wombat_socho

So, a couple of months ago, I posted about my need to focus on stuff I can personally affect. I've been working on that with mixed results, and right now I'm dithering about whether I should disengage from Facebook as the next step, because I feel that the sheer amount of crap showing up in my feed is an ongoing distraction, a time sink that actually keeps me from having actual, solid friendships with people. I've thought about just logging off of Facebook and returning to the days when I printed up the Baja Manitoba Free Press and mailed it out to friends, but like so many other things that I'm contemplating, that's probably going to have to wait until next year unless I want to go really old-school and just do an e-mail blast to people. Other social media are as bad as Facebook - G+ was a platform of very dubious utility even before the current Social Justice Wankery, Twitter is where I go for political interactions, most of the people I know have abandoned LiveJournal because OMG RUSSIANS RUSSIANS RUSSIANS, and Gab has its limits as well.

Speaking of next year, after trying unsuccessfully to find work through the local temp agencies, I've decided to bite the bullet, re-apply for disability, and go back to school with the intent of finishing my accounting degree. It's an open question as to how long this will take: I already have a bachelor's degree (ironically, in Liberal Arts) and the core of an AAS degree. I don't know how much of the coursework from those UNLV will accept as transfer credits, or if I'll qualify for any kind of financial aid. I would think that, considering my taxable income has been right around the filing limit for the last couple of years, I would at least qualify for more loans, but that's what we do the paperwork to find out. Once I have the accounting degree, the odds are better that I can get a real accounting job around here. Maybe even fulfill my long-held dream of working for the secret policeIRS.

I do have to do something fairly soon to get out of the current rut. It's becoming increasingly painful and difficult to do the Uber thing, and I strongly suspect that the wound care nurse is right about it doing bad things to my legs. At the same time, I need to pay the bills, so until Uncle Sam comes through (if he does) I'm going to have to scrape the face and hit the streets six days a week. Sometimes seven. That month I was off work after the accident really put me behind the curve.

Made the drive down to Woodbridge today to turn in my latest SAP appeal, which addresses point-by-point the reasons they refused the last appeal. Didn't see anyone this time, but that was okay.

Carpet contractor didn't show up, but I did get a visit from three Aimco suits who were apparently following up on it. One of them was concerned at all the stuff I have in the apartment and said I was probably violating the fire code. I'm dubious about that, but it probably wouldn't hurt to get rid of the Costco boxes and some of the other stuff that's been sitting around waiting for me to throw it out.
I should probably talk to Carlos about getting some of the bins into storage, for that matter.

Blew through The Apocalypse Codex last night. No afterword in this Laundry novel, but that's okay; it wasn't all that hard to figure out who Persephone Hazard and her sidekick Johnny are. I don't actually get most of the complaints by the reviewers on Amazon, especially the ones who thought Stross' atheism was leaking into the book; it seemed rather obvious to me that the plot revolved around a cult using the trappings of modern evangelical Protestantism to achieve its evil goals, as opposed to Stross having his characters claim that this was true of ALL Christian religions. Well, people will interpret texts as they will, and there's nothing to be done about it. I for one am looking forward to seeing how Bob does as he moves up the ladder.

Also finished this weekend: Singularity Sky and The Lion Game, which is anthologized with a number of other Telzey Amberdon stories in an eponymous Baen Books collection.

Well, last night was just one of those nights. The toilet decided to jam up and flood the bathroom, and since the floor isn't precisely level here, it all drained into the carpet outside the bathroom while I was attacking the problem with a plunger - which I had to run out for; first time in almost five years I'd needed one. So today I filed a request with maintenance to have someone come in with a wet-dry shop vac and extract all the water, but it looks like they're going to replace the carpeting and the pad as well. In the meantime, it smells a wee bit foul in here, though I'm not sure if that's the wet carpet or lymph fluid leaking out of my legs and into me trews.

No call today from the VA about tomorrow's appointment, but no matter; I'll pack a bag and my netbook, trundle on down there and see what happens. Worst case, I'm downtown at the VA for a few hours until the traffic clears up.

Took the gift card from yesterday's focus group down to B&N, picked up copies of Sandy Mitchell's The Emperor's Finest and David Drake's In the Stormy Red Sky , which left me with $7 and change on the card. Didn't see anything else there that I wanted to spend actual money on (even another $2-3) although the omnibus reprint of C.J. Cherryh's The Faded Sun Trilogy was mighty tempting.

The school rejected my second appeal for financial aid, so I guess I'll beat my head on that particular wall again tomorrow. Once more to Woodbridge, with a pocket full of quarters...

Time to get something for dinner.

Went out yesterday to buy a replacement bulb for the bedroom nightstand lamp, which blew out last week. Damn thing cost almost $4 at Home Depot; giving serious thought to just setting up the other floor lamp in there and using a spare power strip as an on/off switch. The bulb costs would be lower, I'm sure, especially if I went with a 75-watt bulb, which would be perfectly adequate.

Bad news is that the zipper on one pair of my compression stockings broke; good news is that I've apparently shed enough weight that I can roll it on and off without needing the zipper. Still, I need to find the card for the agent who does these.

Finished re-reading King David's Spaceship, went through Birth of Fire and The Duke of Uranium after that. Debating whether I want to read the rest of the Jak Jinnaka books after that.

Going to take another stab at getting financial aid this week; guess I'll need to print out my CPA exam results and hand those in as a response to the MOAR DOX OM NOM NOM demand from the financial aid office, since as usual they give no clue as to what they want. Right now my school in-box has a request that I fill out a survey on how the financial aid office has served me, and I'm letting it sit for a few days while I cool off, since the immediate reaction was "Served? SERVED? More like WANGED, you [expletives deleted]!"

Also on the to-do list: poking at the website again, answering more help wanted ads from Craigslist, and doing a little cleanup around here. But first, breakfast, I think.

Yesterday was largely spent mired in fatigue and ennui, but at least I got the letter for the financial aid appeal done and will head over to the Alexandria campus to see counselors and submit the paperwork for what I am sure will only be the first time. I looked briefly at the classes available for this fall but since the loans are on hold didn't bother applying to any since they'd just be auto-rejected anyway.

I also have an appointment with a social media consultant this afternoon at the Alexandria SBDC. I'm sure he'll have a lot to say about the Foxchase Accounting web site and Facebook page. Am halfway thinking of asking him not to give me advice on Twitter since I use it so seldom and rarely for anything not political or fandom-related. More the former than the latter, to be truthful.

Finished Clockwork Angels yesterday. It's an odd little book, much less Randian than I would have thought it would be. Anderson does a very good job of spinning a bildungsroman out of Rush's latest album without making it seem like a disconnected string of songfics, and while some of the characters may be not much more than thick cardboard, at least there is something more to them than a bare description and a few lines of dialogue. This may sound odd, but I think this wouldn't be a bad YA novel; there's a good philosophical argument in there about avoiding extremes and going off to tend to your own affairs, but you're not being beaten over the head with it. I liked it and would recommend it, especially for the younger folks.

Nationals beat the Braves last night in extra innings, extending their lead in the NL East to six games. Too early to start talking about magic numbers, I know.
My fantasy team is clinging to third place; lost to the first-place team last week and am already trailing the second-place team this week.
I've been talked into joining a fantasy football league, but I'm going to let the robot draft for me (after excluding all the Cowboys and Michael Vick) since I don't pay a lot of attention to the NFL.

Went out to the wing joint last night to watch the All-Star Game, and I have to say, it wasn't much of a game. On the other hand, the bar was loud enough that I couldn't hear Jack Buck or Tim McCarver, so that was good. Also, in between the battering of the Junior Circuit pitchers, there was some good baseball being played, and that was also good. Also also, favorite waitress was unexpectedly on duty. :)

I'd been wondering about my favorite grocery chain's offer of free generic diabetes medication, which doesn't appear to have a catch to it. You just go in with your prescription, they hand you a 30-day supply of the meds, and that's it. I'm thinking I should bring this up with Dr. B when I see her in a couple of weeks, since they offer the time-release versions of the drugs I'm on, and besides, it wouldn't add to my slowly accumulating debt to the VA, which consumes a big chunk (some years, all) of my Federal tax refund.

There was a contest at E2 for last chapters of novels, so I threw the last chapter of Blood Red Skies up there to see what people thought. Two of them were very impressed, but I think the formatting problems involved in transferring a Word document to E2's format threw some people off until I could get it fixed. It didn't do nearly as well as this little tale, which was intended to be a joke. Meh. Another reason to practice XP stoicism, as the saying goes.

And everything else is moving forward slowly. I'm supposed to get some suggestions on my business plan from digex tonight, which will be good since the month is almost half over and I badly want to be out trying to find clients. The e-mail I sent to the college's financial aid office bounced, so I guess I'll have to go in and see them in the flesh.

At least the heat wave has broken; yesterday's rain seems to have finally cooled off the heat dome and today the high temperature is in the 80s, low enough to leave the windows open for the first time in a couple of weeks. The power outage excepted, of course.

So I spent a good part of the weekend and Monday stressing over the end-of-semester crunch, but in the end I put the pedal to the metal and managed to get all the backlogged business law stuff done, along with the necessary studying for last night's unit exam in Intermediate Accounting II, following which I came home and started going over the horrible details of pensions, bonds, and leases so that I wouldn't completely screw the pooch this afternoon when I went in for the Financial portion of the CPA exam.

Well, apparently it was the right thing to do, since both exams, last night and this afternoon, seemed ridiculously easy. I had wasted some time yesterday afternoon boning up on the Statement of Cash Flows, which I thought was going to be on the unit test (but wasn't). Even that worked out, because there were a couple of questions on the CPA exam that I was able to slam-dunk thanks to doing that review. Maybe I'm thoroughly delusional, but I have gone from an attitude of grim determination to joyful optimism. We'll see if the rest of the tests are this easy when the results come back from the Board of Accountancy in three or four weeks. .

So tomorrow is the comprehensive final in Intermediate Accounting. This is a change from the schedule; it was originally scheduled for May 2, but that's when I'm doing Regulation, so since the Testing Center is closing early I get to go into the STAB office and take it tomorrow before class. Weehu. The weekend will be spent immersed in Auditing and Business, not so much in Regulation since half the latter is taxes and the other half is business law, and as you recall I've been doing a lot of both this semester on top of the review classes.

I'm picking the really good bits out of A Meeting At Corvallis and Dies The Fire and using Quartered Safe Out Here as a bedtime book.

So here's how things are piling up: Tuesday, I have two chapter reviews and a reaction paper due in the morning law class, and in the evening I have my unit III exam in intermediate accounting.
Wednesday afternoon at 1430, I have the Financial portion of the CPA exam. The following Monday, it's Auditing at 1500, followed by Business Environment on Tuesday at 1730 (simultaneously with my comprehensive final in accounting; going to have to reschedule that) and Regulation on Wednesday at 1100. Thursday is the final in Business Law.

I can do this. Calmness, confidence, optimism...also, a ton of reading, writing, and homework problems between now and then.

There hasn't been much to post about, since I haven't been doing very much exciting or interesting in between the posts previously made this month. I am finally done with the Becker CPA review classes, which means all I have left are flash cards, cheat sheets, homework, and studying from now until April 23 when I take the first half of the CPA exam. This is, of course, assuming that Metro State coughs up the transcript I ordered back in January for the Board of Accountancy, which they appear not to have done yet. Or maybe they did and the Post Awful lost it. Either way, I need to get another copy to the Board so they can clear me to test, after which I'll fork out the money for the exam.

In the meantime I am continuing to plug along at Business Law and Intermediate Accounting II. Passed the second unit test in Law with a 102 (must have scored some serious extra credit there) and the second IAII test is next Tuesday. Studying for this is getting done in between the Becker stuff, and I'm keeping up.

At the tax mines, I'm putting some extra hours on the clock even though I'm not on the schedule, which I kind of have to do since I've had a number of drop-off returns from friends and prior clients. If you haven't gotten your return taken care of, well, you have 24 days left. If you're not in the DC area I can still help you, though it'll be a little more awkward and time-consuming all around. Still on track to make commission, though how much is a good question since my numbers and the two numbers Block shows on the website don't match up. Anyhow, depending on my class schedule in April, I may skip some classes and hang around the tax mines, whether or not the manager schedules me. Or I may not. We'll see.

Didn't do anything for St. Patrick's Day except stay in and avoid the crowds of drunken idiots. Didn't even do the corned beef thing - waited until Monday for that and picked up a three-pound brisket at Harris Teeter, which I baked instead of boiling since I didn't bother to pick up cabbage, onions or carrots to go with and the potatoes of course are Right Out. In other food related news, P sent me a massive 5-pound slab of pepper bacon, which I have been invited to bring up to chez Edminster so that we may properly fry the living daylights out of it. We've tentatively decided to do this the weekend after the CPA exam, since all previous weekends will be spent studying for the exam and/or working on taxes.

Apropos of nothing, have a Katy Perry video (h/t Terminal Lance on FB)

Yeah, my Becker study guides and software finally showed up last night after I'd already left for the F5 class. Going to be spending the rest of this week installing the software, transferring notes to texts, making flash cards, and giving the highlighter a good workout as I try to get caught up on the last three weeks of Financial and Regulatory.

Last week was pretty nightmarish - lots of running back and forth from Alexandria to Woodbridge to Tyson's Corner, not a while lot of sleep, schedule all kittywumpus. Managed to get back into both classes, though. Caught up on most of the sleep over the weekend, and felt okay yesterday, but I think the cheese I had with dinner last night had been in the fridge way too long. Stomach is not happy with me at all. Still, managed to get laundry done and some of the Becker stuff caught up. Going to suck it up and go to Accounting tonight unless I'm actually hurling; after all the effort I made to get back into the class, I damn well better.

Turning in my fourth appeal on the financial aid cutoff this afternoon, supported with a letter from Dr. B at the VA. We'll see if this works; hopefully so, because after this I'm pretty much out of bullets. Both classes are going well; in the case of ACC222, Intermediate Accounting II, I am benefiting from the fact that the subjects being covered in class are also being covered (at more or less the same time) in my Becker Financial classes. Business Law is also going okay; reading the text, turning in the chapter reviews, banging rocks together, etc.

Not much else going on, really.