No useful output to stdout

[jfemiani]

You seem to be redirecting all of the output to a file -- I suggest we do not do this.
Users can choose to redirect the output themselves, e.g.

python step_2_*.py > results.txt

or, to both see the output AND save it to a file:

python step2_*.py | tee -a results.txt

I think it is confusing to see no output other than "start" and 'finish" when you run the program

[jfemiani]

Or at least mention that detailed output will be going to the log file at {LOG LOCATION}