I’m an avid supporter of the services provided by any drug rehab company. A recent company that I’ve come across is drugrehab.net, it’s part of a Narconon Vista Bay Company. The Narconon drug rehab program is one of the most effective rehab programs that are available. As stated on their website 76% of graduates happily choose to remain drug free and become a productive member of society.

This is all fine and dandy but I’ve heard the same kind of statistics from many drug rehabilitation companies in the past. You could tell me that 100% of your graduates have remained drug free but those results don’t help those whom have lost friends and family in the past to drug related deaths. I certainly would support those whom actually do change, please don’t get me wrong, but percentages mean nothing to me when it comes to getting someone the help they desperately need. If your program works for some, but not others, please don’t butter it up with a number so that a person who is ignorant on the subject of drug rehabilitation and detox can throw cash in your direction.

What I can say is rather, interesting, about this Narconon Northern California drug rehabilitation facility is their sauna method. Based on the description on their website One of the cornerstones of our drug rehab is our Sauna Program. Street drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol and other drugs can remain in the body for years. These residues can trigger a variety of symptoms, including drug cravings and depression. An exact regimen of medically supervised exercise, sweating in a dry sauna and nutritional supplements rid the body’s fatty tissues of these residues ensuring the person no longer experiences adverse effects from the drugs they have taken. So basically they bake you to steam the drugs out of your system so you can start with a clean slate, that’s fine and all but how would you help those whom can’t personally handle that kind of humidity? Naturally I wouldn’t expect them to just throw everyone into a heat room to detox. I know people who are so far gone with drugs that the slightest humidity can reek havoc on their body considering how over loaded it is with toxins, tar and anything else they’ve inhaled or shot up over the course of their drug-related lifetime.

While I support what drug rehabilitation programs are doing, including Narconon, this doesn’t mean that it works for everyone. There are people who are so far gone where help may not even be a possibility. A friend of mine spend a month in rehab after her addictions came public and then three days after she was out, she was gone. Her death didn’t stop the bills coming in for her mother though. They’ll fix you but even though you die, a $25,000 bill will show up at the door. And it’s a point such as this that they prove they only care about the money, not the patient.

For a few months now I’ve been spending a lot of time looking into different schools. I’m interested in getting my Bachelors (or even Masters if possible) for Web Design/Development. Up until yesterday I was seriously considering AIU Online. On my other domain, I noted that I was working to get myself into this school but a commenter noted that I should float around RipOffReport.com and search for AIU. I come to find out that there are 70 some-odd strikes against them, and these are only documented ones on this site. I now know there are lawsuits pending against this company for fraud and teachers that couldn’t give a damn about the students they’re supposed to be helping.

AIU, up until yesterday, was the #1 school on my possibilities list. Now, thanks to ripoffreport.com, I’ve come to find out that my top FIVE schools are literally nothing more THAN a Rip Off. So this is where my visitors come in.

I know, through your blogs, that many of you have a degree of some sort a few of you have gotten them from internet based schools, like I’m looking to do. I’ve done a search on Google for internet based schools that offer Web Design / Web Programming but unfortunately all of these schools are on RipOffReport.com with absolutely horrible reviews, most of which include money fraud. One of the schools I was interested in has even claimed that they never received a certified cashiers check that was CASHED by their administration office. So naturally I’m stuck.

If you, or anyone you know, is currently going to an accredited university online and can steer me in the right direction of a school that isn’t going to screw me over, it would be greatly appreciated!

I’d really love to get my degree, I honestly don’t know where to turn and the only colleges around me are community colleges that can only offer me an associates degree in a field that has to do with computers, but is no where near where I need to be.

Google doesn’t help me, Yahoo doesn’t either - what do I do?

For quite some time now, it’s been my goal to save up enough money to take a vacation to someplace I’d never been before. Yes, there are still 47 other states that I’ve never visited but this doesn’t mean I’m interested in staying within the confines of the US. I’ve always wanted to travel to Italy or even Ireland just so I can get back to my roots. I’ve heard, from many travelers, that cellphones on some of these trips can be rather unreliable depending on your carrier, naturally I assumed that I would just go and pick up some international phone cards.

It really doesn’t matter where you are, or who you’re with for that matter. I feel it’s important to have an emergency phone card for those ‘just in case’ moments that seem to happen so frequently with travelers. You never know what’s going to happen. You could run out of gas in a strange community, you could have an emergency 911 call because of a slip and fall or coming across something that just didn’t seem right to you. You could have received a message telling you to call home and going directly through the hotel would cost you more than an arm and a leg in order to even make the call. There’s a whole series of issues that could happen that you just don’t know about. Travelers checks get lost or stolen, many other factors that could make your day horrible, no matter what they are.

Pingo, a service that can also be called phone card international, has an option called RateWatcher that saves you from the hassle of digging through piles of prepaid phone card offers just to see if you’re getting a really low phone card rate. It’s nice to know that there’s a company out there that will aid in regulating your ability to get in touch with your loved ones without paying excessive fees. They claim that they have no hidden fees, no surprises and the best competitive rates worldwide. I think when I get myself shipped over to another company - I’m more than likely going to go through these guys.

I’ve decided to participate in Monday Madness.

1. How many times a month/year do you see the sunrise? I try to get out about twice a month, conflicting schedules have stopped me though. While I do see the sky gradually getting brighter in the morning, I haven’t gotten around to the beach to see it first hand.

2. How many times a week/month do you see the sunset? I typically see it every night, I do spend a lot of time outside.

3. Do you go out at night and “gaze” at the stars? Doesn’t everyone do this?

4. Do you ever look for star clusters, such as the big dipper, etc? I know the placement of all of them by heart. My grandfather has been into astronomy for years, he passed a lot down to me.

5. Do you look for planets at night (with or without a telescope)? Those are easy to find without the telescope, trust me.

6. Are you able to see the northern lights where you live? If so, about how often do they come around? No, I don’t but I’d absolutely LOVE to see them.

7. Do you like going outside during a thunderstorm and watching the lightening? Again, who doesn’t do this?

8. Do you have any really neat weather pictures? PLEASE, feel free to share them! I wish I did. I’ve spent so much time outside with my camera waiting for excellent pictures to kind of fall in my lap. You can only snap so many pictures of birds hiding under cars before it gets too boring…heh.

I’m not sure why but I seem to be surrounded by people who are in debt up to their eyeballs. Many of them have been looking into debt consolidation but for the most part they’ve come up empty handed. Sean is about $2500 in debt, Karen is close to going into debt herself, even with a few thousand in the bank, that’s not going to stop the fact that bills are coming in and she’s lucky that she’s even getting a paycheck considering the company she works for is complete crap. My father was in debt for many years until he took the necessary steps in order to get himself out of it. He wound up paying credit cards off with one new low-interest card and then taking out a loan in order to cover the debt so it was completely credit card debt free. The good thing about his loan is it’s fixed interest after the first year but he’ll have it paid off before the year is even up, at least he’ll have that completely covered.

And me, while I’m not currently in debt, this doesn’t mean I’m not close to it. I live paycheck to paycheck but for the most part I don’t go beyond my means in order to get things that I don’t really need. Sure, it would be great to pull $600 out of my account right now and get myself a new monitor, graphics card and maybe even a replacement zip drive but this doesn’t mean I’m actually going to do it. I set up budgets for everything I do and at the moment, none of that is actually IN the budget. It’s mainly under my WANTS category, not my needs.