Right, and be careful using a Vendor to run this audit for you as well. It might be tempting, because they will give you a really good deal, but you are essentially paying them to generate a report that says you need to buy all their gear. Not saying this can't work, in fact this could be a good option if you are on a shoestring (assuming not with your use of the word thriving) budget, just be careful.

"I assumed the position of programmer and sole IT personnel at a thriving e-commerce company."

Wait.... a thriving e-commerce company has one IT person? Am I missing something here...? No wonder everything was band-aided together. They have one person doing everything.

You may want to consider hiring an outside firm to come in and do the audit for you. The last thing you need right now, on top of your daily workload, is to perform an audit. That, and a third party firm creates a sense of objectivity, and would eliminate the "The IT guy wants a new toy" response from the CFO.

Not everyone despises snow. In fact, some of us who live in the North East do so by choice, and love snow.

I took my kids out for a snowball fight early Saturday morning. This wet snow is perfect packing snow, and we had a blast!

This is really good advice. Not only will they give you some bullet points for making your case, but there's a good chance the account trip can give you a few discount points to try and win the business.