22 June 2013

Thank you … In an extreme form…

Got a call from the elder daughter from Duke University (summer camp) – and over all the din of her roommates in her dorm room, I understood they wanted me to see if I could rig up her laptop to watch a movie that she had purchased on her iPad which she left in Atlanta. (Sigh! You can take the Indian out of the call center; but you cannot take the call center out of the Indian :-). In any case, two minutes and half a dozen happy customers later 🙂 got this text message thanking me in that inimitable teenager way 🙂

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Category: My Family | 5 Comments on Thank you … In an extreme form…
21 June 2013

Country name question

So Nikita and I were having dinner together and asking each other puzzles. One we came up with was “How many countries can you name that starts and ends with the same letter”? Each and every one that we came up with – Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria… were with “A”. We could not find a single non-“A” country. Can you? (meaning country names that start and end with the same letter and it is not A)

Category: Puzzles | 23 Comments on Country name question
16 June 2013

Where’s Perry?

During this morning’s walk with Sharmila in downtown Durham (it is very very cute) I finally found the answer to the all important question that has been vexing all Phineas and Ferb fans (not to speak of all platypuses or is that platypi? ) : Where’s Perryyyyy? Where’s Perryyyyyyy? 🙂
Evidently it is 321 E. Chapel Hill 🙂

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Category: Travelogs, Vacations | LEAVE A COMMENT
14 June 2013

Fun start to the day…

After a much delayed flight last night, little sleep and no run this morning, I needed something fun to start the day with. So, I told the lady at the Starbucks that my name is “Dude”. And that is what she put in my cup. And of course the other lady brewing coffee yelled it out before even she realized it… causing some fun among the few of us waiting for our coffee there…. 🙂

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Category: Humor | 10 Comments on Fun start to the day…
14 June 2013

Rope length puzzle

Case A: Imagine you have a rope tightly wound around a basketball. How much more rope do you need for the rope to be one foot away from the surface of the basketball at all times? (as if it is tightly wound around an imaginary ball that has radius one foot more than the radius of the basketball). I do not need an exact answer now. Just imagine it.

Case B: Now imagine you have a rope tightly would around the equator of the earth (what, about 25,000 miles or so?). How much more rope do you need for the rope to be one foot away from the equator at all times? (as if the radius of the earth had increased by a foot). I do not need an exact answer now either. Just imagine it.

Now for the puzzle:
In which case do you think you need more rope – Case A or Case B? Any rough idea by how much?

Category: Puzzles | 11 Comments on Rope length puzzle