affects what’s going on in the rest of the economy…
BV: The automakers…despite their enormous buy outs of workers in the last couple of years and the downsizing of their workforce still are huge employers and they have so many other businesses that are dependant on them particularly in the automobile supply end and when they’re hurting like this…there is a ripple effect not just in the sort of the industrial sector, they spend less on ads, they pull back in areas that are sort of hard to measure like charitable giving and those kind of things…and so their success as enterprises affects an awful lot of people…and I think in many ways this…the sales numbers when they’re so poor like this…because they’re big ticket purchases for Americans…they reflect a real unease in the overall economy…very challenging times…
JB: Bill thanks so much for your time…
BV: Oh yeah I appreciate it, thank you.
For New York Times Radio I’m Jane Bornemeir...I’ll be back tomorrow with another edition of Backstory…To subscribe to the backstory podcast go to nytimes.com/backstory
ENGLISH NOTES.-
Phrasal Verbs:
go down (BE REDUCED) To be reduced in price, value, amount, quality, level or size. The numbers went down substantially for Ford, GM, Toyota and Nissan.
turn down. Turn something or somebody down. To refuse an offer or request. They can't just turn down the bigger and put small cars out there.
keep up (with something or somebody). To do whatever is necessary to stay level or equal with that person or thing. They can't keep up with demand.
go into To start an activity or start to be in a particular state or condition, Ford went into the credit market a couple of years ago.
pull back (from something) (not continue) To decide not to do or involve yourself with something you were previously going to. They pull back in areas that are sort of hard to measure like charitable giving.
Verbs:
stare To look for a long time with your eyes wide open when you're surprised, frightened or thinking. The automakers are sort of staring at the worst numbers that they've had.
can'afford To be able to buy or do something because you have enough money.
weather To deal succesfully with a difficult situation or a problem. They can weather this downturn better than General Motors.
squeeze To press something firmly especially from all sides in order to change its shape, reduce its size or remove liquid from it. Figurative: They're squeezed pretty badly.
beat To defeat or do better than. To beat this race against time to remake the company.
Adverbs:
quite (completely) At least in one case GM is not quite as bad as expected.
quite (not very) A little or a lot but not completely. The automakers are sort of staring at the worst numbers they've had in quite some time.
anymore When you have stopped doing something or when something doesn't happen now. Nobody wants them anymore.
Nouns:
turnaround Any change from one thing to the opposite. It doesn't look there's going to be an immediate turnaround the rest of the summer.
ripple efect. When an event produces effects which spread and produce further effects. There is a ripple effect not just in the industrial sector, they spend less on ads, etc.
Idioms:
I'm on my way You say this when you're soon to arrive somewhere. Honda divic is on its way to be the best selling vechicle.
on top of that In addition to something. On top of that Toyota is a very healthy company financially.
sort of (informal) In some way or to some degree.
Adjective: tough. Difficult to do or to deal with. Toyota had a tough month.
Conjunction: though But. They do though have more hybrids and small fuel ignition cars.
definitely
Without any doubt.
Have you definitely decided to go to America?
He definitely said he'd be here.
"Are you going to have children?" "Oh, definitely (= without any doubt)."
"Is she not coming, then?" "No, definitely not."
Have you definitely decided to go to America?
He definitely said he'd be here.
"Are you going to have children?" "Oh, definitely (= without any doubt)."
"Is she not coming, then?" "No, definitely not."
take off
To remove something, especially clothes.He took off his clothes and got into the bath.
Take your shoes off and dry your feet.
It's hot in here! I'm going to take off my coat.
put (something) on
(COVER BODY) To cover part of the body with clothes, shoes, make-up or something similar.
Put your shoes on - we're going out.
He put on his jacket.
She puts face cream on every night.
My wife puts make up on every morning before going to work.
It's chilly this morning! I need to put on a jacket.
Put on some clothes.
I don't know what dress to put on.
Put your shoes on - we're going out.
He put on his jacket.
She puts face cream on every night.
My wife puts make up on every morning before going to work.
It's chilly this morning! I need to put on a jacket.
Put on some clothes.
I don't know what dress to put on.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Peru's Debt Rating Raised to Investment Grade by S&P
(From bloomberg.com)
By Andrea Jaramillo
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Peru's foreign-currency debt rating was raised to investment grade by Standard & Poor's as the South American country pays down foreign debt and domestic demand buoys economic growth.
S&P raised Peru's credit rating to BBB-, the lowest level of investment grade, from BB+. The rating company also said it increased the nation's local currency long-term credit rating to BBB+ from BBB-.
``The upgrade is supported by the significant decline in Peru's fiscal and external vulnerabilities,'' S&P's credit analyst Sebastian Briozzo said in a statement. ``Economic growth has diversified over the last three years evolving from a path mostly driven by external demand into a more complex structure with more reliance on dynamic domestic demand.''
President Alan Garcia has taken advantage of a jump in revenue from metals exports, surging economic growth and the strongest exchange rate in a decade to buy back $1.3 billion in debt earlier this year and invest in infrastructure. The economy expanded 9 percent last year, its fastest pace since 1994.
``It's great news for the Alan Garcia administration, which has been focusing vastly on improving debt ratios,'' said Claudia Calich, who manages $1 billion in emerging-market debt for Invesco Inc. in New York.
`Positive at the Margin'
Peru this year could pay ahead of schedule $1.1 billion to the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, the government has said. The nation plans to reduce its foreign debt to the equivalent of 13 percent of gross domestic product this year, from 18.4 percent at the end of 2007.
Fitch Ratings in April raised the country to investment grade while Moody's Investors Service rates the country Ba2, two levels below investment grade.
``The news is positive at the margin, but we probably won't see a massive rally since part of it was already priced in with the Fitch upgrade,'' said Calich.
The average yield gap between Peru's dollar-denominated bonds and U.S. Treasuries widened 4 basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 2.10 percentage points, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s benchmark emerging-market debt index.
The announcement is positive for the sol, Win Thin, a New York-based currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., wrote in a report to clients today.
Peru's sol rose 0.3 percent to 2.8235 per dollar, from 2.8325 on July 11.
``We look for further sol gains, especially after the central bank hiked rates'' this month, Win wrote.
Banco Central de Reserva del Peru last week raised the overnight lending rate a quarter-percentage point to 6 percent to stem inflation. The bank also raised minimum reserve requirements for bank deposits in an effort to slow credit growth.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Jaramillo in Bogota at ajaramillo1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 14, 2008 15:16 EDT
By Andrea Jaramillo
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Peru's foreign-currency debt rating was raised to investment grade by Standard & Poor's as the South American country pays down foreign debt and domestic demand buoys economic growth.
S&P raised Peru's credit rating to BBB-, the lowest level of investment grade, from BB+. The rating company also said it increased the nation's local currency long-term credit rating to BBB+ from BBB-.
``The upgrade is supported by the significant decline in Peru's fiscal and external vulnerabilities,'' S&P's credit analyst Sebastian Briozzo said in a statement. ``Economic growth has diversified over the last three years evolving from a path mostly driven by external demand into a more complex structure with more reliance on dynamic domestic demand.''
President Alan Garcia has taken advantage of a jump in revenue from metals exports, surging economic growth and the strongest exchange rate in a decade to buy back $1.3 billion in debt earlier this year and invest in infrastructure. The economy expanded 9 percent last year, its fastest pace since 1994.
``It's great news for the Alan Garcia administration, which has been focusing vastly on improving debt ratios,'' said Claudia Calich, who manages $1 billion in emerging-market debt for Invesco Inc. in New York.
`Positive at the Margin'
Peru this year could pay ahead of schedule $1.1 billion to the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank, the government has said. The nation plans to reduce its foreign debt to the equivalent of 13 percent of gross domestic product this year, from 18.4 percent at the end of 2007.
Fitch Ratings in April raised the country to investment grade while Moody's Investors Service rates the country Ba2, two levels below investment grade.
``The news is positive at the margin, but we probably won't see a massive rally since part of it was already priced in with the Fitch upgrade,'' said Calich.
The average yield gap between Peru's dollar-denominated bonds and U.S. Treasuries widened 4 basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, to 2.10 percentage points, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s benchmark emerging-market debt index.
The announcement is positive for the sol, Win Thin, a New York-based currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., wrote in a report to clients today.
Peru's sol rose 0.3 percent to 2.8235 per dollar, from 2.8325 on July 11.
``We look for further sol gains, especially after the central bank hiked rates'' this month, Win wrote.
Banco Central de Reserva del Peru last week raised the overnight lending rate a quarter-percentage point to 6 percent to stem inflation. The bank also raised minimum reserve requirements for bank deposits in an effort to slow credit growth.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Jaramillo in Bogota at ajaramillo1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 14, 2008 15:16 EDT
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
get a hold of
If you get a hold of someone, you find that person. To communicate with somebody, especially by phone.
Can you get a hold of Michael? I need to talk to him immediately.
This is an emergency! We need to get a hold of the President!
Can you get a hold of Michael? I need to talk to him immediately.
This is an emergency! We need to get a hold of the President!
I'm caught up
Same as "catch up" but in passive voice. You use it to say that you have finished all you had to do so you're not behind.
I'm caught up. Now I can go home and relax.
Are you caught up? Can we go for a drink now?
When I was back from vacation I had a lot of work to do so I had to work on weekends to catch up but finally I'm caught up now.
I'm caught up. Now I can go home and relax.
Are you caught up? Can we go for a drink now?
When I was back from vacation I had a lot of work to do so I had to work on weekends to catch up but finally I'm caught up now.
Making definitions
The following are ten useful expressions to make a definition of something or someone.
1. It's somebody who works in a restaurant.
2. It's the person who takes the food from the kitchen to the tables.
3. It's a place where you go when you want to buy something.
4. It's a thing which you use to talk.
5. It's a kind of machine.
6. It's the opposite of fat.
7. It's like thin, but it means thin and attractive.
8. It's similar to worried.
9. It's how you feel when you have a lot of things to do.
10. For example, you do this with the TV before you go to bed.
1. It's somebody who works in a restaurant.
2. It's the person who takes the food from the kitchen to the tables.
3. It's a place where you go when you want to buy something.
4. It's a thing which you use to talk.
5. It's a kind of machine.
6. It's the opposite of fat.
7. It's like thin, but it means thin and attractive.
8. It's similar to worried.
9. It's how you feel when you have a lot of things to do.
10. For example, you do this with the TV before you go to bed.
***** DESCRIBING PEOPLE *****
Here you can find some adjectives which can help you to describe people. Also some examples on how to use them. To describe a person you can talk about the following seven items: height, weight, build, face & head, age, looks and personality.
1. HEIGHT: short, medium-height, tall.
Mary is a very tall woman.
Tom is quite short.
My father is medium-height.
2. WEIGHT: skinny, slim, thin, chubby (fat in a pleasant, atractive way), overweight, fat, obese (really big).
Cynthia is really slim.
I was very thin when I was in the hospital.
The doctor said I'm overweight.
My baby has chubby legs and chubby cheeks.
3. BUILD: well-built (a person who is large & strong)
My brother works out every day so he's well-built.
4. FACE & HEAD:
Skin color: dark, light.
Eyes color: brown, blue, green
Hair length: short, shoulder-length, long.
Hair color: blonde, brown, black, grey, red.
Hair shape: straight, wavy, curly.
Face hair: a beard/ a mustache.
She has dark hair and dark skin.
She has brown eyes.
Linda has blonde hair and light skin.
Fidel Castro has always had a beard and a mustache.
Rose has short black hair.
Sarah has lovely wavy blond hair.
5. AGE:
My grandmother is 97. She's very old.
My sister is 14. She's young.
My father is 50. He's middle-aged.
My cousin is in her twenties.
My uncle is in his late forties.
6. LOOKS:
Gorgeous (extremely beautiful)
Pretty/beautiful (for women only)
Handsome (for men only)
Atractive/good looking
Average-looking
Plain (not atractive)
Homely/ugly (not very atractive)
My sister is very pretty. She's a beautiful girl.
Johnny Depp is a handsome man.
Julia Roberts is gorgeous.
My next-door neighboor is not ugly or beautiful. She's average looking.
My secretary is quite plain.
7. PERSONALITY:
Friendly, unfriendly
Funny, serious
Generous, mean
Lazy, hard-working
Shy, extrovert or outgoing
Talkative, quiet
My boss is a very outgoing person. He makes friends very easily.
My daughter is talkative at home but very quite at school.
My company is full of hard-working people.
Linda is really shy. She's uncomfortable around people.
1. HEIGHT: short, medium-height, tall.
Mary is a very tall woman.
Tom is quite short.
My father is medium-height.
2. WEIGHT: skinny, slim, thin, chubby (fat in a pleasant, atractive way), overweight, fat, obese (really big).
Cynthia is really slim.
I was very thin when I was in the hospital.
The doctor said I'm overweight.
My baby has chubby legs and chubby cheeks.
3. BUILD: well-built (a person who is large & strong)
My brother works out every day so he's well-built.
4. FACE & HEAD:
Skin color: dark, light.
Eyes color: brown, blue, green
Hair length: short, shoulder-length, long.
Hair color: blonde, brown, black, grey, red.
Hair shape: straight, wavy, curly.
Face hair: a beard/ a mustache.
She has dark hair and dark skin.
She has brown eyes.
Linda has blonde hair and light skin.
Fidel Castro has always had a beard and a mustache.
Rose has short black hair.
Sarah has lovely wavy blond hair.
5. AGE:
My grandmother is 97. She's very old.
My sister is 14. She's young.
My father is 50. He's middle-aged.
My cousin is in her twenties.
My uncle is in his late forties.
6. LOOKS:
Gorgeous (extremely beautiful)
Pretty/beautiful (for women only)
Handsome (for men only)
Atractive/good looking
Average-looking
Plain (not atractive)
Homely/ugly (not very atractive)
My sister is very pretty. She's a beautiful girl.
Johnny Depp is a handsome man.
Julia Roberts is gorgeous.
My next-door neighboor is not ugly or beautiful. She's average looking.
My secretary is quite plain.
7. PERSONALITY:
Friendly, unfriendly
Funny, serious
Generous, mean
Lazy, hard-working
Shy, extrovert or outgoing
Talkative, quiet
My boss is a very outgoing person. He makes friends very easily.
My daughter is talkative at home but very quite at school.
My company is full of hard-working people.
Linda is really shy. She's uncomfortable around people.
Polishing Pond
The last in a series of settling ponds through which mill effluent flows before being discharged into the natural environment.
Open Pit
A mine that is entirely on surface. Also referred to as open-cut or open-cast mine.
The definition of a open pit mine is "an excavation or cut made at the surface of the ground for the purpose of extracting ore and which is open to the surface for the duration of the mine’s life."
To expose and mine the ore, it is generally necessary to excavate and relocate large quantities of waste rock. The main objective in any commercial mining operation is the exploitation of the mineral deposit at the lowest possible cost with a view of maximizing profits
heap leaching
Heap leaching means leaching ores that have been mined, crushed, and transported on impervious pads for leaching by sprinkling and percolation of the solution through the ore. Barrick's Pierina Mine in Peru uses heap leaching to extract gold. Pierina is expected to produce more than 800,000 ounces of gold at a total cash cost of less than $50 per ounce in 1999, making it the world's lowest-cost major gold mine.
The facilities consist of a valley-fill heap leach pad and a conventional Merrill-Crowe gold and silver recovery plant. The ore is stacked in a lined containment area behind a retention dam. A leach solution is applied to the top of the ore and allowed to percolate through the heap. As the solution migrates through the ore, it leaches the gold and silver from the rock and holds it in a solution. The gold-bearing solution ("pregnant solution") is collected at the base of the leach pad in the pore space within the heap. The pregnant solution is pumped to the gold recovery plant where suspended solids are removed and the solution is then treated in a conventional Merrill-Crowe precious metal circuit. The same valley-fill system was successfully used at Barrick's Mercur Mine in Utah.
that's why
You say "that's why" to explain the reason of something.
I only sleep four hours a day. That's why I look so tired.
We're in the middle of winter. That's why it's so cold.
I love pasta. That's why I go to italian restaurants on the weekends.
You're very charming. That's why people lie you so much.
I only sleep four hours a day. That's why I look so tired.
We're in the middle of winter. That's why it's so cold.
I love pasta. That's why I go to italian restaurants on the weekends.
You're very charming. That's why people lie you so much.
asleep
When you're sleeping or not awake.
I fell asleep (= I started to sleep) as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I'm surprised to see you awake - ten minutes ago you were fast/sound (= completely) asleep.
I've only just got up and I'm still half asleep (= not completely awake).
I fell asleep (= I started to sleep) as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I'm surprised to see you awake - ten minutes ago you were fast/sound (= completely) asleep.
I've only just got up and I'm still half asleep (= not completely awake).
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
An hour with John Grisham
An hour conversation with best-selling author John Grisham about his book The Appeal, his writing process and the upcoming 2008 election.
can't afford
If you can't afford to do something, you shouldn't do it because it would cause serious problems for you.
We can't afford to make any mistakes at this stage in the project.
He can't afford to fail any of his exams.
We can't afford to make any mistakes at this stage in the project.
He can't afford to fail any of his exams.
can afford
To be able to buy or do something because you have enough money or time.
I don't know how he can afford a new car on his salary.
Few people can afford cars like that.
She couldn't afford the time off work to see him.
I can't afford to buy a house.
I don't know how he can afford a new car on his salary.
Few people can afford cars like that.
She couldn't afford the time off work to see him.
I can't afford to buy a house.
turn out
1. To happen in a particular way or to have a particular result, especially an unexpected one.
As events turned out, we were right to have decided to leave early.
How did the recipe turn out?
I'm having some problems at work so I'm not sure how things are going to turn out.
2. To be known or discovered finally and surprisingly.
The truth turned out to be stranger than we had expected.
It turns out that she had known him when they were children.
I came to Peru just for a month. It turned out that I stayed for ten years.
As events turned out, we were right to have decided to leave early.
How did the recipe turn out?
I'm having some problems at work so I'm not sure how things are going to turn out.
2. To be known or discovered finally and surprisingly.
The truth turned out to be stranger than we had expected.
It turns out that she had known him when they were children.
I came to Peru just for a month. It turned out that I stayed for ten years.
take place
To happen. To occur. You use "take place" when you talk about an event
The concert takes place next Thursday.
The Boston Marathon takes place every year in June.
A robbery took place last night
When is the convention going to take place?
The interview is taking place right now.
The concert takes place next Thursday.
The Boston Marathon takes place every year in June.
A robbery took place last night
When is the convention going to take place?
The interview is taking place right now.
have a child out of wedlock
This happens when you're married and you have a child with another woman.
My father had two childs out of wedlock so I have a couple of half brothers that I have never met.
My father had two childs out of wedlock so I have a couple of half brothers that I have never met.
an affair
To have a sexual relationship, especially a secret one.
She's having an affair with a married man.
The book doesn't make any mention of his love affairs.
An extramarital affair.
She's having an affair with a married man.
The book doesn't make any mention of his love affairs.
An extramarital affair.
I heard through the grapevine...
To hear rumors. To hear through friends or friends. When some information, gossip or rumor is transmitted from person to person.
I heard through the grapevine that he's been transferred to another location because he had an issue or two. Is that true or just rumors?
I hear through the grapevine that you're going to become the next Regional Director. Congrats!
I'm hearing through the grapevine that they're planning to get married secretly to avoid the paparazzi.
I just heard through the grapevine that your boss and his secretary are having an affair.
I heard through the grapevine that he's been transferred to another location because he had an issue or two. Is that true or just rumors?
I hear through the grapevine that you're going to become the next Regional Director. Congrats!
I'm hearing through the grapevine that they're planning to get married secretly to avoid the paparazzi.
I just heard through the grapevine that your boss and his secretary are having an affair.
I heard through the grapevine that she likes him.
NOTE from the BLOGGER: Soon after the telegraph was invented the term 'grapevine telegraph' was coined - first recorded in a US dictionary in 1852. The allusion was to interactions amongst people who could be expected to be found amongst grapevines, i.e. the rural poor.
pull some strings
Pull some strings means to use your influence to get people to do something for you. The idiom comes from pulling on the strings of a puppet to move it’s arms and legs.
I couldn't get a seat in the plane but my uncle works for that airline so he pulled some strings and got a seat for me.
Could you pull some strings and get me an interview at your company?
Could you pull some strings and get me an interview at your company?
As John’s father was a judge, he pulled some strings and got him out of jail.
The movie star pulled some strings and got front row tickets to the concert.
give (somebody) a ring/a call/a buzz
To call somebody by telephone.
I'll give you a ring next week to arrange a time for a meeting.
I'll give you a call tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Don't be a stranger. Give me a buzz sometime.
I'll give you a ring next week to arrange a time for a meeting.
I'll give you a call tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Don't be a stranger. Give me a buzz sometime.
talk (something) over
To discuss a problem or situation with someone, often to find out their opinion or to get advice before making a decision about it.
I'd like to talk it over with my wife first.
I'd like to talk it over with my wife first.
consider
To spend time thinking about something before making a decision.
Have you considered what you will do if you don't get the job?
We're considering selling the house. (There's a possibility that we sell)
Have you considered France for a vacation trip?
She's been considered for the job. Now we have to wait until they make the decision.
The director has arranged a meeting to discuss the crisis and to consider what to do.
I really like my next door neighbor. I'm considering asking her out for a date.
Have you considered what you will do if you don't get the job?
We're considering selling the house. (There's a possibility that we sell)
Have you considered France for a vacation trip?
She's been considered for the job. Now we have to wait until they make the decision.
The director has arranged a meeting to discuss the crisis and to consider what to do.
I really like my next door neighbor. I'm considering asking her out for a date.
accurate
Correct, exact and without any mistakes.
An accurate machine.
An accurate description.
The figures they have used are just not accurate.
Her novel is an accurate reflection of life in post-war Spain.
We hope to become more accurate in predicting earthquakes.
An accurate machine.
An accurate description.
The figures they have used are just not accurate.
Her novel is an accurate reflection of life in post-war Spain.
We hope to become more accurate in predicting earthquakes.
thorough
Extremely detailed and careful about something. Accurate.
A thorough revision of the manuscript.
They did a thorough search of the area but found nothing.
Our accountant is thorough.
A thorough revision of the manuscript.
They did a thorough search of the area but found nothing.
Our accountant is thorough.
extremely
(ADVERB) Very. To a higher degree or extent.
They played extremely well.
She's extremely beautiful.
Bundle up. It's extremely cold.
This book's extremely interesting"
Extremely unpleasant.
They played extremely well.
She's extremely beautiful.
Bundle up. It's extremely cold.
This book's extremely interesting"
Extremely unpleasant.
a ride
A free journey in a car to a place where you want to go.
He asked me for a ride into town.
Would you like a ride?
My car broke down in the middle of the highway. Luckily somebody gave me a ride to the next gas station.
He asked me for a ride into town.
Would you like a ride?
My car broke down in the middle of the highway. Luckily somebody gave me a ride to the next gas station.
give (somebody) a ride
To take somebody in your car from one place to another.
Would you like a ride?
Dad I'm late...Can you give me a ride to school?
I don't have a car so my neighbor gives me a ride to work every morning.
Would you like a ride?
Dad I'm late...Can you give me a ride to school?
I don't have a car so my neighbor gives me a ride to work every morning.
drive (somebody) crazy
INFORMAL To make someone extremely upset or "crazy"
My mother-in-law has been staying with us this past week and she's driving me crazy.
He leaves dirty clothes all over the floor and it's driving me crazy.
My mother-in-law has been staying with us this past week and she's driving me crazy.
He leaves dirty clothes all over the floor and it's driving me crazy.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
concerned
Worried.
I'm a bit concerned about your health.
Aren't you concerned she might tell someone?
He was concerned to hear that two of his trusted workers were leaving.
Concerned parents have complained about the dangerous playground.
I'm a bit concerned about your health.
Aren't you concerned she might tell someone?
He was concerned to hear that two of his trusted workers were leaving.
Concerned parents have complained about the dangerous playground.
concern
A feeling of worry or nervousness, or something that worries you.
Concern for the safety of the two missing teenagers is growing.
There's a lot of public concern about dangerous toxins recently found in food.
My concern is that you're not getting enough work done.
The company's sole concern is to ensure the safety of its employees.
There's a matter of some concern that I have to discuss with you.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
take over
To get control of an organization, a country or a political party. To assume management or possession of or responsibility for.
The first officer took over the ship when the captain suffered a heart attack.
To get control of a company by buying most of its shares.
The company he works for has recently been taken over.
He will take over as managing director.
The first officer took over the ship when the captain suffered a heart attack.
To get control of a company by buying most of its shares.
The company he works for has recently been taken over.
He will take over as managing director.
find (something) out
To get information about something because you want to know more about it. To discover or confirm the truth about something. To discover something by making an inquiry or an investigation.
"I want to see if she speaks French". "Find out if she speaks French".
I found out the phone number by looking it up.
If you're not sure, find out.
How did you find out about the party?
I'll just go and find out what's going on outside.
Too late, she found out that the train had been cancelled.
I need you to find out who is responsible for the accident.
Please find out his phone number for me.
I found out two interesting things about that person
"I want to see if she speaks French". "Find out if she speaks French".
I found out the phone number by looking it up.
If you're not sure, find out.
How did you find out about the party?
I'll just go and find out what's going on outside.
Too late, she found out that the train had been cancelled.
I need you to find out who is responsible for the accident.
Please find out his phone number for me.
I found out two interesting things about that person
set up
The way in which things are organized or the way they're arranged.
When I started my new job, it took me a while to get used to the set-up.
"Nice little set-up you've got here, " he said as we showed him round the house.
NOUNWhen somebody tricks another person you can say it was "a set up".
When drugs were found in her luggage, she claimed it was a set-up.
When I started my new job, it took me a while to get used to the set-up.
"Nice little set-up you've got here, " he said as we showed him round the house.
NOUNWhen somebody tricks another person you can say it was "a set up".
When drugs were found in her luggage, she claimed it was a set-up.
by word of mouth
When something is comunicated in speech but not in writing.
All the orders were given by word of mouth so that no written evidence could be discovered later.
All the orders were given by word of mouth so that no written evidence could be discovered later.
by the way
You say "by the way" to introduce a new subject for consideration or to give more information about something.
I think we've discussed everything we need to - by the way, what time is it?
Oh, by the way, my name's Julie.
I think we've discussed everything we need to - by the way, what time is it?
Oh, by the way, my name's Julie.
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