Mountain Cabin

I got a pleasant surprise Monday. Our DBA is taking me under his wing to teach me the basics of his duties. He talked to me about how he started in a Help Desk department, and the DBA at his first job taught him what he knew. He feels I have the drive and interest to do his job someday and I don’t seem to fit the role of a programmer (Correct on both counts).

And my earning potential goes up, as well. Add to that me studying for my next certification and I am feeling very positive about my career future. WooHoo!

If this makes it to Broadway then things have gotten really bad in the theater world.

Gilligan’s Island: The Musical to Launch New Tour in Florida

A new tour of Gilligan’s Island: The Musical, based on the popular television series, will officially launch in Clearwater, Florida at The Ruth Eckerd Hall on March 4. The tour continues through May 3, and will play in such cities as Glendora, California, Jacksonville, Florida, Wichita, Kansas, and Olympia, Washington.

The show is directed by Pamela Hall with choreography by Gene Castle, and is written by Lloyd and Sherwood Schwartz and Hope and Laurence Juber. Sherwood Schwartz is the television series’ creator.

In the show, Gilligan, The Skipper, Mary Ann, Ginger, The Professor, and The Millionaire and his wife are shipwrecked and trying to get off the island. Natural disasters befall them, hurricanes, quicksand, etc., as they learn to get along and survive. Their biggest challenge comes from the U.F.O. and its alien, who monitors their behavior. By the end of the play, the castaways manage to defeat the extraterrestrial and save the entire planet, while staying marooned themselves.

The cast includes Ryan Bates, Chris Boerner, Devin Elting, Joshua Nicholson, Shaun Rice, Dannie Simon, Kevin Grant Spencer, Alexia Tate, Heather Woodward, and Katie Venezia. The creative team includes Douglas Grinn (sets), Elizabeth Flores (costumes), Graham Kindred (lighting), and Demetrius Grandel (sound).

This little tidbit popped up on my radar yesterday. A direct-to-DVD movie has been released for Dead Like Me (one of my favorite series of all time that had an untimely demise, just like Pushing Daisies). I will get my copy soon, just so I can see how the series gets officially ended.

Dead Like Me is back for one last Hurrah

This just arrived in my email:

Hello Colaboy,

Reviewed records for May 2009 graduation, records show that you have met the degree requirements. CONGRATULATIONS! The AS: Computer Engineering Tech/Microsoft degree will be awarded at the end of this term and your diploma will be mailed to the address on file, please make sure it is correct in the system.

Now it’s on to study for my certifications!

The Elusive Diploma

I’m breathing better now. Liberty Media just saved Sirius XM’s butt from filing bankruptcy. Full story here.

BREAKING: Sirius XM Radio and Liberty Media reach $530 million agreement
By Ryan Saghir on February 17, 2009 8:00 AM | 64 Comments
John C. Malone and Mel KarmazinDONE DEAL: Sirius XM Radio Inc. and Liberty Media Corporation have reached an agreement in which Liberty would invest an aggregate amount of $530 million into Sirius XM, in return for an equity stake in the company.

The investment will be provided in two separate phases:

1. Liberty will loan Sirius XM Radio $280 million; $250 million of which will be funded today. The loan will bear an interest radio of 15% and come due in December 2012. This loan will save Sirius XM Radio from bankruptcy.

2. The 2nd phase will be a loan of $150 million to XM Satellite Radio (Sirius XM’s wholly owned subsidiary). Liberty has also agreed to offer to purchase up to $100 million of the loans outstanding under XM Satellite Radio’s existing credit facilities.

Upon completion of the second phase of the Liberty investments, Sirius XM will give Liberty a total of 12.5 million shares of preferred stock convertible into 40% of the common stock of SIRI.

I saw this on JMG’s blog today.

The Empty Sky Of Dubai

The construction boom town of Dubai, where 200 fantastically tall skyscrapers have been started in the last five years, is emptying out of foreigners who fear being sent to debtors prison for defaulting on their home loans.

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). No one knows how bad things have become, though it is clear that tens of thousands have left, real estate prices have crashed and scores of Dubai’s major construction projects have been suspended or canceled. But with the government unwilling to provide data, rumors are bound to flourish, damaging confidence and further undermining the economy.

The United Arab Emirates are drafting a law making it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy by writing about the crisis. (And you thought things are bad here. At least we get to bitch about things.)

Let this be a lesson to those who wallow in excess. You are not invincible. It will be interesting to watch this country of sickening self-centered wealth get battered by the world wide economical downturn.

Have a nice day, Dubai!

I saw the new stop-motion movie Coraline last night.

It was in 3D.

It blew me away!

The scenery, the music, the story were all well done. A darn amazing film. There are no comedy bits or funny side kicks to brighten the dark story…and I liked it that way. There are a few chuckles but they aren’t there to make little kids enjoy the film more. In fact, it will probably be a bit too scary for the very young. I read the book several years ago but don’t remember it too well, but I know that most of the storyline is still there. But I just sat back and let the sumptuous sets and spooky story wash over me.

This weekend skip Jason rampaging in 3D and go see a movie that doesn’t rely on guts and in-your-face scares…just a young girl who finds out what you really want is not always the best thing.

Coraline, in Theaters Now

You, too, can pay $2 for a hurricane-strength blow job in the middle of the mall food court!

One of the funnier things in the West Oaks Mall in Ocoee. The rest of the place is depressing as it dies a slow, miserable death. They’ve even closed up the Customer Service desk!

Here’s why I haven’t bought a lifetime subscription to Sirius/XM yet.

From the Sirius XM News Feed:

According to The New York Times Sirius XM Radio has been working with advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing in a move that could put pressure on the satellite company EchoStar, which owns a substantial amount of the company’s debt.

Sirius has been working with the restructuring expert Joseph A. Bondi
of Alvarez & Marsal and the bankruptcy lawyer Mark Thompson of
Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett to help prepare a Chapter 11 filing,
people close to the company said. The documents and analysis are close
to being completed and a filing could come within days, according to a
person familiar with the matter.

With more than $5 billion in assets, Sirius would be second-largest
company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection so far this year,
according to the research firm Capital IQ’s database. Smurfit-Stone,
which had more than $7 billion in assets when it filed in late January,
was the biggest so far.

This is just one of many news stories I read in my RSS news feeder this morning. I have been watching all this very closely the past week or so, since the head off EchoStar started making moves to possibly take over the company. I wasn’t thrilled with that because EchoStar is itself not doing well financially.

I really love my satellite radio. I don’t want to lose all my music, not to mention the wasted money on all the equipment that would become obsolete. And, boy, are they mad over at SaveSirius.com.