Southern Africa Bound

When Davis started Rice, I made a deal with him that if he graduated in four years, I would take him to South Africa to see part of the World Cup, but that if it took longer than that, he would have to pay for any overage himself.  Talk about the carrot and the stick!  Anyway, here we are, eight semesters later, with a son who will graduate in May.

We got the notice today that FIFA approved our bid for World Cup tickets.  Whatever we pay for tickets, flights, and lodging will be less than a semester at Rice.  I promise.  

Product

Category

No of Tickets

Status

Match 22 - SVN v USA - 18 June, Johannesburg 16.00	CAT1	3	Successful
Match 5 - ENG v USA - 12 June, Rustenburg 20.30	CAT1	3	Successful

Match 38 - USA v ALG - 23 June, Pretoria 16.00

CAT1

3

Successful

SVN=Slovenia
ENG=England
ALG=Algeria

Quick Trip

Less than 24 hours.

Closer to 13.

Davis and Evi rolled into town around 7:00 Friday evening to do the meet and greet at the end of our lanyarding session, full of talk of the semester and excitement over various projects they have in the works. They took a 7:00 wake-up call Saturday morning and hit the door after breakfast to make it back to Rice for an 11:00 soccer match (Will Rice 4-1 over some other college?).

We didn't even have time to discuss the EPL standings which was probably fine with Davis since my Chelsea Blues still stand at the top of the table. I will note that Davis's Liverpool has patiently climbed back to the top five after a woeful start and their share of road troubles.

The New York Times launched a new blog today about Math. I'm going to add it to Davis's side bar, but thought that some of you might be interested in math as a bloggable concept, rather than as problems to work out (or not work out as the case may be).

It's by Steven Strogatz and here's how it starts:

I have a friend who gets a tremendous kick out of science, even though he’s an artist. Whenever we get together all he wants to do is chat about the latest thing in evolution or quantum mechanics. But when it comes to math, he feels at sea, and it saddens him. The strange symbols keep him out. He says he doesn’t even know how to pronounce them.

In fact, his alienation runs a lot deeper. He’s not sure what mathematicians do all day, or what they mean when they say a proof is elegant. Sometimes we joke that I just should sit him down and teach him everything, starting with 1 + 1 = 2 and going as far as we can.

Crazy as it sounds, over the next several weeks I’m going to try to do something close to that. I’ll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who’d like to have a second chance at the subject — but this time from an adult perspective. It’s not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it.

So, let’s begin with pre-school.

VIDEO

More Video | Multimedia

MULTIMEDIA

Sesame Street: 1 2 3 Count With Me

Ernie teaches Humphrey to count at The Furry Arms hotel. (Excerpt)

The best introduction to numbers I’ve ever seen — the clearest and funniest explanation of what they are and why we need them — appears in a “Sesame Street” video called “123 Count With Me.” Humphrey, an amiable but dim-witted fellow with pink fur and a green nose, is working the lunch shift at The Furry Arms hotel, when he takes a call from a room full of penguins. Humphrey listens carefully and then calls out their order to the kitchen: “Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.” This prompts Ernie to enlighten him about the virtues of the number six.

Children learn from this that numbers are wonderful shortcuts. Instead of saying the word “fish” exactly as many times as there are penguins, Humphrey could use the more powerful concept of “six.”

As adults, however, we might notice a potential downside to numbers. You can continue here with the full entry.

Surprise Visit

My cell rang out with the "Prince Fanfare," indicating I had an incoming call from Davis (a.k.a, The Young Prince).  Since it wasn't Sunday afternoon, when we usually talk just to catch up on the week, I knew he had something specific to say.

Digression. . .

I know that some of my students talk to one or both of their parents every day and some times more than once a day, but we never did that with Davis.  Walter and I talked to our parents once a week (back in the day when it actually cost money to make a long distance phone call), and we just adopted that habit when Davis left for Rice.  If we speak in between Sundays it is almost always "about something"--a task that we need him to do or he needs us to do.  For example, "My W-2 is available online now if you want to print it for the taxes."

Anyway, my phone rang yesterday afternoon as I was gearing up for soccer practice.  Davis wanted to let me know that he and Evi were driving in to Bryan for the evening.  I'm not sure what they have going on, but it will certainly be great to have the key chain experts at the lanyard workshop, since they are becoming quite a popular item.

Ride Davis, Ride! Redux

This entry will demonstrate the difference between the artful elegance of the photo of Davis riding his bike in the last entry and a photo taken by an unknown person with a camera phone on a moving trolley.


From all reports Davis had a good time in San Francisco, although he started off the trip with a stomach bug that someone had kindly shared with him before he left Rice (a question no mother should ever have to answer and even google doesn't seem to know: "Mom, how much tip do you leave if you get sick in a restaurant?").

I think Davis saw a lot of the sites in SF and his paper went just fine. He even had someone from one of the graduate programs he has applied to attend his session.

He made it back to Texas safely and has geared up for his final semester at Rice. I'll double check on his class schedule, but as I best recall he's having some hard math classes, an applied math class in linear algebra, a literature class, and a music history/theory class. At one point he had signed up for 20 hours, but I'm pretty sure he's back off of that since he only need the lit and the music to graduate.

Ride Davis, Ride!

Davis made the Houston Chronicle as the Photo Editor's Top Photo today.

Jan 11 2010 7:28PM
Nick de la Torre /Chronicle

Davis Buenger, of Bryan, Texas, and a senior at Rice trains for the Beer Bike Race with classmates in Houston. The Beer Bike Race takes place on the Rice Stadium parking lot March 20 and is a competition between the Universities colleges. Buenger is in the Will Rice College at Rice.

I'm not even sure if he saw this before he flew out this morning for San Francisco, where he is attending the Joint Mathematics Conference and giving his first professional presentation. Davis's CV at age 21 looks better than mine did when I turned 30.

Moments

I know I promised you a longer post, but cool your heels.

Join me in a moment of celebration: Walter and I made our last tuition and fee payment to Rice University today!!

And in a moment of reflection: Davis has finished his Christmas Break at home. He departed for a pre-semester trip this morning [Home-->Houston-->St. Louis-->Philadelphia-->Princeton, NJ] to visit Evi. He will pop back into Houston on Sunday to catch the first day or two of the semester next Monday and Tuesday, then hit the airport again for a trip to San Francisco and the Joint Mathematics Conference to do career-related stuff.

Abs of Steel

Just a short post today, and more of a round of What Davis Did on His Christmas Vacation later.

Around 4:00 this afternoon, soon after Davis returned from a strenuous bike ride/workout, he went to his room and closed the door. A short time later we heard loud noises. . . Yelling? Laughing? Animated conversation? Bodies lunging around his room?

I looked for Willie and found him on squirrel patrol by the sliding glass door.

I knew Teddy had found the cushiest cushion in the loft and was waiting to continue assisting me while I updated Erin's website.

"Just 15 more seconds."

"Oh, that hurts."

"Hold it."

"I can't see you."

This went on for about five minutes. I'm not positive I know what he was doing, but the detective in me thinks that he (in Bryan) and Evi (in Princeton) were doing their Ab workout together using SKYPE video.

4138 Cypress Road

The answer to the Holiday Challenge was that Davis and Evi built a scale-model gingerbread house of our home.

From this angle you can see the front porch and Erin's room.

From here you can see the back porch that over looks the lake and the second story
bump out sitting area in our bedroom.
Our roof is actually that steep, but not that striped.


Congratulation to Michelle P. for the first correct guess (on Facebook).

And I just couldn't resist including this Evi-photo because she is so beautiful.

Holiday Contest

Davis and Evi got home on Tuesday just in time to crash the Jane Long Chess Club Christmas party. I wasn't quick enough with the camera to capture Aaron leaping into Davis's arms with his legs wrapped around Davis at the waist, but I do have the image etched in my brain.

I'm not sure the hours they had been keeping during finals, but I was willing to stay up with them Tuesday night for a little puzzling and post-final debriefing. I went on to bed at about 10:45, satisfied that we had assembled the border and made good progress on several other sections. This is what I woke up to on Wednesday morning (1000 pieces later):


Do you recognize Frank Lloyd Wright's Saguaro Forms & Cactus Flowers ?

Since then, it has been non-stop projects. In fact, I am typing away to silk-screening operation at the dining room table. One of the projects is the subject of today's Puzzle Challenge. Your job: guess what their project is.

Scrabble

I have not read Going Rogue. Nor will I. I did, however, read on someone else's blog that the Palin family played Scrabble, which is the second time Scrabble has popped into my field of vision lately. The first time was in a phone conversation with Davis a couple of weeks ago. He was headed to the store to buy a game that would challenge him and was looking for recommendations. I buzzed through several options which he rejected for various reasons. Then I suggested Scrabble on the theory that as a mathematician who rocked at strategy games (he is practically unstoppable at Pente, Risk, Monopoly, and any other game based on recognizing patterns) that maybe a word-based game would take away his usual edge.

That's when Davis explained to me that Scrabble really was a math game.

Do you believe that?

He went on to explain that Scrabble required a knowledge of sets and combinatorics. The basic strategy was to maximize the overlap between the various combinations of letters on your rack and then to compare the combinations with the set of words in your mental dictionary. Once you had a set of matches, you can maximize your score through the placement of tiles on the optimal available spot on the board.

Is that how you play Scrabble?

No hording of Ks and Qs, as the Palin family does?

No memorizing of obscure words that contain multiple high point tiles (for example, QUARTZY)?

No coming up with convincing definitions of fanciful words so that you can, in one fell swoop, get rid of the problematic letters or perhaps the several "i"s that always gravitate towards your tray?

Ripstick Love

This is a Ripstick:

This is Love:


This is Ripstick Love:

My first inclination, if faced with a skateboard that someone had attached super-fast wheels to, sawed in half, and replaced the middle with a wobbly joint, would not be to claim my prize, jump on, and look for something to run into. I guess that's why I haven't yet become a ripstick enthusiast, in love with the speed, thrill, and danger.

I am mildly curious about them, however. Last Sunday before I left Louisville to head back to Bryan I opened an email from Davis's friend, Evi, which included the photo you see and an brief explanation:

Yesterday evening we ripsticked from Lovett Hall to the bike track. On the bike track we practiced a trick where Davis pushes me forward and then as I go by, I grab his hand and propel him forward. Then, before he passes me completely he grabs my hand and catapults me past. When I go by him again we repeat the process.

This, my friends, is why Health Care reform needs the provision that young adults can stay on their parent's insurance policies until the age of 26. Perhaps by then, they will have retired their ripsticks. Evi went on to write:

We also tried to ride one ripstick together but we did not achieve mastery. The smooth concrete floors of the McMurtry hallways are also perfect for "rip-sticking" study breaks!


In case you hadn't guessed, I have been released from my vow of silence and am cleared to "Repore!"

Division Sudoku

Davis has a new challenge for you.

Division Sudoku:

Everyone loves sudoku (well, maybe not everyone, but most people that read The Davhee Repore), the number placing logic game. Typically the 9x9 sudoku grid has a few numbers filled in and through careful examination of potential solutions you slowly fill in the grid. The puzzles range from mild to diabolical.

This sudoku, however, is different, and some say, tricky. Where other sudokus have a few starter numbers embedded in the puzzle to help you begin your logic, in this sudoku you don't get any numbers. Instead of numbers the puzzle provides the necessary information for a solution through showing the mathematical relationship between two squares. Complete rules are listed below.

None of the concepts needed to solve this puzzle go beyond knowing how to divide and to determine less than and greater than. The puzzle, however, will push the solver to think about the problem in a new way.

Instructions:

1. Fill in the grid so that the numbers 1 through 9 each appear exactly once in each row column, and block.
   
2. In addition, each time a cell's value divides one of its neighbors within a block, the line between the two cells is marked with a red arc shaped like a "C". That indicates that the number in cell A evenly divides into the number in cell B. You can think of this as "A goes into B with no remainder." For example, if you figured out that cell A was 3 then cell B would be 9. (Two hints: 1. The number "1" divides into any of the other numbers. 2.You might want to look for chains. . .that is, groups of cells connected by the red arc.)
   
3. The grid also contains a few greater than (>) symbols to guide your logic.

Good luck!

Things that Make Me Say HMM in Rochester

Walter, Davis, and I dined in the hotel restaurant last night.  When we walked into the dining room it occurred to me that our collective mean age of 42 lowered the average age in the room considerably.  We didn't spend the whole evening listening in to conversations at other tables, but occasionally scrumptious parts of conversation wafted into our range.  

At one point the two ladies next to us had a couple of hundred bucks in ones, fives, tens, and twenties spread out across their table, as one of them explained to the other the finer points of bill splitting and tipping.  This went on for at least fifteen minutes.  If they didn't looked like such dear friends, I would have assumed that they were playing a parlor game where one was trying to bilk the other into paying more than their share.  I was actually a little surprised that one of them didn't pull an abacus from her enormous handbag, to finish the calculations.

The highlight of the evening came shortly before we packed it in.  The table behind me had two two women and a man.  Their conversation had ranged broadly over the course of their meal and included one of the women declaring her intention to see Hair (the first ROCK musical) with her sister in the coming week.  That led me to mentally adjust my evaluation of their age downward.  Just as we paid our bill, their conversation turned to travel, and one said, "Have you spent time in the Southwest?" to which I perked my ear, in case they had something to say about Texas.  

One response:  "I lived in New Mexico for a year in the '30s."

The other:  "I was working in Alamagordo when we dropped the bomb."

Wow!  My internal tote board whirred forward by decades as I re-adjusted my assessment.  The mental calculations kept me from laughing out loud at the unexpected turn of the conversation until we had cleared out of the room and headed to the elevators.

Of course, other things have led me to lift an eyebrow and go "Hmm."  Driving back from Davis's yesterday, I spotted a monastery, something not in and of itself comment worthy.  What made it a Hmm moment was its proximal location across the street from the country club.

Davis also spotted a young man who had hair the same color as the back pockets of his pants.  Again, not particularly noteworthy if he had on khakis, but he was wearing jeans with neon lime patch pockets.

The last thing I have to report is the half dozen woodchucks Walter and I saw near downtown Rochester when we went to view the High Falls on the Genessee River while Davis napped.  In Texas, these would have been prairie dogs, but according to the local expert who we turned to in the absence of our own, private master naturalist, these were definitely woodchucks. . .and very common ones, indeed.  Here's what they looked like:

See, nothing remarkable.  However, it would have been another story, if we had spotted this:

Eating Out

Jerry Harvey published "The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management" in 1974 (you can read the story at the bottom of this entry) to describe a common type of group decision making when a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. I know I have this experience regularly when my colleagues and I try to decide where we will have lunch as we stand around waiting for the elevator. You know the conversation:

Person 1: Where do ya'll [this is Texas, remember] want to eat today?

Person 2: I don't care. What's everyone up for?

Person 3: Anything's fine with me.

Person 4: Not pizza, but other than that I don't have a preference.

and so on. Eventually, we drift towards some non-descript chain that probably doesn't offend anyone, but is also probably not particularly good.

Nobody really wants to take responsibility for the decision and so we all just go along.

What does The Abilene Paradox have to do with The Davhee Repore? It decidedly does NOT describe the way Davis acts when his group needs to choose a place to eat. Last Thursday evening they were headed to a restaurant that they had agreed upon, but that no one had ever patronized. It was, in my opinion, a pretty risky choice.

I talked to him about this on the phone before hand. When I heard that they had decided on a Mexican food restaurant, I let my regional bias show by remarking something like: "Good luck with that."

He wanted to know what I meant, and I said, "Well, you can always have fajitas." He got a little huffy and asked me to clarify further. I responded, "I've never actually eaten at a Mexican restaurant east of the Mississippi that I would go back to. I'm thinking maybe you'll have the same problem in Rochester, especially if no one has tried it out beforehand."

He said, "You probably don't use a good algorithm when you choose restaurants you're unfamiliar with. I look at the menus on the internet." I pooh poohed that suggestions, telling him that seeing the list of menu items didn't say anything about what they would taste like.

Davis patiently explained that I didn't need to look at the menu items per se. I needed to focus on the menu style. Apparently there's an On-the-Border-style menu with clever descriptions of each item, an emphasis on painting a culinary picture of the food, and a delineation of what is healthy and what is tasty. There's also a Gina's-style-menu (which, frankly, has always seemed just fine to me, but I think in and of itself may not indicate much about the quality of food) and a taqueria-style menu. Davis explained that if you go to restaurants with a taqueria-style menu, the food has to be good because you know the owners aren't in business because they went to business school or because they are adept marketers. Ergo, the only thing left is for them to serve tasty food.

I'll let you know if he found empirical evidence to support his theory.

*********************************

The Abilene Paradox

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

Harvey, Jerry B. (Summer 1974). "The Abilene Paradox and other Meditations on Management". Organizational Dynamics 3 (1): 63.

Wordless Wednesday

Ruby Does Rochester

If I were really cool, I would begin this entry with references to Ruby on Rails (or RoR, as those in the know say), but I'm not. Instead, I have typical vacation pics. Yep, this is what you get when you take someone's bike on vacation.

First, you have to introduce her to everyone. Her name is "Ruby," but she's so exotic, she had the French translation of her name tattooed on her chest:

She did not want to travel coach. She wanted a sleeper car. So, we made her a lovely bed:

We let her choose the soundtrack for the trip:

And the side trips:

And where we ate:

Every night, when we finished the drive for the day, we brought her up from the van and let her luxuriate in the room:

Every evening we tucked her in and read books aloud to her to help her fall asleep, including stories about her favorite conspiracy theory (Jack Ruby) and her favorite bunnies (Max and Ruby):

We only had one oversight. We forgot to pack her bedroom slippers:

Finally, after what seemed to Ruby an interminably long time, she was at last reunited with Davis.

Time past more quickly then, though it still seemed an eternity. Finally, she found liberty and her new summer home: Rochester.

Let the Wild Rumpus Begin

I have the television on in the hotel in Rochester waiting for The Running of the Belmont and reflecting. I am letting my masculine side dominate by flipping back and forth between pre-race coverage and the second game of the Rice/LSU super regional that is tied 2-2. We made it through the winding, hilly road of eastern Pennsylvania and central New York. During the trip I saw one thing that made me go HMM--an empty helicopter sitting on the edge of a ridge overlooking the highway.

Our day started with me behind the wheel of the fully loaded van (three adults, four suitcases, three duffle bags, three briefcases, one backpack, and two full-sized bikes, and extraneous detritus). Walter took the middle shift (and unfortunately, the roughest drive time: too many construction zones, lane shifts, and non-expressway routes). About a hundred miles outside of Rochester, six-and-a-half hours into the trip, Walter pulled into a rest stop to turn the driving over to Davis.

Davis had chomped at the bit to drive all morning and complained about the delay every time we stopped. For those of you who have known Davis a long time, you know that he's not particularly hyper, but he can get jicky (for a definition of jicky, think about that time when you had three too many cups of coffee). We all loaded back into the car with Davis at the wheel. He beat both hands on the steering wheel in agitation while we took our various seats and belted up. Then, he cranked up the radio and announced, "Let the wild rumpus begin."

DC

Davis will D/C (discontinue, in medical parlance) his stay in DC on Saturday and head back into the heady world of mathematics.

Our reunion was sweet yesterday, and I can't tell you how fascinating I found it to get my capital tour from a guide I gave birth to. I won't go into the details of how, in our hurry to meet up with him, we failed to read the fine print of the sign by the parking meter that we parked next to. Big Ooooops: $100 fine and a request for towing. Luckily, Walter had gone back to put more quarters in the meter and moved the car before someone fulfilled the request.

We have plans to see DC United play tonight, but may have to ditch given the forecast for 100% chance of rain. We did get to watch three innings of McLean Little League before lightning cut the game short (and coincidentally allowed us to forego ballpark corndogs in favor of a real sitdown meal at Pucinella's). Driving back into the city was a real adventure (we had to re-route a number of times because streets were blocked by downed trees and progress on the parkways was slowed by the unexpected sheet-like, Texas-style rain dump) that required a beer at the bar before bedtime.

Davis had to pop up for work this morning, but I took it easy while WB worked out. More later.

He Gets Around

Davis has two full weeks plus of work as a Congressional intern under his belt. Lest he get too comfortable, that leaves only thirteen more days before he changes venues and moves 369 miles to the north and east to internship dos: Rochester Institute of Technology.

Walter and I will head that direction by car in even less time than that to have the first of our two road trip vacations this summer. We have plans to take the southern route on the way up and stop in at Tuscaloosa, Alabama and see our dear friend and Walter's college roommate, Mort. (If you don't have a long history reading Erin's Home Page--and by long I mean as far back as November 2006--you probably want to read more about Mort so you can see why we might want to start out our trip with a stopover in Tuscaloosa.) I think this route then veers north up through Knoxville and through the Blue Ridge Mountains at the edge of Virginia and West Virginia. . .absolutely new territory for me.

But, oops, I got distracted (probably a bright, shiny object flew by just at the edge of my vision). This post is called "He Gets Around," not "His Mom and Dad Get Around." Besides his current residence in DC and his future residence in NY, Davis added another state to his summer experience by grabbing a train at Union Station (located conveniently just blocks from his house) after work last Friday and railing it to Trenton, New Jersey to visit a friend (thanks Bethany and Shari for your willingness to be on "Davis Watch" in case anything unplanned happened. It didn't.). He has also asked me to bring his passport when we go to Washington. Who knows what other side trips he has planned?

The other thing I wanted to share with you, actually does have to do with another trip Walter and I will make (in about an hour). As President of the Texas State Historical Association, Walter has some ceremonial duties at Texas History Day in Austin this week. I had not originally planned on going with him, but when the moratorium on UIL actitivies mandated by the near (far?) miss on the Swine Flu epidemic pushed the contest back a couple of weeks, my services became more valuable (Yes, I am going to be one of the replacement judges. Only about 130 of the originally scheduled 160 judges could shift their schedule around, so voila, I am promoted.).

This honor brought to mind my dear son, who as as a seventh grader (back when I was still taller than him), won the Robert Henry Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Certificate of Award for Excellence in Texas History Studies. It made me wonder then, as it makes me wonder now, who actually joins the Daughters of the Republic of Texas these days? Perhaps the mothers of the youth who are competing at Texas History Day this week. I will have to ask around.

Adhesive

And so a weird enough semester ends for Davis. He returned from his study abroad experience and had to fit back into the flow of dorm life that had started without him in August: new roommate, new routine. The sister he left when he headed back to Rice seemed as fit and robust as ever,

but by March he found himself headed home more often to get some time in with Erin as she got sicker. Even so, classes fell into place. Will Rice swept Beer/Bike. He took finals in stride and rung the old school year out with good friends and style.

And now what?

Two days at home to unpack, regroup, and pack again. Destinations: DC for five weeks; followed by Rochester until August.

So, as I paid bills today, Davis sorted through some of the laundry baskets where he had tossed everything in an effort to empty his dorm room quickly and efficiently (emphasis on quickly). Of course, he had the requisite sets of dominoes, playing cards, and poker chips. He also stacked up several re-usable, re-sealable plastic containers that I must have shoved in his hands each time he returned back to school this spring with cookies or some other kind of consumable to tide him over until he could make it to the servery. I don't know where he go the bottle of Fe-Breeze, but he claimed that it was indispensable, and I believe him.

Among the detritus was also a dozen packets of epoxy, two bottles of gorilla glue, multiple colors of duct tape, super glue and puzzle glue, foil tape, scotch tape, and masking tape.

Now I know how he kept it together all semester despite it all: a heavy investment in adhesives. And do you know, I can take complete credit for that. Eight (or more) years ago, I personally turned him on to the potential of adhesives.

That summer Davis and Robbie made a substantial investment in driving me mad as a hatter by fussing and bickering about absolutely anything and everything. They refused to played together nicely and refused, even more adamantly, to split up and spend some time apart. One afternoon, out of sheer frustration, I reached for my roll of duct tape and firmly joined them at the forearm and calf (really quite an accomplishment because Davis had started his growth spurt, but Robbie hadn't). Within moments they were best friends, trying to figure out how to run across the backyards, climb up on to the trampoline, and jump without falling into splayed shambles.


For those of you who weighed in on the storytelling poll a few weeks ago, I would like to reveal the outcome:

57% of you thought that Escape from Babysitter Mountain was true.
30% of you thought that Time Stands Still was true.
38% of you thought that The Danger Boys was true.

Do the math. Did 125% of you vote?

No. You're right some of you voted twice (maybe thrice) and you were right to do so, because Babysitter Mountain and The Danger Boys were both true stories. Congratulations to the winners. Next time the truth won't be so obvious.

Presenting. . .Ruby

Davis turns 21 on Saturday.



He brought someone special home last weekend.



Her name is Ruby.





Apparently, she is our birthday present to our fine son.

P.S. There are still a few hours left to vote in the poll (see the stories below and the poll directly to your right). You can change your previous vote. In fact, you may want to in light of the launch day of the poll (April Fool's Day).

Storytime

Derelict. Absolutely derelict.

How could I have let three weeks slip by without a "Report?"

Especially since during that three weeks, Davis's bike team set new records and recorded an unprecedented fourth sweep of the 52nd Annual Rice University Beer/Bike race. Beyond that, during those three weeks, Davis accepted a summer mathematics research internship offer in Rochester, New York at Rochester Institute of Technology. Then, only yesterday, he called with the news that he had been selected to captain the bike team next year and that he might want a new road bike for his 21st birthday which comes up on Easter weekend.

In honor of these accomplishments, I am offering a special glimpse into the world of Davis Buenger.

At Rice, story telling with a twist has grabbed the imagination of the students. They have made up a game where people tell stories (elaborate or simple), and everyone in the circle has to decide whether the story is true or false. Apparently Davis has gotten quite good at the game (more because of his range of interesting stories than because of his ability to lie effectively). Here are three examples. You choose which one is true.

Story 1: The Danger Boys

You all know we live out in the country, so Davis never had a neighborhood full of friends to hang out with in his idle time. He did, however, have two brothers: Jaret and Robbie, AKA The Danger Boys. I don't want to get off track with this story to give you the many examples of their behavior that led to that moniker (perhaps I'll explain some other time), but this story gives you a glimpse.

President's day of 1997 brought us brilliant weather. Davis, Robbie, and Jaret were beside themselves with the idea that they had a day off school and it was truly warm and beautiful. The Danger Boys had waited for just such a day to launch their floating trampoline. That's right, their dad/stepdad had welded sheet metal and old 55 gallon drums to the legs of their ancient trampoline, and they were ready to pull it out into the lake to give it a try. No thought that the winter lake level was really low in most parts of the lake (so that an unlucky bounce might lead to someone burying his head in the bottom of the lake. . .or worse). No thought of the bleeding potential of clamboring up onto a trampoline with random bits of sheet metal and rusty edges attached to it and submerged in the muddy waters.

I put my foot down. "No, Davis, you can not risk tetanus nor paraplegia just to go jumping around on an unstable and rickety trampoline on the middle of the lake."

Instead, we pull up lawn chairs on the back porch, where we could watch the lake, enjoy the springlike weather, and finish the book we were reading together. Bliss.

After a while, Robbie and Jaret, having survived the outing on the trampoline, headed over to our house to check us out. They had a Christmas toy with them that would record voices, then skew them, and play them back in some cracy, silly way. Of course, for eight- and eleven-year old boys the potential was enormous. They walked up and activated the machine to play some high-pitched screechy speech they had programmed. This completely startled our yellow lab, Luke, lying under Davis's chair. He scrambled his ninety pounds up to his feet, upending Davis's chair. Davis fell off the porch, the chair fell across his forearm and snapped the bones in half, and . . .

I became the mom who injured her son by reading to him on the back porch instead of letting him play with The danger Boys on the rusty, rickety floating trampoline.

Story 2: Time Stands Still



Do you know what this is?

This is the world's largest hour glass, containing enough sand to measure the elapse of exactly one year. It lives in Budapest, Hungary, where Budapest people erected it to commemorate the 1957 revolt against the communists.

What does it have to do with Davis Buenger?

Last fall, Davis had an encounter with the clock. He was driving down the road on his bicycle with his Hungarian friend when suddenly we were sidewiped by a drunk Hungarian (Hungary has the highest per capita rate of alcohol), forcing them to crash into the clock. Fortunately, they only hit the granite edge. None of the glass shattered, but the force knocked the massive clock slightly off center.

As a result of the mishap, the sand flow slowed just a smidge. The local paper confirms Davis's calculation. The sand will now take a year and a day to flow through.

Davis truly made his mark on Hungary.

Story 3: Escape from Babysitter Mountain

I made an exceptionally bad hiring decision in the summer of 1995. I needed to hire someone to watch Davis while I worked. I had done theis many times before and really thought I had a handle on hiring (usually college students) to do interesting things with him and help around the house a bit. I have to admit that the one I hired that summer buffaloed me during the interview. I promise, I would not have knowingly hired someone who would not let Davis play outside (too hot for her) and who valued her own television time more than life itself.

Luckily, Davis was a problem solver extraordinaire, even back then.

When this sitter, once again refused to let Davis play outside (even though his best friend Bradley was over) and sent them back to his room so she could watch her programs, Davis and Bradley thought of an alternative.

They spent about an hour playing with Rockin' Robot. Davis had gotten Rockin' Robot when he was about two. It was a almost indestructible cassette player shaped like a robot. For years he carried it around by it head handle, listening to his tunes and later listening to episode after episode of Hank, the Cowdog and whatever other audio books he fancied.

That day, however, they discovered Rockin' Robot's recording capabilities. For the first hour that the babysitter sat in the living room, they entertained themselves telling jokes and in general messing around with the tape player. In the second hour, they set Rockin' Robot on autoreverse play (basically a repetitive loop) and snuck out of the house down to Robbie's. The sitter would never own up to how long she went without checking on them, satisfied that she could hear them playing away happily behind the closed door in Davis's room, but I think it was several hours.

She tried to quit, saying that Davis was the nastiest little boys she had ever taken care of, but I fired her before she got to the point that she said "I quit."

Now that you have read these three stories, vote in the poll on the right for which one you think really happened.

My Van Vacationed at Mo Ranch

Not everyone can afford to send their minivan on a much needed vacation. As a reward for performing admirably during its first six plus months in our family, I decided my van should go to Mo Ranch without me. I found six young men, Davis included to chaperon her trip. I'm glad she got to go. Here's one of the panoramic views she got to see.


She didn't swim in the river, but her chaperons did. She also had trouble fitting on the sled on the Mo Slide. Here's Davis encouraging her up the steps.


With that refreshing trip (I'm sure she took advantage of the Mo Ranch amenities), she is ready for another twenty thousand miles of grunt work around town and on the highway.

The Return of the Prince

Walter and Davis will roll up shortly for a week of respite from the grind of college life. This afternoon Erin made him a mandarin orange cheesecake and grated dark chocolate with almonds on top. I wonder if there will be any left when he arrives?

If it's all gone, perhaps Willie will distract him with multiple licks and jump ups.

I just want to say that having a grown son who I can talk to on an even basis, instead of having to parent all the time has been a big and unexpected blessing.

The Dragon Riddle Resolved

Since I teased you with Davis's riddle, I thought I might show some mercy and give you the solution (I have also attached a copy of Davis's recent topology homework. Let me know which one makes the most sense to you).

HOMEWORK:


SOLUTION TO THE DRAGON RIDDLE:

If the product of the ages is 1 or a prime number, then you could easily deduce the ages (for example: if the dragon whispered to Geoff, "7", then Geoff would know the children were age 1 and age 7). Since he did not know that from the start, you can eliminate all prime numbers as possible products.

From there you could make two tables, one for products and one for sums, starting with the simplest non-prime products:

Product: (Possible Factors)

4: (4 x 1) (2 x 2)
6: (6 x 1) (3 x 2)
8: (8 x 1) (4 x 2)
9: (9 x 1) (3 x 3)
10: (10 x 1) (5 x 2)

And one for sums, starting with the lowest possible sum from the pairs in the table above:
Sum: (Possible Addends)
4: (3+1, 2+2)
5: (4+1, 3+2)
6: (5+1, 4+2, 3+3)
7: (6+1, 5+2, 4+3)

After "7" the number of possible addition combinations becomes too large for Sailesh to ever know the answer (clue #4, below).

Now, let's proceed. Assume initially that the product of the ages is 4 (the lowest composite).

Geoff tells Sailesh that he does not know the answer, it could be either 1 and 4, or 2 and 2. Still assuming that the dragon had whispered "4" into Geoff's ear, Sailesh would have heard either 4 or 5. If Sailesh’s sum were 4, he would have two possible combinations: 1 and 3, or 2 and 2. If this were the case, rather than answering "I don't know the ages either," he would "I know the ages." This is because he could eliminate 1 and 3 on the assumption that Geoff would have said he knew the ages if they were 1 and 3 (prime). If that were the case, Sailesh would say the ages were 2 and 2.

Since he did not know, we can eliminate those two age combinations. The remaining option is a sum of 5.

From the table we can again see that there are two possible combinations for a sum of 5: 1 and 4, or 2 and 3. Since the product of neither of these combinations can be multiplied into a prime, Sailesh also has to admit he does not know the ages either. This declaration would provide Geoff with the information that that the sum the dragon told to Sailesh was 5, not 4.

Geoff would then know that the product of the ages is 4 and the sum of the ages is 5, therefore at least one possibility is that the ages are 1 and 4.

The interesting thing about this riddle is not actually trying to solve it yourself as if you are Geoff or Sailesh, but to use the conversation the two of them and your assumption of their perfect logic to solve it.

Thus, what needs to happen next is to show the uniqueness of the answer 1 and 4. You do that by examining other combinations in the tables and see if the conversation between Geoff and Sailesh could have occurred the way it did with any other dragon ages.

Go back to the sum table. We have already elimated certain sums (5 +1 and 3+1) because the product of those ages equal prime numbers.

Another case are numbers like 3 + 2 (or 4 +2, 3 + 3, 6 + 1, 5 + 2, or 4 +3 or even larger sums). In these cases, Geoff's second statement (that "now I know the ages") would be impossible for any of these examples. Take specifically dragon ages of 3 and 2. If Geoff knew the product of these two (6), he could only guess if the dragons were 1 and 6 or 3 and 2. He has no basis for eliminating one to arrive at the statement "now I know the ages." The same logic applies to other sums listed in the table.

That leaves only 2 and 2 and numbers larger than the ones listed above. I showed how 2 and 2 were eliminated above (when Geoff knew the answer was not 1 and 3) .

Davis will be home in about a week. Because his semester started so early, his spring break starts a week from Friday. I think he will need the rest.