Dr. Pepper

I was actually kind of relieved that it took so long- it gave me something to look forward to.

You had to be sitting through that class to understand…

(It was also probably the first and only time that I was able to solve a problem faster than my good old TI-89.)

A little Algebra-

Expand the following-

(x-a)*(x-b)*(x-c)*…*(x-z)

an open book-

I also forgot about it until today. When it comes out during the week we celebrate at work (pizza pies or something similar). Last year my mother-in-law made a custard pie and sent for Friday night dessert. But this year nothing.

We finally realized it after the seudah and decided to celebrate it though my wife gave strict orders to the kids not to tell any of their friends that we celebrated it.

ZachKessin-

That’s correct, on the Julian Calendar the date is constant (April 5th), but the vast majority of the world switched to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.

Here’s an old (but good) one.

Three people of equal intelligence are standing one behind another all facing forward.

A person nearby has five hats, three red and two white. The three people close their eyes while the other person randomly puts a hat on each of them. When they open their eyes they can not see what color hat they are wearing but the person in back can see what color hat the other two are wearing and the person in the middle can see what color hat the person in front is wearing. The person in front can not see what color hat anyone is wearing. The three people are unable to see the two remaining hats.

When the person in back was asked what color hat he was wearing he looked at the two people in front of him and said, “I don’t know”. When the middle person was asked what color hat he was wearing he looked at the person in front of him and said, “I don’t know”. Finally the person in front said, “I know what color hat I’m wearing”.

What color hat was he wearing and how did he know?

You have a set of 20 encyclopedias standing in order on a bookshelf each one containing 100 pages (200 sides but 100 pages). A bookworm eats from the first page of the first volume to the last page of the last volume inclusive.

How many pages did the bookworm eat through?

Answer:

If they are lined up in order then the first page of the first volume is adjacent to the last page of the second volume. The last page of the last volume is adjacent to the first page of the second to last volume. (Look at a set of books on a shelf if you don’t see this.)

1 page from the first volume, one page from the last volume and 100 pages from each of the 18 volumes in between => 1 + 100*18 + 1 = 1802.

Hi MOD 39,

underground?

The answer I was looking for by the cake riddle was to find the center of the rectangle and square and have the cut go through the center of each.

I can only try- Can you let me know how to align columns?

Let me try this again.

# => Number of Hearts left in the deck.

# of ways => Number of way that that amount of Hearts can be chosen from the 32 that are removed.

Prob => Probability of picking a Heart from the 20 left.

(This is done using Excel)

# # of ways Prob. # of ways * Probability

0 15,380,937 0.65 0.0000000793494867

1 799,808,724 0.6 0.0000038087753615

2 16,529,380,296 0.55 0.0000721551332366

3 181,823,183,256 0.5 0.0007215513323662

4 1,198,380,071,460 0.45 0.0042801113124451

5 5,033,196,300,132 0.4 0.0159790822331284

6 13,938,082,061,904 0.35 0.0387185454110420

7 25,885,009,543,536 0.3 0.0616336028992096

8 32,356,261,929,420 0.25 0.0642016696866767

9 26,963,551,607,850 0.2 0.0428011131244512

10 14,592,039,693,660 0.15 0.0173722165034537

11 4,864,013,231,220 0.1 0.0038604925563231

12 896,002,437,330 0.05 0.0003555716828192

13 68,923,264,410 0 –

Total 125,994,627,894,135 0.2500000000000000

Here are the formulas used: (Starting from Cell A1)

# # of ways Prob. # of ways * Probability

0 =COMBIN(13,13-A2)*COMBIN(39,7+A2) =(13-A2)/20 =(B2/$B$16)*C2

1 =COMBIN(13,13-A3)*COMBIN(39,7+A3) =(13-A3)/20 =(B3/$B$16)*C3

2 =COMBIN(13,13-A4)*COMBIN(39,7+A4) =(13-A4)/20 =(B4/$B$16)*C4

3 =COMBIN(13,13-A5)*COMBIN(39,7+A5) =(13-A5)/20 =(B5/$B$16)*C5

4 =COMBIN(13,13-A6)*COMBIN(39,7+A6) =(13-A6)/20 =(B6/$B$16)*C6

5 =COMBIN(13,13-A7)*COMBIN(39,7+A7) =(13-A7)/20 =(B7/$B$16)*C7

6 =COMBIN(13,13-A8)*COMBIN(39,7+A8) =(13-A8)/20 =(B8/$B$16)*C8

7 =COMBIN(13,13-A9)*COMBIN(39,7+A9) =(13-A9)/20 =(B9/$B$16)*C9

8 =COMBIN(13,13-A10)*COMBIN(39,7+A10) =(13-A10)/20 =(B10/$B$16)*C10

9 =COMBIN(13,13-A11)*COMBIN(39,7+A11) =(13-A11)/20 =(B11/$B$16)*C11

10 =COMBIN(13,13-A12)*COMBIN(39,7+A12) =(13-A12)/20 =(B12/$B$16)*C12

11 =COMBIN(13,13-A13)*COMBIN(39,7+A13) =(13-A13)/20 =(B13/$B$16)*C13

12 =COMBIN(13,13-A14)*COMBIN(39,7+A14) =(13-A14)/20 =(B14/$B$16)*C14

13 =COMBIN(13,13-A15)*COMBIN(39,7+A15) =(13-A15)/20 =(B15/$B$16)*C15

14 =SUM(B2:B15) =SUM(D2:D15)

If you are sending it with a trusted courier then just lock the key onto the shackle and let your friend break it off when he receives it. (He’ll be able to tell if it was tampered with or not.)

If not- send the box with one lock, have your friend attach another lock (while keeping the key to himself) and send the box back to you.

Now you can remove the lock you put on originally and send the box back with only the lock that he put on.

I can only try

Let me know when you’re ready for the answer (or a hint) to ??”? ?”? ?”? ???”?.

Michal bas Avraham-

Your story reminds me of one I heard from some one who I was in yeshiva with (I don’t believe it but you never know.)

The shadchan tells him to meet the girl in a certain hotel or park (apparently it’s done like this in Eretz Yisroel, no first phone call- everything arranged by the shadchan). He’s there at the designated time and place but the only other person nearby is a lady with a shaitel. After a few minutes she says to him,

“Are you Avraham?”

“Yes”,

“Well I’m Sarah”.

His mouth drops open and she says, “The shadchan didn’t tell you I’m divorced?”

He answered, “Well I guess she didn’t tell you I’m a Kohen”!

The End

Here’s another one from him which I also don’t believe;

After meeting her parents he takes her to the car and opens the door for her. She reaches in, opens the back button, opens the back door and gets in. He shrugged his shoulders gets in the drivers seat and starts driving. He tries to talk to her but she doesn’t answer. He turns around to see what she is doing- she had found some seforim he left in the back and started learning some Chumash. He went around the block and brought her right home.

This one I do believe-

I met him a few years later and he says, “Guess what Pepper?”

“What?”

“I finally got married!”

ames-

Please don’t confuse me with the drink. The drink is Dr Pepper (without the period).

ames-

“and jumped through it”, when he jumped through it was he going from inside to outside or from outside to inside?

Here’s one but it’s long and might be hard to follow. It’s also one of those stories where you have to see it in action to fully appreciate it.

Two guys (both are engaged)- let’s call them Reuven and Shimon. Reuven being a guy that I know from high school and Shimon being a guy who was at that time my roommate in yeshiva.

So I’m schmoozing with Shimon and he casually asks me where I went to high school. When I told him he asks me if I know Reuven. I said, “sure where do you know him from?” but he dodged the question.

At Maariv that night I saw Reuven who tells me that he’s engaged to a local girl so he stopped by to visit. During the course of the conversation he asked me if I know Shimon. I knew something fishy was going on so I said “sure he’s my roommate come let me introduce you to him”. His face turned red and he begged me not to. He later explained that he went out with his kallah and just wanted to see “who she picked instead”.

Later that night Reuven stopped by my room and introduced himself to my roommates to see who Shimon was.

It was hilarious listening to the two of them talk, trying to figure out if the other one knew the whole story. At the end Shimon left convinced that Reuven didn’t know. As soon as he left Reuven picked up his phone to tell his Kallah who he just met…

I highly doubt this story is true but I heard it from one of the girls I took to the top of the Marriott Marquis, who claimed it happened to one of her friends.

While her friend was also at the top of the Marriott Marquis she felt the need to remove her shoes to let her feet “air out”. Apparently she didn’t realize that the bar revolves and she had to wait 45 minutes or so until she met up with her shoes again.

If it happened to you and you’re reading this please let us know.

Thanks

I heard this from a lady that we were introduced to at the wedding of a friend. As far fetched as it sounds I do believe it but you can decide for yourself to believe it or not.

The date took place in downtown Baltimore by the Harbor. The girl realized right away that it wasn’t going to happen but apparently her date did not.

They stopped at a street vendor and he bought her a big yellow helium balloon. Not wanting to offend him and not wanting to have to hold it the whole time, she tied it to her hand and thanked him (while praying that she wouldn’t meet any friends).

While they were walking around and talking she felt him moving uncomfortably close to her and she moved over a few inches. After a couple more times that this happened she lost her balance and fell into the water (she said there were no gates there at the time).

Luckily there was a water taxi right there and she was rescued. For the rest of the date he was complimenting himself on how smart he was for buying her a yellow balloon so that if she fell into the water it would be easy to spot her.

They did not marry each other.

This didn’t happen to me but I know the person who it happened to and I assure you it’s not a made up legend.

The guy is driving the girl in a car with a steering wheel on the wrong side (a British car) when the transmission blows and he can’t do more that 25 M.P.H. Many drivers that pass feel the need to honk and make obscene gestures at the person they think is the driver.

The girl is about to lose it but the guy keeps reassuring her that they are honking because they think know her and they are exerting one finger to let her know that she is number 1.

Eventually she lost her cool and started screaming back and letting everyone know that she was not the driver…

For the record they did not get married. (Or go out again.)

Back in the summer of ’89 the camp I was in took us to a minor league base ball game that was stopped for 45 minutes due to rain. After the game continued the ushers let us all go down to (the now vacant) front row seats.

Later on in the game the catcher struck out and disputed the call with the umpire. The umpire kept quiet while the catcher was using vulgar language and making obscene gestures until he was ejected from the game. Unfortunately, to us young campers, the catcher was our hero.

One of the Rabeim knew he had to make a deep impression on us quick- I’ll never forget his Moshul the next day. “Do you know why the team picked him to be the catcher?, Because the catcher sits behind a cage (his mask) and that player is an animal who needs to be kept behind a cage at all times!”

It’s now almost 20 years later, and when I hear that players name mentioned I don’t think of his major league career or his minor league career, I think of him as animal who needs to be kept behind a cage.

Special for valentines day;

You have a regular deck of 52 cards with two cards missing (you don’t know which 2).

A card is selected at random, what is the probability that the suit of the card picked is Hearts?

This might not count as a Shidduch story since my friend and his wife were engaged at the time but it definitely messed up someone else’s proposal.

This friend goes out to a fancy restaurant to eat with his (at the time) kallah and asks for a table for two. The waiter asks him if his name is Dovid to which he responds, “Yes, Why?”, the waiter just winked at him and said, “Don’t worry everything has been taken care of”.

After they were done eating the waiter asked if they were ready for dessert. A minute later the waiter gave her a cake that said “Will you marry me?”.

They all had a good laugh and he was very thankful it didn’t happen on their first date.

A friend and I planned to switch cars while we were on dates but it didn’t work out.

We both had dates from the same far away city (date # 1 for them, #5 for us), and the girls lived within a block of each other. The plan was that I would rent a standard car and he was going to rent a luxury car. We would park the cars in the same garage, go to the same hotel (but to lounges on different floors) and ask to be “excused” at the same time to take care of business where we would swap receipts. Mt friend backed out at the end since he was reluctant to rent a luxury car for a first date.

That was their first and last date while we ended up getting married.

When I told my wife the plan she said it would have been a waste since neither she or her friend would have noticed. Compared to what her parents drive, any vehicle (even a Dodge Stratus) is considered a luxury vehicle and her friends parents are unable to drive and do not have a car.

A few minutes into our first date we sat down on a park bench to drink sodas. I opened mine and said, “look I won a free soda”. “No”, She exclaimed, “we won a free soda”.

I can only try- It’s great to be back here. The family is great thanks for asking. This morning I saw the baby kicking her feet while deep in concentration- it was the cutest thing- I thought she was trying to figure out where her center of gravity was so she could try to roll over. My wife figured out exactly what she was doing and made me change the diaper…

It’s really touching to see that I was missed. I’m afraid to log on at home when I should be helping my wife and at work our department was assigned some challenging projects so I’m a little reluctant to log on over there (I’m still trying to explain to facilities why I had 3,121 coconuts, 4 colleagues and a monkey in my 5′ X 7′ cubicle…).

Hopefully we should be finished the projects by early July and I’ll be able to return to this thread full time.

Joseph-

A solar year is approximately 365.2422 days long. The Julian Calendar rounded the value to 365.25 and had a leap year every four years (1/4 = .25). Pope Gregory the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th or 14th(I forget what number) realized the mistake and tried to fix it.

As of Thursday, October 4th 1582 the Julian Calendar ceased to exist and the next day the Gregorian Calendar took over with the date being Friday, October 15th 1582. (The skipped days compensated for the slight decimal error over close to 16 centuries.)

The new calendar calculates the fractional part of the day as .2425 which is equal to 97/400. Therefore 97 out of 400 years are leap years.

In general a year that is divisible by 4 is a leap year. The exception to that rule is if the year is divisible by 100. The exception to that rule is if the year is divisible by 400.

1892, 1896, 1904 and 2000 were leap years.

1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. 2100 will be the next multiple of 4 that’s not a leap year.

Thanks everyone for the warm Mazel Tov wishes. I wish I could thank each of you personally but as you can imagine I’m very busy now.

May we all continue to see many more simchas in the future.

The correct answer is our baby girl.