From R.E.M. HQ today:

“To our Fans and Friends: As R.E.M., and as lifelong friends and co-conspirators, we have decided to call it a day as a band. We walk away with a great sense of gratitude, of finality, and of astonishment at all we have accomplished. To anyone who ever felt touched by our music, our deepest thanks for listening.” R.E.M.

After a while, it seemed like the newer R.E.M. albums all blurred together, but Automatic for the People, Life’s Rich Pageant, Document and even Monster played a huge part in my life growing up. I can’t remember how many times we saw them in concert (maybe just once), but I’ll never forget secretly following Stipey around the British Museum while trying not to look too much like a star-struck fan.

Cheers to you, Messrs. Stipe, Buck and Mills!

It’s now been 14 months since I started working at a casino. I just had my first annual review last week and left the meeting feeling pretty good about what I accomplished the first year and the goals I’ve set for year two. Here are some highlights for the upcoming 2012 fiscal year starting October 1st:

• Officially launch new public and internal websites
• Deploy four new players club information kiosks
• Increase corporate and public internet speeds
• Improve telephone system performance and quality
• Strengthen cellular and wi-fi signal and enhance resort coverage area
• Replace and upgrade server room storage capacity
• Upgrade resort reservation system
• Develop prototypes using mobile technologies

Working in a casino resort has been a great experience so far, with so much to learn and experience. Our resort is big enough to be exciting, but small enough for me to get involved in virtually all aspects of the operation. I particularly like helping with some of the marketing and concert promotion activities, along with the golf operations of a top Minnesota course.

The people here are great and it really is like a big family. The restaurant staff automatically brings my favorite drink, the front desk books my favorite rooms each week and the golf course crew knows I won’t be needing a cart.

I’m still working on building the latest “ultimate” office space, but the current setup is comfortable and we have most of the tools needed to get the job done.

Networking with industry contacts and other local casinos should get a boost when I attend the G2E trade expo in Las Vegas next month, along with the 2012 NIGA conference, to be held April 1-4 in San Diego. Can’t wait!

Plans for this fall:

• Hawaii Five-O, CBS, Mon@9PM
• Glee, Fox, Tue@7PM
• Survivor, CBS, Wed@7PM
• Modern Family, ABC, Wed@8PM
• CSI, CBS, Wed@9PM
• Community, NBC, Thu@7PM
• The Office, NBC, Thu@8PM

I’d also like to catch Boardwalk Empire and Hung on HBO, depending on when the replays air at the resort. Lots of Showtime series too, but we don’t get that channel here…