Coast to Coast...again.

Well, I finish my internship for the summer. It was a wonderful experience, and I feel that I have some good experience under my belt. Many have asked if I could see myself with the company I interned with or working for some other Big Accounting firm. After reflecting I have decided that I could do this kind of work, but not for a long time. I found it interesting to be in different companies and to talk with management in those companies to understand the way their systems worked. It was exciting. That said, I don’t see myself with an accounting firm for more than 5 or 6 years. Why not? I don’t have much of a desire to be a Partner. Accounting firms main business is Auditing, although there is some ‘advisory’ or consulting work too, I’m not interested in the core of what an accounting firm does. 5 years would give me two years of being at the bottom of the chain doing grunt work, understanding all the ins and outs of IT auditing and understanding business processes. Then three years in a position where I could actually start getting experience managing a team, being part of planning, resource allotment, and building relationships with the firm and within the team. The firms are good about keeping their employees qualified with certifications and other education that would also be advantageous for continued career development. It seems to me that at the five year mark people stay because they want to be a partner or keep moving up the chain, something that doesn’t really interest me.

I don’t think audit is my true passion. I have come up with this analogy and it seems to work well for the current time. Auditing to me, perhaps not to others, is like rappelling. It is interesting and fairly engaging. The focus isn’t so much on moving forward as much as it is on sitting back and looking at what is going on around. There is vision and insight of what one would have to climb or has climbed. My passion and what I eventually want to be involved with as a career will be more like climbing. As much fun and as useful as rappelling can be, I personally feel more fulfilled and challenged climbing. I want to be involved in the dirty work and challenge of building something. Having to trouble shoot and come up with solutions. I want a job where at the end I can look up and see I’ve gotten somewhere and feel like I have overcome, accomplished something significant, and fixed a problem or made the world better. Talking with my brother-in-law and visiting Microsoft, I realized that being involved in software development is defiantly one way I feel that; auditing, not as much.

I had strong reviews, and the firm was prepared to offer me job for next September, however, changes in plans and switching schools means I will not be back in Seattle anytime soon, so they could not formally offer me the job. There is still a chance I could work for them wherever we end up, possibly the UK. I do hope to one day end up in Seattle though.

The day after finishing we were in the car on our way back to Park City; we have had such good luck with our car that we should have foreseen trouble on this trip. It started out a couple hours after we started and I got pulled over in Yakima. I was going 73 in a 60 zone, the lame thing is that it was about to turn to 70 L. I learned my lesson. A couple hours later we were about to gain some good elevation up a big hill so we stopped for our first fill up of the day and to switch drivers. As Sharon started the car up and put it into gear the car barely moved, it was like the gear just wouldn’t engage. Pushing on the gas just made the RPMs go way up. Even switching gears didn’t seem to help. With some patients the car eventually got going. We stopped and looked up the closest mechanic which took us back a couple of miles down the highway. By the time we got there it seemed to be working again. He said the clutch might just be slipping or the clutch needed replacing. He also said that if we made it over the big 7 mile hill we would probably be fine the rest of the way. We proceeded much slower and took the hill easily and cruising the rest of the way without any clutch problems. However, as we were rolling past Twin Falls and looking for a place to fill up, we suddenly heard a crazy sound like starching, banging and rattling all at the same time. It came from the back and under the car. We pulled over immediately. Sharon jumped out of the car and started looking around frantically. It sounded like the side of the car had fallen off or something, but she didn’t see anything wrong. We slowly started up again and after a couple of seconds it started again, only worse. We pulled over and again inspected the outside of the car, and below the car, starting to get worried. Again nothing seemed wrong. We started up again and the sound started again almost immediately. Sharon once again hopped out and as I slowly started driving she observed to see if anything fishy was going on with the car. We found it. The treed on our tire was starting to come off. A big flap with wires and all was flopping around and banging the inside of the wheel well. Lucky for us we were about ¾ of mile from the off ramp to the gas station. We pulled in slowly and a nice man with a garage for trucks helped us throw the spare on. He sent us up the road another 30 miles to the Mal-Mart in Burley. They were still open and not too busy so they got us in and out quickly. After that we didn’t have any problems. The next day at the shop it was determined that the clutch was slipping and all it needed was adjusting. We also had the Air Conditioner looked at, but they couldn’t fix it because it is the old rayon kind of coolant, so we are content to keep using the natural ‘windows down’ kind of air conditioner. With everything that happened we feel the lord was really looking after us and are happy most everything is working well now.

The next morning after arriving in Park City I jumped on a plane with as many bags as we could justify paying for (2) and headed to Pittsburgh. It really is amazing how things just seem to happen and work out. As I was on my way to the airport I got a call from Sharon’s sister. She and her husband, who are on their way to Africa for a few weeks to do research, were in Pittsburgh. They picked me up at the airport, took me to dinner with their extended family, dropped me off at our apartment, and took me to the grocery store. I’m so thankful for good family and charitable people. It was so nice to have some familiar faces the first day in a new town and some help. The alternatives I had planned on would have been much messier and hectic.

I have been doing all the fun orientation stuff the last few days. I made a quick calculation and I think that about 50% of my program is from India, about 20% from China, Taiwan, and Japan, maybe 20% from Europe, Africa, and South America, and I think there are only 10% of us from the US. I’ve only officially meet three, but I’ve seen some others that I feel confident are from the US as well. Today was my first day at church; the ward seems like a good one. There are a lot of couples with small children. Sharon, my parents, and McKay should be getting here tonight! Exciting. Good news is there have been no major car problems on this leg of the trip. I think the stereo might have stopped working because of a fuse, and apparently we might have a bad spark plug, but it hasn’t affected anything too much.

Pittsburgh has been great so far. It was stormy the night I got in, but the rest of the time has been sunny and very nice. I thought it was going to be really hot and humid, but so far it’s been fairly cool and I haven’t noticed the humidity. The sun has been out and everything has been beautiful. As I’ve had time to finally sit down and relax and think as well as reflect on the past couple of weeks and especially last three days at school, I am really excited and I feel deep down that this is the right move for Sharon and me. We appreciate everyone’s love and support.
Thanks for everything everyone has done for us the past few months. We love you all. Keep us updated on life.