A visit with the McKees

 

 

 

And this year’s look at the Valkyrie, rolling on its own wheels.

 

 

Another quiet moment

 

 

 

 

From the Pacific Northwest,

 

 

England and Wales, the flights all came in today.  Plus Texas, and Colorado.  It’s good to all be here together.

 

 

 

Along the way

 

 

 

 

There is a cat tower in the living room

 

 

 

With cats on it.

 

Charlie.

 

And Mister Beans.

 

Jim and Joyce

 

 

Brian’s parents.

 

It has been a tough ten days for the Alexander family.  Jim has been healthy and active but got sick and has been in and out of the hospital for the last week.  He has been mostly stable, so we didn’t see it coming like this, but last night he passed.  His entire family was with him.  A charming guy: he pretended he was cranky but there was always that twinkle.

 

Brian and Becky’s kids are all coming home to be here.

 

 

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freddy!

 

 

Remember Freddy from 2022?  Hanging out on our deck and in our fountain all summer.

 

 

Then he was gone.

 

Well, Freddy just reappeared in the basement window at Becky’s house!  A thousand miles away!

 

I think he wants to come in.

 

Cloud castles

 

 

This little horizontal layer of clouds…

 

Blew a perfect smoke ring!

 

(Up there on the left.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is how we do it in California

 

 

 

Roll up into the parking lot, flop out the solar panels, hit the trail.

 

Artificial Intelligence

 

 

I go to a conference every year that is about all the issues involved in running a CPA firm.  A few years back they started saying, “Don’t worry.  Artificial intelligence isn’t coming for your job, it’s just going to make you better at it.”  A couple years ago, that changed to “Artificial Intelligence is not coming for your job, but the person who knows how to use it is.”

 

This year the message was different again.  There were several presentations on Generative A.I.  You ask it a question, and it generates an answer from a massive database of information.  That’s what we’ve been working with so far.  In addition to generative A.I. though, they were also presenting Agentic A.I., a new term for me.  Agentic A.I. is more like a well-versed autonomous assistant.  It’s active, not reactive.  Present it with some information and ask it to perform a task, and it will.  While executing that task, it will make assumptions and decisions as necessary and highlight those when it presents the finished product for your review.  Provide feedback and it learns from its mistakes.  All sorts of industries, including CPA firms, are developing task specific agents.  If you are somebody’s assistant, A.I. is definitely coming for your job.

 

Thomson Reuters, a software provider for accountants, demonstrated their tax preparation “agent” that they already have.  They loaded this agent with the entire tax code, a whole bunch of completed tax returns, and firm standards for tax returns.  It won’t do really complicated returns yet, but it can charge through a simple 1040.  They uploaded a bunch of tax documents, in various formats, like a tax client might; enough for a normal 1040 tax return.  They asked the tax “agent” to prepare the return.  The agent standardized the document formats, sorted the information, compared it to the prior return, prepared the current year return, and presented it to the tax manager for review; highlighting any critical decisions it made, and any areas of concern.  A highly qualified assistant, still requiring adult supervision, but mighty impressive.

 

A few years ago, the technical presenters at this conference confessed that they have been telling people for years that if you want job security, learn to code.  As computers continue to do more and more, that’s where the future will be.  Now, they’re talking about how wrong they were.  There are A.I. agents that will do the coding for you, and they’re getting better every year (month).  They’re fast.  They work 24/7.   They don’t take days off.  The hottest new programming language is English.  That’s what they’re saying now.

 

For the last several years, I’ve been interested in offshoring.  Working with a team in another country that has lower wages and benefits than here might save money, but that’s not the major draw.  It would be a way to contract high quality help and split some of our work with an offshore team.  Parts of our jobs don’t need to be done by an onsite auditor, or in direct contact with the client.  Leverage the skilled auditors we have on staff with qualified assistants who can contribute to the workflow.  There are offshoring companies that have the whole process already set up and are contracting out staff.  Now, with Agentic A.I. though, I can’t imagine going through the logistics of staffing offshore.  Train an A.I. “agent” to assist with the fieldwork, and the experienced auditors can plan and manage the job and interact with the client.  Way less complicated than offshoring.

 

If we’re fans of the status quo, this could all be alarming, because what we do and how we do it is about to be revolutionized.  Even if we’re excited about the changes coming, it will be hard to navigate them all.  For instance, we will all have access to a digital assistant that will be fast and efficient and take the place of multiple human assistants.  That will leverage our capabilities, but what about all the industries where starting out at the assistant function is the way people are trained up to be the seniors and managers?  How do people just coming out of school leap that gap and learn the ropes so they can have the experience to be the manager in charge who relates what we know directly to the client?

 

I don’t know what we need to do to get ready for the tsunami of capability that is coming at us, but status quo is not an option.  If we’re not willing to learn and adapt quickly, this wave will roll right over us.  What exactly we do to get ready, who knows?  I guess if we can’t figure it out though, we can always ask A.I….

 

Brother Bill gets recognition

 

 

Included in last week’s report from Madison River Outfitters in West Yellowstone, Montana.

 

 

A nice brown trout netted for a photo op before being released back into the Madison.

 

 

The Brothers Reunion

 

 

Wow.  That was something.

 

I am blown away by my brothers.  We talked for three days straight.  We have all gone such different ways and places.  There was so much catching up to do.  We shared stories, accomplishments, hopes and dreams, and occasionally helped remember a word the other couldn’t quite bring up, until late every evening.  The unplanned rhythm of each day flowed easily.

 

I can best sum up the visit with this photo at the conclusion, before we all headed our separate ways:

 

It brought us together in a new way, with us all being fully present at the same time.  That was amazing!

 

A walk in the woods

 

 

Redwoods to be exact.

 

 

Encountered a quiet orchestral serenade.

 

And those awesome redwoods!