I did a little search on the phrase and found a whole website dedicated to setting the record straight on this. Plus, there are a bunch of other people pontificating about the problem. So, I’ll try not to be too redundant, but just say this:

“Begs the question” does NOT mean “raises the question” or “implies the question” or “makes me want to ask this other question.” It is not correct to say something like “he said he doesn’t like tomatoes, which begs the question ‘why is he growing tomatoes in his back yard?’” While that is the way most everyone uses it, it is not the actual meaning of the phrase.

The correct meaning is explained on the get it right website linked above:

“‘Begging the question’ is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.”

It is a phrase with origins in logic or argument, and it is used most appropriately in legal matters and debate. It is not a phrase that most people have need to use very often. So, the next time you are tempted to throw out the phrase in a simple colloquial context, please think twice and help preserve the true meaning of the phrase. The English language thanks you for it!

Given my driving requirements, I think it is a great fit and I look forward to riding it. I have to wait a bit, however, because they are in great demand so I have to wait for our local shop to get to me on the list. There is a chance it will be within the next week as they think they have a black one coming in June, but there’s no guarantee. We shall see.

Recently, however, I realized I was spending quite a bit of money purchasing iced tea at restaurants. They charge you the same amount for iced tea as they do for other beverages. So, it’s maybe $1.50-$2 for tea. When I added up how much I was spending per month on this infused water, I decided something had to change.

So, no more paying for iced tea at restaurants. Well, I’m not saying I’m perfect. Sometimes I break down and just have to get some. But, I can say I have drastically reduced my spending on tea.

Of course, one of the key factors in being able to avoid paying for tea is to have some good tea at home. If I can get my tea fix there, then I’m less tempted to purchase it while out. At home, we’ve been using decaffeinated tea for a long time. I guess I figured “why not?” You know, if you can avoid the caffeine, all the better. However, the taste of the tea hasn’t been enough to replace my tea purchasing tendencies.

So, I finally broke down and tried the caffeinated tea at home, and viola! This is what I’ve been missing in the homemade tea. Who knew that caffeine made such a difference in the taste and the strength? Well, probably everyone knew this except me but now I have discovered it and homemade caffeinated tea is well on its way to replacing my need for tea purchases. Woohoo!

If you do, then you could go on down to your local gas station, meet with the owners and make a proposition. You could tell them this:

“I’d like to enter a contract with you. I want to be able to buy 100 gallons of gas at the current price of $3.75 per gallon at any time between now and the end of August 2008. Can we make a deal?”

Naturally, the gas station owner is going to put a price tag on this deal. After all, why would he lock in this price for you when gas could go higher? On the other hand, for the right price, he might be willing to make this deal. Why? Because it’s also possible that gas doesn’t go higher and selling this contract could bring in some extra cash for him. Let’s say he agrees to sell you this contract for thirty cents per gallon, or $30. You accept and the deal is done.

This contract you have created is a call option on gasoline. It is just like the call options you can easily buy and sell on many stocks, indexes, futures and other products. It has a strike price ($3.75/gallon), an expiration date (August 31, 2008) and a price ($0.30/gallon). It also contains 100 gallons per contract, just as equity / index options usually trade at 100 shares / contract.

To me, casino gambling, stock market investing, starting a business … etc., it’s all a gamble. It’s all the same. There’s no intrinsic difference in the activities themselves. They are all games and they follow the same rules of risk, reward and probability of success.

The difference can only be found in how one approaches and plays the games. It is possible for someone to approach the stock market as a gambler, just as it is possible for a person to treat casino gambling like a business. In my opinion, the difference comes down to one thing: risk management.

Whether you invest your money in stocks or in casino gaming, you are only treating it as an investment if you practice a solid plan of risk management. Without this component, you are simply throwing money toward chance, and it is this practice of betting on chance that gives casino gambling its wasteful reputation. I would argue, however, that it is just as common for people to play in the stock market in a wasteful manner when they don’t practice risk management.

Risk management is a practice of understanding all of the factors that can influence the possible outcomes of your play, and building a solid plan around these principles. Risk management makes it imperative to have a plan in place for your trading or gaming. Without a defined plan, one is not managing risk because without a plan, one will generally just bow to emotion and give in to the feelings of the moment, which almost surely results in loss.

A person who makes a solid profession out of playing poker understands risk management. They have a plan and they practice that plan every time they play. They know how much they are willing to lose on each hand, each game, each month, each year … etc. They know the probabilities for every hand they are dealt and they know how they will react to every possibility they encounter. The professional poker player treats poker like a business. They preserve capital and operate with a plan. To me, this person is investing because they are putting money into a system, or business model, that they believe will be profitable over time. The casino gambler who doesn’t practice risk management, on the other hand, just throws money at chance without a plan in place. This practice relies purely on luck and, over time, this gambler will generally lose.

I think most would agree with the above point, but here’s where I think this intersects with a majority of Americans in ways that most don’t understand. The stock market is also a gamble and unless you practice risk management, you are not really investing, but rather just taking a chance. The “safety net” that has kept most people out of trouble while they have thrown their life savings into mutual funds and stocks is that, over time, the equity markets have appreciated. So, even though people don’t understand what they are really putting at risk, they have come out OK because the markets have saved them by being resilient.

Problem is, the more the market proves itself this way, the more people tend to forget about the risk. It is this psychological phenomenon that led to the housing and credit crisis we are now enduring. People got overconfident about the resilience of housing, thinking it could never go down, and they placed large bets on the belief that housing would always go up. I believe the stock market also holds this illusion of infallibility in the minds of most people. We come to believe that the stock market is a “sure thing” as long as you hold on for the long term. But it’s not a sure thing. The markets do tend to go up over time (at least in recent history), but what if you put your money in at the wrong time? Or, even worse, what if the markets stop going up, or start going down?

We recently got to witness the results of this problem. As the Dow fell from 14,000 to 12,000 recently, the nation started screaming for justice. Everyone looked to blame the politicians or the oil companies or whoever else they could find to blame. Nevermind the fact that the Dow was still holding 12,000, which up until a couple of years ago had never even been hit. Here we are exponentially higher than we have been in recent history and yet our nation was demanding that our leaders do something to stop the decline.

Why does this happen? Because most people have most of their money tied up in the markets or instruments that respond to the markets yet they don’t understand or manage their risk. They simply expect their money to grow year after year and to grow by a hefty percentage at that. This is what years of growth have taught us to rely on. It’s what most people believe to be true. But it’s unfortunate because the truth is that the stock markets, just like the casinos, are a gamble, and to be successful you have to either be lucky, or practice a solid plan of risk management. Most of us have been lucky for the past many decades. But what if that were to change?

This little vignette solidified something I’d been thinking about for a while. That is, everyone is a gambler.

When you study the markets and people who make a business of trading in the markets, you slowly become aware that everything is simply a game of probabilities, risk and reward (for more of my thoughts on this, you can check out a post a wrote a while back specifically on this subject). These very same principles that allow an individual (or a professional) to make money in the markets also guide the games of chance at the casinos. They also guide pretty much every other decision we make every day of our lives.

When asked about the similarities of trading and playing poker, one of the hedge fund guys explained that in both cases, you are presented with a certain amount of information, but there is always a piece of information that you don’t have. You have to make a decision on how to handle that missing piece of information based on your understanding of the information you do have. You make a decision, place your bets, and hope for the best.

Honestly, can you say that this is different than anything else in life? There is no certainty about tomorrow. We are always dealing with an incomplete information set and making decisions the best we can based on what we know. When it gets right down to it, we always have to move forward, choose our path, and hope for the best.

This is why I say everyone is a gambler. So, why do we consider gambling to be “bad”? What makes tying up hundreds of thousands of retirement dollars in equity-based mutual funds (which can lose their value) any more virtuous than hitting the casinos? Or, what about the person who invests a large portion of their net worth into a new business venture — are they somehow more noble than the blackjack player? I have some thoughts, but I’d like to hear yours first in the comments. What do you think?

Since I live near downtown, I am very interested in how the residential life in downtown is coming along. I am really excited for the development that is happening and hope there is great success with occupancy so that we will have continued development as well, and hopefully even get some more retail options and even an urban grocery store some time (Whole Foods, anyone??).

Anyway, there were some great properties to see. Maybe a third of them were older properties and buildings that are being restored and converted to residential, with the rest being new construction. The new stuff is primarily over in the triangle north of Bricktown with the older buildings being in downtown and midtown.

Personally, my favorite was the old Sieber Hotel in midtown. This very old six story structure is being nicely restored to residential rental apartments with some upscale features. There are crown moldings, modern kitchens, tiled bathrooms, and some beautiful windows. I just don’t think there’s a substitute for a historical structure, no matter how nicely you build something new.

Hadden Hall was another property in midtown that looks like it will be similar to the Sieber, but it was just beginning its restoration so there was nothing really to see yet.

I’m not a big T.G.I. Friday’s fan, but I was intrigued when I saw their new campaign for the “Right Portion, Right Price” menu. Those of you who know how I feel about portion sizes will find it no surprise that I love this campaign. I love the name, in fact. I think it’s great branding.

The tagline is: “Save that stuffed feeling for your wallet.” Nice. They are not only promoting the idea of smaller portions, but also charging less money for the right amount of food.

I’ve written before about what happened to Ruby Tuesday’s when they tried to reduce portion sizes. I think the difference there was that they didn’t change the price, at least not enough. I think this T.G.I. Friday’s campaign will be a good test of whether the public will accept a mainline chain restaurant trying to serve them a correct portion size, or if they will demand to stuff themselves beyond what is reasonable.

I am very interested to see the results of this campaign.

Monday’s episode really struck me as they explained how research shows that the average American today saves about 1/2 of 1 percent of their income. That’s 0.5%. That’s like … nothing. In 1982, Americans saved an average of 11% of their income. From 11% to 0.5% in about 25 years. That is staggering.

So, I’ve decided to start my own series here on the blog. I’ll be covering how to manage money. This post is step one and in it I am going to share with you the secret to financial bliss. Wait for it … here it is:

Spend less than you earn.

How much less? I say at least 10% toward retirement, then another 10% at least in non-retirement accounts. All together, that’s 20%. More would be even better.

“But what am I saving it for,” you ask. See, that’s the big question. Why save money if you’re not ever going to spend it? You can’t take it with you, right?

But here’s the little secret — it takes money to make money. If you save up money, you can then invest that money into efforts that will produce more money, until eventually you can earn substantial income off of the assets you have accumulated. This is what builds financial freedom.

I don’t believe that enormous wealth is necessarily a good goal to shoot for, but I do believe financial freedom is a good thing which can be achieved by most anyone with the discipline to spend less than they earn.

People my age grew up with gas that was considered expensive any time it broke $1. Now, there are growing outcries as the price tops $3.50 (regular unleaded, OKC prices). True, this over 300% increase has happened largely over the past eight years. Such a rapid move up in prices on a product we all use is sure to get attention.

But here’s why I think gas prices aren’t really that high — because demand for gas hasn’t fallen off. Most reports have shown that throughout this dramatic move up, people have continued to consume gas at the same rates, and I’ve heard some speculate that oil will have to reach $150 per barrel before demand really lessens. I know I’m just an outsider looking at this from a limited perspective, but I also know that in my own life and the lives of most people I know, our driving habits haven’t truly changed much in reaction to the rising costs.

So if gas can increase 300% without seeing much change in demand, I don’t believe it’s overpriced. Rather, I believe it was artificially under-priced previously.

When demand falls, prices will stabilize. But for demand to fall, we’ll have to make some changes. We’ll have to start treating energy like any other budgeted item — separating what we “need” from what we “want” and managing our consumption accordingly. Businesses might have to do more web meetings to reduce their airfare costs. Families might have to recognize that every trip, even in town, has a price tag, then let that impact the number of trips taken.

How do you plan to adjust your energy consumption in response to the rising prices?

One thing that I’ve found interesting in the last couple of days is a series of stories on NPR’s All Things Considered where they are taking a look at the health care systems of other wealthy nations. On Monday, they reviewed Japan’s system and on Tuesday, they reported on Taiwan. I look forward to hearing more stories in this series.

It is certainly helpful and interesting to look at what other nations are doing, but it really doesn’t solve anything. Each system just has its own set of pros and cons. It simply reinforces the fact that healthcare is a huge and far-reaching issue that will never be easily solved, yet somehow, I think our nation is going to have to address it soon.

Since I have such a limited perspective, I try to refrain from making many judgments, but I do have two thoughts to share.

First, the report on Taiwan indicated that the Taiwanese government spends about 6% of its GDP on healthcare, and provides complete government-sponsored coverage for all citizens. The US spends closer to 15%, and we only cover people over 65 and we don’t even provide as much coverage for them. They also indicated that the percentage the US spends is pretty high compared to most wealthy nations. Now, I’m not saying that this is apples to apples, but it is at least a bit of an indication that our nation could afford to be more efficient in its provision for health care.

Second, I am a pretty big-time fiscal conservative, believing that a free market is the best path to growth and prosperity, yet I can’t help but think healthcare doesn’t react the same to an open market as other industries. The supply and demand relationship doesn’t seem to work the same way when people have to have the product (healthcare) in order to live. What is the value of a surgery if that surgery will save your life? Can an open and free market system balance these issues? I tend to think that healthcare to some degree will have to have heavier government regulation and even possibly government-sponsored programs. Of course, this really isn’t all that novel since we already do have government healthcare through medicare, it just is limited to people over 65.

So, what am I saying? I’m saying that I hope there are a whole lot of people smarter and more well informed than me working on this issue, because it is very complex, unusual, and in need of some help. And no matter what sound bites the presidential candidates from either party throw out, I seriously doubt there are any simple solutions to this problem.

It seems to me that if we could ever learn that it is impossible to predict the future, and that extreme events will inevitably happen from time to time, we could all become a little more tempered and controlled in our reactions. This would enable us to maintain a consistent and calm approach across the gamut of our circumstances, rather than throwing bursts of energy here and there based on the emergency of the moment.

I think this applies to so many things in life. It affects the way we view politics, finance, the economy and other issues on a mass scale, but I also think it applies to individuals as well. Couldn’t we all learn to better control our reactions when we encounter extreme circumstances? If we could, wouldn’t it help us to maintain better balance and consistency in our lives?

My main objective in the new design was to enlarge it to fit a 1024 width screen. The previous design was locked for 800 width and, of course, in the past two years the move toward larger monitors has been great. My stats show that now over 90% of visitors to the site are using 1024 or above. I figured it was time to move on up.

The wider width accommodates a three column layout, allowing me to put the category navigation on the left and freeing up space in the right-hand sidebar for some more interesting features including a list of the highest rated and most popular posts on the site.

My favorite feature of the new design is the font style. The body font is 15px Georgia, a bit larger-than-life but I love it. The headlines are even more oversized. I think this gives the site a very readable and even newspaper-like quality.

Though the new design is really nothing amazing to look at (my design skills are mediocre at best), I am proud of the code behind the design. The CSS was rewritten in its entirety, starting with a blank page, and every line of the markup was scoured to remove anything unnecessary. The original design was the first CSS design I’d ever written, so there was a lot of waste. The new design makes better use of the cascade and the code is a lot leaner. It’s truly a pleasure to look at so please, go ahead and enjoy a peak at the code.

Anyway, I am glad to finally get the new design launched. Aside from some server issues, everything has gone very smoothly. Please take a look and let me know what you think. And please read along and comment on EatAroundOKC as well.

I went to see Art Garfunkel at the Philharmonic Pops concert last Friday night. My company was the major sponsor for the event, so we got some free tickets (thanks guys!).

Anywho, Garfunkel is a legend and I enjoy the work of Simon and Garfunkel, so I was glad to get to go. His voice is wearing from age and at first I was a little concerned that he would be struggling through the whole concert, but overall, I was actually impressed. The bit of airey-ness in his tone couldn’t mask the fact that he has an unnaturally smooth high range and an impeccable ability to tell stories through his songs. Plus, he had some great musicians with him including a fabulous guitar player, Larry Saltzman. It was worth the trip just to hear the acoustic and electric guitar treatments Saltzman was able to bring out.

On the negative side, the whole first half of the concert was the Philharmonic playing three lengthy arrangements of musical theatre tunes. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed that the selections were not any more varied. It was like listening to the same medley over and over. I have to disagree with the cheery review given by the Oklahoman about this concert. I was very glad when the first half was over.

Yesterday, I was listening to NPR while driving and caught the tail-end of an interview with some guy who is writing a book about obesity in America. I didn’t hear much, but I heard him talk about this restaurant problem, and he mentioned that Ruby Tuesdays had recently tried to reduce their portion sizes in response to the health concerns and obesity concerns in America. However, the backlash from their customers was so overwhelming that they had to return to the larger portions after just a short time.

This interested me, so I did a little search and found this article on Time Magazine from last year which talks about the issue as well. Interesting read.

Anyway, this just made me realize — the problem isn’t completely the fault of the restaurants. I mean, these chains are big businesses and they have to make money. They are just giving people what they want. So, the responsibility is on us. It’s not so bad bad to take advantage of big portions if we were all somehow disciplined enough to take half of it home for later or split with someone else at the table. Or, we can choose to frequent the local places, who generally serve more appropriate portion sizes. We just all have to get over our “price per pound” mentality and think about what is actually a reasonable amount of food to eat at one sitting.

“Music is a type of art that is primarily experienced through the sense of hearing.”

Essentially, I think that music is simply a subset of a larger category of “art.” The distinguishing characteristic of music is that it is aural in nature. This means that I believe it is possible for anything that is aural to be a part of music — instruments, spoken word, recordings of sounds from the physical world. Anything that you can hear can be music, but that doesn’t mean everything you hear is music. What makes the distinction? Well, it has to be art before it can be music.

Of course, this definition raises a deeper question — “what is art?” So, I had to think about that one for a while and here’s what I came up with:

“Art is any physical expression that is assigned meta-physical meaning by those who observe it.”

If you read the words of a legal contract, the meaning of that contract is likely confined to the meaning of the words themselves. However, if you read a poem, often you may find meaning in that poem that goes beyond the meaning of each individual word. That is meta-physical meaning — and I believe it is a requirement for a physical expression to be considered art.

However, I believe it is subjective. So, if I find meta-physical meaning in something, I can consider it art, even if no one else does. Well, then, isn’t the definition worthless? Not at all, because it is in the sharing of our interpretations with others that we, over time, come to concensus about what is generally considered to be art. There no absolutes of “this is art and this is absolutely not,” but there are general practices and standards which give us the ability to categorize, interpret and discuss art effectively.

That is what people mean when they say something is “more of an art than a science.” That is, they mean it’s not black and white, on or off — rather, there are many, many shades of gray.

The problem is, it’s just not true.

Words are way more powerful than sticks and stones. Your arm gets broken and it heals in about 6 months or so. Your spirit gets crushed by verbal abuse and you may never recover.

I don’t think we’re doing kids a favor by teaching them that words can’t hurt them. I think it just makes it harder for them to deal with the pain because now they have adults telling them that they shouldn’t be feeling the pain in the first place. Plus, it does nothing to help them understand how powerful their own words are, and how hurtful or helpful their own words can be depending on how they use them.

Why not just tell them the truth? It hurts, but it is the truth.

If you’ve never heard of The Fantasticks, it is the longest running musical theatre production of all time. I believe it has run for something like 42 years in New York. When you see it, you can understand why because its story is a metaphor about innocence versus experience that is timeless, ageless and universal.

Here are the lyrics to the production’s opening and closing song, “Try to Remember” (emphasis mine). Consider these and you’ll see what I mean:

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

(Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow)

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

(Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow, follow)

Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it’s nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.
Deep in December, our hearts should remember
And follow.

Anyway, I had high hopes of writing lots of restaurant reviews about Oklahoma City restaurants. I got a few up there, and then a whole lot of months passed by without a single post.

But recently, my friend Andrew starting writing about Oklahoma City restaurants on a blogger blog he set up. I found his articles to be quite entertaining, and I asked him if he would like to post them on EatAroundOKC instead because, after all, he could be hugely famous this way since my site is so well known. Anyway, he agreed and so with renewed enthusiasm we bring you the all new and improved EatAroundOKC.com, your guide to restaurants in Oklahoma City, at least the ones where we’ve eaten.

What is new and improved you might ask? Well, primarily the fact that there will (hopefully) be regular posts now. We’ve even started a new monthly series — the “Shady restaurant of the month.” I’ll be refraining from posting any restaurant reviews here on DailyGenesis in lieu of putting them up over at the new site. In fact, you’ll probably notice a few from the DG archives being ported over to EatAroundOKC. Please subscribe to EatAroundOKC so you can keep up with everything.

We’re also opening it up to outside reviewers. We’d love to find some other Oklahoma City people who like to eat and like to write and would submit articles to help build up our restaurant portfolio. They, too, can be made famous if we choose to publish them on EatAroundOKC.

So help us spread the word. It’s not like we’re going to make any money off of this, but it is a fun little project and I think it could be a handy resource for Oklahoma City. My goal is simply that one day, some restaurant somewhere will comp us a meal in order to get us to write about them. Then, it will all be worth it.