Patrick is a NINJA CPA Blogger.

What was I thinking, trying to study for REG inside a McDonald's Play Place?

It was Friday night and the Admiral needed a break from the kids so I took them to the only place where you can drink coffee and let kids play in their natural habitat, without getting rained on.

“If only I could invent kid-noise cancelling earmuffs,” I thought, “I could afford to quit this silly exam.”

It didn't help that the only vacant plug-in was inside the play place.

Fortunately, another space opened up on the outside where I could study in relative quiet. I had been struggling so far with individual taxation to the point where I really had to question the value of watching the videos.

With FAR and AUD, I felt a sense of accomplishment looking back at the videos I had covered. With REG, I feel like I've trained myself to ignore or tune-out everything the lecturer says, and as a result, I was failing miserably on the MCQs.

I decided to tackle Partnerships without the videos – just the NINJA Notes and Audio Lectures. This is not an advertisement – I was desperate.

I've been listening to the Audio for many weeks now but I hadn't touched the NINJA Notes. I pulled out the notes and pressed play and a funny thing happened … The audio was perfectly synchronized to the notes. It was like ballet.

So in about 20 minutes, I covered over two hours of video material. That frees up more time to take notes and work MCQs. Granted, the videos might go into more detail, but what good are the details if you can't absorb them?

Granted, partnerships is an easier topic so I thought I'd try it for Corporate Taxes which is next and if it works, I'll probably abandon the videos.

I noticed something else on the way home. The audio much easier to visualize and understand after hearing it with the notes.

I'm still trying to finish-up several projects before I start my new job. We have to sell the power boat that we just bought; I have to finish the taxes; and I have to finish the accounting conversion at my church.

I broke the news about our move in Sunday School. “So you're making all of these changes to the Church's finances, and then you're leaving?” somebody chided. “Yes,” I said, “and then I'm going to Vegas.”

We have not sailed in over a month. We tried to sail last Saturday, and just as we hoisted the sails, the boat lost power. It wouldn't have been a problem but there was hardly any wind.

Mind you, this is a brand new Honda motor that is barely broken in-pretty much indestructible. This never happens. We waited and waited for wind that never came and I tried every trick I could think of to restart the motor.

I'm not one to ask for help, so I jumped into the row boat and started towing us back to port. We were over a mile away and our sail boat weighs 12,000 pounds. Slow going. Finally, a large power boat pulled up along side us and gave us a tow that almost ended in disaster.

We were tied to his port side. Skippers sometimes have a tendency to misjudge how far they are from other objects … like docks with boats tied to them! I'm guilty of this too.

We were barreling down the fairway with about ten feet between us and the other boats and it just didn't feel safe. We all tried to warn him that he was too close, but he was completely confident. I told him to steer away from shore and drop us off in the open water, but he was determined to parallel park us or something.

He wouldn't listen.

It was a bad feeling.

Both Admirals were clearly not happy. Lots of yelling. He finally stopped and I hopped into the dhingy to pull us into the slip. Both of our sterns are at a 45 degree angle to a $100,000 boat that is tied to the dock. I'm in the dhingy, when I notice that both boats are drifting backwards toward this boat, and to my horror, the skipper is not at the helm.

Where is he? Perhaps he decided to make himself a drink or read the paper.

From the dhingly, there's very little I can do but watch this twisted series of events unfold. No, he decided to help untie us, totally oblivious to the yacht we're about to hit. “Oh my God?” his wife says. He looks, runs back up into the pilot house, and guns the engine at the last minute, almost crashing into our outboard in the process.

On the lighter side, our kids were very well behaved during the whole ordeal and stayed down below. Accrording to Murhpy's Law of Boating, this is where one of them will need to use the bathroom.