Puzzles

A couple of interesting puzzles from the archives of Parade

(1) My son is a 29-year-old firefighter and Iraq veteran. His nickname is “Seven Eleven.” What is his real name?

(2) Say that cucumbers are on sale, so you buy 100 pounds of them at your local market. The cucumbers are 99% water. Some days later, they dry out to 98% water. How much do they weigh now?

Answers

The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons

NCAA Men's Basketball 2007 - Final

Was able to Chug only so far on Chalk:-( Tied for 30th place in one bracket and ended up in the 91st place in the other (total brackets = 97).

Rubens Tube

Michael Jordan

Here are a collection of clips on His Airness (Basketball Jersey Number 23 = Jersey #10 for Soccer?). The last one (the best-rated) is really cool.

Habitat for Humanity

Along with a few of my colleagues, Rama and I donated our muscles for a Habitat for Humanity's (H4H) deconstruction project on March 10, 2007. It was very rewarding work. We salvaged material (to the extent we could) from a house donated to the H4H (for selling it in the ReStore). This is a perfect example of a win-win situation. The donors get tax write-offs and they don't have to deal with all the mess. Consumers of affordable housing get cheap building material. Landfills save space, as this material would have ended up there if not for this recycling.

Our bodies were sore for a couple of days after the work, but it was worth it. I have a lot of respect for people who do this kind of work for a living. I was delighted to see that our work was covered in our agency-wide newsletter (including pics. of me and Rama).

Enjoyed Pizza (for lunch, along with drinks) sponsored by a local.

Exploding Trees!

Maple-syrup maker Ryan Tilley braves a forest aflame with exploded maple to tap his trees.

I remember listening to this captivating news report on NPR a couple of years ago, while driving to Robinson, IL from St. Louis, MO airport (work-related travel), on a deserted Rural Route amidst corn fields in the Midwest. The following is an excerpt of this article from Wikipedia.

Exploding trees are phenomena mostly observed in the northeastern United States and Canadian wilderness, and usually involve maple trees. In the Canadian wilderness, maple trees have been known to explode due to the extreme cold which causes the wood to contract, applying tremendous pressure on the sap inside. This often leads to a sound similar to a gunshot when the tree explodes.

A tree may also explode when struck by lightning [1], [2]. The strong electric current is carried mostly by the water-conducting sapwood below the bark, heating it up and boiling the water. The pressure of the steam can make the trunk burst. In Australia, the native eucalyptus trees are also known to explode during bush fires due to the high flammability of vapourised eucalyptus oil produced by the tree naturally. [3] [4]

Now, on a totally unrelated subject, calendar on my desktop is strangely showing a wrong date (see below). This is weird.
And then, easy-to-follow instructions for Google TiSP (BETA) are not making any sense to me. I wonder what is going on. Is it just me?