23. August 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

I just had neck/back surgery. Feel pretty good for it being only 2 days old. They removed a bone, and fixed it with a cadaver bone and a few screws. When I checked out yesterday they gave me this cool card for metal detectors, saying that I had screws in , and not to worry or something to that affect.
Will be up and around in about 10 days or so. I hope. If not will write a short blurb here.

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4. August 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

If they were every going to get serious about saving gas, it would start with the Federal employees. Not all federal employees can take mass transit, in the area I live in few do outside of D.C. It gets used but only by those who have to use it. Drive in would be to long, or they live right on one of the lines.

What the Feds could do is start working 4 10 hour days. Of course this could not be everyone, and some people would get mad, have to work Friday or Monday while most of the other folks are off. However tough luck. Most of of the office’s could do this. From the FBI to Congress. Now I am not saying take the police or the agents off, since they are more then likely working more the 10 hours a day now. I am talking about the staff. Instead of having 300 people on the phones for the IRS 5 days a week, lets cut down to 200 a day. If each person could have one day off during the week. That would cut 300 trips to work each week. Before I forget, I am not talking about shutting down offices or services. They would still be open 5 days a week or whatever their normal work days are now.Take 4 days and work 10 hours on those days.

Lets make the math simple. Since there are a ton of variables, let just say the average car gets 20 mpg. Since a lot these trips you are stuck in traffic. Round trip to work and home is 100 miles, you get 20 mpg and work 5 days a week. 500 miles each week. That’s 25 gallons a week. Lets say gas cost $4 even, means you spend $100 on gas.
Now take my plan ( I am sure some one much smarter then me has thought of this) Now you are driving 400 miles a week. Cost of fuel $80 each week. Doing this way save you $20 per week, or $ 1040 per year.

Now that’s not bad an extra grand each year, but wait I have not shown you the big picture yet. You now have an office that was burning 390,000 gallons of gas each year down to 312,000 gallons a year. Saving 78000 gallons per year. Now this is only one office. I also left those that could work from home 4 days a week and only go into the office one day a week, off of this. Like I said earlier there are so many variables
Someone much smarter then me should do the math, since its 5:30 am here, and I have been up since 2 am.
This plan IMO is much better then to just go on vacations which is what congress did. House side at least, the Senate is playing games so they open up, sort of every 3 days.

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25. July 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

I was looking at my bookmarks today, and it dawned on me that I have over 2000 online accounts. I have them all it seems, file storage, photo storage /share, document storage /share, virtual desktops, web portals for different things. Not to mention all the forums I belong to. Do I really need all of these? No, but some how I can’t say no the the webs free sites.

My question, which I will try to answer latter, is which of these accounts can I get rid of? Do I really need 5 photo hosting and sharing sites? etc… My goal is to get rid of some of my bookmarks. The only way I can do that is to transfer all the data to one type of account, and dare I say it, pay for the site? Yes I know you get what you pay for, but so far I have had few problems with any of the free online accounts.

So now do I take 4 years of stuff I have saved and move it, delete it or just don’t log back into those accounts again?
What are your favorites and what ones could you live without?

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8. July 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Is there a cure for alcoholism? Yes and no. While there is a way to put your drinking into remission, there is no cure for the disease, meaning you can not expect to drink again. Why this is I do not know, but I have tried to drink again after I had stopped for 6 months, with the exact same things happening again. So While you can arrest your drinking, you can not stop the disease. However the good news it unlike Cancer, you have control over your disease. Pretty simple don’t drink, do the next right thing, and pray, does not matter if you pray to a tree, you need to have some higher power, to turn all this crap in your head over too. If not there is no reason to even try to stop drinking. (Being a bit harsh here, there is always a reason to try)

Some normal people think that stopping drinking is easy, for them to feel anything for you and what you are going through is very tough. Even family members can feel this way. So keep that in mind, and never get into an argument that you can win. Since the only way they will change their minds, is through education. Don’t blame them, just smile and keep doing what you are doing to keep from drinking.

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8. July 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

For me drinking is something I can not do, think of someone who is allergic to peanuts. Bad things happen to me and people around me when I drink. At times I would get loaned some new bracelets most people refer to those as handcuffs. The other thing that happens is I don’t stop drinking for awhile, Generally till my body hurts real bad, or I run out of money. I have not drank for 5 years and have had more fun, (I am sure part of it is because I can recall some of the last 5 years) then I had while I was drinking.
What normal people think when I tell them I don’t drink, their first response is to say they are sorry. My question is why are you sorry? I am the one who has the problem, drink lots for me.

One problem I have always had with those normal people is they don’t know how to drink. Having one or two is not drinking, that just asking for a DUI. If your going to drink go all out till you pass out. It’s what real drinkers do. Of course I am kidding.

My point is while alcoholism is called a disease, it can be a great disease to have if your one of the lucky ones who arrest your disease. (meaning you no longer drink)
Stop drinking is the easy part for those of us who surrendered, the hard part is learning to live as close to a normal person as I can. When your drinking like I was, you become very selfish, and that’s a hard habit to break. The other hard thing is wanting it now. Instant gratification. Be it drinks, sex, toy or whatever I wanted at the time. One good thing about getting older is sex is not as important to me, as it was when I was younger. Now if I was in love with the Lady then sex would go back up on the list, however if I am not in love with the person, its reminds me of work.

Just some thoughts that came into my head today.

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28. June 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

I am sitting inside a dealer having  some work done on my
car, (yes I know dealers cost more but it’s a hybrid) On the news they are
talking oil prices, and one of the other people in here, said “that the oil  prices would not go down if we started to drill offshore”to me this is nuts, now the reason the guy said what he said was he is an Obama supporter. Of course Obama is against anything that would get him in trouble with the far left. Having been watching the market and seeing how the slightest thing can set oil prices rising, allowing us to start drilling off shore would lower the prices. Of course this is all done by the speculators. Supply and demand play a big part, however it’s the speculator that are driving the price up.

Most Americans do not have time to follow the news and research what the news they do see say. Since most “news” stations put a slant on what they report, be it left or right. So without researching they are making their decisions based on which news station they are watching.

Oil will go up or down depending on what the market dictates, when I say market I mean both supply and demand as well as what the speculators do.

If you’re waiting on the Federal government to fix or lower the prices you’re in for a long wait. At best they will help increase the price, since just about anything the Federal government gets involved in gets screwed up worse than it was before they stuck their hands in. Don’t believe me? Just look at Social Security.

Best thing for the World would be for all the governments to stay out of the free market.

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25. June 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Reading through today’s headlines,sadly nothing shocks me anymore; Bomb kills 51, Iran has sentenced 177 people under the age of 18 to death over the past decade, Pakistan: Gunmen kill 4 Shiite Muslims. These are just a few from today. What happened to the World? Why does everyone just gloss over these issues? Granted we are getting so used to these type of headlines, it’s almost that anything good that happens does not get reported, since we all know blood sells. Those are just a few.

What scares me the most is we are all getting so used to it, that it seldom bothers us anymore.

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5. June 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Seems more and more people don’t understand that sometimes things just happen. Getting upset over the stuff you have no control over is plain dumb.  Perfect example even if it’s over simplified is the weather. People plan a day of golf, they get all set to play and it storms. It’s not the end of the world, get over it. If that’s the worst thing that happens to a person, it’s been a pretty good day.

I guess that sometimes we all lose sight of the big picture at times. The bottom line is we are only here for such a short time, why not make the best of it? As far as I am concerned as long as your still breathing, the day can’t have been that bad. No matter what happens if you have your word, and your health, life is good.

For those who think that life is all bad, I feel sorry for them. Since those folks can’t seem to grasp that it’s up to them to make life good or bad. The only person who can control how you feel and how you act is you. It’s pretty simple, which is why I think people have trouble with it.

Keeping this short because the power keeps flickering on and off.

Patrick Budowski

Maryland

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4. June 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

Grow your hair long. Yes your hair still grows. So guys if you every wanted long hair no worries one day you will have it. Provided you don’t get cremated or lose your head. Not sure if you lose your head if hair will still grow.

For the women you can have some really long nails. Down side with that are your toe nails will be really long as well.

If your friends plant daisies on you, then you can act like you’re pushing up daisies, however not real sure how you will act that way, since you will be dead, but it is a thought.

You can feed a worm, that’s sort of cool; I mean worms have to eat. Then there are the maggots, there must be maggots, after all what else will break down your body if you do no feed the maggots.

You can be dug back up, if you’re murdered and they need new evidence.

You can be stolen, that’s right sometimes people steal bones. Just imagine the fun you could have and where you may end up? Down side is who you may end up with. You must take the good with the bad.

Now if it’s true that you can sleep when you’re dead, then you can sleep. However that sounds boring.

You may be able to bug the stiff next to you, not sure on that one, but it’s possible.

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2. June 2008 by Patrick Budowski.

The stages of alcoholism; these are mine, not anyone else’s but they could apply to anyone.

Stage one is the fun part, it’s the first time you drink, and for me it lasted till I was about 25 so from 12 to 25 I was having fun. Well most of the time. After all I did get married at 23 so the last 2 years of stage one may not have been all that much fun. However it defense of my ex-wife I do recall some good times. Not that my memory is all that good but there were some. As well as both of my boy’s being born.

Stage two is when normal folks start questioning your behavior, when you’re out drinking. Your judgment is worse than it was in stage one, the things you do are not as funny to others as they are too you. Most days when you wake up you look to see if the car is out front. While this may seem funny, it’s not. When I say normal people I mean those who can have one or two drinks, more sometimes and not feel the need to get hammered every time they drink. They keep their drinking to social settings, and behave for the most part. Stage two drunks are what I call heavy drinkers; if they cut back they still may avoid getting the disease. Some do and some do not. It has nothing to do with will power, anyone who tells you that is full of crap. Trust me, as a very good wrestler in High School, I know all about will power. What seems to happen is those heavy drinkers look around and our embarrassed by what they have done the night before, and decide it’s time to take it easy. These people are always border line, at any given moment they can cross over from heavy to the disease.

Stage three is the selfish mode for drunks, not that we have not always been selfish, but now we go to the extremes. It’s all about the next drink, when and with whom. See at this stage you know you have some type of problem but as long as you’re drinking with someone else you can’t be an alcoholic, right? Since you still go to work, you’re not drinking alone; you’re meeting most if not all of your obligations. Here is a tip, if you think you may be in this stage, look at the people you’re drinking with, are they the same as 2 years ago? How have they changed? Do they go home early?

Stage four is when you go into the spiral stage, you stop function as well as you were, the friends you have, no longer really want to come around. Your wife, husband is really nagging you about the way you drink. Your work starts to suffer. You need that first drink a lot earlier than before. If you don’t get help now then the shit really hits the fan. Now I can only tell you about my stage four, and to be honest I am not sure if other drunks even think of stages, but this seems to me the easiest way to explain it. In stage four, I hit my first rehab. Was a nice place, food was great, and I was sober for 28 days. I got out and my body and mind started to feel really good, so my second stop after the bank was the beer store. Now I only had a few beers. Stopped that night, when I woke up the next morning, I smiled and said hey I am not an alcoholic; I can now handle my drinking. I think I even skipped a few days before my next drink. Please keep in mind, these rehabs teach you all you need to know about addictions. Trust me after 10 rehabs, I know the drill. They are there to help you. However since I was not ready to stop drinking, after all I was only 25; I wanted to do things my way. So as I made the slide from stage four to stage five, I knew the truth about myself, that I was a alcoholic , however I told myself I was still in control.

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