Lunch With George!

June 6, 2002 - Rubio's Baja Grill

Agenda

• Puzzlers
• Sailing
• Digital Camera
• Show and Tell: Trekking Pole
• Billy Elliot
• KactuswrenBooks

Figure 1: Carousel Measuring

They wanted to know how much paint to buy, and they didn't want a lot left over. When sent by the head guy to measure the diameter of the carousel, as well as the diameter of the hole in the center, his assistant found that all the machinery in the center prevented him from getting the measurements. Instead, he made a single measurement-- a straight line from one edge of the carousel to the other, with the line touching the circular hole in the cente of the floor (in other words, a line tangent to the smaller center circle).

when he returned with this single measurement, they were able to determine the area if the carousel floor. Can you? Find the answer here.

Another good puzzler (one I had at least a chance of figuring out) involved three bedouins and lunch. Here are the details:

1. Two bedouins sat down to eat lunch together. The first had five loaves of bread, the second three.
2. Before they began to eat, a third bedouin apporached them from across the sand and asked them to share with him. He had no bread, but he did posess eight coins which he would contribute.
3. They all shared the bread equally, and the third bedouin handed them his eight coins.
4. The first bedouin handed the second three coins and kept five for himself, but the second bedouin objected saying he should get half of the coins since they all shared equally.
5. As they argued, a passing magistrate offered to mediate.

Off to Muskegon...

Persistence

George has found three boats for sale in the great state of Michigan, not to mention at least as many places to eat (courtesy of

The J/24 in Muskegon, named Persistence, seems like the best option. It has a new double-axle trailer, a roller-furling jib, self-tailing winches, an electric-start motor, and it's available at a pretty good price. That's a long way to tow a boat!

As for the food, George plans to make the following stops (all are in Traverse City):

• Cousin Jenny's (for a Breakfast bobby)
• Moomer's (for a turtle sundae)
• Don's Drive In (for a hamburger & shake)

We'll get a full trip report when he gets back.

Digital Camera

Seriously though, I realy like my Finepix-- I take it everywhere and since it has a really big memory card, I take photos of just about anything. I mean,

Fuji Finepix 2800

with a film camera, who but the most dedicated of artists would create an album and slideshow of people's feet? But with a digital camera, take all the pictures you want!

I like all of the 1400's features: USB direct connection to my iBook, autofocus, 3x optical zoom, and the 64MB of memory. But... I want MORE! AND I don't want to give up anything, either. Sometimes when you replace a piece of equipment, you gain some features but have to put up with annoying differences which diminish the joy of the new gadget.

With the Finepix 2800, I get it all! It doubles the resolution to 2.1 Megapixels, doubles the optical zoom to 6x, and keeps all the other features that my 1400 has. It also adds the capability to record 60-second movie clips, with sound! It is a good-looking camera, too. But best of all, it can be had for as low as $280.00. I better start saving those pennies.

For an in-depth review, checkout Steve's DigiCams.

Show and Tell

It was my turn to bring show and tell... a new trekking pole! Corey told me about "Canada's REI", Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC). They carry a lot of the same stuff that REI does-- but if you're in the U.S., you can't buy most of it.

It seems that they were selling stuff at Canadian dollar prices, and undercutting REI (and other outdoor outfitters) in the States. REI pressured their suppliers, and they in turn pressured MEC to stop shipping competing goods outside of Canada.

The good news is that there are some European brands and MEC's own brand that can still be shipped to the U.S., and I got this great adjustable-length trekking pole for $16.00 Canadian (which is around $9 US!). It has a molded rubberized grip, a wrist strap, and a steel tip. It's great! I have ordered six more.

 

Movies

George also got to see Kiss of the Dragon, a Jet Li movie. He recommends this one as a good action movie. I've never seen any Li movies-- but I thought The One looked interesting.

Books for Sale

Teri's always pressuring me to do something about the constantly growing piles of books in the house (the bookshelves filled up long ago), so I decided to sell some books on Amazon. It's so easy! Just search for the book you have, and click the "I have one to Sell" button. You can list as many books as you want, and when one sells, Amazon takes a 15% fee but also credits you some for shipping. They deposit your money in your checking account every two weeks! They have this "About me" page where you can put a link to your website.

One thing led to another, and before I knew it I had created a new book-oriented website: KactuswrenBooks! It's really just something I did for fun, but I will try to post tips about good new books. There are already three book reviews!