This one was cool

First guy is a coin toss - let's wish him good luck.
His job is to establish the parity of black hats visible to him.
He says "Black" if he sees an odd number of black hats; "Red" otherwise.
By paying attention to what has been said, each prisoner will know his hat's color.

Example:
Second to speak hears "Black" and sees an even number of black hats. 
He knows his hat is black [odd changed to even - must be his is black] and says "black".

Third guy has heard "black" and "black" and sees an even number of black hats.
He knows his hat is red [even stayed even - his hat can't be black] and says "red".

And so on, to the front of the line.

General algorithm:
The first time you hear "black", say to yourself "odd".
Each time your hear "black" after that, change the parity: "even", "odd", ... etc.
When it's your turn, if the black hats you see match the running parity, you're Red; Black otherwise.
Call out your color.

Best pizza in the county

Unfortunately Pleasant View leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to pizza places. There are 3 in town and we dont like any of them. They all taste like under baked frozen pizza. The best we've found? Wal-Mart take and bake. Its so good and cheap! I get the pepperoni then add my own extra stuff. Try it if you haven't- You'll be pleasantly surprised. Not all that comes from there is evil after all!

Hats on Death Row

You are one of 20 prisoners on death row with the execution date set for tomorrow. Your king is a ruthless man who likes to toy with his people's miseries. He comes to your cell today and tells you:
“I’m gonna give you prisoners a chance to go free tomorrow. You will all stand in a row (queue) before the executioner and we will put a hat on your head, either a red or a black one. Of course you will not be able to see the color of your own hat; you will only be able to see the prisoners in front of you with their hats on; you will not be allowed to look back or communicate together in any way (talking, touching.....).

The prisoner in the back will be able to see the 19 prisoners in front of him. The one in front of him will be able to see 18…

Starting with the last person in the row, the one who can see everybody in front of him, he will be asked a simple question: WHAT IS THE COLOR OF YOUR HAT?

He will be only allowed to answer “BLACK” or “RED”. If he says anything else you will ALL be executed immediately.

If he guesses the right color of the hat on his head he is set free, otherwise he is put to death. And we move on to the one in front of him and ask him the same question and so on…

Well, good luck tomorrow, HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

Now since you all can communicate freely during the night, can you find a way to guarantee the freedom of some prisoners tomorrow? How many?

Richard's Cafe

This is a little place that is off a back road near our house. We have driven by it several times, but had never stopped until Sunday. It turned out to be a cute little Cajun place. Patrick had pasta and craw fish and I had Jambalaya- both were really good. It is the kind of place where the owner just comes and sits at your table with you and chats like he's known you forever. It was very cool and we'll definitely go back. Who knew you could find good Cajun food in the middle of Tennessee?

Stalking Dolly Parton

My friend Justin and I went on an unofficial "celebrity homes" tour yesterday. He went on the actual celebrity home bus tour when he first moved to Nashville, but said this would be way better because we could actually stop and look around. I told him that I figured most people (celebrities especially) frowned upon people poking around their yards, but Justin was determined so off we went. First stop: Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman's house, but the gate was locked to their community so we couldn't get in. Damn it.  Next stop: Barbara Mandrell's house. I didn't really care about her, but Justin's a big fan so I went along. It was a pretty nice house, not real big but pretty. She had 2 red Corvettes in the driveway. Then we got lost for a long time (That probably doesn't happen when you take the tour bus).  I was getting frustrated because I hadn't seen anything cool yet and was about ready to go home, but then, we came upon the house that made it all worth while... Dolly Parton's house!!! Her house is very nice looking, but not large, especially compared to the gigantic $5mil houses around hers. She has a big gated yard with a windmill and a small chapel. It is not heavily gated or guarded at all! I would bet most people driving by don't even know it is her house. We wanted a good picture, so we up the street and walked up to it. We could have easily broken into the yard if we wanted, but figured that might be taking it too far. It seemed like such a friendly house that I just wanted to ring the bell and see if she would invite us in for cookies. I'm not sure how much of the time she actually lives here because I have never heard of anyone seeing her casually about town. I suppose though that when you are a legend you don't go out and about like everyone else.  Anyway, it was cool. 

Hanging out on a Tuesday

This is one of our favorite places in Nashville. The beer is cold and the crowd is weird.

Something new

Cryptograms

Here a phrase or sentence is encrypted- each letter is substituted with a different letter or character. To know what the sentence or phrase says, figure out each substitution.  

Puzzle #1  Easy 

UP YIGPBXW QG RQXG FNQXJNFD. FNPR ZIR UPYQZP AQGOD IF IVR ZQZPVF.

Hint: E appears 6 times

Puzzle #2 Tricky

QCHPHKHN B ZHHV VBFH HMHNUBTBPY, B VBH DXQP OPWBV WCH ZHHVBPY LGTTHT.

Hint: The letter B is not used at all 

Puzzle #3 Tough

YDGF A ZAF RGGR ODG DAFSYXQOQFE CF ODG YANN, ODGXG QR MXCKAKNP A TDQNS QF ODG HAZQNP.

Hint: The letter U is not used at all

Not so little Brandon

Mom sent me this picture yesterday- they must have been at the river walk. For a little guy he sure is getting big!

Answer Friday

Here's the Answer to my riddle, and a little knowledge too...

Answer

Time zones.

Before the invention of standard time zones, each city or region could have its own local time. This became increasingly awkward as railways and telecommunications improved.

Originally, time zones based their time on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Mean solar time is defined by the rotation of the Earth, which is not constant in rate. Starting January 1, 1972, a new system was used, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which used a fixed rate and added leap seconds when necessary to compensate for variations in the rotation of the Earth.

In theory, there are 24 time zones, making each a constant 15 degrees of longitude apart. A time zone varies in width from zero miles at both poles to over 1000 miles at the equator.

In reality, there are about 40 time zones, and the border between time zones is irregular, following political or geographical boundaries. The island of Newfoundland, India, and parts of Australia use half-hour deviations from standard time, and some nations use quarter-hour deviations.

Canada's Sir Sandford Fleming first proposed time zones for the entire world in 1876. Most major countries had adopted hourly time zones by 1929.

Brain Teaser Tuesday

Since Dad thinks he's so clever with his tricky riddle last week, I found a hard one to get back at him:

Before I came, confusion abounded.
I'm late, I'm late was frequently sounded.

I'm not average, but was based on a mean.
My size, in theory, is constant: fifteen.

I'm two dozen steps, again in theory.
But walk my length and you'd get weary.

I take half and quarter steps at times.
In reality, I don't follow the lines.

I shrink to nothing in two cold extremes.
Over a thousand miles wide in the betweens.

What am I?

Just for fun

What do you see in this picture?

Pool Crashing

Im desperatly trying to keep at least a little of my hawaii tan so I came to Opry Land today and 'pool crashed'. A nice way to spend my day off.

Nashville Sounds

Patrick and I came out to see the AAA baseball team play tonight. They lost, but the weather was nice and we had a good time. This is a picture of their score board- pretty neat huh?

Poison Sumac Attacks!

Patrick got attacked by a bush landscaping. Apparently it takes 4 different kinds of medicine to make it go away! Forget Anthrax, Sumac would be my chemical weapon of choice!