The Tip

No, not a CPA. But I had six semesters of accounting in school and did all my own in my business. Some of my classmates took one more semester and did get a CPA. The question was rather or not buying gift cards from businesses is helpful. The answer is yes. Interest free loan, cash on hand, guaranty of future sales. All good things. AustinBike said earlier, "So, I am no accountant, but as I understand it, the company gets the cash, but they don't actually get to recognize the cash SALES until the gift card is actually redeemed. So, buying a gift card is basically an IOU for the most part." Fixed your statement to make it all true. In bookkeeping terms "sales" are credits and the balancing debit is "cash." A transaction of any kind needs an entry on both sides of the balance sheet. Debit the liability of the gift card account when you realize a Credit of eventual sales at redemption. Or (just to illustrate bookkeeping, because it rarely happens) a customer comes in with his gift card and wants to sell it back to the store. Debit the gift card account the same, but now the Credit is to your cash account. Just like any loan. Now the only benefit to the store was the free use of the cash for however long the gift card was out. Much better, and way more common, is to have the gift card redeemed as sales of course.

Gift cards result in an asset and a liability. The cash is now your asset and the promise to deliver goods in the future is a liability. It's like a loan from a customer. But it is an interest free loan. Can't do much better than that. Well you can actually. I saw an article a year or two ago that big companies that sell gift cards have some algorithm to predict the amount of cards that will be lost and never used. The result, free money!

My wife and mine's biggest decision each day now is what we will be drinking today. Is it a beer day? A wine day? Or let's just do cocktails. Decisions decisions.

I have never had a bad encounter with a hiker yet. But if I DO, I have my response ready. If I hear something like you did I will respond, "Actually mountain bikers built this trail. But we don't mind sharing the trails we built with hikers like you. Let's just get along." "

I'm thinking, from what I am seeing out on the trails, that bike shops will thrive from all of this. All the multitudes of hikers on the trails will see the bikes whizzing by and think, "That looks fun. I'm getting a bike." And all the people on those 20 year old bikes we're seeing will see our new style bikes and think, "Wow, who knew bikes have changed so much. I'm getting one." The only thing that will hurt bike shops is the same thing that will hurt every business sector. That is that people will hold on to their money due to the uncertainty of the times.

Exactly and exactly. I thought I knew it but looked it up to confirm. City of Austin LAW: *Children ages 17 and under are required to wear a helmet when riding a bicycle or micromobility device.

Ugh! I feel compelled to say something to parents blithely riding without a helmet as they ride with their kids. The kids have helmets, thank heavens. But I will tap my helmet (to infer look what I'm talking about) and say, "I can't wait to grow up and not wear a helmet to be like Daddy"

The CDC guy on the news just now finally came out and said the reasons behind the "don't wear masks" mantra from before. First, they didn't want to deny medical workers supply, and second, they don't want to give people a false sense of security. So in reality the solution is to wear masks AND social distance and wash hands etc. What the wearing the masks help most with is to contain the people that are contagious but asymptomatic. This condition can last over 48 hours before symptoms start to show.

I know when YOU say "corporation" in your mind you are thinking of a huge faceless trillion dollar revenue company. Let me educate you. A simple Google search revealed this: Today, there are 1.7 million traditional C corporations, compared to 7.4 million partnerships and S corporations, and 23 million sole proprietorships.Jan 13, 2014 I was set up as a corporation in my restaurant. Sure, I was the only stock holder and I was every officer, but I was a "corporation." So when folks like you are so vehement in trying to punish big bad corporations, in reality you are just punishing millions of little guys. And believe me, little guy corporations ARE punished when big bad corporations are penalized.

DYI study of different materials. daviesfacemask2013.pdf

Guaranteed. Why pay rents on expensive office space for 400 employees when actually only 100 need to be onsite? But there will be other changes to society that come out of this. I am hoping most of those changes are for the good. But we need to be diligent about bad changes happening such as loss of individual freedoms and changes to our free market economy. Both of those things are very intertwined.

CDC is finally coming around to MY (lol) way of thinking! It's so rational. https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-considering-encouraging-people-cover-101158880.html Lots of DYI mask ideas out there. Tests show varying degrees of effectiveness but anything will help

I hope they can then manufacture that vaccine faster than they can manufacture masks or toilet paper!

We watched the first episode. We had forgotten names and situations. So we went back and watched the last episode of last season to get caught up properly. NOW we are ready to binge!

It is an amazing phenomenon to me. They are EVERYWHERE. It's not like our trails are hidden but I'll see the family and think, "Where did you come from? How did you get on THIS trail?!" Yup, assume someone is around that blind curve. I'm not use to having to ride with my head up so much. And once again I implore the mountain bike community to be pleasant to the hikers.

Speak for your self Ralph Lauren! Okay, actually I have to admit I don't tuck my shirts in.

I've seen lots of funny event related things. Reaffirms my faith in humanity with how clever people are. But this one made me laugh until I cried.

So I envision great sport in being chased by a park policeman though the woods trying to give me a ticket.

Just like most of the wineries don't grow their own grapes.

Or spray the masks with bleach sanitizing solution when you get home. I don't know how long they would last but that could be a plan too.

I woke up thinking about masks. It's been mentioned, and refuted, and mentioned again. But tell me why it wouldn't work if: It was mandatory for everyone everywhere to wear a n95 mask any time they are out of their house. It seems this would be a double layer of protection. The infected would be coughing inside their masks so nothing floating in the air. The healthy would be protected even if some got into the air somehow. Of course the hand washing protocol continues. The reason we are closing businesses and isolating ourselves is to protect us from those that don't know, or don't care, that they are infected. And it wouldn't be perfect of course but it would lower the chances of transmission by a lot. Enough to flatten the curve I would hope. Restaurant dining rooms would have to remain shut unfortunately, and any other business that required an open mouth in public. Of course the supply of masks would have to be ramped up. I wouldn't even have a problem constitutionally with such a mandate. We are already told to wear a seat belt for safety. I went to HEB yesterday. There were very few masks on people. I didn't wear one either. But I was a little nervous about it. But I would have felt a lot more comfortable and safe if everyone was wearing one. This seems a much better plan to slow the curve than killing the economy for years to come. It would be LOTS cheaper to send a dozen masks to everyone in the country than all this bail out cost. Yes, if there were enough masks. But this country was building 100 bombers a day (or some amazing number) by the end of WWII so I think we could get there pretty quickly with mask manufacturing.

And here is one of the problems in America these days. Jerry rigged, or sometimes jury rigged, with an interesting etymology https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/jerry-built-vs-jury-rigged-vs-jerry-rigged-usage-history inexplicably offends YOU so I'M not allowed to use it. And if I do use it, not knowing that it offends you, then I am vilified for doing so. That is wrong. I think we need just a little bit thicker skins. But saying all that, now knowing what I do about you, there is no reason for me to not say "slapped dashed" around you instead of jerry rigged. To say jerry rigged would just be confrontational.

Holy crap, this made me laugh out loud harder than anything I've read today! So random! 😄

Did those of German descent react so negatively to "German Measles?" Did people living along the Ebola River get mad about the name that originated in their region? Are people in Lyme, Connecticut pissed when someone calls that disease by their town's name? I wonder. There is no reason to be offended by "Chinese" virus. But, if it is known that for whatever reason it DOES offend someone, and there's no harm in calling it something else, then another name should be used. The pot shouldn't be stirred just because it can be.