Practicing Alcoholic - Professional Sot

Welcome to the short version of the life of a friend of Bill W. When dealing with the intoxicated, you might want to keep in mind the caveat of Oklahoma's Favorite Son and the esteemed movie actor, cowboy philosopher, political humorist, and Cherokee Indian Will Rogers who proclaimed, "I have Indian Blood in me. I have just enough white blood for you to question my honesty!".

He countered the white man always ready to take pride in and brag about how his ancestors arrived in America by quipping, "my ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower but they met it". A thought that gives the Tennessee Mountain Man a chuckle to this day.

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What has Will Rogers to do with this subject? Well, for a teetotaler who has been dead since 1935 he had some sage insights into modern day politics as well as the fallacy of over imbibing in fire water. Insights appreciated by the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association like, "Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators" (ouch!), and he has at least one Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Chapter as well as a Rehab and Recovery Center named after him.

A few days ago the computerman unexpectedly met some former colleagues and friends of Bill W. They had once enjoyed a close relationship. Soon a young man in their company looked at the computer man and asked, "are you a practicing alcoholic?". To which he replied, "no... no I'm not", and walked away with a smile on his face.

Just before getting out of hearing range, an alcohol and drug counselor was heard explaining to the young man, "He used to be our chaplain".

"Really?"

"Yep, and you would have been better off asking him if he drinks."

"Why?"

"His answer would have been, not since the invention of the funnel."

"So, you know him pretty well, and he does have a problem?"

"No. No problem. And, he will tell you he stopped practicing in 1968 when he found Chevas Regal. He had found the answer. He was a professional. He no longer had a problem drinking - his practicing was over. He had learned to love it. His trouble was with stopping which he didn't do until 1990. He was one of the few people a bar tender couldn't switch to the house brand after a few drinks. He liked what he liked, and he knew every time someone tried to switch him. It would be like trying to sneak a Sprite in on you when you were expecting a Dr Pepper."

"Okay. So, he no longer drinks? Or, does he?"

At this point the conversation was lost, so let us hear it straight from the horse's mouth - uh, pen.

There being no legal booze in the state, the computer man lived next door to a bootlegger as a child. Like the drug dealer, the old man used up all his profits. Having seen the bootlegger setting passed out, upright in a straight, ladder back, chair with a white foam stretching all the way to the floor the child said, in his mind, "I will never be like that".

Then came a war in a far away land called Vietnam, and the child - now a young man with a wife and children of his own found himself in a strange land he did not know, among a people he could not understand with strange religions and customs and living in fear. Here he learned to never say never.

There were, of course, too many reasons to count. But then any friend of Bill's knows any excuse will do. How about the reasons to keep it together? Like many soldiers there he got his Dear John Letter, his wife had an affair with another, and had their children seized by the state which was hard to do in those days. Upon securing the return of the children, they were told they did not have a daddy - he got killed in Vietnam.

At the height of his addiction, he drank a gallon and a half of Scotch Whiskey a day... every day... seven days a week until he was in DTs and could no longer afford it. Bouncing checks where ever he could get one cashed, he was drinking the cheapest whiskey he could find at the unbelievable rate of three (3) half gallon bottles a day..

His liver? Oh, God is good. It still works. And, although he would drink nothing for years, he now drinks one or two shots of Scotch or a beer most days. The remainder, he consumes no alcohol. His primary care physician says, "look, you have CHF and cancer - if it makes you feel better use it man".

He does not however, recommend it to anyone. AA is right in their stance that alcoholism and addiction are diseases of mind, body, and spirit. It doesn’t simply attack one of these areas, but all of them to some degree.

Susan Yarrawonga sums it all up on Yahoo! Answers in her answer to the question, "Is it possible for a true alcoholic to only drink socially or on the weekends?".

She said, "There are practicing alcoholics and non-practicing alcoholics. A non-practicing alcoholic is a teetotaler who used to be a practicing alcoholic.

There is a saying that for an alcoholic one drink is too many and 100 is not enough.

Most alcoholics who try to drink socially or only at weekends fail miserably. With supreme and extreme will power an alcoholic may perhaps be able to drink in moderation but this is highly unlikely."

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online web based computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

Ralph Nader and Nader's Raiders Strike Again

The republican party got an early Easter Basket Sunday, 24 February, 2008 when Ralph Nader announced on NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert (the same forum where he announced his 2004 presidential run) that he was tossing his hat into the ring for the Office of The President of The United States of America.

In 1992 a third-party candidate, H. Ross Perot, claimed a large share of the American vote, nearly Twenty (20) percent , playing a role the Republican base will never forget.

The day following Nader's announcement, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is apparently contemplating his own independent presidential bid, defended Ralph Nader's right to seek the Nation's Highest Office.

So while Nader may be the nemeses of the democratic party, it may be that the republicans have a spoiler of their own on their hands. If so, like H. Ross Perot, he has enough money of his own to make the country take him seriously - at least for a time.

Nader is a member of the Green Party. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a consumer advocate. His most significant program to the mind of a car lover, like the Tennessee Mountain Man, was spearheading the demise of what he dubbed the coffin on wheels - the Chevy Corvair. Computer Man saw one of Nader's rolling coffins in mint condition traveling on Rossville Boulevard in Chattanooga, Tennessee just a week or so preceding Nader's announcement, and wondered if "the spoiler" would show again.

Given Nader's ego and his apparent thirst for power, he could have done no less. Having run unsuccessfully in 2000 and 2004, the 2008 bid will be Nader's third run for the office. Will the third time be the charm? Surely not.

Although Nader attracted just 2.7 percent of the vote nationwide, the democrats have not forgotten, nor forgiven, Ralph Nader for what they believe cost Al Gore the 2000 election. In 2004 he garnered only 0.3 percent of the vote, and yet he once again finds himself vilified in the Blogosphere as being in bed with The Grand Old Party.

Obama, who briefly organized with a Nader influenced group as a young man, taking the high road, said, "Ralph Nader deserves enormous credit for the work he did as a consumer advocate, but his function as a perennial candidate is not putting food on the table of workers." Obama did opine, that Ralph Nader in recent years tended to assume that candidates are fatally flawed if they fail to recognize the wisdom of his views.

Hillary, talking with reporters onboard her campaign plane said of Nader's run “Obviously it’s not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is, but it’s a free country" . In reference to the AL Gore - George Bush race of 20000, she suggested that Ralph Nader's Green Party candidacy cost the nation the "greenest president'' it could have had. She believes Nader's new candidacy for the White House, at best, poses an unwelcome distraction.

Nader has run as both a Green Party candidate and an independent in past elections. He has not yet declared how he will run in the upcoming general election. Whatever his decision, he will be a power with which the Democratic Party Nominee will have to contend.

Not surprisingly, the Republicans were not so dismissive. On the other hand, Ward Harkavy, in the Village Voice Blog, dubbed Nader, "America's Suicide Bomber" while The Age saw him as the "Democrats bogeyman", and The Nation Blog apparently believes America still needs Ralph Nader to be Public Citizen Number One pursuing matters as a consumer advocate and not a presidential candidate.

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee couldn't resist a little fun at Nader's expense and joked on CNN that Republicans would welcome Nader's entry into the race and hope that maybe a few more will join in. Huckabee said in a television interview that a Ralph Nader candidacy was a suicide mission and would more likely pull votes away from Democrats than Republicans, and he welcomed the longtime consumer advocate into the fray.

Ron Paul's camp believes there is unhappiness among the electorate, and that he (Paul) best captures that anger, and that Ralph Nader is not the proper vehicle for the expression of America's year of discontent. Nader, they feel, was a spoiler in 2000 and will long be remembered as being responsible for the election of George W. Bush, and that just as when he ran again in 2004 there will be few who care in the final analysis.

John McCain being the odds on favorite to benefit the most from the Nader candidacy has appropriately remained mum on the subject.

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online web based computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

9 Keys To Starting An Internet Business

Here is a sound starting place for the would be internet entrepreneur. Nine (9) Keys for starting your own internet based business. The world wide web is a great medium for home based businesses in the 21st century. Like their counterparts, the brick and mortar businesses on main street, there are basics that should not be over looked. Nine basics that the Tennessee Mountain Man and the Computer Man website design team recommend are listed here.

1. You must have a basic idea of what you are going to do and why.

A cursory review of sample business plans will quickly press the idea that you need to define your business desires as narrowly as possible.

If your only desire is to make money and your attitude is everything and everyone else be damned, you have a hard road to hoe. And, if you manage to succeed, chances are your financial success will literally cost you everything that makes life worth living and will certainly steal all pleasure you might otherwise have enjoyed.

If, however, you can grasp the idea of helping others achieve their dreams as your main objective all things are possible. Help enough people reach their goals and yours will follow along with an enjoyable life.

2. You must educate yourself.

Using your favorite search engine or better yet a combination of search engines research your future. Learn all you can about the business and who is currently king of the mountain. How did they get there? How do they stay there? Can you compete? If not move on.

3. Write A Business Plan.

Once armed with the information you need, again using a search engine to get business plan ideas examining the designs of others in your field if you need to, create a business plan. While the business plan is not written in stone, it should be sufficient to keep you going for awhile. It can always and will need to be amended from time to time.

Choose a search engine and search for "business plan sample" or "internet business plan sample". You will find several... many free. Compare them. Select the business plan best aligned with your hopes and ideas and start designing your own.

4. Choosing suppliers, drop shippers, etc.

Back to research which will become a part of your routine. You must always know where you can get the best deals and service (don't forget timeliness and shipping costs) with the least amount of warehousing.

5. Build your website.

Do this on your computer then sign up for and move it to a free host for testing.

Do not promote this testing site. In fact you should place a "robots.txt" file in the root stopping search engines from cataloguing it.

Run every possible test and make sure there are no broken links and everything on the site functions properly. You will have enough problems and surprises as time goes by. Plan to succeed. Don't sabotage your own internet business before you get started.

6. Now you are ready to find someone to host your website.

Do this last. Contracts for hosting are sometimes month to month, but more usually one or two year terms and the clock starts running as soon as you say "I do". So don't start the clock until you have a website designed and ready to go up on the web.

8. Submit to search engines.

Once your site is on your new host and up (usually within 24 hours) test again. If all is well, hand submit your new site to the major search engines. Not sure which ones? Back to the search engine. You and search engines are going to become fast friends if you are to be all you can be.

If you use a "robots.txt" file on your permanent web site make sure you have removed the block or reputable search engines will not index your site.

9. Now promote...promote...promote. Why? Just like on main street, location is everything and location in this case is determined by search engine ranking and directory indexing.

If time is an issue or if you are not skilled at these you may consider the help of a firm such as Computerman Website Design, Makeover and Promotion. For more information browse to http://computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ .

Good Luck

Momma Always Told You, Don't Play In The Street

In the cold early morning hours of Saturday, February 16th, 2008, before the St Valentine's Day Celebrities had subsided, about twenty (20) miles south of Washington, D.C., Eight (8) people lay dead in the street along Route 210, a four lane highway, in Accokeek, Maryland. Why? Because no one listens to momma any more.

Some Twenty (20) years ago the Tennessee Mountain Man transported telephone equipment around the southern states and up the eastern seaboard for ma bell. A prominent sign was displayed at the exit for each of ma bell's maintenance shops which read, "You Are About To Enter The Most Dangerous Place In The World... An American Highway. Buckle Up!". Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the world notwithstanding nothing has changed and the warning is as applicable today as it was all those years ago.

Concerning the Accokeek deaths, according to FOX News, Prince George's County Police Captain Donald Frick said "there was a speed event going on". That has to be the understatement of the year. There had been an illegal drag race that resulted not only in the high number of deaths but several injuries and an unlimited number of lives that have been changed forever because the immature must play... even if it could reasonably mean they die.

A "speed event" is the Daytona 500 which was scheduled to run the following day or Power Boat Racing... events scheduled and licensed under the appropriate authority in a relatively safe place with safety precautions and viewer protection adhered to. This was a clear criminal violation which resulted in injury and death, and yet the police do not know, they say, whether charges will be filed against anyone or not. Can you say, "duh"?

The Computer man grew up in the backwoods country atop Sand Mountain in Jackson County Alabama. Running in front of the old home place about fifty (50) feet from the front door was a dirt road which mom always told us to stay out of. There were less than ten (10) vehicles a day that literally crawled down that road, but mom insisted "stay out of the road".

When one of the children was required to make a trip the three quarters (.75) of a mile to the country store that serviced the little community, mom always warned, "walk on the side of the highway... stay off the road". A toe stumped on the asphalt and bleeding (not to mention hurting) when arriving back home was a dead give away and earned an extra punishment which seemed
pretty severe until the computerman had a teenage step daughter killed by a car while she was crossing a city street.

Many years ago, Johnny Cash recorded a song about a momma's warning. It was to her young son and entitled "Don't Take Your Guns To Town".

The first verse was:

"A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm
A boy filled with wonderlust who really meant no harm
He changed his clothes and shined his boots
And combed his dark hair down
And his mother cried as he walked out

[Chorus]
Don't take your guns to town son
Leave your guns at home Bill
Don't take your guns to town".

As strange as it may be, that was the first thing that popped in the Tennessee Mountain Man's mind upon learning of this tragedy that happened on a dark unlighted stretch of suburban highway fifty-five (55) miles north of Boston. As the two racing cars sped away and the spectators stepped into the roadway to watch, an eighteen (18) wheel tractor trailer and a car appeared behind them from nowhere. Not being able to see the people standing in the middle of the roadway dressed in dark clothing against the dark of night compounded by the smoke from cars and burning tires there was little the operators of those vehicles could do to avoid the
by standers.

For a little fun, a restless crowd of somewhere between fifty (50) and two hundred (200) souls had assembled on a busy roadway in the dark night and gambled their life against a little entertainment, and in only a short moment in time they lost.

Listen to your momma. She warned you, "don't play in the street".

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online web based computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

Can't Get Through The Kitchen Door

Children can be cruel to their peers - especially if there is a child that is a little different from the majority. Children go through many stages as they grow up. There is the gangly period when the girls physically outpace the boys. The boys then endure the lanky stage where they deal with two left feet while trying to come to terms with the newly discovered rib Adam had lost in the Garden of Eden. Each growth spurt carried it's own pain for most certainly - if not for all children.

Compound the normal growing pressures by adding something like being obese, and a child can find himself or herself lost in a hell from which he or she can see no escape. Many of us spend a lifetime battling our childhood insecurities. Those of us of a certain age remember cruel jokes and poems. Poems like: "fatty fatty two by four, can't get through the kitchen door". As adults we all too often find that the cruelties were not left behind at the school ground doors. They tend follow man through adulthood fed by an ever increasingly judgmental society.

It happened to Two Hundred and Sixty Five (265) pound Ricky Labit and his wife's cousin, weighing in at Two Hundred and Seventy Seven (277) pounds, on Dec. 21, 2007, when they told FOX News they were overcharged and banned by an all you can eat buffet in Houma, La. Why? Because the owners apparently believed them to eat too much. They said before finishing their meal, they were presented with a bill for $46.40, roughly double the normal buffet price. The waitress explained, "Y'all fat, and y'all eat too much." And, finally the two men were barred from the restaurant before leaving the facility.

Who knew the people of the Sportsman's Paradise could be so cruel? Certainly not yours truly. Having lived in the great State of Louisiana for five (5) years we fell in love with it. The Tennessee Mountain Man not being a light weight himself can see both sides. In younger years he certainly got his money's worth when eating at such places.

Computer man owned a restaurant at one time. Sundays were an open buffet and there was a husband and wife couple weighing in around four hundred (400) pounds each who drove over an hour to get to the facility every Sunday. They were dreaded because they were the first to arrive - usually before the doors were unlocked, and they were the last to leave. And, incredibly they were able to eat the entire time. Then you never saw them for a week when the buffet was once again open. They were a site to behold as they waddled about the place and had to turn sideways to get through the door. Unlike the skinny customers, they always had a smile on their faces. They were apparently happy and they were always treated with respect.

The treatment the two Louisiana men received at the restaurant was appalling enough. The State of Mississippi decided it should pile on. The big brother component of the legislature wants to make sure if one is of a certain BMI he or she cannot get service in a public restaurant. Mississippi is quick to say the bill is dead and will not become law. But, it has been the experience of the American people that once such a dumb move gets started it grows legs and keeps crawling along until the state manages to subdue another liberty.

Are the food police about to strike again? Back off people!

Have we found yet another way to assure that only the beautiful people dare be seen in public? Do we really want big brother regulating such things? First, the airlines started charging over weight people for two seats (explainable - see picture above), and now the government wants to bar them from even getting through the kitchen door.

Would you super size that and... give me a bag of chips and... a... diet coke, please?

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in website design at computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

Valentines Day Massacre Redefined

Wikipedia and other reference and resource materials have a definition of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre that will soon need to be updated. It must now share it's infamy.

Seventy-Nine (79) years to the day after the Scar Face Gang committed the most infamous massacre in American history with the cold blooded killing of seven (7) members of the Bugsy Moran Gang while their Mob Boss, Al Capone, lay untouchable in Florida, another young man made his unforgettable mark in the State of Illinois while his diabetic father (unlike Capone) sat unknowing in the sunshine state.

Dateline: St Valentine's Day, 14 February 2008, Dekalb, Illinois

An hour or so and just over Sixty (60) miles due west of Chicago

a skinny, troubled, Twenty-Eight (28) year old, Steven Kazmierczak,

reminiscent of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti movie, stepped from behind a curtain at a lecture hall holding more than One Hundred and Fifty (150) students and speaking not a word opened fire gangland style on the unsuspecting class. Kazmierczak had masked his inner demons with his friendly exterior.

Unlike the Chicago gangs of Capone's era the six (6) people killed by Kazmierczak were engaged no unlawful activity. They were running no bordellos, were not guns for hire, and the prohibition period of our nation's history with it's speakeasies was but a faint memory when the alumnus ended the career of six (6) of his fellow Huskies before they began.

Mid-afternoon, St Valentine's Day, 2008, while the Tennessee Mountain Man finalized celebration plans for Cupid's favorite day, a former NIU sociology graduate student, dressed in a long black coat and carrying a shotgun and two (2) hand guns was practicing the reverse of Cupid's love magic. The gunman himself was enrolled in classes at the university just one short year earlier.

The curriculum of the Computer man, in years past, while he studied law and law enforcement sciences included the Chicago underground and the lawless gangland days. While it was an interesting period to study, it must have been a fearful time for the residents of the day. And, nothing in the original St Valentine's Day Massacre prepared one for the NIU Massacre of 2008.

Not even the earlier high school and college shootings over the last few years had prepared anyone to foresee and prevent the NIU massacre. This was, after all, perpetrated by one of their own... an outstanding student by all accounts.

Having apparently spent the night before in a Travel Lodge Motel near the college, Kazmierczak boosted his nerve and smoked his brain with alcohol and cigarettes as evidenced by the beer cans and cigarette butts scattered about the room. The NIU gunman then gathered the tools to apply the trade for which he would be remembered and made his way to the school.

Leaving much more ammunition behind in his motel room secluded in a duffel bag he left many more questions than could be answered. Adding to the suspense, he apparently left no suicide note which police have come to expect to help them determine the suspect's motive and state of mind. The totality of the experience makes one ask what he planned for an encore and why he
suddenly decided to end it when and where he did by taking his own life.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior, responsible for the massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia almost a year earlier in April, 2007, like Steven Kazmierczak, was a young man with many demons... you may simply call them mental issues, but they are demons that haunt men day and night until some break under the assault.

Both of these men, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, before them, who embarked on the 1999 shooting rampage at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, have turned our educational campuses into modern day shooting galleries.

The Tennessee Mountain Man would not want to be a student on America's campuses today. Back in the day police officers and properly licensed citizens, including students, carried side arms at all times including in banks, schools, restaurants, bars, court houses, etc.

It is time we stop trying to be ostriches. It is time we get our heads out of the sand or where ever we have shoved them and reverse the course of only criminals, those with mental issues, and individuals with the propensities of the Harris', the Klebold's, the Cho's, and the Kazmierczak's carrying weapons in our society.

Guns are neither good nor bad. They are inanimate objects. But, when guns are outlawed anywhere, only the criminals or the criminally insane (by definition) will bear arms.

Publication of Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in computerman website design computermanwebsitedesign.bravehost.com/ and remotehelpdesk1.com/ specializing in online computer repair. Reprint authorized with credits.

Two Old Angry White Guys

The primaries in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Washington today may decide who the general election candidates for President of the United States will be in November.

The fear of the website design team and the techs at the remote helpdesk is that it will once again come down to two old angry white men.

There were other choices.

As reported by the Tennessee Mountain Man and the Computerman Website Design Blogs, It is probably too late for the republican party, but the democrats can still avoid the dilemma.