And the nomination goes to………….

It is nearly time for the annual film awards and I Stanley have a film out all of my own. Miracle AS have their own film channel and on my recent visit Debra and Mogens made a documentary about me. It is released today. It was meant to be a serious look at my rise to fame but with Moans interviewing Debra doesn’t stand a chance. However she did manage to mention quite a few of my friends who get a mention on film, including her daughter who we won’t name to avoid her blushes(oops I may have done in an early blog).

If you didn’t get a mention then I apologise, Debra and Moans should have done better, but those who did include Dan Norris, Mogens and Debra, Justin Kestelyn, Dan Morgan, James Morle, Eddie Awad and Sten Vesterli.

And the Oracle Executive on the camel? Here is a photo of him with Oracle ACE Director Elke Phelps.

Redwood in January

I love redwood, I come here quite often, and it is exactly a year since Debra arranged the steamroller to flatten me. I am not sure if steamroller is a very international word? In my up coming documentary film to be released this week, a friend calls it a ‘flattener’. Anyway since then I have been back for 2 ACE Director briefings and Fusion Applications Validation.


In fact I have stayed in the Sofitel so often I have my own rewards card!





I am here again for the annual User Group Presidents Meeting and the IOUC Summit, lots of friends will be here and I love catching up with them. I want to be photographed with new people, perhaps I can meet Larry on Wednesday when he talks about Sun (my favourite acquisition).

My New Hero – Flint Lockwood

When flying you end up watching films you might not otherwise even look at, and today between London and Chicago I was forced to watch a ‘chick flick’, and ‘who dunnit ‘ but the one I enjoyed most was cloudy with a chance of meatballs, it was an excellent cartoon and one which I was able to draw a lot of parallels with.

Flint Lockwood is a nerd, he tries hard but things just never go right and he is the joke of the town. I am a nerd and I was the joke.

His first invention was spray on shoes, a good idea but you can’t actually take them off, he is stuck with them for ever. Is that what has happened to me? Is the ACE Program stuck with me forever – I do hope so.

Debra’s daughter (let’s call her Brooke), she doesn’t really see the point. When she was in Australia and caught up with her mum for the first time in months she walked into the hotel room and said ‘you haven’t bought that f!!*&% rag with you have you?’, and then the other day when she had a preview of my film (you have to wait a few days), she went on facebook and said, ‘yes I have seen it – now can you burn it’ she really does need sorting out, although Debra isn’t too keen on letting Mogens do the sorting out even though he has volunteered. Still Brooke (may not be her real name), is coming to Denver and if she can’t love me after a week then she is not worth worrying about. But she did join my fan club today possibly because mom said she couldn’t come to Denver if she didn’t.

Anyway back to the film analogy, will I stay forever, I hope so, I am fun, a mascot and an icon and why should my life be shortened in any way?

The heroine in the film is a young professional women but Flint realises she is just like him, and says ‘be the real you, release your inner nerd’, Debra is worried people may relate that to her, and says there has been no nerd in her since she closed her life to programming when Cobol left town.

But back to me, me, me, just like Flint's ideas, I may not have started life well but the intention was good and eventually everyone (with the current exception of Brooke) saw the importance of me. Now I am an icon.

The story comes to a dramatic climax with a spaghetti tornado that spirals out of control, have I gone out of control? Will I have to be stopped?

Of course not, you silly reader. Cloudy with a chance of meatballs is fiction, the product of an over active imagination and simply make believe. I, Stanley, the Original ACE Director am real.

Oracle Buys Sun

I am not the world's most intelligent being but for a vest I can hold my own. Sometimes I find it hard to understand all my Oracle friends, many of them are geeks and they talk about so much stuff I simply can't understand. I want to talk about travel and people like Cary Millsap come along and try explaining complex mathematical equations to me. And as for the Oracle acquisition policy, normally I have no idea but this one I do understand.

You see some days I can't believe how lucky I am and how far I have come. Yesterday Oracle had the acquisition of Sun approved and no one is happier than me.

I am from Vietnam and miss the sunshine. I know I spend a lot of time in the cold, the ice diving, the trips to Denver but the sun does actually shine there. When Debra meets up with Nadia it always rains and Debra lives in N Ireland where the closest they get to SUN is a tabloid newspaper.

So hearing that my friend Charles Phillips has bought Sun makes me very happy. I will be at the live launch on wed as a VIP (well Debra will be and I like her to think it is her they are giving the VIP status when really it is all about me).

Dan Norris is very excited about Sun he has been working with it for a while something to do with fast databases, I don't understand how that works, can you generate energy from Sun like you can from the Wind?

I am so impressed Oracle realised that there was weather missing from their portfolio and in line with the 'best of the best' strategy they chose Sun to buy. Their development guys I am sure will quickly get on and solve the Global warming issues. And the benefit to me will be constant sunshine and warmth.

I will get new friends, as each acquisition brings new experts into the ACE Program, I hope I will like them. Perhaps this year with all this Sun OTN can give us a different gift, no need for fleece's or vests, we could have ACE swimwear, and all conferences could learn from Miracle Open World and have beach parties. See Mogens you always were a forward thinker.

I am expecting the marketing gift next week will be what the Aussies call 'sunnies' Oracle logo sunglasses, and another added benefit, I might get to be top dog around Oracle as Sun will scare off those pesky penguins.

I hope you are as excited about the acquisition of Sun as I am.

Who Goes You Decide

Once upon a time there were four friends. Debra Lilley, Dan Norris, Mogens Nørgaard and I, Stanley ACE Director. A lot of people are involved in the Stanley story but these three are the brains behind the icon.

However if you read through my blog, something stands out, in all my adventures it is very rare that the 4 of us are together. Debra has taken me to meet up with Dan, San Francisco, Monterey, Diving, Orlando and Dan has taken me to Florida (diving again) to meet up with Mogens, he almost took me to Iceland to meet up with Mogens but I won't mention AGAIN that he forgot to pack me, and I have spent time with Debra and Mogens in Breckenridge and just last weekend Copenhagen, but in all the 102 posts I have had it is rare the 4 of us have been together.

Debra pointed this out to Dan on facebook and Dan said quote " Agreed. Seems that 3 out of 4 is relatively easy, but 4 us nearly impossible. Maybe if we killed Stanley, the 3 that remain would keep the 3/4 trend going? :)"

That is suggesting murder, how dare he, does he not know how important I am ? So what I want to know is who would you remove from that lot, Debra, Dan or Mogens and more importantly why?

Some Things Are Worth Waiting For

My best mates, after Debra are Dan Norris and Mogens Norgaard. The four of us are such good friends but rarely get together all at once.










In the summer Dan and Mogens planned a diving trip to Iceland and promised me my first chance to go diving in Ice. That didn't happen because Dan forgot to pack me in his excitement, I was devastated and did consider ending it all,but Dan apologised (the actual apology was "Alright, alright I apologize. I'm really, really sorry. I apologize unreservedly.") and then I did go on a diving trip but that time with Debra and Dan in Monterey, then later I got to go diving with Mogens and Dan in Florida including a naked dive but I still didn't get to dive in the Ice.
Then Debra took me to Denmark to DOUG and we got to visit Mogens, that on its own was amazing, he took me to the Miracle Brewery and I was in heaven, but when he told me he had also arranged to take me on that elusive ice dive it was beyond anything I could ever dream off, talk about getting lucky.

I kid you not!

I have just realsed I had started this posting but not published it, I think the problem was that I was too cold to complete it, and now I have finally thawed out I can put that right.

I love the snow, you have read my various exploits before, so I don't really mind the cold too much, but only in the right surroundings.

When I arrived in Denmark it was a very warm welcome. Then when we arrived at Mogens' house it was adequate, not overly warm but I put that down to the Danish Viking spirit, I thought they simply don't feel the cold, although it could also be to do with the amount of alcohol they drink.

The next morning was again OK, but the Miracle offices were warmer and the welcome there from Anne Marie of the Miracle Channel was really hot!

Then we went off to the brewery there was lots of snow but I had a nice warm sleep on a lovely leather sofa in the Red House. The brewery itself was ice cold but that is how it has to be and then we went back to Mogens' house.

This time it was freezing, and one of his many visitors, Isobella was wrapped up in many layers. The house which has under floor heating was colder than the brewery. Mogens went off to investigate and Debra went for more clothes.

After a quick check out in the outhouse Mogens returned to explain that the heating which is gas fired, has an inspection type box outside. The plastic cover had come off, exposing the stop handle, and the goats, yes Mogens keeps goats, had tried eating the handle and managed to close off the gas supply. I don't know if they were making a protest or just plain stupid, but whatever we got the message.

Mogens reset the handle but the heating would not fire properly, I don't really understand but I think it would fire up but then go out again. Not much you can do late on a Saturday, but Mogens did his best. He returned with socks for Debra and Isobella and he was wearing quite a colourful, thick knitted jumper which has not appeared in his video wardrobe. (He loves the limelight even more than I do). Poor Isobella, she thought she was helping when she picked me up off the table and suggested Debra put me on. Once Debra and Mogens had stopped laughing they explained how important I was and why no-one would actually choose to wear me however cold they are.

Debra is a wuss however and eventually she retired to bed, to tunnel under the duvet to stay warm. Mogens simply took in more inner warmth from various wine bottles. I am hard and stayed up all night at the Oak Table.

So Sunday morning we went ice diving, and compared to the house it was quite simple or 'wee buns' as they say in N Ireland. Then a wonderful thing happened, one of the other divers turned out to be a heating engineer and explained it would simply be some kind of airlock or something (too techie for me)and promised to come by and sort it out. So once we had finished Mogens drove Debra and I straight to the airport early because his car has heated seats and it was better than going home to the cold.

Died and Gone to Heaven

Were would you like to be most? Well I like most of the ACE program, would put a drinking establishment high on the list, and none as high as the Miracle Brewery.

I don't like to brag, but the moment Mogens and his partner Lasse knew I, Stanley, the original ACE Director, was visiting, they made sure I could come out to see it.

The brewery is situated some two hour drive from Copenhagen, but even that was not a problem. Miracle have a 'red' house where visiting dignitaries can spend the night.

So next time you see me and I blank you, or don't speak to you, don't get cross, I am probably just dreaming of when I died and went to heaven

The Real CEO of Miracle

Debra has been very busy this week, she was speaking at the relaunched Danish Oracle User Group in Copenhagen and I went along too. Denmark is a very special place to me, I was christened here and have been to many a good party (not that I remember all of them).

I got to meet two of my good ACE Director friends Sten Vesterli and of course Mogens.

In fact I spent the morning with Mogens at Miracle and found my rightful place as the CEO. I made a video for the Miracle Channel which no doubt you will see soon. Mogens popped out to do some work (so he says) so I decided to claim his chair, I am the rightful CEO of Miracle.

The hat I am wearing is from Miracle Security of which I am now a member but I can't tell you anything about it as I have been sworn to secrecy, I must not open my lips on the subject.

Feed The Birds - Stanley Style

We know that I, Stanley likes the snow, I loved RMOUG last year and am already packed for the return trip to Denver.

If you haven't heard the UK is in the middle of its coldest winter for 30 years and one of the casualties are the birds. So today (when it was a little warmer than it has been ) I, the great Stanley decided I would go out in the snow at great personal sacrifice and feed them.



But I have a sneaking suspicion that birds don't like me. When I went to the seaside with Debra and Karen, I tried feeding the seagulls chips but they weren't interested in me but would feed off anything or anybody else.



Today in the snow was not much better the only interest I got was a magpie who has no fear and I was the frightened one, and one small robin who came over to check if his vest was as bright red as mine.


So another day in the snow, followed by another drip dry session on a radiator, I am ready for Denver, although I am having a quick trip to Copenhagen where I believe I may finally get to do the Ice Diving with Mogens that Dan failed to take me to last year, that is if Debra remembers to pack me!