Hey there!

How's it going?  I understand you guys stole one of our marketers.  That's ok, I'll forgive you.  Things are insanely boring here.  Basically we are in a wait mode, probably, I think, until February.  This is the first time in 5 years I haven't had to worry about P&L and I have to say it's pretty weird.  It's nice sleeping in though.

So supposedly we have 14 potential suitors. You've probably heard of the banks, and I've also heard Reliant is putting together a bid.  THAT would be interesting.  We laid off probably half the people in our office--pretty much all back office support and some conservation/renewable people.  Bad timing.  Plus, when we laid off Enron Broadband folks, they got a six month severance package, and EBB didn't make any money, and in fact lost a substantial amount.  Then Enron lays off people on our floor, which has made a phenomenal amount of money, and gives them basically $4,000 taxed at 48%.  Life is not fair.

It's going to be interesting to see what this does to the industry.  I think the California debacle, then Enron (now Calpine), is going to create an interesting dynamic going forward.  Credit is going to become more and more an issue, especially towards the back of the curve.  It's interesting, I remember 5 years ago the prediction was, when it was all said and done, there would be 6 big energy suppliers in the country.  Looks like it's heading that way.

So are you going to Europe?  Sounds like fun.  If it looks like we're going to be on the sidelines for a while, I might go on vacation for a couple of weeks, maybe Hawaii.

Well, I'm going to go grab a cup of coffee.  I hope everything is well with you.

Take care,

Sean