This is how we roll

I threw my first dinner party last night. According to "Stuff White People Like," the dinner party is definitely an adult milestone. And although I put everyone to work making their own dinner, it was still a substantial amount of preparation. Music was played, sake was swigged, and Trivial Pursuit was broken out (see SWPL post, paragraph 6).

Over the last few months, I've been learning to roll my own sushi and bringing it in for lunch. It's quite simple (and much cheaper) to do it yourself, so to demonstrate the process, I invited people over for a sushi-rolling gathering. Miso soup and salad with ginger dressing were provided. Then, I set out bowls of rice, sushi filling ingredients, nori sheets and bamboo mats, and put people to work. Everyone had a great time, and more or less successfully made their own sushi.

My first planning dilemma was figuring out what to do with the vegetarians. After all, isn't the point of sushi is to showcase fresh seafood? I ended up soaking wedges of fried tofu in a soy and orange juice marinade, then slicing them thinly. At this point, they almost looked like slices of mushroom, and tasted quite meaty as well. My second dilemma was trying to predict how much rice we would need. Depending on how much of the soup and salad everyone consumed, we would need an inversely proportional amount of rice. I prepared a large bowl of sushi rice, but sure enough, the rice disappeared much faster than predicted. (People were using too much rice in their rolls, a common novice mistake.) In the end, I made about 12 cups of rice, and this was enough to make leftover sushi for Monday.

Cleaning the sushi mats was the most painstaking part of the night. Rather than spending 20 minutes scraping off chunks of dried rice, next time I plan to wrap the entire mat in saran wrap.

Post-sushi-rolling, we trekked out to the 'burbs for Phil's birthday party. Now, I consider myself a pretty good cook, but this party was the most impressive food feat I've seen in years. As we know, Phil is a huge gamer, and Amber (Phil's wife) had made sure that all the food was video-game-themed. Zomg! There were red mushroom cupcakes, green ice cream cone pipes, a Pac-man cheddar cheese wheel, a fire flower made of red and yellow peppers with a cucumber and broccoli stem, a Zelda Triforce cheesecake, and finally, a Katamari ball rice crispie cake, with all kinds of candies (lego sweet tarts, gummy worms) stuck on the surface. It was probably the leetest party I've ever been to, and proof that we should all rest easy; clearly there is someone out there for everyone.

It's too bad we couldn't get the entire table in one panoramic shot, but these pictures convey the general idea.

Quake!

Last night at 4 am or so, I rolled over in my sleep, and awoke with the startling realization that my legs were shaking. Small vibrations, as if the neighbors were having a party with subwoofers in frequencies that I somehow couldn't hear. The thought that I might have some sort of crazy neurological disorder (multiple sclerosis? Parkinson's?) crossed my mind. The vibrations went on for 15 or 20 seconds, and then, brushing it off as a dream, I went back to sleep.

Still disconcerted the next morning, I went to my computer and googled "sleeping motion sensation." After some quick browsing, I came to this conclusion: I was coming down with restless leg syndrome. Oy!

Then, I went to work and someone mentioned the 5.2 magnitude earthquake that rattled Illinois last night. It was a reminder that on a geological scale, we are all but specks on a wall.

Dungeons & Dragons

Well, I never thought I'd say this, but the line has been crossed and left far behind in the dust, so I may as well announce: I am playing Dungeons and Dragons. Somehow, the idea sprang up at the lunch table, and so, Phil is guiding a few of us neophytes through the process of playing a role-playing game.

At this point, some of you are cheering wildly and mentally upping my nerd score, while everyone else is inwardly grimacing or scratching their head. DnD, isn't that the game played by those kids in high school who carried around bags of dice and wore dragon necklaces and drew fairies in notebooks and claimed they were Wiccan? Yeah, that game.

As it turns out, DnD is not really a game in the traditional sense, but more like collective story-telling. Each person assumes the role of a character, and that character interacts with a fictional world and other members of that world. Furthermore, this world includes plenty of fantastic powers (spell casting, exotic weapons) and mythological threats (dragons, orcs) to keep things interesting. It's much more creative than I had imagined, and frankly, I'm surprised that more girls never got around to playing. (Isn't this what we're supposed to be good at? Playing make-believe?)

Over the last few weeks, we've gradually been schooled in the process of character generation, coming up with various personality traits and numeric statistics. For the final bit, I came up with the following back story for my character. After all this effort, let's hope I don't die when we get together in Phil's basement next weekend.

---

Daevon Nimvirrea Ansatz, 178, was born to a moderately wealthy family of spice merchants in Waterdeep. Her mother died at an early age, and as an only child, Daevon grew up strong-willed and independent. Noting her interest in nature and wildlife, her father tried to channel this energy into horsemanship and gardening. This backfired when local authorities discovered that the garden plot was filled with poppy plants. For her part, Daevon insisted upon her innocence and said that she had simply wanted a field full of crimson blooms. One summer, a band of gypsies set up camp on the outskirts of town. Daevon became fast friends with the children and adopted Mama Mirela as her own. When fall approached and the gypsies were readying for the winter move, Daevon opted to skip school and leave with the gypsies. Over the next few years, she roamed much of the High Forest, and the gypsy elders taught her how to purify water, track and hunt animals, identify edible plants and the like. With her nimble fingers, she became an expert archer, and those who crossed her might see their hats whisked away by arrows.

When Mama Mirela died, Daevon silently mourned her passing as the mother she’d never had. Then, she opted to leave dry land for a spell at sea, working a stint as a deckhand on a crab fishing schooner. Though she spent most of her time cleaning and sorting the catch, she had a stellar eye for navigation and learned to track the movements of the constellations. After two seasons in the Sea of Moving ice, Daevon decided she’d had enough of laboring 24-hour shifts in wet, freezing conditions, and at the next port, she took off with her trunk over her shoulder.

Currently, Daevon works as a sherpa at the base of the Nether mountains. The pay is high, but the work is mundane and she is itching to travel again. Occasionally, she does meet interesting travelers, who bring her news from the coasts. Last week, a druid by the name of Phineas Crumplebeard passed through, en route to Icewind Dale. Though she paid little attention as he babbled about his exploits, Daevon was duly impressed when he successfully healed a sprained ankle of hers.

Cyclical Adventures

On my way to work this morning, I saw a bike get stolen. It was efficient, it was brazen, it was almost imperceptible.

The problem with bicycles is that it is nearly impossible to deter a determined thief. Even if the frame is secured, it doesn't take much time or hardware to disassemble valuable parts. If you lock a bike's frame to a bike rack, you are still leaving your wheels exposed, many of which come with quick-release latches. Then there are all sorts of peripheral parts that can walk away. In the last 6 months, I have seen a friend get his seat stolen, and another friend had her disc brakes and front wheel stolen (though she didn't notice at first because the thief helpfully replaced the wheel). Bikes are particularly vulnerable in high-traffic urban areas. In a classic tale of New Haven sketchiness, Yalie friends told me that one time a bike was locked to a stop sign, and when the owner returned, the bike AND the stop sign were gone.

By dumb luck (or misfortune), I happened to see this guy approach a bike rack, and something about his body language made me uneasy. He scanned the bikes, then moved toward one in particular and bent down to examine the rear derailleur. I kept walking down the block, throwing glances over my shoulder and feeling unsettled. Should I turn a blind eye? But what could I possibly do, make a citizen's arrest? No one else was even glancing at the guy. It was as if I were the only person who could see clearly.

I thought perhaps if I casually approached the guy, he would get skittish and leave. He was a black male, shoddily dressed and with a deformed right eye, and at this point, he was full-out loosening bolts and shifter cables. So, what are you doing, I asked. Uh, fixing the rear gear set, he mumbled. Is that yours, he asked, motioning toward an adjacent bike. No, I answered, mine's further down the street. Why don't you go get it, he asked. It's a nice day, and I like watching people work on bikes, I said. I stood there for a minute, debating what to do, watching a crime take place before my eyes.

Seeing that my presence wasn't a deterrent, I quickly walked away and asked a pedestrian what the non-emergency police number was. (It's 311, for future reference.) Another woman overheard and pointed me to an unmarked police car on the next corner. I ran over, but by the time I waved him down, a backwards glance saw the thief speeding away with his new property. The cop thanked me for "doing the right thing," and told me to just call 911 next time. This time though, it was too late.

The whole scenario took no more than 5 minutes.

The bike was locked with a standard u-lock, the same kind I use every day. I have no idea how the thief managed to defeat that, and it makes me worry that the only reason my bike hasn't been stolen so far is because it simply hasn't been targeted yet.

I should have just punched the guy. (He wasn't that big.)

---

As it so happens, I'd been researching road bikes for the last couple weeks, and had made arrangements to take a look at one posted on Craig's List. Road bikes are feather-light, come with flashy equipment like clipless pedals, and are generally upwards of $1,000 for entry-level bikes while competitive ones might be several grand. But Crystal, you've already got two bikes, do you honestly need a third? Well no, but I rationalized that each of my bikes would be very different (mountain, road, 3-speed), plus I was getting a nice chunk of change in the mail from my tax rebate. Thank you, President Bush.

After work, I trekked to Evanston to take a test ride on this bike. My first thought was that I was now going really, really fast. My second thought was that the aerodynamic, flattened back position would take some getting used to, and that my wrists were starting to hurt. This was quite different from riding a kid's bike, and I nearly fell over on a couple occasions. But overall, the bike handled well, and the seller included extra inner tubes ($10), a Shimano Flight Deck computer ($125), and clipless cycling shoes to boot ($100). All for the price of $625? I bit.

Somewhere along the 20-mile trek back home, I realized that this bike was too valuable to be used as a commuter bike. I didn't want to find my bike stripped of its pedals or wheels or seat, and there's no way to secure everything. I ought to invent some kind of shocking device (something taser-esque?) such that anyone getting too close to my bike would be in for a nasty surprise.

(Yet Another) Existential Crisis

I have this pipe dream that just keeps on clinging, like static-charged saran wrap. Maybe I should have gone to journalism school.

The "R" Word

Here at the Fed, we've been in a bit of a tizzy, looking for signs that we are, in the words of former Chairman Greenspan, undergoing a "cumulative dynamic unwinding of economic activity that feeds upon itself," also known as a recession. To make things even more interesting, I am in the finance group, which means I have an upfront view of the hottest-burning fires. It's ironic that I came to the Fed because I wanted nothing to do with investment banking...yet here I am, 6 months later, learning all sorts of things about finance, albeit from a much more theoretical vantage. Who knows, I may end up working at a big bank after all...

A lot of people have been asking me questions like "Why does the economy suck balls?" The short non-answer is, it's complicated. In a nutshell, in the aftermath of 9/11, the Fed lowered interest rates and credit became cheap, e.g. borrowing money was really easy. Mortgage brokers began underwriting loans to borrowers with checkered credit histories. Why would you lend money to unreliable borrowers though? Well, here's an innovative idea: you can bundle these subprime mortgages into new securities and sell them to investors, like other banks, hedge funds, institutional investors, etc. That way, rather than holding the loans on your balance sheet, you can resell these securities and escape risk-free. But who would buy securities based on crappy loans? Well, we could bundle a large portfolio of mortgages into separate tranches, with a range of risk levels, say, AAA through CCC. If some borrowers default, investors in the lower-rated tranches will not get paid, but the higher-ranked senior tranches will continue to pay. To compensate for the increased risk, junior tranches will also receive higher interest pay-offs. Wow, now we've even managed to create AAA securities out of a bundle of sketchy loans! This process sort of cycles through (you can repackage securities again), until homeowners decide they can't afford their mortgage payments, bank balance sheets are a black hole of intangible assets, and investors suddenly realize the emperor is wearing no clothes.

To further complicate matters, most of the financial terminology being thrown around is confusing for economists, not to mention reporters and novitiate news readers. Alt-A mortgages? SIVs? ABS? CDOs? CLOs? A new acronym seems to pop up every week. No wonder the mainstream press is replete with errors when they try to explain the unfolding events. When our department gathered for a meeting earlier this week, someone commented, "Who knew 3 weeks ago what an auction-rate security was?" This garnered a lot of laughs.

The combination of bubbles in the housing market and the financial sector is a bludgeoning one-two blow to the economy. Whereas a few years ago, credit was too cheap, now credit is too expensive, and businesses and consumers who should be able to borrow are being denied loans. Banks are nervous about lending out money, particularly to each other, and the anxiety is pervasive. This credit crunch is unusually far-reaching in scope, and seems to be taking down arcane sectors of the financial markets that have nothing to do with housing. A month ago, the leveraged loan market was under pressure. The next week, it was municipal bonds and student loans. The week after that, auction-rate securities fell victim. And now, it looks like Bear Stearns (the 5th largest investment bank on Wall St) is on the verge of going bust.

This news scares me more than any other development so far. Basically, at the beginning of the week, rumors and speculation began swirling that Bear Stearns didn't have the cash flows to meet the demands of its creditors. Despite releases and press conferences by Bear Stearns' top brass stating that their liquidity positions were sound, the market's fears were not eased. By Thursday, investors were pulling funds out en masse, and by Friday, it was clear that, regardless of whether the original rumors were true, Bear Stearns' "liquidity position in the last 24 hours had significantly deteriorated." Take a good, hard look, because we have just witnessed the modern-day equivalent of a bank run. For more details, Felix Salmon has an excellent, clear explanation of what just blew up.

Luckily, J.P. Morgan and the Federal Reserve are working to partially bail-out Bear Stearns. Amusingly enough, almost exactly one century ago, J. P. Morgan himself stepped with large sums of cash to quell the Panic of 1907, and stabilize the US economy.

As FDR once said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The next FOMC meeting is on Tues the 18th. I intend to take my final exam for stochastic processes (man, those quarters zip by fast compared to semesters!), and then dash back to my computer to see what sort of rate cut will be unfurled.

Pi/Dragon/St. Patrick's Day

(with apologies to Don McLean)

Pi, pi, what's the value of pi?
Starts 3 . 1 4 1 5 9
Them good ol' boys gave it a try
But the decimal never dies, the decimal never dies...

It's March 14th, and we all know what that means - time to celebrate Pi Day! Much like Talk Like A Pirate Day or Towel Day, Pi Day is part of that pantheon of holidays that, well, take a special someone to appreciate.

At 1:59 pm sharp, Phil brought in a splendiferous assortment of pi(e)s: peach, apple, cherry and pumpkin. Considering there were only about a dozen AEs, it was quite a lot of pie to go around. (Note: actual pies consumed differed a bit from the ones displayed above.) Next year, I think we should have a pie with the pi symbol on it, and a second pi with the digits of e on it (2.71828...) so that all together, we have a complete pie.


Meanwhile, spring break has kicked off at Cornell, which means it's time for the annual architecture bacchanal, otherwise known as Dragon Day. Since I never managed to go anywhere exciting for spring break, I was almost always in town to watch the Dragon Day parade and pyre. So, those of us who hadn't jetted to Cancun were treated to the sight of sleep-deprived, festively costumed archies burning an elaborate dragon in the middle of the Arts Quad. As I recall, the weather varied wildly from cold rain to warmth & clear skies to thick snow last year. And it appears that the engineers finally got their act together and constructed a competing phoenix this year.


This morning, as I was waiting in the dentist's office, Coldplay's "Clocks" began playing on the radio. All of the sudden, I was flooded with memories of playing Clocks on chimes, hearing Clocks on marimba, jogging around campus as Clocks emanated from the clocktower as the sun set. It has been almost a year now since I last chimed regularly; would I still be able to play the (notoriously difficult) piece today? Would I be able to sprint up the 9 flights of stairs like I used to? And forget chiming, it's been years since I stopped playing piano regularly, and even longer since I dropped violin. What was the point of all those lessons again? It was a sobering reminder of the passage of time.

Anyway, back to the present. Dragon Day has always coincided with the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, and curious about a possible linkage, I sat down to investigate the origins of the former. As it turns out, Dragon Day began as a celebration of Architecture School pride by Willard Straight, and he chose St. Patrick's Day, who legendarily drove the serpents out of Ireland. Ergo, the burning of our dragon every year actually has some throwbacks to Catholicism. Who would've thought?

Chicago historically has had a large Irish Catholic population, though I suppose many other cities also claim to be Irish-friendly, since it's much more in vogue than being say, Iranian-friendly. However, unlike many other cities, we have perfected the art of dyeing our river shamrock green for St. Patrick's Day. The dye solution has been tested to be eco-friendly, but it looks like the exact composition is a city secret. The fountains at Daley Plaza, which were spouting orange back in Oct, are now bubbling green as well.