Traffic for 2003 October

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Susie and I have a date to go "leaf peeping" because it's fall. Susie hates the name and thinks the weather man made it up. But it's a true story......The semester is like a third over and I am already dying for reprieve. And since so much group work equals so little susie time, it can be rather frustrating.......On the plus side, I always study at home and not at the library, and I normally delegate a portion of all groupwork to myself and do it ahead of time to avoid the superflous team time.......

In other news, although I am a cold-hearted accountant at heart, in an effort to be well-rounded, I started reading all Wall Street Journal articles about the California political blunder....My interest comes a little late since I have no idea why people hate Gov. Davis, just that they do.......But I do know that we should all be relieved to welcome in a new face, Arnold....I don't know all the details, but I do know that his economic advisor is actually Warren Buffet.......So at least the economics of the sunshine state may turn around.

In case you are wondering "why Traffic" it's my dog's name. He is a black scottish terrier, and looks like the puppy on lady and the tramp......

So in tax class we are working on court hearings for fractional jet ownership. I am already learning how important it is to be nice to clients because hey, if they own jets and want me to reduce their tax liabilities, they can afford to pay me. But first year accounting firm staff are only billed at $250 an hour.....(not that I get $250, but they get charged that)......However, it pales in comparison to my professor's hourly figure.....$900 an hour. I wonder how much of that he gets..........Back to work.

So every Friday the Marriott Business School has a seminar for the graduate students. Normally, we have large CEO's and CFO's address us from such institutions as The Gap, Procter & Gamble, and Black & Decker. However, today was a special treat because it is e-business week. The guest speaker was none other than......Donny Osmond?

So while it was great to realize that Donny wrote "Puppy Love" (I never knew that before), seeing a washed up teeny-bopper dancing in a one-piece polyester jumper somehow left me unfulfilled......I'm still looking for the less-than-obvious link between a Mormon pop icon and the complicated networking possibilites that corporate America and the Internet are about to unvail.......It definately wasn't supply chain management, that's for sure. If anyone else can see it, please let me know.

In the spirit of tradition, BYU had their annual Homecoming parade this morning. It starts up by the Marriott Center and ends on our street. Lucky us, our street was closed all morning. To forseeably mitigate this dilemma, I proactively learned that at 10:00 all access on our street would be cut off. So Susie and I took the car to get an oil change early enough that we would arrive back home at 9:30.....

However, at 9:30 we pull up to a nice barricade in front of our complex. I get out to move it and this cop starts screaming at me about it like I was lighting up a doobie or something....Anyway, we minced words very loudly for about 5 minutes and when that got old I finally told him my wife was parking our car anyway so he should either step off or arrest me. He shouted and left.

I was tempted to tell him that I am a law student but since I am a TAX law student I was afraid I might trap myself. However, I doubt he would know the difference.........

So about 15 minutes later I had to go meet my tax group and walked by him again because their was just no avoiding it. He actually came up to me and apologized, renewing my faith (for now) in the police force.....We'll see how long that lasts.

But if anyone wants to research property rights and informative disclosure and let me know if they really can block off a parking garage without prior notice, I'd be interested to know. Until then, back to spending my weekend with Internal Revenue Code Section 280F (We're allowed to do that here....)

Saturday night Susie and I went on a very classy date to the $1 movie theater. We FINALLY, after waiting 5 months, saw Finding Nemo. It was really good, but probably not as good as Monsters, Inc. or A Bug's Life were. Now we have nothing to anticipate until Lord of the Rings. I'm dang excited about that one.

In other news, my LITTLE sister turns 21 in like 3 weeks. I really can't handle that. It still boggles my mind that Chad, my oldest nephew, is 10. Oh well.

So we ran out of eggs around Sunday after I made pumpkin spice muffins and sweet and sour chicken. Anyway, I had no idea I was so dependent on them because I haven't enjoyed anything since we ran out. For example, last night Susie was going to make cookies but couldn't--we have no eggs. This morning I was once again deprived of waffles because of no eggs. And now someone has anonymously brought us cookies in the traditional Halloween fashion. How we will bake something to pass along still boggles me since we are out of eggs.

Susie actually hates eggs so I blame her for the whole "no eggs extravaganza." Who would have thought?

In other news, guess who got an A on their marketing mid-term? Like a 98%, and I don't even like marketing. It's not quantifiable. Tax is still pulling me along. I'm probably failing that class, but so is everyone else. The curve will defy all in that class......

Our latest tax question had relevance in my life. When I leave my home in Provo to do an internship, may I deduct the cost of living as traveling costs in LA during the summer? IRC Section 162 says "Go ahead" while IRC Section 262 warns me against such. Because all the Regs were written in some ancient Gaelic form I am not familiar with (seriously), I had to turn to case law......

The Tax Court says yes, but the Circuit Court says no. Unfortunately, I think I have to trust the circuit court on this one.....no deduction for me!

Consequently, this law was enacted to allow CONGRESS the right to deduct their expenses in Washington, DC since they must have two homes as per representation. Their job requires it, whereas mine does not. Where's Mr. Smith when you need him?

So our wireless internet (that we are now getting charged for) still doesn't work. I know it's not my computer because I used it on campus today and it seemed to like the wireless connection in the Tanner Building quite well.

In marketing today we did a presentation on Harry Potter and how bookstores and publishers are trying to use the next two books release dates to time other bookstore developments. However, since JK Rowling is so hard to predict when it comes to release dates (re-writing books on the fly), they are struggling with the concept. Anyway, we brought candy bars and watched a segment from the movie so we got our cheer level up to 1.2 decibles. That's a new record, up from 1.16 decibles.

I guess I should mention we get graded on the level of noise we generate, thus the snickers. Apparently, who needs content? However, I do suspect the teacher tweaks the noise reader to his own liking. After all, we got the highest score so far and Harry Potter is his favorite movie.....

Besides that, if anyone has any enlightening insights into beta and Weighted Average Cost of Capital, I'd be happy to hear it since I have a 6-page thesis due on it that I really don't want to write.

X-Tax is coming!

In other news, I processed a refund for a man in Djibouti. Oddly enough, we withdrew from American History. Why he was taking it in the first place remains to be known. I guess he could be an ex-pat....

For those of you who don't know where Djibouti is (like my boss), it's in Africa.

So Saturday we get to my mom's house about 4:30 and I decide to go outside and wash the car. My mom somehow talks me into taking it to this $5 place (because she gave me the $5) and I sit in my car while the wash goes on this conveyer belt thing. It's like a ride at Disneyland......

Unfortunately, it resembled Big Thunder Mountain the most. For those of you that don't know, the famous train at Disneyland derailed about one month ago, killing one man and injuring countless others. Anywho, I hear this POW and there went my driver's side mirror. Of course it startled me and I put my foot on the brake, which stops the entire line. So some pimply 15-year old yells at me about reducing their efficiencies, etc. when I mention his machine ate my car!!!

The good news is that they ordered a new one and are paying for it. The bad news is that it takes a couple days and they are in Salt Lake and I am in Provo. Also, x-tax rules my life for the next 3 weeks. Oh well, one day at a time. It could be worse after all....

So Tuesday we were sitting here in Provo minding our own business in a nice 76 degree weather day and boom. Today it snowed. I had to clean my car off at the temple.

Just in time for Halloween. Oh well, I guess our Indian Summer couldn't last forever.

A minor response to Rachel's most recent reply to my rebuttal of said elasticity of demand of fire--you lead a nice fantasy life. But actually, my sister who lives in Mission Viejo owns time share in Arrowhead that is most likely gone now. But the good news is that the beetles up there were eating all the trees on Bear Mountain. Thus, nature really DID order a fire to clear out said beetles ASAP. Touche, sis.

So my boss calls me into her office today to tell me that I make too much money to get campus-wide cost of living raises or department evaluation raises. I was so confused because I'm not even asking for a raise. Anyway, then she tells me that because she likes me she is giving me a $0.50 raise regardless. At first I wondered why she went through all that preliminary effort, but oh well, a raise is a raise. I'm catching up to Susie's salary. Another $2.50 to go (plus I don't pay taxes working on campus). YEA!