Playing cards and the bible

Richard Middleton a United States soldier was attending worship services and instead of taking out a Bible, he spread out a complete deck of cards in front of him. When an officer told him to put them away he refused the directive. He was brought before the major because the refusal was considered indecent behavior. When Middleton was asked for an explanation he was told if he could present an acceptable explanation there would be no penalty. He explained to the major and the court that he had just been on an eight day march. He had little money with which to spend on necessities. A man can barely pay for food, drink, washing, or other necessities or buy a Bible or any prayer book. Middleton took out his cards and proceeded to explain his using the cards during service. “The Ace reminds me that there is one God. The two and three remind me of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The four represents the four evangelists - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The five remind me of the five wise virgins who were ordered to trim their lamps. There were ten but five were wise and did as they were told and five were foolish.” “The six represented the time God took in creating the Earth and Heaven. The seven tells me that even the Lord took time for rest. The eight reminds me of the eight righteous people spared from the flood - Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives. The nine reminds me of the ten lepers that sought healing. Only one returned to thank Jesus. Nine did not but went about telling everyone about what happened. The ten reminds of the Ten Commandments given to Moses.” “The Queen reminds me of the Queen of Sheba who went to Solomon to seek out his wisdom. The King reminds me of the Great King of heaven and earth. The knave (jack) is the person who brought Middleton before the court.” “ The number of dots on a deck of cards is 365 the number of days in a year. The 52 cards represent the number of weeks in year. Tricks that can be won in a deck is 13 representing the months of the year. Finally, this deck of cards is my Bible, my Almanac, and Prayer Book.” The major ordered his men to entertain Middleton. They were to provide him with money and food. The major declared him a clever fellow.

Can work ever be funny

Sometimes work can be the worst thing in life, it is generally viewed as nothing more than a means to an end. Most of the time the only thing that you really think about is, what am I going to do when I get out of this damm place. Then every now and again something very funny happens in work, and it changes your attitude, you realise work sometimes really can be enjoyable. The following extract is a true story that happened about 5 years ago…. I worked as a vehicle engineer in the Army; I had slowly progressed through the ranks and eventually after 18 years had reached the rank of Staff Sergeant. I was responsible for the day to day repair of about 200 vehicles and 20 tradesmen. One morning I was called into the ASM’s (Boss) office, he must have been bored as he informed me he was going to test the guys engineering and adaptability skills, I could feel myself starting to daydream. He had decided to test out the guys skills by having A Great Egg Race. The idea was for the tradesmen to manufacture a self powered machine, that must not contain anything metallic, that would carry an egg the furthest distance across the shop floor.. I tried to appear keen, however deep down I was wondering who would be in the snooker club that night. The next morning I went into the ASM’s office and found him covered in cardboard and tape, “I will show the boys who can design a machine” he said, I left him to it. All day his meetings were cancelled and I was told not to bother him. I must admit to being surprised how much interest The Great Egg Race had attracted. The young tradesmen had been split into groups of 3 and were busy designing and manufacturing all sorts of wonderful inventions. I went into the Boss’s office he was sat behind his desk with a smug look on his face. “It’s ready” he said, he opened his locker and showed me this cardboard ‘Thing’. He smiled so much I was sure he had fallen in love with the contraption, “That’s the winner”, he exclaimed. The day had eventually arrived, morale was high as the afternoon would be spent drinking beer, also, the race was eagerly anticipated. After lunch the beer was flowing. It was nice to see the guys enjoying themselves. A few hours later the ASM called all the entries forward for the race. I must admit although not taking part myself I was very impressed by the intricate designs of the self propelled machines. The boss disappeared into his office, and came out beaming holding his baby. He was sure to win, a lifetime of engineering experience surely he would win the race. The eggs were issued to team captains. I will go first said the Boss this was greeted by moans from everyone. His egg was placed in the cardboard cockpit; it looked like a cardboard drag racer, powered by a very strong elastic band. The band was fully charged and we were ready. The time keeper screamed, “Stand by…….GO”……. The boss released the beast, the cardboard wheels nearly set on fire they were spinning so fast, however the machine stayed stationary, eventually the ‘Beast’ did move, it flipped upside down and cracked the egg. I tried for a second to control myself, however it really was no use - I fell on the floor laughing, I simply could not control myself. What made it worse was when the Boss started screaming he was having another go. He was however informed his rules stated contestants were only issued with one egg. Eventually for fear of repercussions a new egg was issued to the boss, he would get another go at the end. Take 2 for The Beast, this time the rubber band was charged even tighter. With a new egg strapped in the cockpit the fully charged machine was released. This time it jumped forward and the took off, in fact it screamed forward, all I recollect of the second attempt was this thing screaming across the shop floor being chased by over 50 people, in the middle of them was the boss, jumping up and down like a schoolboy screaming “Go on you beauty”. The rest of the afternoon was spent drinking more beer, every time I looked at the boss’s beaming face I cracked up with laughter. This small incident reminded me that I should not really take work so seriously, at times it can actually be fun. bizseller4u

Freecell solitaire power moves explained

Most people understand the rules for Freecell, but not everyone understands Freecell PowerMoves. Understanding PowerMoves is one of the most important keys to winning Freecell, and knowing how they work will increase your chances of winning Freecell. A Freecell powermove (also called a supermove), is simply a shortcut move. It lets you move a sequence of cards in one move, instead of doing lots of individual moves. It isn't a special move though. It's just a shortcut, to move all the cards in the sequence in one move, rather than several moves using the available freecells and empty columns. The number of cards you can move in a supermove sequence is based on how many freecells and empty columns are available. Some freecells games implement this incorrectly, and let you move any number of cards in a sequence. But this is wrong. If you couldn't move the sequence using individual card moves, then you can't move the sequence using a powermove either. A freecell supermove uses the empty columns and freecells as efficiently as possible, to ensure you can move the maximum number of cards. To work out how many cards can be moved, the following formula is used: (1 + number of empty freecells) * 2 ^ (number of empty columns) This is easier to understand by looking at the following chart... A: Empty Columns B: Empty Freecells C: Card Sequence Length A - B - C 0 - 0 - 1 0 - 1 - 2 0 - 2 - 3 0 - 3 - 4 0 - 4 - 5 1 - 0 - 2 1 - 1 - 4 1 - 2 - 6 1 - 3 - 8 1 - 4 - 10 2 - 0 - 4 2 - 1 - 8 2 - 2 - 12 2 - 3 - 16 2 - 4 - 20 This assumes you are moving the sequence to a non-empty column. If you are moving into an empty column, then the column you are moving into does not count as empty column. A freecell powermove can always be broken down into several individual moves. Suppose you have 1 empty column, and 1 empty freecell. From the chart above you can see that we can move a sequence of 4 cards. Suppose we want to move 9,8,7,6 sequence onto a 10. The moves would proceed as follows: - Move the 6 to the freecell (Now one empty column, no empty freecells) - Move the 7 to the empty column (Now no empty columns, and no empty freecells) - Move the 6 onto the 7 (Now no empty columns, and one empty freecell) - Move the 8 to the freecell (Now no empty columns, and no empty freecells) - Move the 9 onto the 10 (Now no empty columns, and no empty freecells) - Move the 8 onto the 9 (Now no empty columns, and one empty freecell) - Move the 6 to the freecell (Now no empty column, no empty freecells) - Move the 7 onto the 8 (Now one empty column, and no empty freecell) - Move the 6 onto the 7 (Now one empty column, and one empty freecell) So in this example, the powermove has saved us time by allowing us to do 1 move instead of 9. There are a few things to notice in this example: - The freecells and empty columns are used temporarily. At the end of the powermove, the number of empty freecells and columns is the same as at the start of the powermove. - The freecells and empty columns are used as efficiently as possible. There is no way that any more cards could have been moved. - Only the empty freecells and empty columns were used. Cards in other stacks were NOT used as temporary storage spaces. This last point is particularly note-worthy. A supermove will only use the freecells and empty columns. It doesn't account for any other cards in the tableau. This means you can often move a longer sequence by breaking doing the moves yourself, or doing several powermoves. In the example above, if there had been a spare 9 in the tableau with the right color, a much longer sequence could have been moved. The 8,7,6 sequence would be moved onto the other 9 first. Then we could move another 4 cards using a normal powermove (Because we still have an empty column and freecell). So we could now move 9,10,J, Q onto a King, and then move the 8,7,6 onto the 9 again. So by breaking the sequence up into 2 moves, we are able to move a sequence of 7 instead of 4. Being aware of this short-coming of supermoves will allow you to move longer sequences, which helps a lot in winning some of the harder freecell deals. The other thing to be aware of with supermoves is how important empty columns are. If you look back to the chart above, you will see that empty columns are very valuable in freecell. Four empty freecells lets you move a sequence of 5 moves, while two empty freecells and two empty columns lets you move a sequence of 12! So try and empty up columns as soon as you can!