Today it snowed in South Louisiana for what I think is the third time in my lifetime. Check it out:

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What Do You Need to Know?

I've found another fantastic way for everyone to waste time at work! Isn't it amazing how skilled I am at finding these time-wasting methods?

Common Expressions and Sayings

This site has a list of expressions and their origins and meanings that we've most likely heard all of our lives and possibly even used without understanding fully.

Very informative. I came upon it while looking for the origin of the expression "all-singing, all-dancing".

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One Sentence

Excellent site featuring submissions which aim to tell a story in only one sentence.

One Sentence

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Productivity Killers

Check out this strangely addictive game I found via StumbleUpon:

Red Square

My best time is 21.32 seconds.

Do you ever wonder if there could be so many more geniuses around us if only everyone weren't so distracted by productivity burning things like this, YouTube, Hulu, etc.

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I Can Only Imagine What Things Are Like In New York

I don't know if I've mentioned before that the accounting firm that I work for merged with a financial services and wealth management firm and now a number of the CPAs in the office do extensive work of that nature. The focus of many of our top tax people has shifted from tax work to wealth management. This shift was made much at the same time that we moved into a new building, our office being on the third floor now as opposed to the first, like we were before.

We have a pretty large office and it has two sides: an audit side and a tax/wealth management side. I sit on the tax/wealth management side, right in the middle of the top wealth management guys.

With the stock market looking something like this over the last month:



I've heard A LOT of jokes about people throwing themselves out of windows or climbing to the roof to jump.

I bet the jokes on Wall Street have an especially morbid tone these days.

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More of This Please

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an excellent article on the financial crisis and how it affects the average person.

This is what I've struggled with through the breaking news of this crisis. I knew it was a crisis because everyone kept telling me that it was, and I knew that we may be heading into a recession or a depression and I know how THOSE things affect me, but I never saw the correlation of the the financial market crisis and its direct relationship to my life. This article helps to break it down.

Why This 'Credit Crisis' Hits Everyone

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Who Can We Blame For the Sub-Prime Crisis...Who's To Say?

I don't usually like to post email forwards that I receive, but this one is at least interesting in light of the subprime crisis.

This is a NY Times article published in 1999; actually nine years ago, yesterday. The article is being floated around the internet in the form of an email forward in a slightly edited form. A few sentences and paragraphs have been omitted from the email version which do not change the message of the article entirely, but seem to have been removed in an attempt to rest the blame for today's crisis solely on the Clinton Administration. Certainly that administration had some part in it, but as the actual article illustrates, there were other interest groups who pushed for the policy change.

Emphasis is added by me.

Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

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From the Desk of Luke Sonnier, CPA

It is finally over. I passed the final part of the CPA Exam. I took Financial Accounting and Reporting on August 29th and got the score today. I passed with an 84.

I want to say thank you to everyone who supported me through this process. Constant studying and sacrifice was only possible with the support I received from everyone out there.

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No News is Painful News

Oh I'm dying over here. I found out that at least three states (Illinois, Virginia and California) have released scores for the Financial Accounting and Reporting section of the CPA exam, which is the section that I took for the third time on August 29th, and for which I have yet to receive a score.

Louisiana hasn't released scores yet, so now instead of checking the website for my score every hour and a half I'm checking every five minutes.

Good luck getting any work done today, Luke.

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Babies, Babies Everywhere

I'm super late in getting these to some of you folks. Others of you I emailed about them.

While we were on vacation back in August I went crazy with the video camera and got a lot of footage of Sam just being Sam. Check them out after the jump.

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Really Bad Coffee

A strong indicator that your office should switch to a different brand of coffee in the kitchen is the employees brewing coffee at home to bring to work in a thermos every day rather than take advantage of the free stuff you provide for them.

An even stronger indicator is when that coffee brewed in the morning, which wasn't finished because of a busy morning schedule is still being sipped on at 1:30 in the afternoon, even though it is ice cold because six-hour-old, cold good coffee is better than the fresh swill you're trying to serve them.

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This is My Brave New World

Sorry that I haven't been blogging over here at Useless and Pointless Knowledge much lately. Most of you probably know that my blogging is now primarily at The Daily Sam.

Other than studying for the FAR section of the CPA exam again, I'll be honest, not much has been going on in my life. However, I feel like I've been busier than ever. Lindsey and I spend as much time as possible with Dominic (pictured above with on-Luke) and Lexi (check out Lexi getting to know Sam here in my newest Flickr set) and all the rest of our family in the area.

Dominic and Lexi are Lindsey's brother Chris' children. They are a ton of fun, and Dominic thinks I'm pretty awesome (hint: it's because I am). We moved back home because we knew that when we had kids of our own we would want them to grow up around family, and so far we've really been able to encourage some great relationships between ourselves and the kids, and hopefully we can encourage the same between them and Sam. Soon enough, Sam will even have another brand new cousin who will live less than a mile away.

We are making every effort to give Sam a close and fulfilling family life. So far, it is really working. He is very loved and I think he knows it.

So Scott, take a look at the above pictures. This is what my life is now. My sock is dangling my friend! Come January you'd better be ready. Don't worry though...it has been nothing but a blast and I wouldn't change any of it.

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Home Again, Home Again

Hey guys, I just got back from a week long trip to Chicago for a tax training course. It was a really great trip and a good course. I learned a lot at the conference, but SO much of it was over my head. Once it has had some time to sink in I know it will be fine.

Anyway, while I was gone I wasn't able to update The Daily Sam as much as I would have liked to, but I have posted a picture for every day that I was gone now. Because I shorted you all on the daily pictures, check out this video I did yesterday.



Just in the week that I was gone Sam changed so much. His face is filling out and getting a little more round (and cute). He is gaining weight at a very good pace and looking really healthy. I hope you guys enjoy.

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Happy 4th of July!

Well, another 4th of July has come and gone and that can only mean one thing: the Annual Sonnier 4th of July Bar-b-que celebration must have been today!

Feel free to peek through my photos of the bbq in the slide-show below, or check out my Flickr set here. This year was a great success I think.

We moved the celebration from Crowley at Ganny's house to Kaplan where my Dad lives. The new location provided for a much more relaxed environment with so much more space. Now we just need to work on gaining access to the empty lot behind Dad's yard and getting a couple of 4-Wheelers and go-carts going. Nothing says holiday in Louisiana like excessive amounts of meat and booze coupled with high speed ATVs.

I think everyone had a great time. We had a number of missing faces this time around, but to all of those folks who couldn't make it: hopefully we will catch up with you next year!

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Check Out Sam!

Hey everyone. Just thought I'd check in.

We are still in the hospital, but we expect to be discharged at some point today. I think it will just depend on when the doctor makes rounds. Sam is doing very well and is just as happy as can be. Lindsey is looking and feeling great. We all can't wait to go home.

I also wanted to offer you guys two ways to check out new pictures of Sam.

The Daily Sam is a new blog which will feature one new picture of Sam every day. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed if you are interested, or simply check back every day.

The official address of The Daily Sam is http://dailysamuel.blogspot.com. If nothing else, be sure to bookmark it.

You can also just visit my Flickr page. So far I've created two sets of photos of Sam:

Day 1
Day 2

So please check out his pictures and leave comments. We love hearing your thoughts on Sam.

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Baby Announcement

Hey everyone! We are still in the hospital so I'll keep this quick (Sam is feeding for the first time ever right now).

Samuel Luke Sonnier was born today, June 22, 2008 at 4:07 pm. He weighs 8 lbs 9 oz. and is 21 1/4 inches long.

Mom and baby are both doing very, very well. Everything went relatively smoothly during both labor and delivery. We will be at the hospital until Tuesday. Of course I will continue to update as things move along.

Here are the first pictures of the little man himself.

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Visit Portland, Oregon

Hey guys, I've got cool news to report.

As if it wasn't flattering enough to be published in the book Signs of Life, which was a collection of photos from the Gulf Coast region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, now I have a photo published on the Schmap Northwest Travel Guide.

Schmap Northwest is an interactive online only travel guide for Oregon and Washington. While we were living in Portland, Lindsey and I went to the
Japanese Garden several times. It is really a beautiful garden park in the southwest section of town. If you ever find yourself in Portland I recommend that you visit.

The photo selected for the guide was taken on June 25, 2006 on a trip to the garden just before we moved. We went with Mom and Kim and it was a lovely day. If you are interested in more pictures of the garden you can check out my Flickr set here.

This is the photo included in the Schmap Northwest Guide.



You should also check out my photo on the Schmap Guide website under the Parks and Gardens section.

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Good Reads

If you like to read, but have found that you don't have a decent place to connect with other readers, to talk about the books you are reading and to get and give recommendations please check out Good Reads, and be sure to add me as a friend.

I didn't think I was very interested in the site at first, but after a month or two I went back to it and poked around a bit only to find that it is actually pretty cool. I find that I've got a number of friends and family members who read a lot but we never seem to talk much about what we're reading. I don't often give or receive recommendations.

Let me know what you guys think.

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Daydreaming the Summer Away

I am having a rough go of it right now. I can't seem to concentrate on anything at work! Between constantly thinking about my pending CPA exam results, and constantly waiting for the phone to ring with news of Lindsey going into labor, my mind is completely fried. Not to mention that fact that other than time off to study I haven't really taken any vacation time since tax season ended.


If I wasn't planning to take a week or two off after the birth I would use some of my banked overtime to just stay home and relax a little bit, but I really want to maximize my time home with Sam.

Also, I was able to ignore it a bit during tax season because I was so busy, and then again when I was studying because I need to focus, but now my desire to sit down and play Guitar Hero (any version) until my eyes bleed is back with renewed vigor. This has not been made any easier by the fact that I got to play Rock Band for the first time recently and I freaking LOVED it.

At first I thought that singing as part of a video game would be ridiculous, but it turns out that my years and years of sitting alone in my room as a kid, and later driving alone in my car singing along with song after song after song were just the right practice for Rock Band. I think I've been in training to play this game my whole life. It is so much fun.

Try singing along to Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" at the absolute top of your lungs, making sure to scream out the jam part at the end and tell me you aren't having fun. Or singing along to Radiohead's "Creep" as loud as you possibly can, being sure to sing the unedited album version as opposed to the radio-friendly alternate version with no curse words. It's hard not to enjoy it in my opinion.

The good news is that it is only a matter of time in each case.

Lindsey is due on June 19th, which is a week from tomorrow. See my next post for the most recent update about the pregnancy.

And I think the CPA exam results should start being released next week. Historically I've gotten my result in roughly three weeks, which would be next week.

Wouldn't it be wild to find out that I passed the exam and have my son born on the same day! It might just be too much in day, but in such a good way.

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More New Stuff

The real upside of blogs being so incredibly popular now is that people are developing a ton of cool widgets for them.

New at the top of my sidebar is a Good Reads widget. It turns out that Good Reads, has also created a blog widget, which is displaying the books I am currently reading.

Now in addition to tracking what movies I am renting and what music I am listening to, you all can see what I am reading. As you can see I am currently reading "When You Are Engulfed In Flames" by David Sedaris and "The Expectant Father" by Armin Brott (which I've been slowly perusing throughout the entire pregnancy).

For now (not sure if I will leave them there) you can also see widgets displaying the books I've read and the ones I want to read as well.

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