The Joys of a Small Firm: The Clients

Status: Fluff

There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to working in a small firm. Though the majority of our audit clients are very, very nice (advantage), they are also generally very, very, small (disadvantage). Many of these small clients are located out in the boondocks. Take for example the audit I was on this week. Our client’s location had no restaurant, at all. The only food source available was from a gas station mini-mart, which was at least 2 – 3 hours old. Not exactly the most appealing fare. Now that I think about it, I was sick on Wednesday. Hmm, I think I’ll bring my own lunch next time.

Ode to a 1040

Status: Fluff

What can I say to thee,

My most common friend

We have been together

From start, to the end

The dawn of the new year

My heart, it is glad

The 15^th of april

My soul, it is sad

For nine painful long months

Your absence I miss

Longing for your return

Like a passionate kiss

For the three joyful months

Your presence abounds

I get lifted so high

I can’t touch the ground

Your lines, symetrical

You always make sense

The good news, or the bad

Your logic, it fits

I am not a fool

Just a lover of you

And I hope beyond hope

That you love me too

Reflections on the CPA exam: REG Round 1

Status: Fire

After my success on BEC, I was pumped to start studying for this one. There was, however, a slight problem. I was behind by three weeks thanks to Becker not sending me my material on time. After I took BEC, I only had three weeks left to study for REG before the six month window came to a close. I thought about just canceling the test and eating the loss, but I figured it would be worth it to at least take it and find out what my strengths would be. Luckily my motivation was still pretty high, and I started putting in as much study time as possible. I honestly don’t remember a lot about these three weeks. It felt like I was in the middle of a tornado, as illustrated below:

Adding to this was the fact that my first tax season was starting, and there was a lot more going on at work. Before I knew it, the test day had arrived. I did manage to get through all the material, but didn’t have any time to review any of it at the end. As I walked into the testing, I felt that I needed at least one more week. The test was actually a bit easier than I thought it would be, but as I finished up I just had a gut feeling that I didn’t quite make it on this one.

The result: a 70. I was a bit angry about this one, mainly because I knew I could have passed this one with a little bit more time. For a while I just stared at the 70. It’s like it was mocking me, just laughing in my face.  We’d see who would have the last laugh on this one . . .

The Professional Pyramid

Status: Fluff

So let be begin by stating that I’m proud of where I’m at. I worked my way through college, got my degree, and obtained my CPA license. I have nothing to be ashamed of. That being said, why do I feel so inferior when I go to a doctor’s office? Part of it is because many doctors try to make you feel inferior, but they also have to go through much more than other professionals.  Still, does that give them the right to act like my profession is silly after I tell them what I do? And it’s not like I just start boasting, it’s just an answer to the question they ask.  I have noticed that I do the same thing to other professionals.  I have come to the conclusion that there is a professional pyramid, with top level looking down on those beneath them.  I would say it goes a little bit like this:

You’ll notice that Doctors take the top spot, with dentists close behind (I know, they’re both technically doctors, but I just didn’t feel comfortable grouping them together. Do you really respect a dentist as much as an MD?) Next on the list are lawyers, and after that is my dear profession, Accounting. Like I said earlier, I am as guilty as doctors when dealing with realtors, salespeople, and marketing agents. It doesn’t even matter if they make way more than me. Deep down I just believe that their professions just aren’t as credible.  And guess that’s how doctors and lawyers feel about me. “Sigh” oh well; at least I’m not a marketing agent.

Reflections on the CPA Exam: BEC

Status: Fire

Even though I knew right away that I had failed FAR, I was surprisingly motivated for BEC. I had set aside three and a half weeks to study, so I knew that there was no room for error on this one. The first couple of chapters in BEC seemed ridiculously easy. The first chapter was on business entities and the second chapter was on economics.  On AUD and FAR I usually averaged between %65 - %75 on questions the first time around. In BEC, I was averaging %95 through the first two chapters. As you can imagine, this was quite a confidence booster. I felt like Rocky training for the big fight (and not the Rocky from Rocky 1 that Lost. I’m talking about the Rocky from Rocky 2 who won.)

It turns out all good things really must come to an end. The next three chapters were finance, Information technology, and cost accounting. While I did pretty well on the IT section, finance and cost accounting were old enemies of mine, and they reminded me why I hated them so much. Still, even though I struggled with those two sections, I was able to put in a lot of study time (about 25 hours each) into them. For some reason, my study skills were on fire for this test, and looking back, this was definitely my most efficient time during the exam process.

The day of the exam I felt relaxed and confident (a first). My confidence never flagged during this test, and as I ended my final testlet, I knew that this one was a pass. The score: an 83. Not as high as it could have been, but a pass, and that’s good enough for me. This test was a turning point for me, and my confidence was much higher for the rest of the exams.

Vacation #3

Status: Fluff

Disney Land

So I guess what they say is true, Disney Land truly is a magical kingdom. This was by far the best day of the trip. Alex had a blast here, and I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. It helped that a member of our party had a disability pass, and we barely had to wait in line for anything.  It was all a bit much for Alex to take in at first, and he was understandably scared. However, it only took one trip though the Tarzan’s tree house to ease fears.

From there we went on some adult rides, so Alex had to stay with grandma. To make up for the torture he must have endured, we went directly Toon Town.  He seemed to be in amazement the entire time, and got extremely excited when we visited Mickey Mouse. Mickey on the other hand was visibly less excited as Alex thought it was a fantastic idea to try and continuously put his hand in Mickey’s mouth. In the photo below, I was attempting to thwart one of these attempts.

As the day wore on, we tried to go on a couple more roller coasters; Space Mountain and Splash Mountain. I must have been on fire this week, because as soon as we walked up to Splash Mountain, everything broke down. Space Mountain fared a little bit better, as the ride didn’t break down till we were almost to the end. I guess now I know that my super power is causing roller coasters to malfunction. I’m waiting for the government to call on me at any time now. You never know when a terrorist will take over a roller coaster.

Finally, we had to go on “It’s a Small World”. I was definitely not looking forward to going on this ride, but as we went through it I was amazed to see how much Alex was enjoying it. Though he was mesmerized by many other rides, this was the only one that he was dancing to and pointing to all the different dolls. I was amazed at how engaged he was. This made the ride much more enjoyable for me.

All in all it was a very good time, and came at a solid A for me. My only regret is not having more time there. Oh well. Next time I’ll make sure I see everything in the magic kingdom. Oh, and last but not least, Alex almost hurled on the Tea Cups, Enjoy.

To MBA, or not to MBA, that is the question

Status: Fire

I’ve had my CPA license for less than a year, and you would think that I’d be satisfied with that. I’m not, and I feel like I need to do more. I think maybe an MBA is the answer. I’m not going to stop working to get one, but some of the schools in the state offer online / evening classes, so working full time and working on an MBA is definitely a possible goal. Still, there are disadvantages. Here is a list of the Pro’s and Con’s as I see them

Pro

1.       Will help me do what I want to do my last 15 years of working, teach.

2.       Will allow access out of accounting should I want to get out.

3.       I will feel more respect for myself.

4.       It will give me another challenge to attack.

Con

1.       All in all it will cost around $40,000.

2.       It will take away time from my family.

3.       It will take time away from other side projects (like this blog).

4.       It may not result in a substantial increase to my quality of life.

Hmm, I guess that’s pretty even, but I’m definitely still leaning toward going for it.

First things first though, I need to take the GMAT. Hoorah, Another test to pass! At the very least taking this will let me know if I can even get into a MBA program. I will let everyone know further details as they become available.

Vacation #2

Status: Fluff

San-Diego Zoo

Out of the four places that we went, this one was my least favorite. It was easy enough to find, and it started out fun. We hit the petting zoo first, and while I don’t quite understand the joy of petting goats, Alex does and he enjoyed it immensely.  I guess he has a bit of my dad's Texas roots in him.

Things went along smoothly until we reached the lost forest section, which goes up about four – five level in platforms. This area is incredibly vast, and it became a bit tricky getting out of this section.  Also, many of the animals in this section were no shows, so everyone in our party began to get a little bit testy after about two and a half hours of walking.  Still, this section did provide the highlight of the visit. A chimpanzee came right to the glass, and Alex started freaking making monkey sounds. I wish I had captured a video of it, but this picture will just have to do.

The rest of the day was less tiring, but also rather uneventful. Alex passed out for a good chunk of the day, and a lot of the animals we saw, I’ve seen before. Everyone still had to stop and take a picture of every animal we saw. I don’t really understand that. Now I can understand if you take a picture of yourself or your family in front of an animal, but to just take a picture of an animal behind bars or behind dirty glass I don’t really understand. Is that picture going to really bring back good memories 10 years down the road? I mean seriously, if you just like the animal, you could probably find much clearer pictures of it online. What do I know; I’m just a crusty accountant I guess. I much prefer taking pictures that are a lot like modern art, like this one that I took:

I call it,"Man's cage at the Zoo". I expect to get some acclaim for it at any time.

I was rather surprised at how big the zoo was. After 8 hours, we finally called it a day, and we still hadn’t seen a large section of the zoo. I was secretly relieved, as Alex had been a bit of a daddy’s boy and wanted to be carried by me all day. As you can see below, he's not a small boy, and does tend to get a bit heavy on the arms.

The zoo ranked at a B- for me. It was a bit too spread out, and didn’t offer a lot that I hadn’t already seen before. Except for the Pandas, they were awesome.

Vacation

Status: Fluff

For the last week and half I’ve been on vacation. We went down to visit family in Murrieta CA, and while we were down there we visited Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, and Universal Studios in a four day stretch. I was going to post a blog posting after each day, but I had very limited internet access this week. This next week I will have multiple posts about each place, including today’s post which will be about Sea World.

Sea World

As we began sifting through the crowds into Sea World, my excitement level started to rise. You have to realize that this was my first out of state vacation, well, ever. My parents weren’t huge believers in family fun, so we didn’t really go on vacations. Due to this I was very excited, not only for me, but also for my 23 month old son, Alex. I felt that this was the start of special memories for him that I never had.  Unfortunately, the first thing we went to was a Shamu show, and things got off to a rocky start.

At first Alex seemed mesmerized by the whales, but then the splashing began. I should have known better than to sit down in a soak zone, but I thought it would be fun for all of us. Alex had other thoughts on the subject, and was very, very displeased when he was first splashed by the whales. He got very frightened, and we ended up having to leave the show early due to his anxiety level. A bad start, but luckily things went up from there.

The rest of the day was fun and uneventful until Amy and I decided to go on the Journey to Atlantis Roller Coaster. Alex had passed out, and Amy’s uncle agreed to stay with him while we went on the ride. This was my first roller Coaster, so I was pretty excited.  We finally got through the line, and boarded the ride. It started going up and got right to the point that it was about to drop. Suddenly the coaster shut down, after waiting at the top of the coaster for about 15 minutes, attendants finally made their way up to get us out of the coaster. Not exactly what I was expecting from my First Roller Coaster, but that’s how things go. (Pretty soon I’ll replace the picture below with one of us stuck on top of the coaster that Amy’s uncle took).

We ended the day with the Cirque de la Mer show, which was actually very entertaining, even for Alex. Amy Also took the following picture of the show for me that I can cherish forever.

She’s a very loving wife J

Overall Sea World was an A- for me. It had a good mix of rides and animals, and was very enjoyable for Alex.