laner frankles

I figure I did decently for a full time student and a more than full time worker.  I am missing one grade however it will not matter in the long run, as I have been cleared for graduation and get to pick up all the accouterments next Tuesday…I already know they got me the wrong hood thing, wrong colors at least.  Oh well not sure how many people outside of academia can tell that drab piping is for business degrees?

PENN HILLS, Pa. — “School officials in the Penn Hills School District have to go back to the drawing board after a plan to jam students’ cell phones was stopped in its tracks.

District administrators voted last week to explore the idea of buying equipment that blocks incoming and outgoing communication from cell phones, but the district has learned that the devices are illegal.School officials were concerned that students were using their cell phones to stage fights and that cell phone use was creating other safety concerns.District Superintendent Dr. Joseph Carroll said he learned from the district’s solicitor that the Federal Communications Commission determined it was illegal to interrupt a licensed cell phone signal and buy equipment that interferes with that signal.Students told Channel 11 News that they felt the district was overreacting from the beginning. “People don’t set up fights on texting; fights just happen,” said Penn Hills senior Bryan Campbell. “–wpxi channel 11

Yeah been fielding a lot of questions as of late.
Slated to be the Saturday after Thanksgiving 2009.
Still waiting for a location/hotel/price…

Also the illustrious phhs administration is SLOW to get me a list of addresses, the penn hill progress is no longer in publication, so the internet has been the best bet. also the treasurer [caughey] is awol in boston studying to retake his vet boards.
but the reunion is tentatively scheduled to be the saturday after thanksgiving….at a hotel/bar with hotel close by, there is no budget provided [this is highschool not college] but hopefully [again hotels are slow getting back to me] can get somesort of open bar/buffet together for under $100.00
A few fellow alums are also trying to get in contact with places as they are local and have contacts in the area….but yes, I have been getting things together…10 years in the making.
any ideas? or contacts?
Of course we don’t want something lame [nor am i a lame duck president]…already in the works for the 15 year reunion.
How are you?

-best-
laner

Dear Laner,

Your degree application has been evaluated by your academic advisor. Based on your evaluation, you must complete your current courses and maintain a 3.00 grade point average. All incomplete grades must be submitted to the Office of the Registrar no later than June 15^th to qualify for graduation. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Diplomas will be available by the ending of July or early August. You will be notified once your diploma becomes available.

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There are a few things that stick out from my childhood, my dog “Shatzi”, my father coming home in his battle dress uniform [B.D.U’s] after flight training, my basement from 116 Conestoga Rd, Chuck E. Cheese when I was 7, a yellow “Transformer” Beatle car I lost, the Summer Heat and time spent with my “Oma”.

My “Oma” was a little German lady, arrived to America in 1940 and retired from her public teaching position in time to help raise my sister and myself. The background is important only for the feeling of loss and emptiness I have when certain memories trigger emotions, some good and some bad.

In my Oma’s house, there was a picture hanging in her dining room of The Bamberg Horseman auf Deutsch ‘Der Bamberger Reiter.’ This image was instilled in my head from as long as I have memories as it was not only above the liquor cabinet which was always frequented during parties and family gatherings, again a tangent but this is a reflection.

I would not know how much this picture meant to me until my Oma passed away in September 2003. I learned a lot from my Oma, we travelled together, she taught me how to count in German before I learned to in English. She calmed me when my father was in a foul mood, she lived through Nazi Germany, lost all but her brother to the holocaust, my father lived through Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and when he watched “Platoon” it was my “Opa’s” bed I slept in. My Oma taught me how to gamble, how to play cards, she saved me countless times in Germany from angry German’s yelling about me “doing this or that.” There is a saying; I do not know the origin “Mother is god in the eyes of a child.” For me my Oma was said ‘idol.’

The reflection of my Oma and Der Reiter is one and the same, when she died and the house was packed, cleaned and my sister moved in…my mother asked me what I wanted from the house…it was too late my sister already claimed the picture hanging above the liquor cabinet. I am not one to start family drama, especially after a death, the family is small to begin with and my idiosyncrasies have been known not to aide recovery. Years later I would bring up how I wanted the picture and one day my mother showed up with it, packed in her luggage. I guess my sister wasn’t going to miss it?

Der Bamberger Reiter has been slotted to be one of my tattoos, envisioned to take up my entire back, waist to neck, shoulder to shoulder. The ‘Reiter’ is interesting for a few reasons. It was sculpted by an unknown/anonymous[1] person and no one is 100% sure who the ‘Reiter’ actually is, there are some educated guesses, Saint Henry II or maybe his brother-in-law Stephen I of Hungary. This anonymity in both artist and sculpture fascinates me as it acts as a conduit of past, present and future memories.

4.0  means my scholarship got renewed.

1)  An Allderdice Dragons sweatshirt circa 1990′s

2) A Peabody Sweatshirt circa 1990′s