Diving In

So, here it is, Thursday, my 2nd day off in a row (ain't it sweet?).
Yesterday I drove down to the VA Hospital in Lebanon and met with the Admitting Nurse and the chief Anesthesiologist (not the one who's going to put me under).  Mostly they told me things I'd already been told... except for one thing.  I can start going back to the gym now - I just can't do anything Ab related, which means that the 160 lb leg presses are out until sometime in December; upper chest and shoulders are fine.
Since those meetings were supposed to take an hour and ended up taking... oh, about 10 minutes, I took a jaunty trip out to Coleman's Park, (it was also on my way home to Harrisburg).  55 years ago I lived in a suburb of Lebanon called Avon (pronounced Ave - in ((short 'a'))) and every Wednesday during summer a break I would climb aboard a big, yellow school but at the Avon (short 'a' remember?) playground and ride out to Coleman's Park were I'd swim in the Gingrich Memorial Pool.  That swimming pool is still in operation today, which I found surprising.  This is what it looks like today.

Back then they had a diving board rather than a sleek, yellow slide.
On the Idiot Jerk side of things in this world, either he was or wasn't ignorant to the grieving widow of an American soldier killed in Niger.  Just by knowing that the first name of that American hero was LaDavid, I'd pretty much bet the claims of callousness are correct.  Except for his rabid supporters who are dumber than cow shit, everybody knows by now that the Idiot Jerk prefers to deal with, and associate with, homo sapiens who are Caucasian.  In fact I'd bet good money he would so much as wet his little toe in the Gingrich Memorial Pool since those kids swimming there are quite diverse.

Summer Acquaintance

One of my Facebook friends put out a notification regarding a reunion type event for all the kids who grew up in Avon (the 'a' is pronounced with a short vowel sound, not a long vowel sound) at the Avon playground.  I had to attend an HR meeting at the Lebanon store, about 1/4 mile from Avon about 2 years ago, and being in the area, drove through the town and out to the playground, which is more of a park.  Sadly, except for 1 pavilion, everything I remembered was gone.  Not knowing if she was aware of this, I sent her an email.  First of all, she was aware of the drastic changes to the playground.  Secondly, she was a bit befuddled to hear from me.  You see, even though she and her two sisters lived 8 houses up and on the other side of the street, she doesn't remember me.  This is surprising since almost everybody remembers me.  Of course, as always, there is a logical explanation.

It's a school district thing.  Back then Lebanon, PA,had a population  of  around 26,000 and was its own school district.  Everyone outside the city limits either went to schools in the Northern District or schools in the Southern District, and that line cut through Avon (remember, short vowel).  Unfortunately that line did not cut through the center.  No, it barely grazed the edge.  It did, however, run right down the middle of King Street.  There were 15 houses (4 kids) on the north side of King Street.  We were bused 12.5 miles, through the city of Lebanon, to Ebenezer Elementary School.  Everybody on the south side of King Street, 40 + kids, (picked up at 3 bus stops), was bused 3.5 miles to South Lebanon Elementary. Go figure.  Different schools, different activities; most of those kids hung around together twelve months out of the year.  I tried out of Little League and, of course, had to try out for a team in the Northern School District.  A coach came flat out and told my Dad they couldn't put me on a team because we lived too far away.  Go Figure.  While most kids make friends with the kids in their neighborhood, my were only summer acquaintances.

  

Simply put, Rosetta Stone is pretty damn difficult

A long, long time ago, when I was going to Lebanon Valley College, I had to take a foreign language.  Notice, I said take, not learn since you were not really expected to become fluent in that tongue unless, of course, you were a language major.  In high school I had tried Spanish and didn't like it so I chose French and liked it.  When I graduated I was three credits short of it being a double major.  A few years ago, after I was laid off by xpedx so they could out source my job to Poland, I took part of my severance package and went to France.  To my surprise the French I thought I remembered quite well didn't quite jive with what the locals were speaking.  I thought about this for a long time, I mean, how could I be so bad at something I had enjoyed so much.  Then I saw one of the many commercials for Rosetta Stone.

For those of you who don't know, this is what the real Rosetta stone looks like.  What did it do?  It allowed archaeologists to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs into other languages they had already translated.  This rock allowed them to understand just what the ancient Egyptians were painting on the walls of their tombs and carving into their statuary.  However, this is not what I ended up buying.

I bought this instead.  Most people have seen their commercials on television and they do make it seem like a foreign language is easy to learn.  They are, however a bit misleading.  Rosetta Stone works on the immersion theory where if you immerse yourself in, say French, comprehension will be simple.  Wrong.  For myself, I didn't find it that difficult but then I have a background.  For an individual who is starting from scratch it may be overwhelming.  They don't tell you that you should set up a class schedule or that if you're doing less then three or four hours a week you're going to fail.  There is a lot of memorization which needs to take place.  You don't hear something three times and repeat it three times and remember it forever.  The program does work.  They do, however, need to stop implying you can learn a new language in a couple of weeks simply by sitting in front of your computer.  They need to tell the unsuspecting public that if they want to immerse themselves it has to be more then an hour or so a week.  People spend a lot of money on this program with out understanding just how much work is involved.  That's a flaw for Rosetta Stone which should be fixed.