Stumping Around

Well, i got Little Girl out of school early so she could go for her second job interview, and she came home and got dressed and ready and went.

When she got home, i asked how it went, and she said, "It didn't."

What?

"The manager wasn't there, they told me to come back on Monday."

Well.  That's disappointing.  While i don't plan to get her out of school early every time they say jump, she will go back on Monday.

Having job interviewing on the brain right now, a story caught my eye online, and i read it out of curiosity.

It was Five Impossible Brain Teasers Meant to Stump Job Candidates. 

As i read the questions, i popped off the first thing that came to my head each time.

1.  You're in a room with three light switches, each of which controls one of three light bulbs in the next room.  Your task is to determine which switch controls which bulb.  All lights are initially off, and you can't see into one room from the other.  You may inspect the room only once.  How can you determine which switch is connect to which light bulb?

My take on it:  since the bulbs are in the next room, can i see the lights shining under the door, even if i can't see into the next room?  If so, turn on and off each light in succession and see from which direction in the room they seem to be coming from how they shine under the door.  Then open the door and pair them up.

If you can't see the light shining under the door, get a friend to go stand in the room and tell you which one goes on or off as you hit the switches!  You didn't say i couldn't have a partner, after all.

2.  How many trees are there in Central Park?

My take on it:  as many as the number of acorns the squirrels have buried and forgotten!

3.  How much does all the ice in a hockey rink weight?

My take on it:  less than the weight of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.

4.  If you were building a new city with a projected population of 100,000, how many gas stations would you need?

My take on it:  depends on how many pumps you want to put at each station.  If you like frustrating people, put in one with dozens of pumps, right in the middle of town!

5.  You are given 12 balls and a scale.  Of the twelve balls, 11 are identical and 1 weighs slightly more.  How do you find the heavier ball using the scale only three times?

My take on it:  this is a golden oldie, and the scale used is a balance scale like the one you see carried by Lady Justice.  You put 6 balls on each side, and the side that sinks lower has the heavier ball.  You take those six and put three on each side, and again, the side that sinks has the heavier ball.  Put one of those three on one side of the scale, and one on the other.  If one sinks, it's the heavier.  If they balance, it's the ball in your hand.

So, based on my crazy thinking, do i get the job?

Either way, i hope Little Girl does, but we have to wait until Monday at least.

Today is:

Aizu Higan Shishi/Sanbiki Shishimai -- Aizu Wakamatsu, Japan (lion dances to mark the end of winter)

Back Badge Day -- Gloucestershire Regiment, British Army

Birkebeinerrennet -- Rena to Lillehammer, Norway (54km ski marathon commemorating the 1205 rescue of infant prince Hakon Hakonsson by ski over this route) 

Birth of Benito Juarez, a Fiestas Patrias -- Mexico (trad.)

Common Courtesy Day -- commonly listed on this day on many sites, with no origin given, but it's not a bad idea!

Feast of Tou Tei -- Macau (earth god; celebrated on the second day of the second lunar month, so if i've mixed up the date in Gregorian, i'm sorry, i tried)

Fragrance Day and Flower Day -- the first full day of spring

Hari Raya Nyepi Tahun Baru -- Indonesia (Hindu New Year)

Harmony Day -- Australia (managed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship)

Hindu New Year -- Hindu (local custom/date may vary)
     Ougadi -- Mauritius and some regions of India (the Telugu New Year)

Human Rights Day -- South Africa

Independence Day -- Namibia(1990)

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination -- UN

Memory Day -- internet based, to examine the use of memory aids throughout history

Mother's Day -- most Arabic nations

National Common Courtesy Day -- guess it's not so common any more, someone had to declare a holiday to try to foster some

National French Bread Day

National Quilting Day -- US, sponsored by the National Quilting Association

National Single Parent Day -- US (by Presidential designation in 1984)

National Tree Planting Day -- Lesotho

Nyepi Day -- Bali, Indonesia (Day of Silence, Balinese New Year/Saka New Year celebration on which everything is closed, even the international airport)

Paper Dress Day -- the paper dress was introduced as part of an ad campaign by the Scott Paper Co. on this day in 1966

Ramayana -- Hindu (through the 28th; local customs/celebratory dates may vary)

Save the Florida Panther Day -- FL, US

Shunki-Korei-Sai -- Shinto (rite to honor ancestral spirits)

Single Parents' Day -- sponsored by Parents Without Parners, on the date of their inception in 1957

Spring Fairy Fun Day -- Fairy Calendar

St. Nicholas of Flue's Day (Patron of councilmen, difficult marriages, large families, magistrates, parents of large families, Pontifical Swiss Guards, separated spouses, Switzerland)

Wild Azalea Festival -- White Springs, FL, US 

World Down Syndrome Day -- UN

World Forest Day/International Day of Forests and the Trees -- UN

World Poetry Day -- UNESCO

Youth Day -- Tunisia


Birthdays Today:

James T. Kirk, 2233
Ronaldinho, 1980
Kevin Federline, 1978
Matthew Broderick, 1962
Rosie O'Donnell, 1962
Ayrton Senna da Silva, 1960
Gary Oldman, 1958
Eddie Money, 1949
Timothy Dalton, 1944
Peter Brook, 1925
Julio Gallo, 1910
John D Rockefeller III, 1906
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, 1882
Florenz Ziegfeld, 1867
Modest Mussorgsky, 1839
James Jesse "King Strang" Strang, 1813
Benito Juarez, 1806
Francis Lewis, 1713
Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685


Debuting/Premiering Today:

Annie(Film), 1982
"Stop the Music"(Radio show), 1948


Today in History:

The Byzantine emperor Heraclius restores the "True Cross" to Jerusalem, 630
Accession to the throne of Japan by emperor Antoku, 1188
3,000 Jews are killed in the Black Death riots in Efurt, Germany, 1349
n Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake, 1556
Czar Peter the Great begins his tour through West, 1697
Fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1788
With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché, 1800
Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law, 1804
The Bahá'í calendar begins, 1844
An earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000, 1857
The Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first in the US, is incorporated, 1859
Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone, 1871
Loretta Walsh becomes the first female US Navy Petty Officer, 1917
Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight, 1928
Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans,' 1935
Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio, 1952
Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965
The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto, 1970
Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research, 1985
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon, 1999
The first full face transplant is performed by surgeons at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, 2011
Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard formally apologizes to people affected by forced adoptions during the 1950s through 1970s, 2013