Funny Blog

This guy really hits the nail on the head. And since I am beyond buried in tax season, and have had all my creativeness sucked right out of my brain, a little tidbit for you.

This will be really funny to some of you, and for those who it is not funny to, please go to church sometime. Then this stuff will also make you laugh.

Funny Site Link Here.

Please notice I made no mention of my incorrect prediction of the Kansas NCAA win. Let's face it pics of squids are funnier.

Gratitude...

Well, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself last night and this morning. My Gentlemen Bears were ousted in the first round of the NCAA Tourney. I spent 3 hours in the dentist chair yesterday afternoon, (lovely way to spend a Friday afternoon) and my mouth is extremely sore.

Then today, I found out a couple things that have helped me have a little perspective.

A friend was riding his kids scooter last night. He now has a broken arm related to said scooter adventure.

But the worst I just found out. My daughter's best friend has a dad that is really into motorcycles. Last night while riding, he was hit by a car and had his leg severed. As in crushed, and fell off. Think lots of blood here. If you are the praying type, say a few for him please.

As for me, I have nothing to whine about. A couple Alleve will cure all my ills today, and I have no casts, and all my limbs. I am thankful.

Happy Easter!!!

RIP - Larry Norman

The Great Larry Norman

UPDATE - Yesterday while reading an interview Larry did, I read where he wrote the song, Why Don't you Look Into Jesus about Janis Joplin. His group People were performing a concert, and Janis was standing behind the curtain with a bottle of Southern Comfort in one hand, and a paper cup in the other. He was moved to write the song:

Sipping whiskey from a paper cup,
You drown your sorrows till you can't get up,
Take a look at what you've done to yourself,
Why don't you put the bottle back on she shelf,
Yellow fingers from your cigarettes,
Your hands are shaking while your body sweats,
Why don't you look into Jesus, He's got the answer

Don't go into shock, I am posting two days in a row. It is with great sadness that I must report one of my heroes, The Father of Christian Rock Music, Larry Norman has passed from this earth. His funeral was March 1st near Salem, Oregon.



When I was a radical Christian teenager, I loved Larry's no-compromise lyrics, and rockin' out tunes. I had never heard anything like it. From Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music, to I Wish We'd All Been Ready he made music that sounded sort of like the Stones and Bob Dylan had a collision. Perhaps my favorite song, the Rock That Doesn't Roll depicted all that was great about Larry Norman's music. Larry was the originator of the "one way" hand signal, the index finger pointing upwards. The guy was a geniune pioneer.


He ended his life much like he lived it. He was writing music and trying to make an impact right up to the end. He also was pretty much shunning the spotlight, and music companies right to the end. In spite of his refusal to follow along with the main stream music companies, his ministry grew.

Excerpt from an interview with Contemporary Christian Music Magazine (CCM):

CCM: "What then was your view of the church?"

NORMAN: "I had no time for the church matrix. I didn’t think you needed a majority vote from the elders on the board to undertake a musical ministry. The churches weren’t going to accept me looking like a street person with long hair and faded jeans. They did not like the music I was recording. And I had no desire to preach the gospel to the converted. I wanted to be out on the sidewalk preaching to the runaways and the druggies and the prostitutes.

When non-believers used to criticize the church I would say, "Yeah, I agree and I think that God is disappointed in what people have done with Jesus." And then I would go on to talk about what Christ personally said and did. It worked. I wasn’t there to argue against people’s beliefs. I was there to talk about what God’s truth is."



Larry wrote a post at his blog shortly before his death. In that post he stated, I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home. He was gracious in life, even at the end. This is a guy who gets it.


You can read more about Larry at his website, http://www.larrynorman.com/ (that there is a link).


You can also order his music there. I would suggest you start with In Another Land or The Best of Larry Norman, Vol I


Rest in Peace Larry, you will be missed.

One of Life's Most Embarassing Moments (for me)...

The end of the Baylor Master Tax Program was drawing to an end for me. Everyone was interviewing. I myself had several arranged. So my dear mother bought me a new suit to interview in, which was not only greatly appeciated, but desperately needed.


To say my clothes were not interview appropriate is an understatement. Granted, Baylor Homecoming sweatshirts, and Diadeloso t-shirts were great, but not your standard fare for the professional environment. Plus, I had gained around 40 pounds, so none of my old suits fit anymore. So off we went to Goldstein-Miguel's (how many of you remember that place?).


At the time I was working almost full-time and also attending the tax program full-time. Were it not for my wife, it would have been impossible to pull off. She was a tremendous blessing in my life and I love her dearly for all she did for me. One of those things she did for me, was to ready my suit for a big interview.


For you B business alums, you know that prior to the Enron debacle, Arthur Anderson Acccounting firm was "THEE" place to go to work. They took only the brightest and the best, so it was said. And to get a job there validated your existence on earth and confirmed your worthiness to enter heaven. From the moment we walked into the Arthur Anderson Student Center on the Baylor campus, we all knew it was the place to go. And if you were not hired by them, well, you should immediately stop your subscription to breathing air.

The God of Accounting in the 90's

So it was to be one of my busiest days in months. Two exams to take, three bids to submit at work (I was a construction estimator) and my big interview with the Tax Partner with Arthur Anderson. I was elated to get this interview, because I missed the sign-up and all of the interview slots were taken. Due to my excellent schmoozing skills I was able to obtain a 10 minute interview with the guy.


My schedule that day:


8:30am - submit bid #1

10:00am - Tax Practice & Procedures exam

12:30pm - submit bid #2


12:50pm - Interview with Arthur Anderson

1:10pm - Estate and Gift Tax exam

4:15pm - submit bid #3


So after bid #1 I picked up the suit from the tailor, and took it home so Mrs Poop could ready it for me to wear. "Make sure you take all the tags off for me!!" was the last thing I said as I slammed the door on the way to my 10am exam.


This day from the depths of hell allowed me about 20 minutes to go home, throw on the suit and get to the campus in time for the big interview. I made sure he knew how appreciative I was of him cutting his lunch short for a quick interview. My 10 minute interview went for about 4 minutes. I was not only confused, but devastated. No chance in hell I get a job after a 4 minute interview. With no AA job my life was now over, and any other job was an embarassment to the B.


I said all the right things, had an awesome resume, and just like Ryan Leaf, I looked good on paper and had great referrals. Why did he have that smug look on his face? Why did he cut the interview so short? I wondered this all the way to the restroom after the interview. No time now to worry, I had a big exam.


As I walked into class, everyone looked at me and smiled. "They like my new suit!" I thought to myself. "Too bad I'm married girls" I thought proudly. About then, my buddy "Bob" says to me, "Get a new suit?" Grinning from ear to ear, he holds out his arm and waves his hand under his arm like something was dangling there. What the...

As it turns out, the ONLY tag my damned sorry-ass wife removed was the BIG, GIANT, tag on the very front of the suit that said, "10% OFF." Yessir, I had the tag on the sleeve, which could only be seen by me looking in the mirror in the bathroom with my arm up to my face. At that point, I could also see the somewhat large tag hanging from the armpit of the coat. At that point, I prayed for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

Like this suit, only with big-ass tags

If you look in a thesaurus for the word "humiliated" you will see: shamed, mortified, disgraced, embarrassed, dishonored. I'm not sure all of those words together can convey how I felt at that very moment. It was the single-most embarassing moment in my entire life. Worse than my mom finding my "reading material" and way worse than when I came home drunk and had my car taken away for a month by my dad after I puked on his feet. This day, I would likely never forget. And I was pretty sure my classmates would always remember me as "the guy with all the tags on his suit." I must admit. I sat in a stall and cried a bit. As if I didn't have enough stress in my life with working full-time and going to school full-time, I had this to deal with.



At that moment, everything good I had done vanished, and only my blown interview and ticker-tape suit existed. How I passed that test I will never know. I had lost my ability to concentrate.




Well, we all know now what happened with Arthur Anderson and Enron. So I guess they have more to be embarassed about than me. Payback's a bitch. NA NA NA NAA NA. (yeah, I know they had the conviction overturned)



It all worked out. I went to work for a great small firm in the Dallas area with some amazing clientele. I did tax work for some very high-profile people for years, and was exposed to some the most cutting edge tax planning by the best law firms in the Dallas area. I got to see from the inside-out the big-picture of how it all worked and flowed from one entity to another. It turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me.



Now, I have my own CPA firm, and do for my clients and introduce them to what I learned from the big tax attorneys I used to work with. I get to work with professional athletes, meet people I never dreamed I would and be a part of some very cool stuff. It has proved to me that God is bigger than me, and maybe, just maybe, he is gonna take good care of me, in spite of me. Boy, am I glad I didn't cancel my subscription to air. Oh yeah, I also learned to never depend on your wife if its really important.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Colorado Church Shootings-HEAVY, NO COMEDY HERE

Someone is praying for You...

One of those weird unexpected things happened again. My sister-in-law lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado where they had two seperate incidents of shootings at churches. They locked down all the churches in the area for safety reasons. Now, several innocent people are dead, and for no good reason. They are not martyrs, they were not killed for standing up for thier faith. They are dead because some kid could not handle life.


It turns out the turd who did the shootings was kicked out of the dorm where he did his first shooting. He was raised in a deeply religous home, by good, God-fearing parents. Yet somehow, he flipped out. This has been a mystery to me: how people flip out when they have good parents and a seemingly good life. I guess the pressure to not fail got to him?


I know the arguments: video games and music videos desensitize them to violence; they have anger issues. But in my mind I think I have a partial answer. I wonder if these kids have ever come to grips with the reality that they are responsible for thier actions, and if they understand the consequences of thier actions?


One of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me, was a dose of reality. My mom would say, "this is what will happend if you choose this action, and this will happen if you choose that action." Then she would tell me which was better and why, and then allow me to make the decision. Like when they told me that if I was caught drinking, I would lose my car for a month. Then when I came home stumbling drunk one night, and lost my car for a month. I remember it well. My junior year of high school: vice-president of the junior class, baseball team, one act play. Boy was I the busy popular kid! So you can imagine my consternation when I had to beg for rides to and from practice. How embarassing! (Yes, I was that shallow)


Then, another time my dad bought me a new camaro. I was in heaven. My dad simply told me, "you wreck it, and its gone." Well, I wrecked it, and it was gone before I got out of bed the next morning. They were just two of many tough love lessons, and I learned them well. It caused me to realize that every action had a result. And that I needed to weigh my actions, to avoid undesired results.


Its a tough thing for a parent to do: to provide the opportunity for a child to fail. And although they were serious issues for me personally, in the grand scheme of things they were really pretty minor. But they conveyed the greater lesson.


Tonight, I say a prayer for the families of the victims of the Colorado shootings. Please say one of your own. Those families will be forever affected because of the selfishness of one boy. The parents of those two sisters who were 16 and 18 will live different lives because thier sweet girls are gone forever from this earth. Comfort will be hard to find for that mom and dad.



It comforting for me to know, that Jesus was also "a man of sorrows." I pray they find thier comfort. Its good to know that they will see their girls in the sweet bye and bye. But its much harder to be comforted here on this earth, when those we have given our lives for are gone. I pray the peace of God comforts thier pain.

T-Shirt Sales by my church

My church is selling T-shirts in order to provide clean water to an African village. View the link to video done by Channel 8 news here:


http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=196791&she=1


If you want to buy one, go here:

http://www.givedifferent.org/