The Keys

I just had the pleasure of finishing the reading of an advance copy of the book “The Keys” by George Hay. This is the second book in a series, the first being Agent Orange (Unabridged).

This was a VERY good book and a great followup to the first book, thirty years after the first book.
I know some of the people behind the book, which is loosely based on RL people and events (with some poetic license of course).
When this book hits the streets, I HIGHLY recommend that you get it! Be sure to get Agent Orange (Unabridged) first and read it, as you will want to know some of what is in it!

Enjoy Life!

Education…

As you probably know by now, I run a company that is working on a new product (well the product is done, and ready for market) that we feel will revolutionize the education process here in the US and abroad.

In this job I have been doing a LOT of research this past eight months on education in the US and abroad. Today I read something that had me dazed at it’s stupidity:

Florida court ruling against vouchers came after teacher Ruth Holmes Cameron and advocacy groups brought a suit to block the program.

“To say that competition is going to improve education? It’s just not gonna work. You know competition is not for children. It’s not for human beings. It’s not for public education. It never has been, it never will be,” Holmes said.

Where does Holmes get the idea that competition is not for our children? Why is competition bad for anyone? I STRONGLY feel that competition is what made the early US much better than the rest of the world at that time, the ability to compete and make things happen is what shaped the early US into a super power!

Education needs to go back to allowing kids to be flunked out if they don’t muster up and get good grades. Competition needs to return to the classroom, gym, and in general to most aspects of life. I am sickened by what I see at schools where you can’t fail, or get an F anymore. (I’ve seen some school districts do away with the grade.) Yes, your child CAN fail, and will fail in life if they are not challenged to excel! It is, from my findings, human nature to be lazy if you can, but if you are challenged (read have competition) you will succeed.

Wake up US (and world) bring competition back into life and challenge yourselves (against others) to do better and better!

Let’s get our education back on track, get our kids learning again, don’t let them fail from lack of trying!

Finished!!

Ok, here I can get in trouble. I work for a company (as President/COO of Interactive Digital Multi-Media, Inc (Formerly AV Books, Inc.) that just digitized (the CD at the back of the book), so I should press that this book is great, so you go out and buy it and I make some money.

But I can’t fully say that. (The CD at the back is all that saves it though. ) This book is OK. Over all, I’m sure it could be a great tool for some wanting to learn Spanish, and I agree with the over all principals of learning that Mrs. Stein talks about, but it just seems a bit dry to me. (Now, I have to admit I’ve been trying to learn Spanish for MANY years, and I do speak English (American style, native of course), Korean and German, so it’s not 100% a learning disability. I think it’s my living in El Paso Texas too much, and having everyone try to speak Spanish to me in a US store….)

It is a book, mainly because of the CD at the back, that I would recommend as a tool to help you learn Spanish, but there are other books and tools you should probably get too.

Did I learn any more Spanish? No, but I think I have a mental block about learning Spanish.. I’ll get over it…

Fun times!

First, we, at AV Books, now Interactive Digital MultiMedia Inc., received acceptance of today in from Alpha Books!! Very good news, and you will start receiving it soon when you order it, or at many books stores in a couple of weeks!! (The book is done, the disk is being mass produced tomorrow, and will be placed in the books and shipped out soon! I hope many of you buy it and enjoy it!

Today we started getting VERY active in producing in the IDM, Inc. ABCD Reader format. This book will have several minutes of video from . This book will be one of our best I’m sure!

More to come!! Enjoy!

Yeah!!

Well, at AV Books, we finished our 7th book, , and have shipped it to the American Bar Assocaition for approval and shipping!

Interesting the way Lawyers write books… Some good information in it, that applies to all business, though! Even if you aren’t an attorney, I recommend the book for some of the points it brings up in setting up a business, setting up an image, and in getting clients.

Enjoy the reading!

YEAH!!

Back on Monday we finally finished converting Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning French, 3E (The Complete Idiot’s Guide) (4E though, but it’s not yet available on Amazon or other sites/locations, but will be soon, and I will update this link then. )!! It is being burnt by the disk makers now, and should be in your book stores soon.

Another good thing is I will have a BIT more time to read myself and to work on other projects.

Down side is we went right into building our next two books, an American Bar Association Book (How to Capture and Keep Clients: Marketing Strategies for Lawyers) which should be done tomorrow, and the second Complete Idiot’s Guide book, Complete Idiot\’s Guide to Learning Spanish, 4th Edition (Complete Idiot\’s Guide to), which is available to pre-order now via Amazon, and which should be completed in a week and a half or so!

AV Books has a great product and these new releases will help get the name out there I’m sure!

Busy Times…

We have a lot going on at work (AV Books) these days. We are working on sending in three Federal Grant request for a series of Educational Studies using our Reader, we’re producing three books, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning French, 3E (The Complete Idiot’s Guide) (Fourth Edition though, which is not ready to purchase in the US yet!), Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Spanish, 4th Edition (Complete Idiot’s Guide to), and How to Capture and Keep Clients: Marketing Strategies for Lawyers, by the American Bar Association. Add to that a couple of “stealth mode” projects and that’s a full calendar in itself! In fact so full I’ve been at work every weekend for the past three weekends including today. I have had to work several 27+ hour days, and one over 36 hours!

I still have Kodi to work with and train with for Search and Rescue, my Ph. D. dissertation (which hasn’t gotten too far), walks on the beach (been a while for that), and playing on the boat (although I missed the last three cruises because I needed to work..).

All that said, I’m having a blast!

Learning French

While I also am working on learning Spanish finally (I’ve attempted to do so for years now, on and off) I have started to work on learning French as well. The main reason is I just spent two weeks on reading the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning French, 3E (The Complete Idiot’s Guide) (although I had the 4th Edition coming out soon, and I will update the link when it is available). This book is fairly well written, although I would make a few changes if I set up the format. That said, I highly recommend this book to anyone that is wanting to get started on learning French (although I’d wait until the 4th Edition hits the streets as it has the AV Books formated version of the book at the back of the book that you can put on your computer and on your MP3. The computer version will read the book to you as the English and French words are spoken so you can see the word being spoke to know the spelling and learn how to pronounce the written word.).

Enjoy!