a small plunger for a long night

At some point in the late 1990s—back when I was in Midtown five days a week and “busy season” meant we all just silently agreed we lived at the office—I found myself in possession of (OK, I went to a hardware store and bought) a small plunger. Not the industrial-strength bathroom kind. This was a modest, kitchen-sink model. Discreet. Almost polite.

That evening, while working late at my desk, I discovered that it adhered quite nicely to my forehead.

Now, a normal person might remove it at that point. But it was a long day, the numbers weren’t getting any friendlier, and for reasons that made perfect sense at the time, I decided to leave it there and continue working. I imagine I looked like a unicorn, if unicorns specialized in spreadsheets.

A few colleagues walked by, took it in, and reacted the way New Yorkers tend to react to anything slightly unusual: they shrugged and kept going.

But then one of the secretaries passed my cubicle, saw me, said something in Greek (to be clear, she was an immigrant from Greece, so it's not as if the shock suddenly taught her a new language). It did not sound encouraging, and the fact that she fled immediately afterwards didn't help.

About a minute later, my boss came over. He looked at me—plunger still firmly attached—paused just long enough to process it, chuckled, and walked away. I could hear him explaining it to someone: “He’s just having fun.”

Which, in fairness, I was.

struggle was always the default

I’ve seen a lot of social media posts lately lamenting what’s presented as one of life’s great injustices: most people work for decades, often until around age 65, and only then—if they’re lucky—get to stop working and “enjoy life.” Some retire earlier, some later. Some never really retire at all, continuing to work well past traditional retirement age because they have no choice. This reality is often described not just as unfortunate, but as fundamentally wrong.

And increasingly, the blame is laid at the feet of “civilization.”

The argument seems to go something like this: modern society has imposed an unnatural burden on people, forcing them into decades of toil that humans were never meant to endure. I’ve even seen claims that humans are the only animals saddled with this bizarre notion of “work,” as if the very concept is an invention of spreadsheets, office parks, and capitalism.

But this strikes me as getting things almost exactly backwards.

Modern civilization—especially the specialization of labor that comes with it—has been one of the greatest improvements in human quality of life. Other animals don’t go to jobs in the way we do, but they absolutely still work. For animals in the wild, life is a constant, unrelenting struggle for survival. Food must be hunted or foraged. Shelter must be found or built. Predators must be avoided. Injuries can be fatal. Aging doesn’t come with a gold watch and a pension plan. There is no retirement in the wild.

The same was true for humans before civilization, and for much of early civilization as well. People gathered food. They hunted. They planted. They defended themselves. They worked simply to stay alive. Civilization didn’t invent work; it gradually made survival less brutal. The progress hasn’t been perfectly smooth or monotonic, but the long-term trend is unmistakable. Life today—certainly in America, and broadly across the developed world—is vastly better than life anywhere a hundred years ago, let alone a thousand or ten thousand years ago. We enjoy comforts our ancestors couldn’t have imagined.

The uncomfortable truth is that humans are animals, and our natural condition involves effort. Food does not arrive at the table without work. Shelter does not magically appear. Clothing, transportation, medicine, and infrastructure all require human labor somewhere along the chain. One of the great achievements of advanced civilization is that we now get more of these things with less total human effort than ever before—not that effort has disappeared entirely.

Some of the confusion may be fueled by science fiction. Franchises often portray futures in which humans have transcended mundane labor, freed at last to pursue self-actualization without economic necessity. It’s an appealing vision. But it’s also a fantasy—at least for now.

There are people who believe that artificial intelligence, advancing exponentially and perhaps even designing future versions of itself, will finally deliver that utopia. A world where all material needs are met and no one has to do work they don’t enjoy. I’m skeptical. Human nature hasn’t been repealed, and neither have scarcity, incentives, or power. But it’s an open question. We’ll see.

25 years a fellow: could i have blown it all?

Last Monday marked the 25th anniversary of my becoming a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. Attaining that credential was the culmination of years of studying and stress. I should have marked the occasion on Monday, but I forgot. Oops. At any rate, that's not the point of this post.

A question came up at work this week -- did I, as I was receiving my fellowship diploma, risk having it taken away?

Some background is in order. When I got my Fellowship, the last hurdle was the Fellowship Admissions Course. It was a two-or-so day seminar on professional ethics and responsibility, designed to instill in us a sense of the importance of acting honestly and ethically. The process of attaining fellowship has changed over the years, but the FAC remains a part of it, and I believe the FAC still has the same purpose.

The FACends with a banquet at which the new FSAs called up one by one to receive their diplomas from the President of the Society (at the time, it was Dave Holland) and get their pictures taken. And that's where I made it interesting. I brought a gorilla mask and a banana to the banquet. When my name was called I quickly put the mask on and made my way to the podium. There, amid laughter, I offered Mr. Holland a banana in exchange for the diploma. One of my regrets is that somewhere along the way I lost the picture.

Was I was worried that the stunt would cost me my Fellowship? The fact is, is did cross my mind. I didn't want to ask Mr. Holland in advance, since I wanted it to be a surprise. But I did ask one of the FAC faculty what he thought. Was there a chance that Holland would decide that I wasn't taking the whole thing seriously enough? Might he tear up the diploma and tell me I had to start again? Might the ABCD* take interest and impose some sanction. The faculty member assured me that Mr. Holland has a good sense of humor and would most likely be amused.

I'm thinking about that question again after 25 years. Suppose Mr. Holland (or some other high-ranking SoA people or FAC faculty) was actually offended that I wasn't taking it seriously enough? Could it actually have cost me my Fellowship?

Short Answer:
No.

Long Answer:
The first important consideration is that, by the time of the banquet, we had all been declared FSAs. Why is that important? Because it speaks to what would have been needed for the stunt to cost me my Fellowship.

Suppose we hadn't been declared Fellows before the banquet. Then, I suppose, the faculty could have decided that I failed and not given me my diploma. I don't think that would have happened, and it would have been unduly harsh. But maybe it could have happened. Maybe.

But by the time I pulled the stunt I was already an FSA. So for it to have cost me my Fellowship the faculty would have had to revoke it. That, I figure, is a bigger deal. The faculty at the FAC do not have the power to revoke Fellowship. They would have had to make a complaint to the ABCD. After a full investigation, the ABCD could decide to revoke my credentials.

But that seems unlikely. I looked at the Code of Professional Conduct to see if I could find anything there on the subject. Most of the precepts in the code have to do with the actual work of being an actuary. They govern communication, disclosure, ethical issues. Things that aren't affected by a lighthearted but irreverent joke. at the FAC banquet. The closest I could come to seeing anything problematic is in Precept 1, which reads:

An Actuary shall act honestly, with integrity and competence, and in a manner to fulfill the profession's responsibility to the public and to uphold the reputation of the actuarial profession.

Maybe that last clause could be invoked to argue that wearing a gorilla mask at the FAC banquet could harm the reputation of the profession. But I think that would be a difficult argument to make. Especially in light of Annotation 1-4, which clarifies that even that part of the precept is intended to apply to professional activities. That Annotation reads:

An Actuary shall not engage in any professional conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation or commit any act that reflects adversely on the actuarial profession.

Now, it's possible that non-actuarial activities can be interpreted as being violations of the Precept if they are egregiously immoral, and well publicized. And then an actuary could be censured or lose his credential. But it's hard for me to see that happening in the kind of situation I'm discussing.

Thoughts?

__________________________

*The Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline, which is the profession's body charged with dealing with ethical or professional violations. They have the power to investigate accusations and, among other things, revoke or suspend actuaries' credentials.

hawaii - 1998

I'm not much for blogging about past trips unless there's a specific purpose. Anyway, a Facebook friend said he wanted to hear about my visits to Hawaii. That counts as a specific purpose. So, Rod, if you're reading this, please forgive the fact that there's probably more boring information than you really want.

In this post I'll talk about my first trip to Hawaii, which was in 1998. I'll try to get to the 2013 visit in a future post. Sadly, I can't find any old pictures from the 1998 visit. Photos in this post are not from my camera.

Back in the halcyon days of the 1990s, the company I worked for had a policy of letting FSAs attend one SoA meeting per year*. They were usually in fancy hotels and conference centers in cities that made good tourist destinations -- Boston, Montreal, San Diego. But for 1998 the SoA upped the ante and held their June meetings in Maui. At some point, there was a bit of concern at the office. An unusually large percentage of the actuaries wanted to attend that one, and everyone was wondering how the powers-that-be would decide who gets to go. In the end, they decided that the only fair thing was to let us all go. There were some actuaries who didn't want to bother, but anyone who satisfied the requirements and wanted to, went.

My first impression was that this was heaven. The meeting was being held at the Grand Wailea resort In Wailea -- on the southern part of the West coast of Maui. The beautiful ocean looked like you could just jump in and float forever.

I planned to take extra vacation time after the meeting, but (other than a car rental and my hotel reservation), I made no specific plans. I figured I'd find stuff to do.** I ended up meeting up with four female colleagues who had planned on hanging out together, but didn't have transportation. For a couple days after the SoA meeting had ended, I was happy to hang out with them. They had activities planned.

One day was spent in a chartered van riding the "Road to Hana," which is basically an all-day scenic drive around the southeastern lump of Maui***. My best memory was of a series of several pools. Seven? I'm not sure. Whatever it was, it was beautiful. I seem to recall being told that you shouldn't drive it on your own because it was too rough a road. But it didn't seem so bad.

sunrise over Haleakala

Another day we had to get up early for a bus ride up to watch the sun rise over Haleakala crater. Haleakala is one of the volcanoes that make up Maui. It was June, and the weather was generally warm. But the early morning hour and the altitude made it quite chilly. Still, it was worth it. The crater had an other-worldly look, and the sunrise was stunning. One popular activity that I didn't know about is to ride a bicycle down the side of the mountain. We rode up in a van and rode back in the same van. What some tour companies do is drive you up, and drive bicycles up in a separate van. Then you ride the bike down the road to some predetermined pick up spot. From there the tour company drives you back to the base. I probably would have enjoyed the bike ride, but the sunrise was the real attraction.

We spent one glorious day at Club Lanai. Lanai is a separate island West of Maui. My understanding is that it was a leper colony, and most of it is still off limits to tourists. But they did set up a day-resort. In the morning we took a catamaran from Lahaina to club Lanai. There, we cavorted on the beach, lazed in hammocks, and drank.**** Eventually, we took the catamaran back to Lahaina.

I also remember a couple of scuba diving trips, including one to Kahoolawe, which was the remaining rim of a volcano -- Southwest of Maui.

Plans changed one evening. We were having dinner and drinks.***** Somehow, the subject of the other islands came up. And suddenly I was jonesing to see one of the other islands before going home. Our waiter heard me and suggested that I talk to the bartender, who just so happened to be a travel agent. And so, the next morning, I found myself at a travel agent's office in Kihei. Flights between the islands were cheaper than I had expected. By booking a trip to the Big Island and cancelling the last few nights of my stay at the Grand Wailea (nice, but expensive), I actually saved money.

I approached my trip to the Big Island much the way I approached every trip back then. Zero prep. But I figured the hotel concierge would have ideas.

As my plane approached the airport in Hilo, I could see some stunning waterfalls out the window. And I was able to watch the roads and get a good idea of how to get to them -- they appeared to be in the middle of a residential neighborhood. As soon as I picked up my rental car I hightailed it for them. I was climbing around on the lava formations at the top of the falls when I lost my footing and almost fell. I took that as a sign that I had spent enough time there. On the way to the hotel, I saw a sign for lava tubes, so I went for a visit. These weren't long or impressive as lava tubes go. But it was my first ever experience with such things, so I was pleased. I also thought it cool that this was in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

I spent most of my time on the Big Island touring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. On one day I took a helicopter ride to see things from the air. It was kind of interesting, but a bit of a letdown. I was fascinated by the holes in the crusted surface of the lava flows. Through these skylights you could see a bright orange or red surrounded by the dark gray of the rest of the surface.

Chain of Craters Road was a highlight. This was a road that zigzagged its way down to the coast, past a craters and volcanic vents, and through a series of lava flows (with signs indicating the month and year). And it ended at lava that had literally flowed across the road. There, there was a little kiosk with information from the park rangers. There was information about what was a safe walk out onto the flow -- near the kiosk, the lava was solid and safe. But venture too far and you could be on lava that had crusted over, but hid hot flowing lava beneath. Apparently, it was not advisable to venture too far out. But for some reason the rangers couldn't downright forbid it. So there were all sorts of posters warning about all the ways you could die if you ventured too far out. But they also gave useful information about how to make such a trip relatively safe. To paraphrase:

You really shouldn't go out there. Here are all sorts of ways that you can die. And here are examples of people who died in each of these ways. But if you really insist, here's what you should bring. And what you should do.

I really wanted to go out onto the flow. But I also wanted to not die. As the sun was starting to go down, a backpacking couple meandered back from out on the flow. The told of how they found a skylight, and just kind of sat by it, toasting hot dogs over the molten rock. That almost did it. If they can go out and come back safely, there's no reason I can't. And then a thought occurred: if 100 people go out, and 98 die, the only ones I'll meet are the ones who didn't die. So I went back to the car.

I took another trip on Chain of Craters Road, taking time to stop and explore the various trails. My favorite was the Thurston lava tube. It was so much tubier than the residential neighborhood tubes of a couple days before.

And, sooner than I would have liked, my trip came to an end. A flight back to Maui for my connection to LA and then NY.

_____________________________

*IIRC, ASAs could attend once every other year.

** As an aside, this is indicative of one way that Blair and I work well together. When we go on family trips, I'm totally not into figuring out stuff to do. Blair does all sorts of research and comes up with lots of activities and alternates. I'm generally happy to go along with something she comes up with.

*** Modern-day Maui consists of two lumps. Each is a dormant volcano. At one point, one of them (Haleakala, I think) erupted enough to fill in land between them. See the map at the top of this post. Honestly, I would think they're both extinct, since the Hawaiian islands were created by a hot spot. As the Pacific plate moves over the hot spot, it creates a series of volcanoes. Now that Maui isn't over the hot spot anymore, I would think its volcanoes are extinct. But I seem to recall hearing a geologist say that that's not the case. I'm not sure if I remember that correctly.

**** One particular drink, the "blue hawaii" was particularly good.

***** The "lava flow" was another good one.

in search of erdos-bacon

The good news: I may have an Erdos-Bacon number afterall.

The bad news: Confirming as much, and figuring out what it is may be a bit tricky.

To review, A Bacon number represents the number of steps separating an actor from Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon himself has a Bacon number of  zero. Any actor who appeared with him has a Bacon number of one. Actors who didn't appear with him, but appeared with an actor who has a Bacon number of one have a Bacon number of two. I have a Bacon number of three, courtesy of the movie, Being, in which I appeared as an extra. I wrote about that in a previous post. People who don't have a traceable connection to Kevin Bacon are said to either have an infinite Bacon number, or an undefined Bacon number -- or simply not to have a Bacon number. I've seen all three formulations, and I can't say which is correct.

Similarly, an Erdos number* represents the number of steps separating someone from the prolific (and prolifically collaborative) mathematician, Paul Erdos. Paul Erdos has an Erdos number of zero. his coauthors have an Erdos number of one. Etc. For what it's worth my uncle, Andrew Whinston, has an Erdos number of two. Since Paul Erdos passed away in 1996, it's probably difficult for anyone to get an Erdos number of one.

A person's Erdos-Bacon number is the sum of that person's Erdos and Bacon numbers. The lowest Erdos-Bacon number a person (other than Erdos and Bacon) can have is two**.

All of this brings me to my favorite subject -- me. As noted above, my Bacon number is three. But, until yesterday I thought I don't have an Erdos number. To be clear, I'm still not sure if I do, but there's a possibility which I will address below. I know a few people with Erdos numbers, but haven't had the chance to coauthor with any of them.

Last night I Googled myself. This wasn't just for the sake of ego -- though I'm not above Googling for ego. I was wondering -- suppose, hypothetically, I was looking for another job. What would a potential employer see if he or she decided to do a little research via Google. And I came across "Synthetic GIC Reserve Proposal" which I, as part of the Deposit Funds Subgroup of the American Academy of Actuaries' Annuity Reserve Working Group. I wasn't a major contributor to the paper, and -- truth be told -- I can't even remember what my contributions were. But I coauthored with 14 other actuaries. And that jogged my memory -- I also used to be a member of the Academy's Committee on Professional Responsibility. As such, I coauthored a 2003 whitepaper, "The Actuary's Relationship with Users of a Work Product." There were seven other coauthors, none of whom were also on the GIC proposal. So that means that I have 21 potential paths to an Erdos number. The problem is, I don't know who among those 21 also authored other papers and with whom. And I don't feel comfortable emailing them to ask. Well, I feel comfortable asking one of them, and I emailed him last night. We'll see what he says.

*If I am not mistaken, the concept of an Erdos came first. The Bacon number came along afterwards.
**proof left to reader.

game over, man!

Does anyone else's company do this?

In order to encourage employees to be healthy, my company has signed onto a wellness program. We can get points for logging a variety of activities -- some active like walking or exercising, others more passive like reading or spending quality time with a pet. It included challenges, webinars, and all sorts of other ways to earn points. The points can be exchanged for gift cards -- each employee can get up to $300 worth, and we have until November 30 to do it.

My friends at work are varied in their approach to it. Some aren't bothering at all. Others are doing the various things to get points, but taking a leisurely approach since they have plenty of time. One friend isn't paying much attention, but he has some electronic tracker hooked up so he gets credit for steps taken.

Me? I turned it into a game and a challenge to get to the full $300 worth of points as quickly as I could. That meant a morning ritual to grab the daily points available, some extra activities every Sunday (for the weekly points), attending webinars, and more. There's a list online of things to do for points. And I really got into it, too. I created a spreadsheet to track what I did, with lookup tables to show the points. It graphed my progress -- as well as the decrease in points needed per day to reach the goal by the end of November. I even shared one day's graph on Facebook (and received constructive feedback from a colleague who -- I assume -- didn't know what it was I was graphing).

And, yesterday, I reached the goal. Once my points are processed, I'll get my $300 -- which I'll take in Amazon gift cards.

And, strangely, I miss it. Today was the first day that I didn't get up and say "I have to log in to the wellness portal and check my cards, and do a journey step and a ;whil' session." I asked the woman at work who administers the system. I can still earn extra points, but there's no financial incentive. I even asked if I could transfer extra points to a friend. No dice. It's gonna be a long summer...

he actually wants 41%

I recently finished writing a song called "From Chelsea Street to Avon Road." It's a lamentation of lost youth and lost dreams.

The song had been a work in progress for several years -- I don't know. exactly how many, but I'm pretty sure it's more than five. I don't write songs fast. Anyway, I remember mentioning the idea to a colleague* when I first had the idea, so I happened to mention to him that I had finished it. Offhand comment. Not a big deal. Of course he didn't remember the earlier conversation, but that's beside the point.

I was describing the song to my colleague, and he made a quick quip about the concept. That quip gave me an idea for the bridge. I already had a bridge, but I felt that this idea was stronger. On the spot I wrote new lyrics for the bridge, based on what my colleague had said. I didn't use his words -- just the idea.

Now, strictly speaking, I can run merrily along with this. I don't owe him a co-writing credit or a share of the royalties (if there are ever royalties to be had, but I'm not holding my breath). An idea like that isn't subject to copyright. If he had actually written the lyrics for a new bridge, that would be a different matter.

But I want to be on the up and up (and I do work with him), so I asked if, assuming I use the new lyrics, does he want a co-writing credit. "Of course," he responded grinning like Cheshire Cat. I asked what percentage ownership he wanted. He said he'd get back to me.

Meanwhile, I did my own calculation.

• The song is structured as verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, extra chorus.** That's eight segments. The bridge, being one of these eight segments, is one eighth of the song.
• The idea at hand affected the lyrics, not the melody. So we're talking about half the bridge. And we're down to one sixteenth.
• But remember that my colleague didn't write the lyrics; he came up with the concept. Surely that makes the contribution less than if he had written the lyrics. On that basis, I'm going down to one thirty-second.

So, by reckoning, a fair offer is 3.125%. I would maintain an ownership share of 96.875%.

The next day he came back with his thought. He wants 41% of the song. As near as I can figure out, he came up with the figure because 41 is his wife's lucky number.

Unfortunately, he has been intransigent. He is firm at 41%. He has argued that the change would make the song a hit, so my choice is between 96.875% of nothing and 59% of millions of dollars. It's safe to say that his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek; he doesn't really believe there's any actual money to be made. The fact, there is potentially some money at stake -- I have been toying with the idea of recording an album. If I do so, and I include a song that he cowrote, I'd owe him a share of royalties. I don't know the numbers, but if I were to press a thousand copies, the difference between 3.125% and 41% could be $20 or so. It's not a lot of money, I'll admit. But the thought of signing over 41% and implicitly saying that he wrote nearly half the song bothers me. Even if it there's no money at stake.

So, sadly, I'm sticking with the bridge I had.

*To honor his wishes, I won't reveal his name here. Suffice to say you can't pronounce it without making sounds.

** Typical of how I've been writing songs recently, each occurrence of the chorus has different lyrics. They all end with the same anchor line or phrase, but they each get there differently. In that sense they're, lyrically, like verses. But melodically they act as choruses. So that's what I'm calling them.

my colleague, steve: rip

Yesterday I found out that a colleague, Steve, had passed away the day before.

Steve was older than me by a few years -- exactly how many, I don't know. Some characterized his age as "60-ish," but I think he was younger than that. Either way, it's too young to die. I didn't know he was sick, though apparently he had been out on short-term disability for some time. Of course, in an environment where many people work from home half the time (or more), it's easy to not notice someone missing -- especially if your work and his rarely connect.

Occasionally at work there'll be spome function where people have to say how long they've been at the company. Sometimes, when someone reveals a tenure that would be considered long in most contexts (e.g., 20 years), I may smirk and say something like "newbie" in a faux-mocking tone. Steve was one of the ones who could call me a newbie.

In my first rotation as a fresh-faced actuarial student, I was in the unit that administered actuarial functions related to our defined benefit business. One task that I had to perform on occasion involved researching participants' transaction histories. These histories determined what benefits they were entitled to. This many years later, I don't remember the details, so I can't explain it better than that. At any rate, I had to go to microfiche files, look up their transactions, copy them down and then perform some calculations in order to determine what category they belonged to. It was a very tedious process and I hated it. Steve usually had the task of checking my work.

On one occasion I took a shortcut. After getting part of a person's history I was able to determine what category he would be in. I could prove mathematically that he couldn't possibly be in any of the other categories. So I stopped searching through the records, wrote up my results and handed it to Steve. He asked about the rest of the transactions. I pointed out that they didn't matter -- no matter what else I would find, the category wouldn't change. He was clearly amused, but he explained to me that the work could get audited, and the auditors would want a complete transactional history. A proof based on a partial history wouldn't cut it even if it was right. That was when I realized that I had left the world of mathematicians.

I never forgot that lesson that Steve taught me, and the patient way he taught it to me.

Rest easy, Steve.

scare...over!

At work my company provides monetary incentives to engage in health-related activities. We're not talking about get rich money, but enough that I don't want to leave it on the table. So I document exercises. And I document the screening my dentist performs. And I get a skin cancer screening in the office. Which is where this adventure begins.

I made an appointment to have a skin cancer screening in the office, performed by the dermatologist the company contracts for the purpose. I could, of course, go to my regular dermatologist, but that's less convenient and more expensive (the office screening is free from my perspective). I expected the usual result -- everything is fine. But this time the doctor found something that concerned her -- a small mole on right buttock. It wasn't big, but the color was uneven. "I would get this biopsied," she declared.

She offered to make an appointment at her office (which is near work), but I demured, explaining that my family already has a dermatologist we trust and have a relationship with. So I made an appointment with my regular dermatologist and had him look at the mole. He opined that it was probably fine, but since the color is uneven it makes sense to err on the safe side and biopsy it.

For some reason I was much more nervous in the week before I got the results than I had been between the original screening and the visit to my doctor.

A week later, he called with the results -- it was just a congenital mole I'd had since birth. B"H.

The only question: Is there any need to contact the dermatologist who did the original screening? Just to let her know the outcome?

fortunately, i get to stay in the same office

I've changed jobs.

I haven't said that in a while...but, well, yeah. Time to clear off my desk and fill it up with all new clutter.

No, I haven't gone to a new company. Not now, anyway. That would feel weird -- I've been at this company since I started my career. It was, literally, the first company I went to work for out of school. Which is not to say I won't leave. Just that I haven't.

But it's a new job within the actuarial department. I'd been doing variations of the same thing for...well, let's just say for longer than I should have. And I was good at my job. I enjoyed it. and I liked the people I worked with and for. But it was time for a change.

So now I'm in a new unit, learning new things, and feeling just a tad nervous. And this week, for the first time in a long time, I found I was actually excited about my work.

vending machine follies

There's a Coca Cola vending machine at my office. The other day it was, apparently, not working.

That's nothing new. That machine is known to behave in odd ways. There was a stretch, a few years ago, when it would give extra bottles. That was at a time when I was drinking soda. I would put in my money, selected the Coca-Cola* button, and out would come anywhere from one to eight bottles. There were other times where nothing would come out, or the wrong kind of soda would come out.

At this point, being that I'm trying to lose weight and all, I'm not buying from the soda machine. But I noticed it wasn't working because of the sticky notes that started collecting on it. First it was one note. "Didn't vend Coke <name and extension>" Then, later in the day, a similar note appeared. Then there was a third note and a pad of blank sticky notes was sitting on the counter next to the machine.

I couldn't resist. "Machine kicked me in the shin and told me I'm too fat."

*Because, seriously, what other soda is there to drink?**
**Unless you're eating pastrami, in which case there's also Cel-Ray

two truths and a lie

At work, one of the higher-ups was having a skip-level lunch. As an icebreaker, she told us, we would play "Two truths and a lie." We would each, in turn, say three things about ourselves. One would be true and two would be lies. The others would then guess which was the true statement.

My statements were:

• On my first date with my wife, we ate dinner at the Cornforth House in Saco, Maine. This was relevant because this higher-up is from Maine.
• My grandfather played minor league baseball in the Pirates organization. He was known as the "Rude Shortstop."
• One year I was invited to the Governor's Christmas tree-lighting ceremony is Montgomery, Alabama.

my first world problem: free food

On Monday I was at the annual ASNY meeting. At lunch I found myself at a table for ten. The other nine were all practicing Orthodox Jews. That  meant that they had requested kosher meals and that they weren't going to eat the desserts that had been put out on the table. I could have eaten all ten desserts without a problem. Also, before the meeting there were all manner of pastries and bagels set out in the morning before the meeting. I could have gorged myself and no one would have noticed.

That is but one example of something that I have only now started to notice -- how often free food* is knocking at my door. And I've been noticing it now because I've been limiting what I eat. Specifically, I've been trying to eat less overall -- and, especially, to eat less in the way of simple carbohydrates.

I'm not sure when I first noticed the phenomenon, but it definitely crystallized in my head when Sharon and I went to see Francis Su lecture at Mo Math. I rote about that here. Since the lecture was about dividing cakes evenly, there was a practicum which involved free cake for everyone.

As Sharon and I were walking to the subway afterwards, she asked about why I didn't have any of the cake. Surely a little bit wouldn't hurt? I explained that it's actually easier for me not to have any than to have a small bit and leave it at that. She then asked if that meant that I would never have cake again. I said that I don't know. I'm not swearing off sweets and treats forever or for any fixed period. I'm deciding now not to have any now. Tomorrow never knows. And that's how I reconcile myself to the deprivation. Allowing for the possibility of eating all the crap I want whenever I decide that I want.

After the conversation, I realized that this chance to have free cake wasn't an aberration. I go to garden clubs, and there's food. I attend a charity event with Stack-Up, and there's food. At work, there's often free food for the taking. Leftovers from catered lunch meetings, snacks that people put out...that kind of stuff. And there are a couple of people who keep candy baskets on their desks, inviting anyone to take.

And, yes, I know that it's a classic example of a first world problem to complain about too much free food. But, damn is it tempting.

Anyway, I have to stop writing this, since I need to get to bed. There's a LIDS meeting, and it's a potluck. Laura always bakes incredible cakes.

*In a lot of cases, such as the ASNY meeting, the food isn't technically free. Its cost is built into the price of attendance at the conference. But for the purposes of this post I am using the word "free" to mean "at no extra cost to me."

why a work talent show is so intimidating

I've written a couple posts now about the talent show at work. And I last year I wrote about that one. Both times I had fun. I enjoyed singing my songs even though I made some mistakes in the lyrics and chord changes. But none of the performances* were of professional quality. And why should they be? We're not professional entertainers**. We're actuaries and auditors and lawyers and accountants and I don't know what else.

And yet I still get nervous. Because when I think of talent shows, I think of the stuff from TV sitcoms. It seems that almost every sitcom from the 1970s found some excuse to have a talent show episode. Where all the stars somehow found their way to performing in the same show. I'll bet it was fun for the stars, since they got to show off talents that normally didn't make it into their roles. And it shouldn't be forgotten that they had the advantages of budget and full wardrobe and makeup departments.

So I think forward to the show, anticipating what I will do, and comparing it to what the TV stars did. Following are a few memorable examples of what my brain thinks of as talent show performances. You can see why I get intimidated.

From "One Day at a Time"

From "Laverne and Shirley"

From "The Brady Bunch"

From "Maude"

*There were singing performances, poetry readings and recitals, monologues about language, comedy routines. I'm sure there was other stuff, but I don;t recall what.

**With the exception of Brandon  Bujnowski, who performed last year. He's a guitarist with the neo-punk band, Bedpan Fight. Of course, he wasn't on the original schedule. But that's another matter.

i wasn't the only performing actuary

A little bit ago, I posted this, about my performance of a couple original songs at my company's Diversity and Inclusion talent show. One of my colleagues -- another Fellow in the valuation unit, performed a comedy routine. There were some jokes I'd heard before, some variations that I hadn't, and a few new ones.

And without further ado, here's Phil...

The CEO was in the audience, and Phil is still working for the comapny, so it couldn;t have been too bad.

performing at work

For the second year in a row, I performed at my company's Diversity and Inclusion talent show. And I don't play guitar particularly well either. But I do think I can write a decent song.

Once again, I did two original songs. Please forgive the fact that I can't really sing in tune or on key.

"Five Missing One"

"Jackpot"

speck and bungee on the wall of fame

Two of the women I work with have devoted one wall of the cubicle they share to pet pictures. I believe this started with pictures of their dogs. Then other people gave them pet pictures. I have never seen the display myself, since they work in Charlotte and I'm in New York. But the
display includes several of our cats and former cats: Red, Cream, 18, Spiderman and Morgan. Apparently this includes brief biographical information; when I emailed pictures of the cats, I included some information about each cat, and the colleagues dutifully printed out the information and put it up with the pictures.

Yesterday I came across a picture of Speck and Bungee, the cats I had when I met Blair. After some IM back and forth, I sent a scan of the picture along with a brief bio. Apparently the biographical tidbits actually get people to stop and read.

Anyway, here is the picture and what I wrote about the cats.

I got Speck and Bungee from a shelter in 1995 after a broken engagement. Yes, they were rebound cats. I gave Speck his name because of the black speck on his otherwise-pink nose. Bungee got his name because she looked like she was bungee jumping when she chased a little toy that I got for them.

Bungee was very affectionate, always wanting to be on my lap. Actually, it was quite annoying; I’d push her off and she’d jump back on. Over and over and over. Speck wasn’t quite so demonstrative, but did have a habit of headbutting me in the morning when he thought it was time to get up. One morning when I tried to ignore him, he gave me a bloody nose with that head of his. Speck was (to date) the only cat I ever had who needed a therapist. The therapist prescribed an antidepressant, but that didn’t work out particularly well. The drug only came in pill form, and I had to mash it up and mix it with their food. As an aside, that meant giving them canned cat food. Yuck. Anyway, Speck could smell the drug in the food, and didn’t want it. So I’d give the cats their food with the medicine mixed in. Bungee ate it without concern (the therapist said it was OK if she ate it, even if she didn’t need the drug). Speck would sit by the bowl and stare at it. Then he’d glare at me. He’d get a bit on his paw and sniff it, then fling it across the room. He repeated that several times, covering the cream-colored walls in a mix of catfood and antidepressant. Eventually, he’d give up and eat a bit. I hated cleaning the walls afterwards.

So we went on like that. When I started seeing Blair, she went out of her way to get the cats to like her. That meant (among other things) feeding them. Speck got used to her easily. Bungee became intensely jealous. After Blair had moved in, Bungee would thank her for her food with an angry hiss.

When we moved into a house, Speck had trouble adapting, and kept getting out. One time, in 2002, he escaped and never came back. We had Bungee for another three years, until she suffered a stroke and had to be put down. We buried her in the backyard.

the omega glory

At work, some colleagues and I got into an email exchange about mortality tables. It was prompted by a passage in an old probability textbook. Feller, I think. The relevant passage:

It is impossible to measure the life span of an atom or a person without some error, but for theoretical purposes it is expedient to imagine that these quantities are exact numbers. The question then arises as to which numbers can represent the lifespan of a person. Is there a maximal age beyond which life is impossible, or is any age conceivable? We hesitate to admit that man can grow 1000 years old, and yet current actuarial practice admits no bounds to the possible duration of life. According to formulas on which modern mortality tables are based, the proportion of men surviving 1000 years is of the order of magnitude of one in 10^10^36 — a number with 10^27 billions of zeros. This statement does not make sense from a biological or sociological point of view, but considered exclusively from a statistical standpoint it certainly does not contradict any experience. There are fewer than 10^10 people born in a century. To test the contention statistically, more than 10^10^35 centuries would be required, which is considerably more than 10^10^34 lifetimes of the earth. Obviously, such extremely small probabilities are compatible with our notion of impossibility. Their use may appear utterly absurd, but it does no harm and is convenient in simplifying many formulas. Moreover, if we were seriously to discard the possibility of living 1000 years, we should have to accept the existence of maximum age, and the assumption that it should be possible to live x years and impossible to live x years and two seconds is as unappealing as the idea of unlimited life.

 Before going on, I should note one mistake in the passage above. Current actuarial practice is (and, I believe, was as of the time that Feller was written) to use mortality tables that did have a maximal age. Modern mortality tables generally have an omega -- that age at which q (the probability of dying within a year) is 1.

At any rate, the question being alluded to is whether it makes more sense to have an omega or to assume that there is no upper bound on potential lifespan. For practical purposes, it doesn't matter. There is clearly a mathematical difference between having q=1 at age 120 and having q=.99999999999999 at age 120, growing monotonically, and converging to 1 as age approaches infinity. But in the world of insurance (and its place in finance), it doesn't matter.

Conceptually, I prefer the notion that there is no omega, but q's get arbitrarily close to 1. It just makes more sense to me. But, based on the conversation at work, I am in the minority.

breaking the ice with toastmasters

I'm not sure if I joined Toastmaster's last year, or in 2015. Either way, it had been too long since I joined for me not to have given my first speech -- the "icebreaker." And I might not have given it yet if not for Tracy, one of the auditors I work with. She kind of pushed me to do it.

It's not as if I haven't participated at the meetings. I've done the "Table Topics" -- impromptu 2 minute speeches on a topic that you pull from a hat -- a number of times. But this was my first prepared speech. I asked someone to tape it, but, for some reason my phone cut out partway in. And it saved the video sideways. I don;t know why. At any rate, the following is what I managed to get, and it gives a flavor of what I said.

I continued talking about the roadtrip from Phoenix to Denver. Instead of covering three states, we covered 11. Blair tackled me in the snow in Yellowstone, we enjoyed the roads in Montana (which, at the time, had no speed limit), and we accidentally found ourselves at Carhenge. After another road-trip anecdote, I talked about how we celebrated after I'd been to all fifty states -- a big party with commemorative T shirts. And Blair conspired with friends to give me the gift of media coverage. The New York Daily News ran an article, John Montone (who does -- or did -- a human interest radio show for WINS) ran a piece about me, and four governors proclaimed holidays to honor my visits to their states.

I closed by saying that we still enjoy road trips, and the only thing better than seeing new places is seeing them with Blair.

The feedback I got was generally positive. And I do think it went well, though I note that Toastmasters -- or at least my chapter -- is very positive in feedback. So I can't be sure that it was as good as the feedback would lead me to believe.

One bit of criticism that I saw a lot of was that I put my hands in my pockets too much. Valid point. Seeing the video, I realize that that's one of my crutches. I also noticed that I have a tendency to exhale in a puff when I am transitioning between thoughts. I have to work on that. Finally, seeing the video reminds me that I really need to lose weight.

One thing that's interesting about this talk is that it's a complete last minute rewrite. Originally I wrote an icebreaker speech called "Dreams Can Come True (Sort of)." It's about how, as a kid, I had a copy of Dr. Seuss' My Book About Me. On the page about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote in "officeworker." I did that because I wanted to do what my dad did. But I didn't know what he did. I just new he was an office worker. Now, decades later, that dream has come true. I practiced that talk, but the night before delivering it I decided that it just wan't working for me. So I started again from scratch, and wrote the speech you see above, calling it "Dreams Are Better When Shared."

Now I have to prepare the second speech.

my starring role as the titular character in "educating asa"

It was 2004 -- a little over twelve years ago. The Society of Actuaries was having a meeting in New York. Somehow it was decided that, as part of the lunchtime program, there should be a play to illustrate the need for actuaries to have soft skills.

Tom Bakos wrote the play, which was titled "Educating Asa." I was a long-time member of the Academy's Committee on Professional Responsibility, and in that role I knew Bakos. I was also a bit of a ham with an unrequited dream of being an actor. So I was a natural choice to play the title role.

In my brief acting career, this was by far the biggest audience I ever performed for.

I look back at this video with a mix of pride and embarrassment. We actually had very little time to prepare and memorize our lines. There was only one rehearsal. We didn't have the luxury of costume changes, which was fine for the others. But Asa had to make a complete transformation. Given the constraints, I think I did pretty well with it. Ditching the pens from my shirt pocket, pulling the cuffs on my pants down to cover the (mismatched) socks. Putting on a jacket. But I couldn't perform a miracle. So I still had my five o'clock shadow. And I didn't completely fix the top of my pants, so the belt and waistline combo still look funky after the transition. But the point was made.

For that line about "...a pig like that you don't eat all at once," I was given freedom to pick whatever punchline I wanted. From any joke. I actually was tempted to go with "I don't know about the ones on the sides, but the one in the middle is Willie Nelson," which is one of my favorites. But the joke is overtly sexual. Still, I was tempted to go with it. Absent the context of the joke, the punchline isn't dirty at all. If anyone complained, I could plead ignorance. "Hey, you're the one with the dirty mind," I could argue, as if the punchline was some kind of Rorschach test. In the end I decided on a punchline from a nonsexual joke.

A few of my friends from work were at the meeting. Two of them knew in advance that I would be part of the lunchtime entertainment. A third, who was seated with them, didn't know in advance. Afterwards, I loved hearing about how his jaw dropped when he realized that it was me onstage.

Oh, for the record, I dress better than that when I'm at work.