So after 2 years, 8 months of pure grind, I accepted a new job offer and am leaving KPMG. Words can’t express the joy my wife feels, but I can certainly express some “greatest hits” if you will, in no particular order. Warning-this will take a while:
Copies- After returning from my new hire training and filling in for a few days on a job, my first “real” job was to be shipped up to Seattle for two weeks. My first day? I was lead to a 3 foot stack of paper and told to make copies of all of it. “Think of it as a rite of passage” my senior said. I had to unstaple, copy, re-staple the originals, collate and staple and punch the copies, and do it again. . . for 10 hours. My legs were killing me from standing all day long at the copy machine (I can’t think of a time before or since that I’ve stood in one place for so long). I was thinking all day long “I can’t believe I went to school for five years to do THIS!” True, in a way of sorts it was a good rite of passage, but it still sucked.
Woo’s Teriyaki- So my first year up in Washington I keep ordering the hot at my favorite Mongolian restaurant, Three Flames. So my manager Dan Rinehart tells me about the famous Woo’s Teriyaki, a small Chinese restaurant in Richland famous for it’s hot food. I tell him I’m up to the heat so we should go try it. We go to dinner one night, the waitress comes over to take our order.
“I want the teriyaki chicken, hot.” I say. She pauses, looks me up and down, and responds, “Have you had our hot?” Me-“No, why? Is it really that hot?” Her-“Where else have you eaten around here?” I respond the Mongolian restaurant up the street and I handle the hot there just fine. Her response: “See my friend the waitress over there? When she goes to the Mongolian she gets seven scoops of the hot. She can only handle the medium here.”
I sit back and try to take in what she has just told me; clearly a warning for any novice spicy-food eater. “I’ll take the hot”.
As soon as the chicken touched my lips I knew it was a bad call. Easily, and I mean by a wide margin, the hottest food I have ever had in my life (or will ever have for that matter). I put down about ½ of my order but couldn’t actually eat the entire thing. The waitress offered to take it to the back and rinse the chicken in some water to dull the heat. Clearly defeated, I denied the offer and just left the remaining chicken to waste and paid my bill. That was the first and last time I ate at Woo’s.
Speeding Ticket- I drove up to Washington once in a while during my summers of traveling every week. Being a 10 hour or so drive, you would assume you would want to make as good as time as possible. So one time I leave home around 3, get up to Brigham City/Tremonton area and hit a massive, unexpected storm that closes down the freeway for over an hour. So I’m sitting there parked on the freeway fuming mad at how much time I’m losing. So what do I do? Of course I try to “make up” time by speeding furiously the rest of the way up; well, furiously the rest of the way until I pass a black police car in the dead of night in Oregon. I had basically passed right in front of him before I saw him, and I immediately pulled over to the right lane and prepared to be pulled over because I was flying. Turns out he let me off extremely easy because I thought the speed limit was 75 since it was rural Oregon and the speed limit is actually 65 max throughout all of Oregon. When I called in to the county to pay the ticket the lady knocked the fee down another $100 so the pain wasn’t too brutal. Every time I drive through Oregon since that experience the speedometer hasn’t topped 65, not even your standard 5 miles over.
Triceraballs- So I’ve been with the firm like 3 months, all through busy season, and all I want to do is go play basketball with my friends on Wednesday night like we always do. I tell my Senior, “My wife gives me crap about playing ball every week and now you want to give me crap! Look, I don’t care what I have to do all I want to do is play basketball on Wednesday night I don’t care what the consequences!” He relents and allows me to go; I subsequently fill the rest of the day talking up about what a great baller I am. I actually for the only time in my life have a great night playing basketball, hitting a number of 3-point shots. So I come in the next morning to the audit room and the rest of the team is already there. “Call me 3-ball!” I announce with pride, referring of course to my great night of shooting 3-pointers; however, it was not understood as such. “3-ball? What is that supposed to mean?” The conversation quickly turns toward the gutter and heavy inquisition takes place regarding their way of understanding my “announcement”. They quickly modify the nickname through various revisions, settling on “triceraballs”. I receive a nice picture in my email later that day with a triceratops that has punctured 3 basketballs, which of course, triceratops had punctured in his self-defense against 3-ballasaurus Rex. I tried to watch what I said the rest of the engagement but I always found myself in compromising positions.
Dork Mormon from Utah- visiting the national trainings is quite the experience if you live in the bubble, which we obviously all do. My favorite example is the training I went to last year in Dallas. On Friday during the final class, we were organized into new groups for some reason. So the instructor decided to go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves, what office they are from, and “tell us what you did last night”. There were about 50-55 people in the room. Person after person stood up to tell about the insane experience last night of going to the biggest bar in Dallas and how they “rode the bull”. It was a wild party and everybody could nod in agreement as each person shared their sweet night of riding the mechanical bull. It comes to be my turn, I stand up and relate “I’m Brandon Ball from the Salt Lake City office, and last night I stayed in my hotel room and watched the NBA Draft.” I’m pretty sure the crowd knew something semi-lame was coming out of my mouth when they heard “Salt Lake City”. While I am who I am, it makes me laugh. For what it’s worth, we drafted Eric Maynor and traded him like 3 months later.
All-nighter- I only pulled one official “all-nighter” during my time at KPMG, and even then it ended for me at about 4:30 in the morning, at which time I went home and slept for a couple hours before going back to work. I do remember from about 1-3 a.m. playing Rage Against the Machine on my computer for a couple hours. The Senior, who requested I play Rage, says after, “Well, now I remember why it’s been so long since I’ve listened to Rage”, of course referring to not liking the heavy screaming, etc. My response, “Funny, I was just thinking to myself about what a shame it is that I haven’t listened to Rage in so long” of course referring to how awesome Rage is. In case you’re wondering, that was the last time I listened to Rage.
Waterfast- So last busy season instead of having a “get fat” competition my team had a weight loss competition. Somehow, someway I started running at like midnight, outside in the cold, a few times a week. I also basically stopped eating dinner, thereby dropping my calorie count for the day drastically. We also had healthy snacks instead of complete sugar crap (with the exception of a large tub of jelly-belly’s). I had quite a few “blow days”, pretty much anytime a good lunch was offered or some other treat was offered, but I got to the final couple days within 5 pounds of my 20 pound weight loss goal. The due date was Wednesday, but on Monday I had a good lunch offer and decided I was giving up on the goal (worth $100 to me, but I was giving it up for a lunch, awesome). So I eat my lunch, which I don’t even remember what it was but I’m sure it was good, and I regret it in the afternoon, thinking “I could’ve made the goal if I just had some discipline!” I decide at that point that I’m going on a water-fast for the next 36 hours and dropping down 3-5 lbs to make my weight. I can tell you every temptation in the book was thrown at me over the next 36 hours, but I had nothing but water (and a lot of trips to the restroom) and woke up Wednesday morning at my goal. I still have the picture of the official weigh-in on my phone. I took the $100 and promptly gained back my 5 lbs. I am happy to say I’ve stayed at that weight though and haven’t put back on the remaining 15, for now.
Wings- Jackson’s sports bar up in Washington has all-you-can-eat wings on Wednesday nights. The first time I heard about it, I knew it would become a staple. For the rest of the travel year last year we hit up Jackson’s at least every other week (when you’re eating all you can eat wings and realize how much chicken you just ate after the fact, it usually takes longer than one week to get over it). On one of our final visits for the year in October, the waitress initiated our visit by pointing me out and saying “I know you love the golden garlic wings I’ll get an order ready for you”. While she was correct in noting my favorite flavor, I took due note that we had officially eaten there too many times that summer, considering she had never been our waitress before. At 25 wings I feel like you “made your money” since that was essentially the same price on other nights as the cost on the all-you-can-eat night. My personal record was 45 wings but a couple other guys tied and/or beat me in the overall standings. Their hottest sauce, “Atomic” isn’t quite the burner of Woo’s teriyaki but definitely leaves you reaching for the water. I would usually have just one Atomic wing last to say I did it, but other than that, stick with the Golden Garlic.
“Emily”- So my office always sends out a “farewell” email to let the rest of the office know who’s leaving to what new job, etc. So mine comes out this week and the final paragraph says “We wish Brandon, Emily, and their two children the best of luck. . . “ So I’m not sure who Emily is, but Rachel sure had a great response, typical of wives of public accountants, “I KNEW YOU HAD A MISTRESS!”
I’m out!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Adventures in Running-Idaho Style
So I had quite the unusual experience running a couple weeks ago. It had to be either the highlight or lowlight of my sweet marathon training. I’m probably going to go with lowlight.
We were staying up in Idaho for Rachel’s family reunion, the Super Sweet Stewart family reunion! I’m at the point in my marathon training where I take quite the long run on Saturday mornings as part of this training to actually move my fat body over 26.2 miles. So I let Rachel know that Saturday morning I’ll have to join the festivities a tad late due to my run, scheduled for 14 miles. I tell her “I’m just going to leave your Aunt’s house where we are staying, run out 7 miles, and run back.” Rachel has a bright idea, “Why don’t you just run from Diane’s house to my Grandma’s house? I bet that is pretty close to 14 miles. Then I won’t have to come back and pick you up when you’re done.” So Rachel’s aunt lives in Ammon up on the mountain and her Grandma lives in Shelley. I was reluctant to take on the challenge primarily because most of the way would be country road with no water fountain or even a gas station to pick up a drink. I express my concern with my sweet wife and she gives me the stare of “just do what I say”. So I make plans to stop at the “last outpost” Maverik about 8 miles into the run to buy a couple Gatorades.
So I wake up early on Saturday morning and head out for the run. My first 8 miles are pretty much straight down Sunnyside, which is a main road in Idaho Falls. It’s actually quite the nice morning and the path along Sunnyside is ideal. I’m feelin’ good and have a good groove going. Rachel stops by about 90 minutes in to check on me on the way to her Grandmas, I’m feeling good and wave her off. I get down to the end of Sunnyside and head into the Maverik drenched in sweat to buy my couple Gatorades.
Quick tangent: so inside the Mav in front of me in line a “young adult” (a dude about 21 years old, at what age do I have to reach to call him a “kid”?) tries to buy 3 mountain dews and a couple huge bags of sunflower seeds with a welfare credit card and the lady tells him they don’t accept the card. He freaks out on her and storms out, apparently thinking that screaming curse words all over the place will make the lady change the store policy. Now, soda and sunflower seeds are a step up from beer and cigarettes but come on aren’ t welfare funds supposed to be used for actual food necessities like milk, eggs, bread, etc? Applause to Maverik if that’s their policy and not a state-mandated item. End Tangent J
So I leave the Mav with a huge Gatorade in each hand and a little under 6 miles to go. I look down the long highway and realize there is nowhere to run! The first couple miles of the country highway have turned into a 4 lane road; there is no shoulder to run on, and right off the road on both sides are monster weeds. I certainly don’t want to run in the road with 60-mph traffic coming down the pipe at me. What do I do? I improvise. Off the road 30 feet is a railroad track that does have some space on the side of it. I start down the track. The space is extremely rocky and uneven but I’m chugging along. I get another 2 miles down and finally see that on one side of the road the weeds have gone away and it’s just field on the side of the road; off the road, but manageable to run on. I cross the road to take my chances with the field instead of breaking my ankle on the train track.
Rachel’s aunt Diane stops by to check on me, I move her along. A few minutes later her uncle Garth stops and gives me a water bottle. I chug it down and he pulls away. Right after he pulls away, things get interesting. . .
I see a Bonneville County Sherriff car coming down the road and for some reason I know he’s going to turn on his lights and “pull” me over. He does just that. I can envision what he must have been thinking when he got out of the car and sized me up, “Fat dude, holding 2 gatorades and a water bottle, funny leg things on (I wear leg sleeves on my long runs because I have calf-cramping problems), all that’s missing is a helmet”.
Cop-“What are you doing?”
Me-” Um, I’m running down the road.” Duh! Honestly I know it’s just a conversation starter but what does it look like I’m doing?
Cop-“OK, Where are you headed?” I’m sure at this point he’s expecting something like “Down the street one more block” or “Just to that building over there” Remember I’m officially in Idaho Falls at this point.
Me-“Shelley” If you aren’t familiar with Idaho Falls, it’s like he pulled me over in South Jordan and instead of saying “I’m headed to a buddy’s house a couple blocks down” I respond “I’m going to Sandy!”
Cop-“What?! That’s really far, where did you come from?”
Me-“Well, up on that mountain over there”
Now the cop is confused and is thinking that it might not all be there upstairs. Cop-“What do you mean you came from up on the mountain? Are you ok?”
So now it’s time to go with the full-background explanation approach. Me-“ Look, I’m from out of town and I’m here for a family reunion but I’m training for a marathon and I had to do a long run today and I’m staying up on the mountain with a family member but I had to go down to Shelley for the family reunion this morning so for the long training run I just decided I would run from where I’m staying to where I need to be”. And that crazy run-on sentence is about as crazy as he thought I was.
This is the point where I know the cop thought I might not have it all there mentally. Cop-“Son, Who is going to take care of you once you get to Shelley?”
Holy Crap! I JUST EXPLAINED that my ENTIRE set of in-laws, including my wife and kids, are over at Shelley. What do you mean who’s going to take care of me? I’m not sure how to proceed; am I going to get a ticket? Arrested? What the crap did I do wrong? Me-“My WIFE is in Shelley and ALL of my in-laws are there too to take care of me once I get there. I’M JUST RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG OR SOMETHING?!” Obviously I’m getting frustrated at this point and he’s thinking I’m more and more not with it. Cop-“Were you running on the train tracks?”
Bingo. Should’ve known somebody would think I was a wacko and call the cops for running along the tracks.
Me-“Oh yeah. I was. There was no room to run on the side of the road for those first couple miles so I ran on the tracks. I’m not wearing headphones so I could hear a train and obviously look around and see a train. You can see I got off and crossed over when this side of the road turned to field. “
So during this nice chat Rachel’s uncle Garth saw the cop pull me over after he pulled away. He turned around and came back to check what was going on. I think when he pulled up the cop didn’t believe me when I said I knew him.
Cop-“You’re not in trouble I’m just really confused at why you’d want to go that far” I’m thinking if I actually looked like a runner it would’ve been a little different.
Me-“It’s fine I’m done I’ll just go with him.” I had gone about 9.5-10 miles so it was a good long run, just not the whole way but by then I had lost my mojo and was disheartened by the stop. I don’t want to give away too much but from my experience as a teenager, whenever cops get involved, you get out of there! So I jumped in with Garth to get a ride the rest of the way. I don’t think the cop had anything on me, but I could also tell that he was going to follow me along the road the remaining 4 miles and I wasn’t cool with that.
Anyway, I arrive at the family reunion to great fanfare and share the great tale of the cop who didn’t like my running style. While it gave a good laugh to the family for the day, I was still disappointed that I couldn’t convince him that I was a marathoner! Well, I guess I’m not yet, so next time I’m back up in Idaho after the October marathon I’ll have to go for a long run down some train tracks. On second thought, maybe not.
We were staying up in Idaho for Rachel’s family reunion, the Super Sweet Stewart family reunion! I’m at the point in my marathon training where I take quite the long run on Saturday mornings as part of this training to actually move my fat body over 26.2 miles. So I let Rachel know that Saturday morning I’ll have to join the festivities a tad late due to my run, scheduled for 14 miles. I tell her “I’m just going to leave your Aunt’s house where we are staying, run out 7 miles, and run back.” Rachel has a bright idea, “Why don’t you just run from Diane’s house to my Grandma’s house? I bet that is pretty close to 14 miles. Then I won’t have to come back and pick you up when you’re done.” So Rachel’s aunt lives in Ammon up on the mountain and her Grandma lives in Shelley. I was reluctant to take on the challenge primarily because most of the way would be country road with no water fountain or even a gas station to pick up a drink. I express my concern with my sweet wife and she gives me the stare of “just do what I say”. So I make plans to stop at the “last outpost” Maverik about 8 miles into the run to buy a couple Gatorades.
So I wake up early on Saturday morning and head out for the run. My first 8 miles are pretty much straight down Sunnyside, which is a main road in Idaho Falls. It’s actually quite the nice morning and the path along Sunnyside is ideal. I’m feelin’ good and have a good groove going. Rachel stops by about 90 minutes in to check on me on the way to her Grandmas, I’m feeling good and wave her off. I get down to the end of Sunnyside and head into the Maverik drenched in sweat to buy my couple Gatorades.
Quick tangent: so inside the Mav in front of me in line a “young adult” (a dude about 21 years old, at what age do I have to reach to call him a “kid”?) tries to buy 3 mountain dews and a couple huge bags of sunflower seeds with a welfare credit card and the lady tells him they don’t accept the card. He freaks out on her and storms out, apparently thinking that screaming curse words all over the place will make the lady change the store policy. Now, soda and sunflower seeds are a step up from beer and cigarettes but come on aren’ t welfare funds supposed to be used for actual food necessities like milk, eggs, bread, etc? Applause to Maverik if that’s their policy and not a state-mandated item. End Tangent J
So I leave the Mav with a huge Gatorade in each hand and a little under 6 miles to go. I look down the long highway and realize there is nowhere to run! The first couple miles of the country highway have turned into a 4 lane road; there is no shoulder to run on, and right off the road on both sides are monster weeds. I certainly don’t want to run in the road with 60-mph traffic coming down the pipe at me. What do I do? I improvise. Off the road 30 feet is a railroad track that does have some space on the side of it. I start down the track. The space is extremely rocky and uneven but I’m chugging along. I get another 2 miles down and finally see that on one side of the road the weeds have gone away and it’s just field on the side of the road; off the road, but manageable to run on. I cross the road to take my chances with the field instead of breaking my ankle on the train track.
Rachel’s aunt Diane stops by to check on me, I move her along. A few minutes later her uncle Garth stops and gives me a water bottle. I chug it down and he pulls away. Right after he pulls away, things get interesting. . .
I see a Bonneville County Sherriff car coming down the road and for some reason I know he’s going to turn on his lights and “pull” me over. He does just that. I can envision what he must have been thinking when he got out of the car and sized me up, “Fat dude, holding 2 gatorades and a water bottle, funny leg things on (I wear leg sleeves on my long runs because I have calf-cramping problems), all that’s missing is a helmet”.
Cop-“What are you doing?”
Me-” Um, I’m running down the road.” Duh! Honestly I know it’s just a conversation starter but what does it look like I’m doing?
Cop-“OK, Where are you headed?” I’m sure at this point he’s expecting something like “Down the street one more block” or “Just to that building over there” Remember I’m officially in Idaho Falls at this point.
Me-“Shelley” If you aren’t familiar with Idaho Falls, it’s like he pulled me over in South Jordan and instead of saying “I’m headed to a buddy’s house a couple blocks down” I respond “I’m going to Sandy!”
Cop-“What?! That’s really far, where did you come from?”
Me-“Well, up on that mountain over there”
Now the cop is confused and is thinking that it might not all be there upstairs. Cop-“What do you mean you came from up on the mountain? Are you ok?”
So now it’s time to go with the full-background explanation approach. Me-“ Look, I’m from out of town and I’m here for a family reunion but I’m training for a marathon and I had to do a long run today and I’m staying up on the mountain with a family member but I had to go down to Shelley for the family reunion this morning so for the long training run I just decided I would run from where I’m staying to where I need to be”. And that crazy run-on sentence is about as crazy as he thought I was.
This is the point where I know the cop thought I might not have it all there mentally. Cop-“Son, Who is going to take care of you once you get to Shelley?”
Holy Crap! I JUST EXPLAINED that my ENTIRE set of in-laws, including my wife and kids, are over at Shelley. What do you mean who’s going to take care of me? I’m not sure how to proceed; am I going to get a ticket? Arrested? What the crap did I do wrong? Me-“My WIFE is in Shelley and ALL of my in-laws are there too to take care of me once I get there. I’M JUST RUNNING DOWN THE ROAD DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG OR SOMETHING?!” Obviously I’m getting frustrated at this point and he’s thinking I’m more and more not with it. Cop-“Were you running on the train tracks?”
Bingo. Should’ve known somebody would think I was a wacko and call the cops for running along the tracks.
Me-“Oh yeah. I was. There was no room to run on the side of the road for those first couple miles so I ran on the tracks. I’m not wearing headphones so I could hear a train and obviously look around and see a train. You can see I got off and crossed over when this side of the road turned to field. “
So during this nice chat Rachel’s uncle Garth saw the cop pull me over after he pulled away. He turned around and came back to check what was going on. I think when he pulled up the cop didn’t believe me when I said I knew him.
Cop-“You’re not in trouble I’m just really confused at why you’d want to go that far” I’m thinking if I actually looked like a runner it would’ve been a little different.
Me-“It’s fine I’m done I’ll just go with him.” I had gone about 9.5-10 miles so it was a good long run, just not the whole way but by then I had lost my mojo and was disheartened by the stop. I don’t want to give away too much but from my experience as a teenager, whenever cops get involved, you get out of there! So I jumped in with Garth to get a ride the rest of the way. I don’t think the cop had anything on me, but I could also tell that he was going to follow me along the road the remaining 4 miles and I wasn’t cool with that.
Anyway, I arrive at the family reunion to great fanfare and share the great tale of the cop who didn’t like my running style. While it gave a good laugh to the family for the day, I was still disappointed that I couldn’t convince him that I was a marathoner! Well, I guess I’m not yet, so next time I’m back up in Idaho after the October marathon I’ll have to go for a long run down some train tracks. On second thought, maybe not.
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