Down Eighty: Lies and Weight Loss

I stepped on.  The reading two hundred ninety eight pounds.  The next thing I heard "Wow, George I didn't think you were that big.  Nearly 300 pounds."  I can't lie it cut deep.  Out of all the guys that got on the scale at our factory that day I weighed the most.  This was event one that made me realize I was "FAT".

Shortly afterwards I went through the pain of passing gallbladder stones.  When they took an MRI.  My urologist says, "Well you have passed the kidney stones but come in for a chat."  I stop by and he shows me the video and starts in on me.  All I heard was "Here's some fat, there's some fat, every wheres fat fat....."  This guys was about my size on top of it.

The good news is that I had already changed my diet by that point and had dropped ten pounds.  The bad news is that the first thing I did was take my butt up to White Castles after leaving his office.  Fortunately that was the fat man's death row meal. 

I began a regimen of cardio and what I thought were healthier foods to lose the weight.  I easily dropped another five pounds but after that nothing.  I increased my cardio and dropped my calories nothing changed.  I kept telling myself I was building muscle but that was just good old mental masturbation.  The good news is that an event would soon change my life. 

My seventeen year old cousin moved to town.  He lifted weights and asked if I would work out with him.  It was a little weird because I have him by twenty years but I agreed.  Thank goodness.  Lifting weight helped me shed twenty five more pounds and now I was honestly building muscle.  I thought I was looking good and dedicated myself to achieving a six pack.  No, it hasn't shown up yet.   I was still 27% body fat after lifting.

In terms of weight loss I had plateaued again.  I could tell that the image in the mirror was improving so I wasn't overly concerned.  Then the second myth holding me back died.  The myth that fat makes you fat.   Not only only is that not true but carbs are the culprit behind insulin which is the hormones that induces fat storage but it turns out that carbs also made me act a fool, literally. 

A little side bar to explain.  Excuse me.  Through exercise I had calmed my mind enough to discover that I had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  I am all over the place mentally I had never noticed it before working out.  Now it seemed like I could sense the breakdown so I went to a therapist and sure enough he diagnosed the condition.  I can't lie I'd been warned I had the problem throughout my life but like my weight I'd ignored the warnings.  One of the things that helps defeat ADHD are good fats and carbs just flares up that crazy mind.

The next change I made would help solve my issue with ADHD and lead to losing another forty pounds.  This change was to get on a ketogenic diet.  In the next six months I would go on a calorie surplus to repair my metabolism and mental health.  Then I would cut calories again to drop another forty pounds.  So you might be asking, "How many pounds did you put back on when going on a calories surplus?"  The answer, "Zero".  There were days that I ate in excess of five-thousand calories and I didn't gain a single pound to my morning weight.  In fairness a lot of the sustained weight can be contributed to intensified workouts.  I was spending 90 to 120 minutes in the gym 5-6 days a week.  This was probably over doing it because I ran into some recovery issues.

Now for the problem that you might have with my achievements.  I would estimate that ninety percent of people do not have the will power to change in the way I have.  You have got to be able to take the necessary actions and suffer a bit.  The most amount of will come through the dreaded "Keto Flu."  There is not that much suffering if you consume plenty of water, salt, magnesium and potassium.

So the two big lies that modern nutrition tells you are, "Do cardio to burn fat", and "Fat makes you fat".  A third lie is to eat often or fasting is unhealthy. 

Strength burns fat consistently and strength is achieved by weightlifting.  Do you want to prove this to yourself.  Go in the gym and look around.  Where are all the fat and skinny fat people?  Where are a majority of the fit people?  There may be some crossover but I can guarantee you the one or two muscular people on the cardio equipment spend a majority of their time with weights.  Don't look for the exception. 

Next let's address the claim that fat makes you fat.  Fat doesn't cause insulin to release into your system but carbohydrates do.  Guess what hormone signals the body to store fat?  If you said insulin, good job.  When you are burning carbs as energy your body is going to store some of what you have eaten as fat and then send out that hunger signal so you eat more and store more fat.  The cycle is vicious and seemingly inescapable.  Many of us are insulin resistant and store fat when we eat carbs.  It's simple to test the concept just stop eating carbs.  The initial weight loss is water weight but you'll achieve stasis where your weight doesn't budge unless you have a calorie deficit.  In that case weight will be lost. 

Finally a lot of us have been told to eat often to maintain metabolism.  That might be true if you are eating carbs but not when you are a fat burner.  When you burn fat your body doesn't distinguish between calories consumed and stored.  You simply run at your metabolic rate.   When you are not utilizing resources to digest food your body repairs for up to three days.  We are built to go without food.  It is by design.  This follows common sense.  There is a winter and food is not always plentiful.  Especially when it has to be killed.  Before agriculture the animals being eaten fought back so meals were't easy to come by.

Legalize All Recreational Drugs

Legalizing all drugs without a plan of action would be drastic but is legalization with licensing and regulation a drastic idea.  The first misconception I would like to address is that I am pro-use because I am for legalization. It isn't the case.  I have a brother who is a heroin addict and it is heartbreaking.  My views on legalization are derived from a very personal question.  "How could my brother have been prevented from being a heroin addict?"

The first thing I realized is that the fact drug distribution possession and use is illegal, it doesn't prevent people from participating in the market on any level.  It is very easy to become a manufacturer, distributor or user of drugs and it shouldn't be.  So, currently the least qualified people manufacture and distribute drugs putting the end user at high risk.  

I realized that regulation could create a safer market.  Drinking a bottle of booze could be life threatening.  Now alcohol is a safe product and the answer is regulation.   Far enough back buying a hamburger at a restaurant could kill you.  The product we consume are made safer because of regulations on food productions and distribution.  The entire success of McD's is that they came up with a consistent product and could reproduce the model across the county.  It wasn't because of the delicious hamburger, it was that the hamburgers were safe and reliable.  It would be better and more cost effective to make sure drugs are as safe to use as possible.

The next thing is that users should be licensed.  This does two things.  When requiring a license you can impose certain restrictions such as users must prove they are using birth control.  That's the big one for me, in this case I am not opposed to forced responsibility.  Either have kids or don't use drugs for awhile.   Just like there are classes of driver's license, classes can exist depending on the type of drugs being used.  The other benefit is that a license really makes the choice to do drugs a thought through process.  Users wouldn't be pressured to do drugs and then immediately have access to them.  They would have to go to a licensing office apply, provided proof they've met requirements to become a user and so on.  It puts at least a few hours between the choice to use and the use. 

People have free will.  Laws can't stop that but if you provide a path to pursue a choice while not making it easy people will be less likely to pursue the path.  By putting the cost of the choice before the action instead of after, less people will end up using drugs and with regulation more safely.  Limit the action and provide a safer market.  Sounds a lot better to me than imprisonment, overdoses and violent crime.

The Freedom to Use Drugs

There is no doubt that drugs are bad but our freedom should be limited to the end that we do not destroy each other. Our freedom is violated by the fact that drugs our legal.  People who want to use drugs will.  No number of laws will stop those people from using drugs and making what I would consider to be a bad choice.

The greatest issue I have with laws legalizing drugs is that they actually support the criminal element of the market.  Lives are destroyed buy drugs but more lives are destroyed by subjecting consumers to criminal retailers.  Capital markets and legalization are the answer to solving this issue.

The obvious example is prohibition.  I am going to skip the usual arguments and skip to discussing the product.  During prohibition it was not safe to drink alcohol.  Today there is still a tiny market for moonshine but it really isn't a big issue any more.  Most people prefer to get booze in grocery stores where the product is regulated and safe to drink.   There will always be a criminal element in society but most member of society like to know what they are getting and lead a safe life.  I would include drug users in this category.

I am not saying you should be able to just go down to the grocery store and pick up some heroin.  I recognize that these are very bad drugs.  There would be significant problems if people could use hard recreational drugs in the home.  Where drugs are used should be regulated and there should be safety requirements to follow for businesses distributing drugs.  This would make overdosing less likely and keep abusive behavior away from the rest of society.

I would go as far as requiring a license for the usage of drugs but still providing the right of privacy to the license holder.  This way license holder's may be required to meet specific conditions to use drugs.  For instance the issuing office may require the license holder to use birth control or birth control to be in the drug before it is distributed.  Control as a solution to drug abuse is a much better solution to prohibiting use.

Having said this it is important to acknowledge the more regulations between a consumer and he drug the more likely there will be a black market for the drug.  The key is finding the right balance of regulation and freedom.  Absolute restrictions lead to innocent people getting harmed  Where controlled distribution would lead to a safer society and safer products.

Converting From Atheism but to What?

I have been an Atheist my entire life.  I was raised that way.  Later in life my mother went back to religion and for a long time my father pretended to be Catholic.  My father has gone back to being Atheist.  Even though I knew he was never truly Catholic he tried to get me to become Catholic for a long time.  I think it was to impress his second wife, not sure, she didn't even believe he was Catholic.

Like anyone else I question the world around me and I decided that there is a/are god/gods. I did ask for the some signs and I felt I go them.  I wouldn't say anything miraculous happened but to me it was clear.  Now my issue is that I don't have faith and I don't think I should just pick a religion.  Faith isn't a feeling I understand. I am simply not familiar with having faith.  So I am stuck.

Logically, I live in America where the most common religion is Christianity so that is probably the religion I should pursue but it is very important to get this decision correct.  The other issue I have is that my wife is somewhat Buddhist.  She is not a strong believer but her family is more devout.  She also describe her interactions with Christian people as manipulative and fake.  Apparently, she has had a lot of people in the Chinese community approach her with then intent of converting her and when she didn't reciprocate interest they stopped hanging out with her.  To her it was like they were trying to score brownie points with members of their church by using her.

Then you get to Judaism.  This would be appealing to me because it is really where religion began.  Of the three monotheistic religions this was the first.  Then there's Islam.  The appeal is that the book has never changed, which is the reason behind the existence of the religion.  There is undoubtedly influences of man in both the Torah and the Bible.  Than again there are a lot of contradictory information in the Koran but I don't know how much of this information is bias.  I can also admit because of the probable propaganda I have been subjected to I am biased against being Muslim even thought  I know the least about this religion of the free.

Then there are sects of religions such as Scientology and Latter Day Saints that seem like horse crap to me but I think it important that I remain open to these religions as well.  I have very specific issues with these religions but I don't want to be more insulting that I already I have.   To defend myself a bit I think it important that my audience understands my perspective good and bad.  Please, understand that I do my best to be open minded and I appreciate your patience every time you look past an insulting comment I've made.  I believe that find faith will be a battle and may not be overcome by discussing this with other people.  I simply hope discussion will keep me on a spiritual path to finding specific faith.

At the end of the day I am looking for guidance.  I have tried to be as honest as possible and hope to receive your support in the comment section.

Excel: Don't Use Merge and Center

I hate title creators in Excel who use "Merge & Center".  Yeah, I know you can insert columns and rows now but there are still too many issues.  The sad thing is that this is just the lazy man's option.

There is a much better solution to centering your titles.  Simply select the group of cells you would like your title to be and then right click selecting the format cells option.  Click the "Alignment" tab then in the "Horizontal:" drop down box select "Center Across Selection".  If you have a bunch of titles that need to be centered use F4 after you have gone through the process once.  F4 repeats your last action..  You can also use "Paste Special" and select "Formats".

So if you follow these simple step you will no longer annoy me when you design templates and report in Excel.

SQL for Accountants

My objective here is not to teach you how to write SQL queries.  Instead I am going to draw some comparisons between every accountants favorite tool, Excel, and SQL commands.  My hope is that the analogies I make will help improve your understanding of SQL.

So to get started lets look at an Excel workbook as the database and the individual worksheets as files within the database.  For this exercise we will limit worksheets to information sets only or tables.  Think of the objective of SQL in terms of pulling relevant and related information into a new worksheet.

The first command I would like to cover is the From command.  In Excel this would be equivalent to referencing a worksheet in a formula.  It directs your formula to which worksheet you would like to pull information.

The next command is the Select statement.  This is going to reference the header information contained in each the worksheet.   Much like using an index function.

The where command is like using a filter.  You will specifically designate the information in the Select statements fields that you would like to retrieve.  This is your criteria.

Next is the Join statement this is where things get a little complicated.  I like to think of this statement as though it is a vlookup.  The only difference is that this information doesn't have to be to the far left or do you have to reference columns.  (If you are an advanced Excel use Index(range,match(field)) may be a better explanation).  Here what is important is that information matches from both tables and you can reference the information against each other.   Joins define the relationship between the tables (worksheets to use our Excel terminology).  Note that you would join using the field names.

Let's cover the OrderBy command next to take a break.  This is the same as using Sort.

Now let's cover the GroupBy command.  This is like using PivotTables.  The main thing to remember here is that this is going to summarize the data by the fields you chose to group.  Now the trick is that every field in the Select statement needs to be included in the group by statement unless it is a calculation or aggregate of the other data.

For now I am going to leave this post as is, I may add and revise some information later.  My head hurts.

Political Flexibility

For a long time we have wanted our political leaders to be rigid by viewing everything from a black and white perspective.  Barack Obama, George Bush and all the presidents during my life time have been rigid in their views.  To demonstrate let's look at the current gay marriage debate.

I am going to move past the gay by nature verse choice debate.  Even if being gay is a choice people should have the freedom to make that choice.  That type of thinking is stupid and a waste of time.

Some people discuss allowing civil unions and others don't want it allow gay marriage at all.  The counterpoint is that neither of these represent equality.  Allowing one group of people to get married and not another is clearly unequal.  Allowing one group civil unions and the other to be married is consider seperate but equal and is viewed as an unacceptable by advocates of gay marriage.  Clearly, the big issue is religion.  In this country religious freedom is very important and most religions are clear that homosexual relationships are sinful.  That is just the way it is and religious freedom is much more important in my opinion than sexual freedom.

Does this mean that both can't exist.  I personally would prefer a world where gay unions are allowed by the government.  Not allowing gay marriage is oppressive.  However, I don't think it right to force institutions to marry a couple they believe to be in a sinful relationship.  The simple solution is for the government to focus on civil unions and allow religious institutions to determine whether they will unite a couple in marriage.  This way one group is not oppressed for the sake of another.

The solution is simple once politics are placed aside and mediation between two competing interests are considered.  A win win solution presents itself in this scenario.  To close off remember that other do not have to accept your lifestyle and that is okay.  That closing comment is intended both ways.

Content and Compensation: Forums Driving Valuable Content

The internet definitely has a value system.  For now I am turning my attention towards forums. 
Contributors to forums used to be able to earn income by making valuable contributions to the forums and adding links to product and blogs.  A lot of contributors began making valueless posts to spam their links all over the place. Many forums turned to a system where they tried to manage cotnributors by developing systems to allowing benefits such as links.  This hasn't worked out really well either.  The recent trend is to not compensate for content.  I personally don't see this working out very well.  There will be a few knowledgeable idiots who will offer up services but this going to lead to many forums becoming very one note. 

It is definitely appropriate to compensate contributors and it is the right thing to do.  Expecting free content for subscribers is not a good way to get the content your subscribers are going to want to read.  The question is how to best get quality content?  The conundrum is that paying people for content attracts opporunists but not paying them doesn't attract content.  Another challenge is that subscribers don't normally don't pay a subscription fee and are often anonymous. 

Often forums treat contributors and subscribers equally but they really do not play the same role on a forum.  Managing the different relationships is something forums can do to improve the content being posted.  This relationship should be distinguisahble to all participants of the blog.  Most subscribers do not participate by posting.  Often the answer to a question has been previously provided if the forum has been able to build content.  The great thing about subscribers is that they want instant gratification.  They don't ask a question if they can get right to the answer right away.

By recognizing this we realize that the job of managing the forum is greatly reduced.  By placing the focus on managing content authors the task becomes plausible.  Content authors should be compensated through sharing ad revenues.  When implementing revenue sharing system tracking becomes very important.when sharing ad revenue with content authors.  Revnue from all advertising must be associated with the author that has attracted the traffic through posting responses to subscriber questions.  This way subscriber get value because their issues have been resolved.  Authors the content providers are compensated for providing valuable information.   Forum developers are compensated by providing the property and are best enabled to manage content.

All issues haven't been discussed so leave a comment to expand on the topic.

Excel GETPIVOTDATA Formula verse SUMIFS Formula

Alright, I am going to expose my immediate bias.  I definitely prefer the GETPIVOTDATA function to the SUMIFS function.

I will discuss the benefits of each formula briefly.  I think that the main benefit of the SUMIFS function is that they are easier to understand and little easier to right.  They are also less likely to return an error result.  For this reason the GETPIVOTDATA function should be nested in an IF function and an ISERROR function.

Example: IF(ISERROR(GETPIVOTDATA(X,X,X,X)),0,ISERROR(GETPIVOTDATA(X,X,X,X))

This basically returns a zero if the GETPIVOTDATA function result is an error or the result if it is not.

This makes writing these formulas a little more difficult.

Now for the reasons I prefer the GETPIVOTDATA function.  The most appealing reason is that it is easier to control the frequency of calculations when working with large tables in a worksheet.  The PivotTable needs to be refreshed before these formulas preced with calculations.  So if you have to modify data  or import new data frequently these don't bog the worksheet down with endless calculation  updates.  You control when the PivotTable is refreshed.  Working from PivotTable's also makes data easier to extract and analyze.  If you spot an issue in a group of data that is being pulled you can simply refer to the PivotTable and double click the number to pull the portion of the table making up your result.

Another advantage is that the GETPIVOTDATA are easier to test and use in templates.  When modifying templates it looks to the PivotTable not to the huge data set.  This makes it easier for these funtions to cacluclate a result.  Now for the secret you don't usually have to do a lot of work to write these  formulas .  Use = then click on a cell from the PivotTable.  Then make it dynamic by changing where the criteria being pulled is a cell referencce.

I think I have made my case.  If I think of any other benefits or contasts I will update this post.

Automating Accounting Process

With increasing need to expedite the delivery of the financial package to upper management accounting managers are becoming increasingly challenged. Delivering accurate accruals in a timely manner can be very challenging. From rebates and commissions to employee benefits and inter-company consolidations automation is the best alternative rather than manpower.

To automate a process look at the rules involved in determining the calculation. Then look at the sources of the data. The number of systems used to provide information. Then look at extracting the information into one data source. I still find that Excel is an excellent way to automate tasks. Too often managers look to have an expensive third party to provide information related to automating a process. Ask yourself what steps they might use to make a calculation. For instance populating daily foreign exchange rates into your system. Doesn't yahoo.com offer this information for free. Isn't using your IT department to setup a quick import from this data source an excellent solution. It's free and shouldn't take internal staff more than two hours.

Something I have automated and incorporated into close are commissions. The accounting department needed the commission calculation for the commission accrual and the sales managers needed the information to pay third party sales agents. In our company the commission calculation is a part of the accounting departments responsibilities (I know you probably thinking the sales department should have this responsibility I'll answer controls). Unfortunately our ERP system in not able to support our commissions process due to a complex system of rules. I incorporated a data download and a pivot table to feed the information automatically into a worksheet containing the rules. Sometimes from multiple pivot tables. The way this is done is buy using "getpivottable" formulas with "if(iserror" functions. The "if(ieserror" is important because if a company or product class did not receive sales then an error is returned by the formula, and I would prefer a zero. (Contact me for an example.) Well it is important to test the automation and adapt it in case information being imported is changed. To do this compare the totals provided by the pivot table and incorporate the report into the task which might be a conglomeration of used and unused information. I setup my cack report to provide a balanced number. Doing this will make it easy to pin point out of place, missing and conflicting information. Finally, I track information using a running table and another pivot table providing month over month and year over year information. This is useful when manaagers are reviewing the information and is really an added bonus. I do this by copying the formulas renaming a month range then copying and pasting the previous month information as values. This used to be a two to three day process and it took four days to automate. Now the download takes 1 minute, refreshing the pivot tables takes 30 seconds, reviewing the check sheets and PivotTables takes 2 minutes and ironing out the rare error takes 3 minutes. The commission process once took from 16 - 24 hours and was highly susceptible to errors and quarterly exceptions added more time every three months and took the manpower of three people. Now the quarterly exceptions are incorporated into the monthly reports, there are far less errors and the whole thing takes less than five minutes.

Another extremely cumbersome task was the inter-company eliminations. I developed a process that only excludes the inter-company profit elimination on inventory. Our company had multiple level of eliminations. The process to eliminate all accounts took three people three days to complete and incorporating new accounts and companies often took months to complete. The eliminations were not accurate and were the most time consuming part of close. Due to restrictions with the ERP sysetm and the fact we had eight reporting levels I looked to define accounts with tags and account numbers that could be picked up using internal reports that eventually automated entries. This project almost got me fired but I completed it just before a hard cut throat deadline. Once, the process was completed it took the inter-company profit from 144 man hours to five minutes. It literally takes ten minutes to complete and thirty minutes to check. The point is that I looked to the systems internal reports and methods by which I could distinguish the accounts from each other to define the accounts and direct the reports to the appropriate selections at the appropriate levels. All together the automation took me approximately 200 hours to complete plus 100 hours of overtime I didn't get compensated for but helped me keep my job.

Starting P90X Exercise Regiment Review

I have been following the Fit for Life diet plan, and it seems that my weight loss has stalled. I am really disappointed but I am going to implement an exercise program called P90X to get my body where I want it to be. I am thinking about posting a Day 1 picture and updating it every thrity days. I am thinking that posting pictures on the web may be a bit to embarassing for me.

I am really excited. Some equipment is required and I didn't get the chin-up, pull-up and sit-up bar that is absolutely necessary. I have ordered it and will be waiting for it to show up in the mail. The anticipation is killing me. The bad news is that the program requests the user to follow a diet program, but I am still going to stick with Fit for Life.

The protein thing is going to be hard but since I am a vegeterian I am hoping that eating quinoa will work. Well I hope to keep you updated on how P90X is working out for me. I have two relative that use it and they swear by the program. One has only 9% body fat. I don't want to get that trim but that is still impressive.

Well I guess it should explaing the priciple behind P90X. For those of you who are familiar with muscle confusion read no further. Basically, the idea is to keep varying your exercises in a way that doesn't allow you to adapt to an exerise regiment. Where muscles do things in the most efficient manner possible, which minimizes the effectiveness of one's workout.

I have included a few links if you are interested in the program.

Made in the USA: Translation Insurance Policy

Today companies are shipping whole manufacturing operations off to foreign countries. It does matter where really as long as they find the lowest cost center available. Then you have to ask yourself is this really in their best interest? The truth is that it is a good idea but that is not the whole truth.

There are a plethora of reasons to keep some manufacturing at home. I identify this concept as "Manufacturer's Insurance", and keep in mind that this insurance doesn't apply to the United States alone. This applies to corporations in countries such as France, Germany and Japan.

When businesses outsource complete product lines and sometimes their complete manufacturing facilities they lose several things. The two that matter most our control and knowledge.

The political process of other countries is often unpredictable. You never know what they will do and how that will affect business. The host country advantage is that at least your government should have the businesses benefits in mind. Currently, China is rapidly becoming a manufacturing giant. I would argue that with the capitalist drive of their economy and the communist control of their government si bound to clash. It is inevitable and guess who has the guns. Who is to say that companies shouldn't get while the getting is good though.

Every manufacturer knows that production can be haulted for many reasons even at home. The advantage is that when these occur at home upper level management can immediately implement solutions. When they occur overseas it could be months before upper level management can address the problem. The home turf advantage is pivatal to some extent in every business.

The other issue is that knowledge is lost and this is why I maintain that the most complicated processes should be kept at home. This way your company has people that understand the most integral lines, and can train backwards to get up to speed if manufacturing is lost in other countries.

The idea behind my thoughts is that keeping some manufacturing at home allows companies to quickly fall back and bring home lines. There are also the patriotic reasons. It has been proven that our job market and economy can adapt to blows time an time again. The home economy does however purchase many of the products that have been outsourced and this is not a perpetual blow the economy can take at some point it will break.

It has also been shown that when America's economy suffers so does the world economy. America and Europe aer the pins between failing globally and succeeding globally. For this reason it is important that the host economies be evaluated before shipping jobs off. I guarantee that a company can produce a million parts for one-tenth the price and still lose money if no one at home can buy the good.

Self Dependent Problem Solving

Every once in awhile I am faced with a complex problem that seems to overwhelming to address. I am often able to find the solution by employing a few strategies each stemming from the other. The first strategy involves breaking the problem down into smaller more manageable components. I do this by asking simple questions related to the problem. This breaks the problem apart and allow correlations to be made.  It also provides the foundation to maneuver through the more complex components.

Even though the foundation is being set during this part of the process it is almost inevitable that you will find a point where you become stuck. When I get to this point I simply do an Uber-Breakdown of the issue I am trying to tackle, it is important to keep the mind moving. I look at the basics of my knowledge and answer the most basic of question I can come up with. Often this not only jogs my mind but it brings to light some of the more complex issues that I have not developed fully. This has even lead me directly to the solution. A quick note if you have writer's block this exercise will get your mind rolling enough to get you out of the snow.

Once, I have addressed and solved all of the different components I've laid I can find myself in a very discouraging point. No solution. From my experience this is a result of one of two situations. Like always I will address the lesser of the two evils first. Basically, you have a bunch of solutions that you are pretty certain play into the larger solution but it is proving difficult to put them together. Basically, you are sitting in front of a jigsaw puzzle. It is best to approach this by putting the pieces that most naturally fit together first. In an actual puzzle these pieces would be the edges. Then you simply build toward the middle. During this process I often find that I was having problems because a few pieces of the puzzle had fallen to the floor and I simply needed to pick them up to put my solution together. By placing the components together without fully addressing the solution you will allow yourself the ability to find the issues that were in the problem that you had forgotten to address or did not realize were a part of the problem. Once, this process is started it won't be long until you have arrived at the solution unless the second scenario is occurring.

On to the second and potentially more frustrating but also more rewarding stumbling block of the problem solving process. Finding that you lack the knowledge to come upon the solution. This is like being able to see your destination across a canyon and not quite having enough material to build the bridge to get to where you are going.

However, you are in a unique position because you have pre-assembled several of the pieces to build the bridge. Now simply assemble the pieces in a similar fashion to how you would have built the puzzle. Eventually, you will find yourself at the edge of the bridge without any more material to approach the gap before you and your solution. The dilemma here is that you may have to discover new materials that will allow you to extend your bridge.  In other words it is time to learn. You do have to determine whether someone else can help provide guidance or if you simply can learn more on your own to get you to where you are going.

If you find that no one can help or your simply stubborn and want to forge forward this next strategy is for you. You now stand at the edge of not a bridge but of discovery. It is important to understand that to extend the bridge towards your goal you must discover new knowledge that you have not been taught. You have to think creatively to come up with theories and test them. At first make sure you use solid concepts and do not venture to far from your knowledge base. It can be discouraging to find that you have done a lot of work only to build a tangent that leads no where and collapses. As you get closer and closer to reaching your goal explore more and more radical concepts that will allow you to achieve your desired solution.  Try to do the minimum amount of work before presenting a new test.

The basic principle of each strategy is to build to the complex through simplicity.

Flat Earth Veggie Crisps Review

I noticed they were using Google to advertise on one of my favorite sites, this one, and decided to give it a little review since I have eaten them. As a matter of fact, I have a bag in my kitchen right now. Flat Earth Veggie Crisps are pretty good and they are definitely healthier than potato chips, but still watch out they are not a totally healthy alternative. Just eat a serving of these chips a day. You will be much better off.

Now, Frito-Lays are really the producer of this brand. This could have both a negative and positive impact on letting people make healthy choices. It is well known that many companies use deceptive practices to lure people into buying their product buy appearing to be a healthy choice. How many fat people do you know that eat mainly fat free products and in addition don't appear to eat all that much. There are plenty of heavy set women at my work that only eat a Lean Cuisine for lunch.

The point is that Frito Lay can either take this brand and build on making it healthier or use it to decieve more people. I think that we will see Frito target healthier alternatives. They have found that this has been profitable. They have released many baked chip products and Pepsi has also strengthened their hold in healthy drink options as soda dwindles as the drink of choice for most consumers.

In any event Flat Earth Veggie Crisps are still a better alternative than potato chips and thy have a unique flavor. I personally do not eat them, because they violate the food combining principles. Try to make small steps towards better health by switching to products like these, while you do the research to inform yourself on the changes that you truly need to make. The answer you'll find is to have a diet that consists of primarily whole foods. You can still have snacks like Veggie Crisps just don't depend on them to help you have good health. If you want get a free bag from Flat Earth.

Chart of Accounts an Organization Structure

By Sean Anderson

The chart of accounts should have a simple and logical organizational structure. More so than that last sentence. I personally prefer to use five digit numbers for primary accounts and 3 digit numbers for sub accounts.

There are many concerns to address when coming up with a chart of accounts. Short and long terms considerations have to be taken into perspective. Many accountants would disagree with me whole-heartedly but this is the one time in accounting that you should avoid being conservative. I like to create a chart of accounts that can weather the storm of business to come. Dream about where you want your business to be, take into scope international possibilities and make your accounting structure flexible so you can quickly adapt to business events.

When developing a chart of accounts consider the business type, industry, business function, standard industry practices, the needs of managers, the possibility of inter-company transactions and the flexibility of your structure.

The number structure should look something like the following
00000 - Short-term assets
10000 - Long-term assets/Intangible Assets
19000 - Depreciation and Amortization
20000 - Current Liabilities
30000 - Liabilities
(I like to have short-term notes and long terms notes correspond to a similar the digit extension 25860 - Short Term Note Payable 35860 - Long Term Note Payable and even the A/R and A/P are on different sides of the accounting equation I line them up as well. It is a part of a better logical structure and assist in memorization of accounts).
40000 - Equity
50000 - Income
60000 - Operating Expenses
70000 - Administrative Expenses
80000 - Taxes/Interest/Extroadinary Income(Expense)

If you really want to spend time developing a chart of accounts you can try to best align closely related income and expenses. Keeping in mind that if payroll expense for plant workers is 60100 that 70100 should be salary expense for sales and administrative employees.

Now to specifically address some of the considerations above. Will start with business type. This is important for obvious reasons. Business revolving around service are obviously going to differ from those revolving around products and retail. For example a manufacturing has to keep track of inventory traveling from cost center as it develops from raw materials and purchased parts to WIP (works in process) to a Finished Good. While a retailer may only need to keep track of inventory and a service potentially may not even need an inventory account.

The industry from within a company operates is also important to consider. This is predominantly due to GAAP you want to be sure to setup a chart of account that will allow the business to remain conducive to the industries standard accounting practices.

Other concerns include the needs of managers. For instance managers typically like a smooth trend of expenses. I personally, don't think this is highly important but you may have the need to setup up several accruals that operate from a budgeted number or you may want to setup a permanent accrual to eliminate the need to perform that operation monthly. It is really only necessary to true this account up at the end of the year if payment amounts are based on an estimate.

Inter-company transactions are also highly important especially when dealing with foreign businesses. The foreign factor involves minimizing tax liabilities while still managing cash. After all you don't want to get all your cash tied up in one country. This is all done through transfer pricing, which I am not yet qualified to address.

Finally, leave yourself some breathing room. Make sure you are always able to add necessary accounts in a logical manner. Business evolves you chart of accounts should evolve with the business. Well this should help with the development of your chart of accounts.


Check out the Discover card for personal and business use.

The Myth of Human Resources

By Sean Anderson

I went to business school and became an account. Many of my friends wanted to go into human resources. They took a bunch of hippy idealistic business classes and some where along the line we've lost touch. The myth really started before college though. Even back then I would hear people say I want to go into human resources to help people.

Well that is not the goal of this department. They do tend to treat each other well, and take part in a lot of perks that nobody else in the company receives. They also keep on hand one sacrificial lamb called a recruiter just in case cuts become necessary.  However, that does not qualify as helping others, as a matter of fact that is helping ones self. At my company human resources gets upset if we walk through their department or use their copier. It has a big sign on it that says for HR only.  At the same time they don't have any problem drinking the coffee my department makes and grabbing food we bring.  It has been like this at several companies I've worked.  The big old double standard.

The reason that the human resource department acts like a bunch of whining brats is that they had some false premise about their jobs. They then use that as excuse to do what they want and everyone else hates usually hates them.  The point is a path of good intention doesn't lead to goo because companies have a much different need.

Human resources is a tough job. The decisions made by this department heavily influence peoples lively hoods. What insurance they receive, whether or not they keep their jobs and what programs might need to be cut to reduce costs. The job of the Human Resource department has little to do with planning the company picnic.

It also, has to deal with helping people when they don't want the help. Half the safety policies are really good but people always find a reason that they hinder their job and shouldn't be followed. Really it doesn't make sense, but if your in Human Resources your still going to be hated. Why do people resist changes that make them safer, who knows.

Even the job of a recruiter stinks. You have so many people seeking the same job and often times you'll hear situations that will make you want to hire someone unqualified for a job out of empathy. So, you just avoid those peoples' phone calls or tell them no. The other part of the time managers are raining down on you because it is really hard to find qualified employees.

Next time you think about seeking a job in HR think about the need to decide whether or not the companies survival is more important than the jobs of 500 employees and their families. If your lucky the solution will be cutting out their health insurance. Don't fall for the HR myth decide to get educated in a field where you'll make more money and be appreciated. Once you make your money help people all you want just don't dilute your professional ambitions with these notions.

Tax Professionals vs Tax Software

Well this isn't a major dilemma. Why would you choose to use a tax professional over tax software. Honestly, I can't see a reason that you should. You may even want to just do your taxes yourself. The directions are relatively straightforward, that is if you have the attention span to stick with them.

I personally do not do my own taxes and I am an account. I take my taxes to my aunt who uses TurboTax, and she does them for me. I pay her $30 bucks and I am on my way. I just hate doing taxes. I took two tax classes in college in they were the two most painfully excruciating classes I had to endure. As an accountant I have been ruined when it comes to those classes. It is like being asked to pet the dog who just bit me. Really, the only time you should consider a tax professional is if you earn quite a bit of money, and you have quite a few perks that come with your job. Yes those can be taxable.

For instance, if you are on the Runzheimer plan at your company. Typically, you would be a sales guy. Then if you don't drive a certain amount of miles per year you may have to claim a portion of the cost as taxable income. If you drive over a certain amount of miles namely 30,000 you have a tax asset had the end of the year. In laymen terms you get a deduction.

If you are like most people, and have basic circumstances stay at home purchase the software and just answer the basic questions you are asked. Make sure to answer them honestly, don't think of ways to answer questions that are advantageous. Tax software is also being created to handle more and more complex problems. It is amazing that they are still able to achieve the better results than many of the tax preparers out there. Remember many of the people at H&R Block are making $7.00 an hour. They are just running numbers through a program.

At the end of the day tax software is being used either way. You can run it for your business or do your individual return. Again, unless you have a complicated corporate structure or partnership you don't need a professional. If you are filing a personal return you should be good, possibly even if you are on the Runzheimer. I've never had to deal with this type of situation. Hopefully, throughout my career I can stay away from taxes as much as possible.

These are two tax software options I recommend:



Hit up each site review the features and figure out which software you prefer. Both software really lay out the information in a user friendly way. Besides you do you taxes in your underwear and don't take the shit from some hourly so called tax professional. If you don't need a CPA you can take care of your taxes using these options. In college I used TurboTax to file a return for a corporation including AMT and for a two different types of partnerships. I got an 80% on the partnership returns and a 97% on the corporate return. I kind of did the return for the partnership the day I had class. Fortunately, it was a night class.

Diet Without the Cost

By Sean Anderson

I have lost thirty-five pounds in a little over a month. It wasn't easy, but I changed my eating habits. I am a young male who at a recent health screening was told that I was abnormally unhealthy for my age. I was 6'3" and weighed 245 lbs. I didn't think that was that bad, I wanted to lose some weight but most friends told me I shouldn't worry. Then came the dread day of the health screening. I was told I had really high cholesterol, and I was prompted to change my lifestyle.

I began by reading Harvey Diamond's book Fit For Life (new it cost less than $10), which I got from some of my super fit friends. Well I also decided, after some research on the Internet, that cholesterol comes from animals and decided I wouldn't eat them anymore. I basically, became a vegetarian with the exception of fish. I have already successfully lowered my cholesterol and I am 20 pounds away from achieving my goal of 185 pounds. Well I have been successful, so you should ask yourself, "Well what did he do?"

I am going to answer that for free. I basically, followed the Fit for Life principles. The way in which we eat foods is very important. Foods should be eaten raw as often as possible and they should be combined with other non-conflicting foods.

The idea behind eating food raw is that any man induced change is considered processing. This alters they make up of food, and it becomes less usable to the body. The body in turn spends time coping with things that shouldn't be in you and begins to store fat to handle the extra work load. For instance, once vegetables are cooked above 120 degrees enzymes become misshapen and the body can no longer combine with them. Enzymes are like puzzle pieces so if they are not the right fit they can't be used. This doesn't mean don't eat bread and other foods you might enjoy like pizza just limit your consumption of these types of foods.  My Aunt follows the diet during the week and does what she wants during the weekend.  Oddly she finds that she splurges less and less on the weekend.

Another, little tidbit related to eating raw can come through reasoning. The world is over 70% water, your body is made up of over 70% water so wouldn't it go to reason that your meals should consist of high water content foods like fruits and vegetables. For instance, if you decide to eat a 6 ounce steak wouldn't it be wise to eat that with a large salad.

The next major principle is food combining. This principle is a result of they way your body digests food, the amount of time it takes to digest food, and the natural daily cycle of the body.

The digestion of food is important because this gives us a guide of what foods don't belong in the stomach at the same time. This one is really easy don't mix starches (aka carbohydrates) with proteins. Simply, because starches need alkaline in order for digestion and proteins are digested when the stomach emits acid. If the two are mixed they neutralize each other and it delays the digestion process. Basically, causing the body to be inefficient and inefficiency results in fat storage. Plant products become starches when they are cooked. So, don't eat a hamburger patty in the same sitting as a hamburger bun.

Things get a little bit more complicated here. I will start with the time breakdown of all meals. Fruit is in the stomach thirty minutes, vegetables an hour, starches three hours, proteins four hours and improperly combined meals are in your stomach eight hours. The problem is that when certain foods are in your stomach too long they spoil and create a toxic environment for your body, which results in fat.

To keep this simple don't eat fruit within the time frame that foods are still in your stomach. Fruit is the most likely to spoil and create problems. So don't eat fruit for an hour after vegetables or eight hours if you've combined a meal improperly. Eat fruit by itself. Vegetables and neutral foods that are naturally starches and proteins (examples are beans and soy) can be eaten with either are starch or protein meal.

This principle is not entirely set in stone tomatoes and avocados are two fruits that can be eaten with starches and vegetables. Bananas should be eaten separately from all other fruits, but failure to do so isn't that damaging. It is one of the key principles.

Now we turn to the natural cycle of the body. The body rotates three digestion functions that adjust to your sleeping habits. They are digestion, absorption and expulsion. For a normal person digestion begins at about noon, then absorption after eight at night and expulsion after you wake up to noon. If your not awake during the expulsion process have fun cleaning your sheets. This means in the morning you should only eat fruit, and at night you should end up eating your heavy meals containing starch or protein. For lunch have a salad.

You'll notice that you'll be hungry if you eat according to this pattern. Simply, keep fruit and vegetables around and do a lot of snacking.

In addition, to these principles I avoid high fructose corn syrup, mono sodium glutamate and vinegar (Fit For Life idea) at all costs. I also, drink as much water as possible. I probably, average close to 100 ounces of water a day. Harvey Diamond suggests distilled water, but I am personally not incredibly picky.

I suggest buying the book, using will power and adopting a mentor. At the time I watched Ultimate Fighter and chose Mac Danzig a Vegan as inspiration. He ended up beating a cattle or dairy farmer to take first place in the show. I might be a Vegan one day, I have serious concern for what would happen to animals without an economic use. If you can't succeed doing this give up and be happy with who you are. I do guarantee the result and increase in energy will make you a happier person, but don't let a weight problem make you depressed. Always focus on happiness.


Do a search for Fit For Life to buy the book now.

Finding Success in Business

By Sean Anderson

A lot of people give advice about how to run a successful business. I tend to think of business from an accounting perspective. You need to have controls and know something about the financial picture of the company. Then again, there are a lot of morons out there that just seem to be lucky. They don't have any controls in place and(or) know anything about accounting.

A lot of people say that if you love what you are doing you will be a successful business owner. This is where we start to get on track a little. If you explore this further you'll find that there are a lot of people who are successful business owner that absolutely hate what they are doing.

The key is balanced obsession. Sometimes people aren't even obsessed about the business they are running. We've all heard of the crazy CEO who likes to base jump among other things. In the end of the day they run a successful business because that is what supports their obsession.

Obsession can bring out many traits key to business. For instance, organization. Organization is the foundation of some accounting and legal firms. Businesses seek out these entities due to their ability to keep track of every detail. At the same time that is their business. If manufacturing companies were to do this inefficiency occurs, and the business would eventually succumb to costs.

This is why balance becomes important. Balance is created by the management of obsession. Obsessing about lowering costs or anything else for that matter becomes a problem when it interferes with other parts of the business. Having balanced obsession is essential. You yourself should be obsessing about the essential elements to the business as they become relevant. If you lack the skills or drive needed assign someone else to the problem.



For instance, the morons I spoke of earlier typically have a well equipped accountants. They are obsessive about their clients and accounting. As long as you, an employee or an agency is obsessing about issues vital to your business you will be successful 50% of the time. Hey, if I could give some advice that ensured success I would be charging for this information.

Getting to the Interview

By Sean Anderson

I am an accountant. What can we gather from this statement. Well I am not uniquely creative, expressive or artistic. Even my writing style you can tell that I am bland. My job is to put numbers on a page to convey a meaning. I don't spend time formatting reports beyond standards set forth by accounting.  Other accountants understand this but you first have to get your resume in front of managers and executives. The first step to getting an interview is your resume and the means getting past the human resources hacks.

I loathe the HR department they're just a pack of freaking hippies. In many companies the resume hits their desk first and then they relay it to the accounting managers if they believe it has potential. They naturally don't analyze the resume the same way my pals in accounting would so your resume has to appeal to different types of people.  When deciding how to prepare your resume analyze yourself.  Should you be the one writing, is someone else better able to sell you?  These are question you should be asking.

I figured this out, and had friends from school help me with my resume out of college. In later job searches I turned to professional resume writers. I've done this because my sole goal is to minimize the remaining amount of time at my current job. I have had jobs were I have just wanted out, and if find yourself without a job you really need to take advantage of opportunities.

There are some people who have skills to write great resumes, others don't have those skills. When getting an interview focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses. This is the best way to maximize your potential. You are your own business and you are the goods being sold.

My personal strength is managing where I've applied and contacting companies. I put excel spreadsheets together that tell me where I've applied and when I should follow up. When to send thank you letters and takeaways from interviews I have had.


Everything works together when searching for a job but the core of your job search is your resume. If writing and designing a resume isn't your strength outsource the process. There are plenty of places, and it isn't inexpensive in relation to the amount of time spent sending out a poor resume that doesn't attract responses.