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Unfortunately, Someone You Love May Get a Ride in BKD’s Corporate Jet

Unfortunate because that means they’re really sick. What’s not unfortunate is the firm has joined Corporate Angel Network (“CAN”) and has opted to make their plane available to give free rides to cancer and bone marrow transplant patients that have to travel for treatments.

Each week, CAN enters BKD’s flight schedule into its database and arranges travel for patients when routes match up and seats are available.

“The Corporate Angel Network offers us a great chance to use our company airplane to positively affect the lives of others,” BKD CEO Neal Spencer said. “We’re proud to be able to participate in this program as part of our continuing effort to serve the communities that are home to our offices and employees.”

[via BKD]

Another Accountant Superhero Is in Our Midst

You may remember back in January when a PwC employee put down his pencil to – according to his farewell email – fight crime as the caped avenger. At the time, we expressed concern not only because there can’t be two Batmans but because…well, we’re just skeptical of any cube-dweller’s ability to make the streets safe for the rest of us.

Despite our doubts, that hasn’t stopped another accountant, Irene Thomas (aka Nyx), from taking to the streets to fight for truth, justice and all that crap.

By day Irene Thomas says she is a ‘boring’ accountant who lives in a cramped New Jersey flat. By night she puts on a black catsuit and mask with a red belt, gloves and boots, gets into her Honda Accord car and comes out the other side of the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan as ‘Nyx’. The 21-year-old is just one member of the Real Life Superhero Project, a group of humans who aim to bring a helping hand to people everywhere and thwart crime on city streets.

It doesn’t appear that Nyx wasn’t born with natural crime fighting abilities, as the Real Life Superhero Project has documented her training on their website. As with all superheroes, there has to be another side to Nyx that we don’t get to see. What kind of pain or personal aguish has she gone through that has caused her to take up this cause? Does the thought of spending hours upon hours in a cube farm staring at spreadsheets haunt her dreams to the point of insomnia, thus leading to the spending her nights running around the City a dominatrix outfit? Is she looking for more from life besides a good paycheck, generous benefits and half-days Fridays during the summer? Or is it something deeper?

‘Like the night, I cannot be proven or disproven to certain degrees – and also much like the night, when morning comes, there will be no trace of me.’

Jesus, who knows. Fly-by-night psychoanalysts are welcome to weigh in now.

Real Life Superheroes [via Daily Mail]

Local CPA Ups Ante on Client Service

What have you done for your clients lately? Worked through the night to meet a big deadline? Great job. Attended a bar mitzvah? That’s nice. Saved them oodles of dough by navigating a tricky divorce? You’re a rock star.

But until you’re willing to part with a kidney (or better), you’re a basically a chump compared to Jeff Waters.


You see, Jeff likely does everything that most CPAs do – bend over backwards for idiot clients; helps them deal with nosy IRS agents; explains why an incompetent Congress is likely to bungle the estate tax and so on and so forth.

But when his clients, the Fitzgeralds, were in one day chit-chatting about 1099s, a more serious problem (failing kidney serious, not heart attack serious) came up:

The week before standing in Waters’ office, the Fitzgeralds were told a kidney was available for [their daughter] Kelly, but at the last minute, the transplant had to be cancelled because the kidney turned out to be damaged.

“I thought, any problem I have pales in comparison to something like that,” Waters remembers. “I told (Fitzgerald), ‘I can’t even imagine you’re here today doing taxes when something like that happens.'”

Fitzgerald told him, “Well, we just learned to never get our hopes up. We just need to find another B positive donor.”

“That’s when it clicked,” Waters said. “I knew from my LifeSource Donor Card that I was B positive.”

And you can take it from there. Of course Jeff gave his kidney away. All he had to do was put on a cape and re-re-convince some pushy medical staff, “Waters says medical staff repeatedly told him not to feel pressured to go through with the transplant,” and like we said, he went under the knife and made it happen.

We realize not everyone is jumping at the opportunity for voluntary surgery and some are bound by religious whathaveyous but just think about it. Do you really need two kidneys?

Wheaton Accountant Does Taxes, Donates Kidney for Client [Wheaton Patch]