Math Story Problem

Get a pencil and paper, boys and girls! It's Math Story Problem Time! Mrs. Loi made a bunch of jin dui for Lunar New Years this morning. Mr. Loi called and asked me to meet him at his driveway since he does not like to cross the street by himself. Mr. Loi gave me 6 jin dui and I gave him 2 jabon. Dad ate 1 jin dui, Mom ate 1 jin dui, and I ate 1 jin dui. Then the Loi's daughter Catherine came over with 4 more jin dui. Dad went back to sleep, I went to work on cleaning up, and Mom was left alone in the family room. At lunch time there were 3 jin dui left. How many jin dui did Mom eat before lunch? (Answer at end of post.)

The Lois have lived across the street from us for as long as I can remember. Like Mom & Dad, they used to live in an old wooden house, with a large mango tree in front. They had several very successful Chinese restaurants in Honolulu; the one I remember the best was Hong Kung. They had 3 at one time and could have easily moved to a more exclusive part of the island. But they liked the neighborhood and rebuilt a larger house and stayed. They have 4 children, 2 still live here in Hawai'i; the grandkids come over after school and stay with them until they are picked up by their parents.

I think my phone has been bricked, hence no photos of the yummy jin dui. I am hoping it is a temporary condition. I woke up this morning and turned off the wake up alarm that I have set on the phone. When I looked at it a few minutes later, the screen had a different look. There was a keypad, an Emergency Call button, and the phrase, "Enter backup PIN". I did not recall having ever set up a backup PIN, I entered what it might have been if I had set one up and a message scrolled across the screen, "You have 8 more tries." I think this is the problem the FBI ran in to when they tried to get into the phone of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino shootings. The one where they wanted Apple to help them get in. Unlike the FBI, however, I can't hire a private contractor to get in to my phone.

I got in to My Verizon and got in to the profile section. I was able to enter a PIN but when I tried it, I got, "You have 5 more tries." (I tried a couple other numbers before getting in to the profile section.) Then I read the fine print and it said I had to wait 24 hours to use the new PIN. So I will try again tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I can receive calls but I can't make any or use any of the other functions of the phone. Thus, the brick.

Happy Birthday to Dave, Jerry, Suzi, & Paul!

Answer: 5. Yes, she ate 5 jin dui before lunch! And Mrs. Loi does not make small jin dui for Lunar New Years, the ones she makes are about the size of a tennis ball. But Mom still ate a bunch of lunch so its OK that she ate so many.