Vote!

In case you've been living under a rock, you'll need no reminder that Tuesday, November 4th, is a very special day. It's not only my brother's 37th birthday. It's Election Day.


Please make sure you get out there and vote. You might even be so inclined as to Barack the Vote, but I'll leave it up to you to decide who the right candidate is. (Hint: His name kind of rhymes with Clock Mama.) Whoever you end up voting for (Barack Obama), please just make sure you exercise your constitutional right to vote.


Vote, and get all of your family and friends to vote.

Vote, vote, vote!

P.S. About 50% of those at Natural Log Squared officially endorse Senator Barack Obama for President.

Chef Eric

Since Eric is relatively new to cooking, he often finds recipes that he's curious to try. Two of my favorites of his were an almond-encrusted salmon he make for my birthday, and a chocolate cheesecake.

This time, he's asked whether I have the following ingredients:

Red pepper flakes
Dry white wine
Flat-leaf parsley
Fresh basil

Of course, these could be ingredients to just about any recipe. But I'm having fun wondering what he's got planned!

Autumn 2008

For the third straight year, Eric and I made our way to Wightmans Farm in Morristown. This year, we took with us our friends Nathaniel, Pei, and their son Alexander Preston.

The weather couldn't have been more perfect. The day included a hay ride, a pumpkin sling shot, pumpkin picking, and yummy snacks, including apple cider, apple pie, and donuts. And then a few more donuts.

The neat thing about Wightman's is their pumpkin sling shot. This is how it works: You place a baby pumpkin into the sling shot. Then, you try to shoot the pumpkin into one of the buckets off in the distance on a hill. Here's a picture of me getting ready to let go:


What makes the sling shot so special is that this was the third consecutive year that I managed to get the pumpkin into the bucket! The prize is a pumpkin, which we'll hopefully carve up this week.

Here are our friends Nathaniel, Pei, and Alexander Preston:


Here's Eric and me with Nathaniel and Pei's little Pumpkin:

Watch this space in October 2009 to see if I can make the pumpkin sling shot for a fourth time...

2008's First Pumpkin

In honor of our long-neglected blog, here's our first pumpkin of the year.

Baked ziti...yum yum

I'm not much of a cook but I do like to dabble here and there. Once we get a new kitchen, then I'm sure we will graduate to more complex dishes. But for now, I'm sticking with the comfort foods. The latest creation was baked ziti (very adventurous, as you can tell).

Ultimately, most pasta dishes are a combination of bread/pasta, tomato sauce, and cheese. From that perspective, baked ziti is really not that different from lasagna. Maybe that explains why everyone kept on asking for more "lasagna."

Whatever you call it...here is the recipe:

1 pound of uncooked ziti
1 1/2 tbps olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp of minced rosemary
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 pounds of ground beef
1 jar (26 oz.) of spaghetti sauce
6 oz. of sliced provolone cheese
3/4 cup of cottage cheese
6 oz. of shredded mozzarella cheese (I love this stuff, so I put more in)
3/4 cup of sour cream (I didn't like it with the sour cream, so I would leave it out)

I was also going to throw in sliced Italian sausage but I forgot to include it! So I guess that is an optional ingredient. I also deliberately left out the parmesan cheese (gross!)

1. Cook the ziti and set it aside. I just boil it without any salt or oil.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and cook the onion. Then, throw in the rosemary and garlic, and mix well. Set aside in a small bowl.

3. Cook the ground beef (and sausage) in the skillet until cooked throughout. Then, stir in the onion mixture and spaghetti sauce. Reduce heat to low and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven to 350F.

5. I line a baking dish with non-stock aluminum foil, so that the dish doesn't get caked with sauce and pasta. I spread a thin layer of sauce along the bottom of the dish. Then, I spread about half the pasta in the dish. Layer the provolone cheese, cottage cheese, and sour cream (if you so choose) on top of the pasta, and then top it with about half of the sauce. Then, layer the rest of the pasta, the remainder of the sauce, and the mozzarella cheese.

6. Bake everything uncovered for about 30 minutes. Since everything is already cooked in this recipe, you don't need to worry about exact cooking times.

As I mentioned, this is very simple. But is also pretty satisfying and makes great leftovers! I'm getting hungry just writing this...

Sunday In The Park With George

Earlier this week, we went to see the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of the Broadway musical Sunday In The Park With George by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. For anyone who is not familiar with this show, it focuses on the artist Georges Suerat and his famous painting "A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte". You may not be familiar with the artist or the title but you surely have seen the painting itself. The painting is currently on permanent display at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The show is a fictional imagination of the creation of the painting by Seurat himself (played by Daniel Evans) and some of the people that inspired some of the figures in the painting, including Seurat's fictional love interest, the cleverly-named 'Dot', played by Jenna Russell. Both actors are quite accomplished in London but "Sunday" represents their breakthrough in the US.

I had the opportunity to meet both Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell at a special event for the show. They were both extremely friendly and seemed genuinely interested in speaking with some of the fans of the show. They performed three songs from the show:

"Sunday In The Park With George" is the first number in the show and Dot is posing for George. In the painting, Dot is the woman on the right in the foreground. As Dot poses, she expresses frustration at George and his creative process.

In "Finishing The Hat", Seurat is alone with his unfinished painting. Dot has reached out to George but he has dismissed her in favor of his work. But he sings of missing Dot and how his work has enveloped his whole life.

"Move On" is from Act II of the show. This act takes place 100 years later and George's great-grandson (also named George) is also an artist but is working with technology. While visiting the Island of La Grande Jatte, the setting of famous painting, younger George has a vision of Dot who tells him to stop worrying about what people think of his art or the commercial prospects for his work, and focus on creating art for himself -- just as his great-grandfather did 100 years ago. In this number, it helps to know that the real Seurat never sold a painting and died at the age of 31.

Also included is a clip from Good Morning America where Stephen Sondheim himself and James Lapine discussed the show with Diane Sawyer.

As you can clearly see from the clips, Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell are remarkable talents and seem to share genuine chemistry together, which gives added depth to the strained relationship between George and Dot, as well as gives richness to the painting itself.

And the special effects used in the show are as good as I have ever seen on Broadway. The show creates the "canvas" of the painting with lighting effects and video that illustrate the evolution of the painting. As George erases from his sketchpad, the "canvas" on stage gets erased as well. At one point, there are four "Georges" on the stage at once and the "real" George pours champagne into the simulated glass of one of the simulated Georges. Truly incredible work.

Even though the show is fiction, seeing some of the (possible) inspirations of some of figures in the painting creates an added dimension to the work. Now the painting almost seems to be a 3D world where the figures interact with each other and with the viewer. As a non-artist, "Sunday" gave me a look into the kind of single-minded focus and dedication that is required to create such an iconic work.

This is yet another link in our expanding connection with the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". We have met both stars of the movie, Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck, and now we have seen the painting in that hysterical scene in the movie. Maybe we'll meet the members of Yello next...

Deal Or No Deal...The Ultimate Game?

Back in March, Mary Beth Holtzheimer (sorry if I misspelled your name) ran a nearly perfect game on Deal Or No Deal. Check out the video to see what happened.

First of all, that is the great poker player Annie Duke who is advising Mary Beth. And Annie is exactly right in her assessment of the game. With $25, $500K, and $1M cases still in play, and an offer of $404K on the table, there are three possibilities if she chooses to play on.

1. She opens up the $25 case. Then, with the $500K and $1M cases remaining, you would expect the Banker's offer to be somewhere around $750,000.
2. She opens up the $500K case. Then, with the $25 and $1M cases remaining, you would expect the Banker's offer to be somewhere around $500,000.
3. She opens up the $1M case. Then, with the $25 and $500K cases remaining, you would expect the Banker's offer to be somewhere around $250,000.

Based on this assessment, two out of the three outcomes would result in an offer higher than the current offer of $404,000. The only outcome where the offer would decrease would result in an offer of $250,000. So, this analysis suggests that the minimum possible outcomes is $250,000. At this point, my recommendation would have been to reject the offer and continue in the game.

As you can see from the video, Mary Beth did continue and she eliminated the $500K case. But the offer came in at only $341,000. What gives? The answer lies is basic financial theory.

Generally, most people tend to prefer a sure thing over taking a chance. In the case (haha) of DoND, most players prefer taking a guaranteed and immediate sum (i.e., the offer) over taking a risk to win an unknown and future amount. This concept is known as the "time value of money" and is one of the cornerstones of modern financial theory.

The amount by which one person prefers the sure thing over the gamble is known as the "discount rate". Obviously, the amount of the discount rate varies according to many factors, one of which is the individual's risk tolerance. People who are more cautious are more likely to place a higher value on an immediate and guaranteed amount, thus they have a higher discount rate.

To illustrate this point, consider Mary Beth's situation where there are only two cases remaining ($25 and $1 million). Now consider someone who had no preference between taking the guaranteed sum and taking a risk (i.e., their discount rate is zero). For such a person, their expected value of the two cases would be slightly less than $500,000. Assuming that someone's discount rate cannot be negative, then this hypothetical person would refuse any offer that was below that amount.

An analysis of past games shows that the offers that are accepted by the players tend to be 91% of the average of the remaining cases. That suggests that most people place a higher value on the guaranteed offer over the unknown risk (a discount rate of 9%).

Presumably, as the stakes get higher, people's risk tolerance tends to change. Between a choice of $25 and $100, most people probably wouldn't care much (i.e., the discount rate tends to be lower). But between a choice of $25 and $1 million, most people would probably become very cautious out of fear of losing the top prize (i.e., the discount rate tends to be higher).

The offer of $341,000 implies a discount rate of almost 32%, which suggests that the Banker believes there is a strong preference toward the guaranteed sum. Clearly, the Banker was correct as Mary Beth (wisely) took the offer.

If Mary Beth's discount rate was lower than 32%, then she would not have accepted the offer. Another way of saying this is that if Mary Beth would choose the guaranteed sum over the unknown sum less than 2 out of 3 times, then she would not take the offer. Obviously, nobody knows what their exact discount rate is but most people do have a gut feeling about their preference between a sure thing and taking a chance.

Of course, it turned out that she was one of only two players to have ever chose the Million Dollar Case. There is only a 3.8% chance of that occurring, so Mary Beth clearly beat the odds.

This was an incredibly exciting game. The "ideal" game in terms of having the most drama would probably be a situation where a contestant had the $1 million case and the $0.01 case remaining. This came pretty close!

Who is a Jeopardy cheater?

On last Thursday's Jeopardy, something very strange happened. As you can see from the clip, Paul (in the 2nd position) claimed that his electronic pen failed during Final Jeopardy and he could not write down his response. As per Alex's instructions, he used the backup pen and paper. He ended up with the correct response and wagered enough to win the game and beat Tom who was the defending champion. Roll credits and show over.

Well, the story does not end there. If you watched the show on Friday, you would have noticed that both Tom and Paul were both back.

Jeopardy takes the integrity of its show very seriously and does not want there to be any uncertainty about its clues, the responses, or the rules. Apparently, the producers conferred in between tapings and determined that Tom may have been at a disadvantage because of the extra time that Paul was given to write his response. If you watch the clip, Paul is given at least 10 extra seconds, which can make a big difference considering that the Final Jeopardy time is 30 seconds. So, it was decided that the fairest way to resolve this was to invite both players back for a rematch, which Tom won decisively.

But the story does not end there either. The big question is why didn't Paul just write down his response on the card within the 30 seconds? If he had done so, then there would be no dispute about giving one player an advantage over another.

Paul has addressed what happened on the Jeopardy message board. He concedes that there may have indeed been nothing wrong with the pen itself and that he may have caused it to malfunction by leaning against the electronic screen and they were even warned not to do so during the pre-taping instructions -- you would think Jeopardy would be able to spring for better technology!

He also concedes that they were explicitly told before the taping that the pen and paper should be used in the event of a malfunction. But Paul claims that he interpreted the instructions to require that he wait until he is told directly to use the pen and paper, hence the reason he waited until the end of the 30 second time limit to write his response.

He also claims that Tom (the defending champion who lost in the disputed game) raised a stink about the outcome and claimed that he was cheated. For the record, Tom denies making any remarks about the game until after the decision was made and indicated that he didn't even have the opportunity to do so.

But what really seems to be a sore point for Paul is that all this talk about the possibility of cheating in the 1st game was very unnerving and put him at a disadvantage in the 2nd game (the rematch). He suggests that he could have won that game without this dark cloud hanging over everything.

Contestants have had to resort to the pen and paper to write their response, so this is not a first-time occurrence. But (to my knowledge) every contestant in that situation did so within the 30-second time limit. This suggests to me that the contestants are told pretty clearly that the pen and paper are there if the electronic pen does not work. If that is the case, then I believe that Paul was given an unfair advantage and Tom should be declared the winner. Paul was given over 10 extra seconds which is a 33% increase in time that everyone else received, which is definitely an advantage.

But if Paul's was led to believe that he should wait until a clear signal to use the pen and paper, then this is the fault of the show and Paul should not be penalized.

With some possible doubt about how the instructions were given, I agree with the producers' decision to bring back both contestants and give them another shot. The alternative would have been to throw out the Final Jeopardy question entirely and do another one. But in these cases, Paul was right to think the contestants should be given some breathing time to allow them to regain their composure.

Like sports, contests, and games of all kinds, game shows rely on the integrity of the game itself. Once the rules start bending a bit, then you open up all kinds of accusations and possibilities of cheating, favoritism, and other ugly scenes. Jeopardy handled this situation as best they could and still kept the game intact.

A Weekend In Washington, D.C.

Eric and I recently descended upon Washington, D.C., to behold the cherry blossoms! We arrived during the first weekend of the festival (the last weekend of March) so we were able to see the blossoms in full bloom, along with probably tens of thousands of others from across the country (and possibly further).

The trees were so beautiful, and almost overwhelming in number. They completely lined the perimeter of the Potomac, and Eric took some really beautiful pictures. (In the case where Eric is in the pictures with me, the photo credit belongs to a kind passer-by.)

The Washington Monument:

We got to see most of the major memorials of past presidents, including the Lincoln...

the Washington...

the Jefferson...

and the Roosevelt.

Eric and I struck a pose with a gentleman whose name I have inconveniently forgotten. I think it was George someone. Or Thomas, maybe.

At the National Portrait Gallery, we saw the infamous Stephen Colbert portrait.

We saw the major monuments, including the Capitol Building and the White House. (Eric gets a kick out of posing me in goofy postures; this first one was NOT my idea!) I look like I belong in a WWII poster!

We learned from the Secret Service officer guarding the front of the White House (pictured below is the back) that this evening, the First Lady was hosting a high school reunion. If you click on the photo below, you'll see a larger version and can probably make out a 1964 banner just above the center archway. That's the year Laura Bush graduated from high school.

And, of course, some pictures of us at the White House...

and outside of the Jefferson Memorial.

We did a tremendous amount of walking in two days' time, and it made us realize how very tired our bodies can get! We really had a great time... it was a fantastic trip. The weather was nice, if a little cold, and the drive down and back was pleasant and easy. (Particularly for me, since I was the passenger!) Ask Eric about the side stop we made on the way home...

Are You LinkedIn?

It was a few years ago when I first signed up with LinkedIn. At the recommendation of a colleague, I signed up, created a profile, and conveniently forgot about it. Lately, however, the site seems to have experienced a surge in popularity, and I'm all of a sudden finding myself with lots of connections!

If you're not familiar with it, LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows you to connect with people you work with (or used to work with) or those you went to school with. You can browse your contacts' professional contacts, search for people, and so on and so forth. It's a great tool for people who are looking for a job, but it's also helpful for people like me who are completely satisfied in their work and who aren't looking to change.

For example, they have a section called Answers, and you can use it to browse questions other professionals have asked. You can read them, answer them, or post questions of your own. I've found the Charity & Non-Profit section to be extremely helpful, and I've posted and answered some questions myself. (You may need to have an account to visit these links. If not, it's easy and it's free, and you can sign up here.)

Give it a look. You may find an old friend, an old colleague, a new job, a new friend, or some valuable answers. And you may even find Eric and me.