Today’s contestants are:

– Adam, a police officer from Pennsylvania, rescued 11 ducklings but didn’t charge the mother;
– Nilla, a college student from California, told the Russo Brothers to sit down; and
– Jason, a math teacher from New Mexico, isn’t feeling additional pressure from being a long-running champion. Jason is a 14-day champ with winnings of $399,543.

Jason didn’t find any of the DDs, but his opponents managed to miss all three. As a result, Jason’s rather modest total of $16,800 was good enough for a runaway vs. $6,667 for Adam and $3,400 for Nilla.

DD1, $400 – FERDINAND – With a pickaxe blow in 1859, Ferdinand de Lesseps began construction of this (Nilla lost the table limit of $1,000.)

DD2, $1,600 – ONE-WORD BOOK TITLES – This 1974 James Michener novel covers centuries, not just one significant year, in the history of Colorado (Adam lost $4,133 of his $9,000 vs. $10,800 for Jason, the amount representing the 41-33 score in the lone Super Bowl victory of the Philadelphia Eagles.)

DD3, $1,600 – WE INTERRUPT THIS PROCESS – Interruptions at work make you constantly do this, the more technical name for switching between computer windows (Adam dropped $5,000 from his $8,867 vs. $13,200 for Jason. Alex checked to see if the bet was connected to a football score of 50-00, which Adam confidently predicted will be the next Super Bowl.)

FJ – TOYS & GAMES – Invented in 1974 as a model to teach 3-D problems, it became one of the bestselling toys of all time

Only Jason was correct on FJ, adding $2,000 to win with $18,800 for a 15-day total of $418,343.

Triple Stumper of the day: In the category 16-Letter Words, no one knew the method of cooling your home by opening windows on opposite walls is cross ventilation. (Note: this is a bit of a strange fit for the category, since it is usually not considered to be a single word.)

Correct Qs:
DD1 – What is the Suez Canal?
DD2 – What is “Centennial”?
DD3 – What is toggle?
FJ – What is Rubik’s Cube?