Operation: Surprise, Part 2 (The Beginning)

Monday, May 5, 2008, St. Louis, MO

I’m lucky enough to be traveling around the Midwest on site visits again. You may recall me doing this last fall in TN, KY, MO and KS. Good times. Well, turns out they need me for a couple more weeks’ worth of visits this month, also.

I started this morning at 6:45AM flying from Orange County to St. Louis, Missouri. Since my first appointment isn’t until tomorrow, I had the rest of the day to do some sightseeing. Most people who are sent out on these trips spend their evenings in the hotel watching tv. Me? I see it as a chance to see things I may have never went to see on my own and/or may never get the chance to see again.

Since I arrived in St. Louis at 2PM, I had to find a couple of things to do to fill the afternoon. St. Louis = Anheuser-Busch = Budweiser = tour of the plant = free beer!

I penciled the tour in for 3PM, well, after waiting 25 minutes for my luggage and 30 minutes for my rental car, I was running behind schedule. Side note: I reserved a mid-size sedan but was offered an upgrade to a Dodge Caravan since they were out of mid-sized. No. I said no. I’m not tooling around for 1000 miles in a minivan. She ended up getting me a Suzuki XL-7 SUV, one I’ve had before. Not bad. Oh, and she’s all, it’s going to be $0.40 a mile. WHAT? No. I need unlimited. I’m returning the car in MINNEAPOLIS!! That will cost way too much. Well, in the end it’s still going to cost almost $600 for the week. Sick.

Anyways, after the whole rental car rigmarole, I felt like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, although I didn’t cuss out the Avis lady. For those of you in the know, Steve Martin’s character in said movie was at the airport in St. Louis also (I think?). So anyways…

I arrived at the Anheuser-Busch plant to find free parking. Yes! I walked in and the man-ceptionist said the next tour was in five minutes and handed me a card. I was waiting for him to tell me how much the tour was…but he didn’t. Free tour!!

The tour was pretty awesome. The whole complex sort of reminded me of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in English-speaking Germany (you saw the movie…it was obviously in Germany, with no accents. Or maybe it was London? Cause wasn’t Augustus from Germany? Someone needs to confirm this…) All of the buildings were pretty old and similar looking. I was waiting for an Ooompa Loompa to pass by at any moment riding a Clydesdale, hand me a beer and say, “This Bud’s for you.” But, as you can imagine, that didn’t happen.

Some fun facts from the tour are this: they have all these huuuuge monster kegs, but not really kegs, that the beer sits in to do the proprietary “Beechwood Aged” thing. Well, they have 30 some of these things and each one holds the equivalent of 200,000 six-packs. Turns out, you’d have to drink one beer every hour of every day for 127 some years to finish that tank off. Whoa. They wouldn’t let us take pictures in there. Some secret. Did they think I was going to hand them over to Slugworth (see: Willy Wonka)?

I think the whole bottling plant was the most interesting part. They have this machine that fills 1300 bottles per second. I think he said per second. Per minute’s not as impressive. Well, yes it is. So either way, quick. No pictures in there either.

This plant bottles enough beer per day that if you lined them up end-to-end they would stretch from NYC to Miami. I heard so many more fun facts today, but I can’t remember anymore. All of them were impressive.

Obviously, the best part of the tour was the end. The “Hospitality Room.” Each person gets not one, but two free 12 oz. samples. Oh, wow! Freshest Budweiser ever!

The next thing on my list was to visit the Gateway Arch, or, more commonly known as the Arch. And no, not the McDonald’s one. Der. I’ve been to the Arch before when I was 12 or 13 or something, but I don’t remember it much, and I didn’t have a digital camera then, so I had to go back. Unfortunately, I missed the last elevator to the top. Sucks. I’d still like to do that some day. I hear it’s all claustrophobic-y but offers great views.

To end the evening, I headed over to Schlafly Brewery, the only (I think) other brewery in St. Louis. It’s pretty small time but it’s supposed to be good. There weren’t a whole lot of people at the bar, they were mostly in the dining room and outside on the patio. I sort of felt out of place when all of the guys coming and going from the bar knew the barkeep on a first-name basis and vice versa. I ordered my first beer and planned on heading out after that. It was kind of awkward. Well, then things started to be okay for some reason and I decided to just stay and order some food. I got this bison stew and a buffalo burger. Each were awful. The stew was just, something, and the burger was too well done and was falling apart. Nasty.

Well, then people started talking to me. It was actually kind of fun talking to the locals. I decided to try another beer. Then the guy next to me left, but apparently the barkeep overheard us talking and then proceeds to say to me, “so you’re from California? I lived in North Hollywood for five years…” That led to loads of convo. Which led to me finding out he doesn’t even drink, but only serves. Which leads to him saying how amazing the beer is they brew there at Schlafly (which he only tastes). Which leads to him giving me a sample of 4 more beers (on the house!). Which leads to be feeling obligated to drinking them (even the nasty dark stout which I knew would taste like fireplace and definitely did). Which led to me feeling kind of nasty. After all the conversation apparently this guy was my new buddy. He didn’t charge me for the second beer I ordered, he gave me a growler to go at the “regulars price” and each of the three times he thought I was leaving, he shook my hand and told me how nice it was to meet me and wished me safe travels. Nice guy. For some reason we bonded over a short period of time. I felt like Cliff to his Woody (see: Cheers).

Operation: Surprise, Part 1 (The End)

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged for awhile. Or maybe you didn't. Well, have no fear, I've secretly been blogging all week but I haven't been able to post it. Why? Because it would have compromised my mission.

I was in the Midwest all week for work, with the end game of ending up in Minnesota on Friday evening to surprise my Mom for Mother's Day.

During the week, however, I was working. I started in St. Louis then went to Quincy, IL, Des Moines, IA, Clinton, IA, Chicago and Milwaukee. It was a good week. I worked, I played, I enjoyed local brews.

I'm going to start by showing you the end of the week, then as the days go by and I have some time to edit down what I've written (it's long) I will post more.

So here we go. My parents were at a party last night so I was able to hang out with my sisters and their families until they got home. My brother-in-law, Marc, lured them downstairs where I was lounging on the couch.

Roll it!

Under Pressure

I made a promise to myself awhile back that when I moved to California I wouldn't let all the fancy cars and the remarks of others convince me to dump Mable and buy something newer and nicer. I made a promise to myself that I would keep my car until it's not worth fixing. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't have another $300 car payment.

Folks, this past week, I was very close to breaking that promise. I was pretty convinced that I wanted to throw caution to the wind and go buy a fun in the sun type of vehicle -- something that I could really enjoy this summer. Also, something that would be under warranty and not stick me with any outrageous repair bills.

I was planning on test driving a 2008 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon/Sahara/X this weekend. I was planning on, if the dealer would give me the price I wanted, signing a lease for that thing before the end of the month.

Well, I've been stopped in my tracks. A voice of reason by the name of Don reminded me of my promises. He made me realize that there's no need to replace Mable right now. Sure, her coolant tank was bone dry yesterday, by no fault of her own, and sure, her tires don't hold air like they should, and yeah, the muffler is starting to act up a little, and yes, when it's 100 degrees out the a/c has a hard time keeping up, but these are all minor things.

After I had her coolant topped off and washed her clean yesterday, it's like driving a car that just had the middle-aged woman equivalent of getting a Botox injection. She's not hesitating off the line, she's shifting from first to second better and just seems to be running smoother. All because of the coolant. Oops.

Anyways, I'm a little over 6,000 miles away from the 300,000 mile mark, and I fully intend on making it. At this point, the only foreseeable thing I'll need is some brake work, but that's no big deal.

It's tough at times to not get excited about the idea of a new car. I was entertaining choosing among the following cars this week:

Jeep Wrangler
Mini Cooper
Honda Civic
Chevy Malibu
Volkswagen Jetta and a
Nissan Altima

The latter two, I was informed, are chick cars that I wouldn't live down.

I kept thinking how awesome it would be to tool around SoCal with the top down on a Jeep. So much more fun to drive than a convertible, too. But alas, Jeeps are not made to be an every day drive on the freeway type of vehicle. It's noisy as heck in the cabin, overpriced, and unreliable. Oh, and 15 MPG. So what gives? I would lease it for two years, have some fun with it, and get a sensible family car just in time to settle down, accepting the fact that I won't have another fun car until my mid-life crisis.

The more I thought about it, I was intended on buying a car not for myself, but for everyone else. Everyone who says I have all this disposable income and owe it to myself to get a nice car. Well, to those people, you're in debt. You have your nice cars and your $300-400 payment every month, I'll take $0 per month and put that money towards paying off that Visa so that one day, all the credit cards payments I'm making will be non-existent and that $300 car payment will be cake.

Okay, I'm over it.

Los Angeles, I Hardly Know Ye

As I approach a year living in Southern California, I still haven't completely come to grips with the fact that I live in Southern California. I'm trying to think back to when I really felt like I lived in Texas. Maybe I never did. I don't know what it is I was expecting.

It takes me back to my time in Texas, the first day of fall semester. I was going to be a PR major and get my degree as quick as I could. Well, then I went to my first class, which was immediately followed by going to my advisor and switching majors. That, and the reality that I was going to have two solid years until graduation. It felt like another set back in my goal of getting to California. It really felt unattainable.

Those were probably the quickest two years of my life.

I don't know where this is going. I actually started writing this blog with the intention of complaining that I haven't been to L.A. since November and that I should be taking more advantage of such a great city that's right at my fingertips. So lets get back to that. The problem, I suppose, is that there's so much to do in Orange County that going to L.A. isn't really necessary. I should really start getting up there more. I mean, I see myself living in L.A. in the next few years, so it would be nice to further familiarize myself with it. And now that I have myself a GPS deal, it would be a lot less stressful and a lot more fun to just drive around and check out points-of-interest.

Recently, a lot of the problem lies with the fact that work is consuming so much of my time. I can't remember the last Saturday I didn't have to work. Probably not since before Christmas break. I can't even remember the last time I was home by 5:30. My DVR is clogging up. Drives me nuts.

Anyways, I think when work gets a little less hectic, I need to get back to the exploring. I can't really complain too much, though. Why? Well, I'm going to San Francisco again for three days next week. I've been there so much since September, it's starting to feel like my second (third?) home.

Ok, time for bed. I gotta fly tomorrow.

26

Another year. Another birthday with no family. Boo hoo. Poor me.

At least I'll get a free lunch out of it at work (hopefully), and my surrogate family I'm living with is making me dinner tomorrow night. Both good things.

My family did celebrate my birthday for me last night though, by singing and lighting a candle for me. Watch the video of them in Minnesota and me in California (sponsored by Apple):

I'm Trying to Study, Really

So I started studying for the CPA exam about six weeks ago. As predicted, it started out well. I was following the schedule for three straight weeks. No problem. It actually seemed like it may take less effort that I originally thought. Well, then I ended up traveling for a couple of weeks straight, including flying on Sunday and working on Saturdays. The weekend was really the time when I got into the "meat" of the material. Once those were taken from me, it screwed up my structuring.

I only have two lectures/chapters remaining in the Audit portion of the study material. In the meantime, I've been reviewing what I've already covered, just to keep it fresh. I think what's going to happen is that I'll be done with the lectures and have gone through the entire book once, and the state accountancy board still will not have sent me my schedule. They're notoriously slow with this type of thing. I really, really, really must have all four parts of this exam taken and passed by next Christmas, or it will be increasingly difficult to fit in time to study and have this thing wrapped up by the next busy season. Especially since I will have more responsibility by then.

If I can take my first exam by the end of May, I think I'll be in good shape.

Still, I feel like I should be studying more. I've always felt that way, though. All through college.

When people would tell me they studied for 8 hours straight on consecutive days, I just don't understand. I don't think I'm smarter than them or that I don't need to study as much, but at some point, I can only go over the notes so many times in a row.

That being said, I'm a little nervous that me feeling over-prepared will actually leave me underprepared. I guess I won't really know how much studying needs to be done until I get the results from that first exam.

Dress for Success

I’m closing in on a year at the firm and I haven’t really bought much for clothes since I started. Back in May of last year I spent $100-$200 on clothes from Ross (Dress for Less) and Kohls, but since then, I’ve maybe bought a shirt or two.

I had to throw out a dress shirt last week because there was this funky discoloring on the collar that wasn’t coming out. I think I’ve had that shirt since 2000 or something, so I suppose it was time.

I couple of my favorite shirts – ones I wear once a week – are starting to wear out. As in, tiny holes have been developing. At this point they’re still unnoticeable, but notice ability is inevitable.

I think I’ve mentioned before the poor state my belt is in. It’s only gotten worse. Well, you can add my black shoes to the list. My heel has pretty much worn through the lining and is probably going to get worse. Why haven’t I replaced them? Because on the outside they look just fine.

That brings me to the deep thought of the day. Aren’t most of us like my belt and my shoes? Torn up on the inside where no one can see what’s going on, but on the outside, everything appears to be fine? Unlike my belt and shoes, our insides cannot be replaced, only repaired…never as good as new. I'm so deep.

Who Works on Saturday?

I guess I do. Ten hours on Saturday. What gives? Deadlines. That's what.

I've had thoughts of lots of different things I wanted to blog about this past week:

Sunday... Oakland A's game...
Wednesday... was amongst all the Olympic torch protesting in San Francisco...
Thursday... San Francisco Giants game...
Friday... private tour of a million dollar car collection...

It was a good week, too bad work had to get in the way.

I could blog about each individually, but I probably won't. I'm just tired of working and need some time to breathe. Thank goodness I'm going to be working locally in the near future. I need to catch up on sleep, all the tv shows on my DVR, studying for the CPA exam, and more sleep.

Did I mention it was 96 degrees here today? Yeah. The family I'm living with was gone for the afternoon and I wasn't sure if it was okay to turn on the a/c, so I went to Target to chill out, literally, of course.

My head is still spinning over the fact that "Shout to the Lord" was sung on American Idol. Uhhh....makes no sense. And the version that says "Jesus" and stuff in it is on iTunes. It's pretty good.

Just Take Me Home!

Today was one of the longer travel days I've experienced in recent memory. We finished up our audit in Tulsa today by 2:30 and went to the airport to catch our 4:30 flight. Well, that got delayed until 5, which was fine because our connecting flight in Houston would still be good. Problem is, we got out onto the tarmac and hey, guess what? Houston has grounded all flights and won't let any flights coming there take off. So we sit on the runway for an hour and half until we can depart. Connection in Houston? Not looking good.

Once we were finally airborne and to Houston, I had a good feeling we might still make our connection. Why? Well, logic told me that everyone going in and out of Houston was delayed also, so our connection might still be good. We get off the plane and find a Continental representative. She tells us our flight leaves in 12 minutes. Crap! Houston is a huge airport and if it's in another terminal, we're screwed. Sure, we could take the next flight, but the problem is, the Orange County airport will not accept flights that arrive after 11pm because of local noise ordinances. That means we'd be rerouted to LA or San Diego and shuttled to Orange County. Ew.

Anyways, so we have 12 minutes. The gate for our Orange County flight is C12. We just got off the plane at C11. Money. We made it.

I was lucky enough to bill 5 hours for fieldwork and 10.5 for travel today. Woohoo! Now I get to go into the office tomorrow and pack for next week because I leave Sunday morning at 8:30 for San Francisco. So much for a weekend.

Is it summer yet?

Tulsa, Oklahoma: I'm Having a Good Time

The only thing I really know about Tulsa is that it’s where Chandler accidentally took a promotion on a later season of ‘Friends’ and only saw Monica on weekends. Useful info.

We’re heading towards the home stretch at Almich & Associates. We’ve pretty much wrapped up one of the big jobs, one is in the midst of finishing, and I have this week and next week before I’m freed up for awhile. Sure, something else will probably be scheduled, but for now, my first busy season is almost complete. Wasn’t I just home for Christmas? Seems like it.

Nicole and I got to Tulsa late Sunday night. Our rental car was out of stock, so we got upgraded to a Jeep Grand Cherokee with leather interior, satellite radio, and a backup camera!! I’m driving in luxury. It’s making me rethink the whole Toyota Yaris for $10,500 once Mable dies. Of course, I’d never ever buy a Chrysler/Ford/Dodge whatever family Jeep is from, but it sure is nice to have for a week.

Speaking of Mable, she’s being taken care of by my landlord Stephen this week. His car is in the shop and I’m out of town, so it worked out good for both of us. His Honda is having its first major repairs in almost 10 years. He calls it bad luck. I call it being lucky. That’s a long time to go without a big car repair bill. Anyways, his commute to work this week will put Mable into the 293,000 range. We’re almost there!!

As Nicole and I got back from lunch yesterday, we were pulling up to our parking spot. I noticed a car backing out in my peripheral vision. I sort of thought it looked like he was going to back into a car parked perpendicular to his. Sure enough. Slow and soft, but definitely crunched. The owner of the hit vehicle comes running out of the school lobby and is furious. It really wasn’t that bad. Although he couldn’t open his door up all the way because of it. Sucks. It was just interesting to watch the whole thing go down, even without hearing what they were saying. I don’t know why I am telling you this.

Last night we went to the local Indian casino. It was lovely. The buffet was sub par, the air was nasty and the winnings were non-existent. I maxed out at $5. Nicole spotted me another $10, which I proceeded to lose. She ended up winning $300 on penny slots, only after I came over and sat by her. She forgave my $10 gambling debt. Thank goodness. I didn’t want her to send her goons after me to break my knees for not paying her back. I still don’t get the whole fascination with gambling.

Vegas casinos are so much nicer. Duh. But the clientele is also completely different in Vegas compared to the Cherokee Casino. I feel like I fit in more when I’m in say…Planet Hollywood or the Bellagio. This place, not so much. I needed to add 50-75 pounds, grow out my hair (in the back), drink some Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoke whatever the cheapest cigarettes are.

I’m just sayin’.

I Golf. I'm a Golfer.

One of my goals since I decided to be an accountant was to learn to golf. Well folks, I can grab the pencil to cross it off my list (but lets not cross it off quite yet).

I went to the driving range with my landlord, Stephen, last night and it turns out I'm not as bad as either of us thought. The cash register wasn't working, so they let us each take a free bucket of balls. Nice! We had a good time.

I told Don to bring his clubs to work today so that we could go afterwards. Over lunch I picked up a glove; I've found a new hobby.

Tonight I was a little sore, but I was more consistent than last night. I actually did pretty good. Stephen let me borrow his dead neighbors clubs which he acquired. It turns out they belonged to a John R. Fox, at least that's what the tag says. I'm using a dead dudes golf clubs. Creepy, right?

I think Don and I are going to go once more this week because we're both going to be out of town for awhile. Stephen and I will probably go this weekend, too. Hey, I only spent $5 tonight and had an hour of entertainment. You just can't beat that.

Happy Easter!

I know I'm a day early, but the weather is so nice today (bordering on h-o-t) that I just had to say....

Happy Easter!

No. 2 Thief, Part II

Before you read this, read Part I below.

Today I was in one of the accounting clerk's office and he was writing something out for me. The No. 2 Thief came in to ask me a question. She needed to make a note about it on her notepad. She left.

Accounting Clerk is about to continue what he was telling me...

"Where did my pen go? I always seem to be losing them."

"I think D**** [the No. 2 Thief] took it."

"I swear, she's a klepto. She's always taking my pens."

I laughed to myself as I walked away and though, "she struck again!" I took comfort in knowing I wasn't the only victim.

As I was in her office later this morning, I noticed it right there, sitting on her desk, the pencil she stole from me on Monday. While she was going on about something, all I could do is stare at my pencil. I had to let it go though. It's over. Left there in Oakland while I'm back here in Orange County.

Like I said, I'm over it.

No. 2 Thief

The accounting manager at the client Don and I are at this week in Oakland asked to borrow my pencil on Monday morning. She took it with her. I didn't see it the rest of the day.

Tuesday, she's in the room talking to Partner Joe, and Don motions to said accounting manager, then points to his hair and makes a writing gesture.

It's in her hair. My pencil is in her hair.

I don't even want it back now.

Today she comes in our room and starts to write on something with it.

Does she not wonder where she got this pencil from? I usually notice when I'm using a writing instrument that's not mine. And it's not like it's just another yellow pencil; it's a mechanical one. A red one at that.

I'm over it.

Survivor

So remember way back when CBS and Mark Burnett announced the production of "Survivor"? Well, obviously most of you are familiar with the concept of the show now. But back when the first news of this show was released, I genuinely thought it was going to be taken literal. I remember thinking, "wow, so people are really going to risk their lives for $1 million?"

I thought that the winner would be the only one who survives...literally. How messed up is that? Thankfully (?) it's not true, although I don't think it's outside of the real of possibility for a show to exist like that some day. Maybe on Pay Per View or something. If releases are signed waiving liability, what's illegal about it? Certainly something.

Anyways...back to studying.

My First Financial Statements

The main purpose of auditing companies is to express an opinion on their financial statements as to whether they are free of material misstatement and are in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America.

You got that?

I recently had an opportunity to draft my first financial statements. Now normally, as a rookie accountant, you wouldn't get to do this for 2-3 years -- maybe more. But because our firm is short staffed and handling a lot of clients, I got the chance to gain some awesome experience.

The cool part is that we audit post-secondary institutions: trade schools, medical/health training schools, etc,. and these auditor's reports end up in the hands of the U.S. Department of Education. So they're kind of important. If the school doesn't get a favorable opinion from us, they could potentially lose their funding from the Fed and that would pretty much be the end of them. As far as I know though, our firm rarely if ever has to issue anything but an unqualified opinion.

We have a template that we use and we just plug in the final numbers. The footnotes to the financials need to be modified for each client, but we just roll that forward from the previous years financials and make any applicable changes. It's not too difficult, but like I said, in general, staff auditors would never ever get to do this at larger firms. Kinda nice. More pressure, but worth it in the end.

Anyways, my draft made it through two Partner reviews and is about to be issued next week.

After I've done this a few more times, I'm sure I'll be over it and wish I could go back to no responsibility.

Gimme a Brake!

In efforts to save myself some buck$, I had my boss/friend Ryan do my brakes last night. I sort of half-asked if he knew anyone who could help me out, and as a matter of fact, he could. From that point on, I sort of didn't want to bug him about it, but a couple of days later, he asked when we were going to do them, so I figured he was wanting to do it - not offering out of kindness.

What he thought would take only a couple of hours ended up taking closer to five. Just what everyone wants to do on a Monday night. The objective of the evening was to get my rotors turned and install new brake pads. Easy enough. Well, since Mable is in her golden years, some of her nuts and bolts are a little hard to jimmy loose. I bet Ryan literally spent 30 some minutes trying to get one of those suckers off. He attached a long metal pole to his wrench to get some leverage, and the wrench snapped and broke. Craftsman!

Just before giving up and calling it a night, he managed to get that thing loose. Blah, blah, blah....we got the rotors turned at Pep Boys, saw the loser service supervisor turn down replacing a granny's battery ("sorry, my car needs a battery, too. that's how busy we are" he says. boo.), went to Bill's Burgers for some burgers, blah blah and everything turned out fine.

There was more than a few times where I wished I had just gone to the mechanic, but after spending only $55 to have some good as new brakes, it was worth it. Best part is, it sounds like we're going to replace the front calipers next, then tackle the rears. I consider myself lucky. I'm going to save close to $1,000 when all is said and done.

Somehow I didn't think I needed a change of clothes after work; somehow I managed to help out and not get one smudge on my khakis. High five!

I Fought the Law (Still Am!)

Growing up male, middle-class, and white, I do have it pretty easy (studies show). I guess I can admit that that's true. However, I can't help but think that I still am being kept down by The Man in some ways just like everyone else. So when I have the opportunity to fight back, I take it.

Chew on this: I have two reasons for the CHiPs to pull me over. And for those of you who don't know who the CHiPs are, it's a television show from a long time ago, but also the California Highway Patrol. Anyways, these guys are all over the place on their bikes. Motor bikes. Now, back to my reasons.

I was pulled over last fall for some ridiculous reason. I was heading East when a police office heading West passed me, made a u-turn and pulled up behind me at a red light. We proceeded through 2-3 more intersections and traveled about 2 miles when he finally decides to turn on his cherries and stop me. His reason? My middle brake light is out.

But before we get to that conclusion, he asks me whose car I'm driving, what I'm doing in California (I have MN plates) if I've ever been arrested, and if I've ever been in jail. Not sure how any of that was relevant, but I like to humor these guys. When he realizes he's got nothing on me, he just tells me to fix my light. Okay, sure.

As time passes and I can't find the bulb I need, I decide I'm going to defy The Man and not get it fixed. No siree. I want to see if this particular cop was just being a turd cause he had nothing better to do, or if they actually do waste their time pulling people over for stupid stuff like that.

So check this out. I'm in downtown Los Angeles at a late hour in a desolate area driving an old(er) car with out of state plates and a cop pulls up behind me at a red light. The light turns green. We come to the next red light and sit there again. He has plenty of time to think about busting me for my brake light. My supposed lack of safety is staring at him straight in the face. Well, as we get going again, he turns on his lights and whizzes past me. As I finally catch up with him, he's stopped at some shady bar to back-up his fellow man on the force who's got a guy on the ground at gun point.

Since then, I've had numerous police peoples sitting right behind me at stoplights or just following behind me. Every time I brake with my lack of the middle brake light, I get nervous. But guess what? Nothing. No one has pulled me over. I bet it's been 6-8 times I've been followed with no resulting consequences.

My conclusion: the guy that pulled me over was being a tool.

Reason two to pull me over: My registration tags on my license plates expired in December. The rear one isn't even visible. Sure, I have the most current registration tags. My car is registered. I just haven't bothered to display them yet. I'm actually pretty surprised nothing has resulted from it; I would think that I draw extra attention being one of the few without California plates on.

So there you have it. My way of silent protest. I may not tag walls with graffiti, do illegal drugs, or even eat grapes at the supermarket without paying for them, but I am a bad___. I am sticking it to The Man. It may be only a matter of time before I suffer the consequences, or is it? I've already gone many months. In fact, a cop was tailing me for 6 blocks on the way home from work tonight. Nothing.

Some may say at this point, "knock on wood," but I don't believe in those old cliches.

Hopefully I have no updates to this story for a long time. Godspeed be unto me.

If you'd like to support my quest of fighting The Man, click on the Google Ad in the left pane. It may earn me $0.01.

Larry Norman (1947-2008)

It saddens me to report that a week ago today, Larry Norman, the Father of Christian Rock, passed away of heart failure.

Many/most of you have probably never heard of Larry Norman. He started his career back in the 1960s in San Francisco, California as part of the "Jesus Movement" while signed to Capitol Records and later MGM.

"[In] 1971, TIME magazine was reporting on the growth of the Jesus Movement, and while Larry Norman took some steps to distance himself from it, he had become the most popular musician among its followers. TIME Magazine reported that Eric Clapton had become a 'convert of the Jesus Movement,' and a 1971 cover article also named members of Peter, Paul, and Mary and Fleetwood Mac within its sphere of influence. Johnny Cash was also named."

Larry was also a huge influence in helping musicians break their drug habits. He started a Bible study called "The Vineyard" in the 1970s that was attended by actors and musicians. Most notably: Bob Dylan.

By the end of the '70s, Larry left the major labels and pursued a career as an independent artist. Throughout his career, his work has appeared on over 90 albums. Van Morrison as well as John Mellencamp have claimed to be fans of Larry and over 300 artists have covered his songs, including Sammy Davis, Jr.

Larry's had problems with his heart for decades. Surgery after surgery have been performed, although it was usually just a struggle to even get into the operating room. Costly operations are difficult to pay for when you're an independent musician with no health insurance. Larry had to rely primarily on the financial support of his fans to cover his medical expenses.

I was introduced to Larry Norman's music back in 1995 or so. My sister Krysti was dating my now brother-in-law Marc, who was also my youth pastor at the time. Marc had been a fan of Larry's music for years and was quite eager to share that fanaticism with a new generation (me).



In May of 1996, Marc and I journeyed to Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, just outside of Toronto, to see Larry. It was my first time, Marc's too, if I recall. We drove over 13 hours overnight to get there. We arrived at the venue about 4 hours before the show and were pretty much the only attendees around. The promotor heard how far we'd traveled, and reserved two seats front and center just for us. It was a pretty amazing experience considering the history and influence of Larry's message and his music. It was also a reminder of how fragile his health was, even then. Forty-eight at the time, he already had had major heart surgery more than once. He had to stop the concert halfway through due to a bout of coughing and to go take some heart meds. After thirty or so minutes, though, he came back out and finished his set.



Marc and I had the opportunity to meet him afterwards. I don't remember much about it, being 15ish at the time, but I do remember that Larry was very low-key and happy just to be able to talk to his fans about what's going on in their lives, his music, or anything really. It was quite an experience. Something I'll never forget.



I'm not sure the timeline, but maybe a year later, Larry was performing in Iowa somewhere. Marc and I badly wanted to see him again, and knowing how (un)healthy he was, knew we'd better take the chance when we had it. This time we brought along my sister, Marc's wife, so she could experience the magic. She wasn't the hugest fan of Larry's before she saw him live; most people aren't. He doesn't have the most radio-friendly voice or anything. But after she saw him in person, she came to appreciate the artist that Larry truly is: goofy at times, but at his core, a genuine human being who had the gift of influencing people with his message and music.





When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to pick a song to present to my english class. We were looking at music and the meaning behind the words in the songs. I chose Larry Norman's "America." It was the perfect chance to present Larry to people who likely hadn't heard of him before. I'm not sure if I converted any fans, but it was pretty cool for me.

In the ten years since I've seen Larry live, he's had a stroke and other ailments, disallowing him to even play the guitar for a couple years earlier this decade. I've often wanted to see him one last time, as I'm older and more in tune with myself and the world. Seeing him perform was very limited in occurrence and distant in location; it just never really worked out. I'm very thankful and blessed that I was able to see him when I did.

Larry, thank you for the gift of your music, for the blessing of your message, and the convictions of your heart. You will be missed, but never forgotten.

Now that I've been a little lax in tracking down your albums, I suppose that those vinyl records going for $400 awhile back on eBay will be even harder to track down.

Here's a classic video of Larry, likely from the '80s:



At the time of his death, Norman had been working on a new project with Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock and Pixies frontman Frank Black, who cites Norman as a major influence. That music will be released later this year (Reuters).

Source: Wikipedia

Lunch Money

Last year when our firm was auditing our client in Alabama, they had lunch catered in every day. When we were back there for preliminary work in December, there was no catering. There was a change in management from the year before, so we can chalk it up to that. However, yesterday, when we were finishing up our year end work, I mentioned to one of the VP's of something that we weren't sure if we were going to have time for lunch because we had quite a bit to do before leaving for our late afternoon flight.

Without hesitation, she says that she'd get us a menu to a local deli and order it for us and have one of the girls go pick it up. So ok, I'm thinking "Yes! They're buying lunch for us!" Well, then Don is all, "are you supposed to give her your credit card...?" And I'm all, "no, man, she said she'd order it for us."

The more I got to thinking, I thought maybe that didn't necessarily mean she was paying for it. Well, when I went back to this VP's office with our order, I offered her my credit card fully expecting her to decline it. We didn't even do the whole "no, that's okay, I got it" "ohhh, are you sure?" exchange. Nope. She took my credit card and $20 later, I bought the audit team's lunch.

What the heck?