Holy crap, I haven't updated in forever!  I don't even know where to start.  Oh!  I know!  I finally left the stooges! 

For those of you that either don't know the story, or have forgotten since it's been so long since I updated and don't care to sift through my previous posts, here's a quick recap.  I worked for a company that had 2 partners and one of the partners wives as the management team.  Basically they were all idiots, and I called them the 3 stooges, hence my pic that you see.  I only wish they were as cool as the orignal stooges though.  In fact, I am in awe that their business is still functioning.  I'm convinced the peons were what kept that place going, along with the possibilty of some really dumb clients.  Anyway, I have finally escaped!  No more stooges!  Here's how it happened, for those of you that care:

As everyone who read my previous posts knew, I had started back to school to make myself more marketable during my ongoing job search.  The job search was a long and very slow process, because I was being extremely picky.  It's great looking for a new job while already having one, because you can truly be picky and find one that has almost everything you are looking for.  Anyway, I had interviewed with an accountant that had a small local office a couple of years ago.  He turned me down at the time due to me not having anything more than a high school education (despite a ton of payroll experience).  That was the first job I ever went after that I was turned down for, so it left me kinda bummed out.. which is where the starting back to school thing happened. 

Well one day I was sitting at work one Thursday morning and my cell phone rings.  Normally I don't answer numbers I don't recognize, especially at work, but for some reason I happened to answer this call.  To my surprise it was the very accountant that turned me down 2 years prior, wondering if I was still "on the market for an opportunity".  I almost told him that I was straight and and didn't swing that way because of the way he asked, but thought better of it.  He said he had a postions available and wanted to meet me for lunch to discuss it.  Of course I cancelled my previous lunch plans and made up a reason why I'd have to take an extra long lunch and went down to meet the guy.  It was kinda surreal, because he basically asked me what it would take for me to leave my current job and join his staff.  I almost told him that since he bought me lunch, it was good enough, but thankfully I had a mouthful of sandwich at the time that prevented me from blurting that out.  To make a long story short, we left lunch with him going back to run some numbers and make me an official offer after I told him what I would get me to make the switch.  I met up with him after work that same day, he made an offer I couldn't refuse, and I turned in my notice the next moring.. a one week notice.  The stooges needless to say were shocked, and it took everything in me to keep from telling them they were all idiots and that I wished them nothing but pure devestation.  They weren't too thrilled with the one week notice, but considering my new boss wanted me to start the next morning after I accepted the offer, I figured I was being generous.

Fast forward 6 months or so and I'm actually learning how to be an accountant.  A bit out of my comfort zone, but I finally feel challenged and at the end of the day I actually feel like I've accomplished something worthwhile.  It only gets better from there.  At my 3 month evaluation, he asked me what my future plans were, and I told him that in about 4 or 5 years I planned on being in his chair, since he's currently 61 and he's confided in me that he plans on slowly phasing out into retirement.  So bascially he's molding me to take over for him after a few years and I get my CPA certification.  Woo hoo!  I'm currently running his tax office operations, which is a kinda wild experience I'll have to share in a future post, since this one has gotten quite long.

I know I have been very, very, very slack in posting, and I hope that all the friends I made through mindsay are doing well and will allow me to get back in touch with them.  I'm hoping to be a bit more consisitent with my posts since things are finally starting to settle down, but time will tell if I can keep that up.  Anyway, hope all is well with anyone, and feel free to e-mail me if you don't see me post for a while.  It's bthurber14@hotmail.com.  Take care everyone!