Welcome to my user page! I'm User:akendall, but I prefer to be called Adam. My Chinese name is 安石 (Pinyin: Ānshí). Please take a look around to see what I'm interested in, what I'm currently working on and what I've done in the past, and a little about me. If you want to talk about what you see, please leave a message on my talk page.
Professional Certifications: CPA (Oregon, 2010), CFE (2010), CIA (2011), CCSA (2011), CGMA (2012), CISSP (2012)
Narrative
I enjoy backpacking (anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, but especially the Oregon Cascades and the Oregon Coast Range), hiking, and trail running. I'm an avid reader, and I'm likely to read just about anything I stumble upon that looks interesting. I'm definitely one to judge a book by its cover.
Professionally, I'm an accountant, auditor, and risk management professional.
Interests
My interests are various, but generally focus around four main categories.
"Rage - Sing, goddess the rage of Peleus' son Achilles
Murderous, doomed, who cost the Achaeans countless losses,
Hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls
Great fighters' souls, and made their bodies carrion,
Feasts for the dogs and birds."
"Tum Romanus sinu ex toga facto, 'Hic,' inquit, 'vobis bellum et pacem portamus; utrum pacet sumite.' Sub hanc vocem haud minus ferociter, daret utrum vellet, succlamatum est; et cum is iterum sinu effuso bellum dare dixisset, accipere se omnes responderunt et quibus acciperent animis iisdem se gesturos."
"Fabius, in answer, laid his hand on the fold of his toga, where he had gathered it at the breast, and 'Here,' he said, 'we bring you peace and war. Take which you will.' Scarcely had he spoken, when the answer no less proudly rang out: 'Whichever you please - we do not care.' Fabius let the gathered folds fall, and cried: 'We give you war.' The Carthaginian senators replied, as one man: 'We accept it; and in the same spirit we will fight it to the end.'"
"Paging through the dictionary is like looking through a microscope. Every word breaks down into parts with unique properties - prefix, suffix, root. Eliza gleans not only the natural laws that govern the letters but their individual behaviors. R, M, and D are strong, unbending, and faithful. The sometimes silent B and G and the slippery K follow strident codes of conduct. Even the redoubtable H, which can make P sound like F and turn ROOM into RHEUM, obeys etymology. Consonants are the camels of language, proudly carrying their lingual loads.
"Vowels, however, are a different species, the fish that flash and glisten in the watery depths. Vowels are elastic and inconstant, fickle, and unfaithful. E can sound like I or U. -IBLE and -ABLE are impossible to discern. There is no combination the vowels haven't tried, exhaustive and incestuous in their couplings. E will just as soon pair with A, I, or O, leading the dance or being led. Eliza prefers the vowels' unpredictability and, of all vowels, favors Y. Y defies categorization, the only letter that can be two things at once. Before the bee, Eliza had been a consonant, slow and unsurprising. With her bee success, she has entered vowelhood. Eliza beings to look at life in alphabetical terms. School is consonantal in its unchanging schedule. God, full of possibility, is a vowel. Death: the ultimate consonant."
^Homer (1990). The Iliad. New York: Penguin. p. 77. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
^Livius, Titus (1965). The War with Hannibal. London: Penguin. pp. 41–42. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
