religious discussion on Facebook (just FYI. I mean no offense to anyone.)

Andrew Porter

My advice: don't count on the elusive pipe dream that "science" will one day achieve through human effort the immortality that God says can be attained only by believing in His Son Jesus Christ. "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)

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• John Coffey

  I mean no offense to you, but I am not a Christian. Like all the other 4,300 religions on the planet, there is no credible evidence that any of them are real. I lean toward pantheism, but I think that it is impossible to know, making me a pantheist leaning agnostic.

  I take comfort in knowing that there is no answer. Why? Because it means that this life matters and what we do here matters, and it is not just some test to prepare us for the next life. It also means that life is what we choose to make it, and not what others tell us life should be.

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• John Coffey

  Regardless of what one believes, the technological trends that are already in motion will continue.

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• Andrew Porter

  No offense taken, my friend. I know you are not a Christian, but I also know that you have always been respectful toward those with whom you disagree. That attitude is becoming rarer and rarer in our culture - I salute you for it. But on what basis do you assert that "this life matters"? On your world view we live, we die, and we're done. So what? I came to the firm conclusion, purely through logic and observation, that there MUST be a Creator. Taht's a crucial starting point, but it's not enough. From there, I investigated thoroughly and came to believe what I do about the Bible, etc. Without God, there is no ultimate purpose. Everything is senseless, random, nothingness. I don't believe that for one second, and furthermore I would not want to live in a purposeless universe. "For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1)

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• John Coffey

  I don't know why you would already know that I am not a Christian, not that it matters, but I find it a curiosity that you already understood this.

  Just for clarification, my position is far more nuanced than what you claim I believe. None of what you said describes accurately what I believe. I lean toward pantheism. There could be a higher power, but I think that it is impossible to know.

  That doesn't offend me. You seem deeply religious. I understand. I have been there. I have nothing but the 

  best wishes

  .

  John Coffey

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• Andrew Porter

  I knew this from this and several other fb posts I've seen from you over the years.

  I didn't mean to misrepresent your position. Feel free to correct/clarify where I did so as I would prefer to address one's *actual* beliefs/position rather than some unintended straw man.

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• John Coffey

  I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion. I will just try to clarify since you asked.

  I want to believe that there is something beyond this life, but I think that it is impossible to know. I am content with not knowing since I don't think that we can know. I prefer to base my beliefs on what we can prove, and if there is something beyond that then great.

  If there is no God then life still has a purpose. We can be here for each other. Pantheism appeals to me logically because if the entire universe and God are the same thing then we are all connected. This belief leads to empathy for others.

Andrew Porter
Thank you. I won't press the issue per your desire not to have an ongoing discussion here on fb. If you ever *want* to discuss these issues further - online or in person (preferred) - I would be open to have that discussion with you. Best regards!

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Adults Can't Seem To Answer These Math Problems Without A Calculator. Can You? | Finance Republic

I saw this quiz on Facebook.  There is always stuff like this on Facebook.

There must have been at least 50 problems here. They are all multiple choice. The goal is to do them without a calculator. Most are on the 4th to 5th-grade level. I got them all correct. They had one problem where they actually got the answer wrong, but since none of their choices matched the correct answer, I guessed correctly the incorrect answer. The problem was "What is 411 - 401.1?". The correct answer is 9.9, but they listed the answer as 10.1. They even said that the problem is tricky without a calculator. Must be.

The toughest problem was a single 2 digit by 2 digit multiply. I can do these in my head, but it takes effort.

My one difficulty is that I'm always looking for shortcuts to solve problems in my head when sometimes it is best to just stick to basic arithmetic.

This seems more like an exercise in attentiveness than math because it would be easy to slip up and get one of the answers wrong.

https://www.financerepublic.com/adults-cant-seem-to-answer-these-math-problems-without-a-calculator.-can-you

Hiking accidents

I used to hear about accidents like this all the time while living in Utah.  Many people went hiking in the mountains and accidents happen.

There was a young couple at my work, Trent and Alexis Pabst, who went hiking to the top of a mountain when a storm moved in.  They were killed by lightning.  I noticed the very dark storm clouds from a distance as I was driving home from work, and the next morning one of the secretaries at work was in tears. 

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

On Fri, Oct 16, 2020 at 10:33 AM Albert Nelms <wrote:

2020 irony: Some people will not live long enough to die from Covid-19. Wear your mask anyway.

https://apple.news/Ad7xFUk72Ra2DJC3fuLULkg

Heron eats / swallows squirrel alive

Youtube keeps suggesting stuff like this to me, maybe because I like wildlife videos.  I feel sorry for the poor squirrel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAgsPUrCV4A

Don't overdo exercise.

Maybe because I am overweight and older, but I have frequently run into problems with joint pain from exercise. I had intense pain in my knees that was caused by a treadmill. (My doctor told me that treadmills have more bounce and are bad for knees.) I walked so much that I got plantar fasciitis in my foot, which can be really painful. I had an accidental injury to my shoulder, which is permanently damaged and caused an unbelievable amount of pain, but I think that over-using weight machines at the gym also contributed to this.

My advice is to not overdo it. I knew a person who claimed that he suffered from arthritis when he was older because of all the intense exercise he did when he was younger.

My suggestion is to only increase your exercise regimen very slowly. For example, if I were going to the gym and doing weights, I would do 10 reps this week followed by 11 reps next week and 12 the week after that. Eventually, I would reach a point where I would feel like I am overdoing it and back off a little.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Fixed my Wi-Fi problem

When I got my new Internet Service, with advertised speeds up to 1000 Mbps, there was an immediate problem where I was getting only 30 Mbps using Windows 10 on my 2017 iMac. If I boot Mac OS on the same computer then I get up to 660 Mbps, which is more than I expected. You never get the full advertised speed anyway, especially over Wi-Fi.

AT&T customer service couldn't do much more than verify that the service is working. They recommended that I do a Windows Update, which didn't help and took a really long time, and I also tried reinstalling the Bootcamp drivers which helped a little.

Apparently, this is a well-known problem with the Broadcom 802.11ac Wireless Adapter Windows 10 driver on the iMac. I tried to follow the advice on many websites and videos, most of which didn't work. However, I did get the speed up to about 200 Mbps, although it was frequently less. Last night I noticed that the speed was only about 80 Mbps, which I found very disappointing.

So last night I tried a different approach. I used a program called "Driver Easy" which claims that it can update all your drivers for you automatically. People recommend that you shouldn't update your drivers unless you are having a problem because you risk breaking your computer, but I was definitely having a problem. Normally, Windows 10 will update your drives for you when it does a Windows Update, although the driver that Microsoft gives you for the wireless adapter doesn't work very well on the iMac.

The Driver Easy program will download the latest driver software, but it won't install it for you unless you pay for the program. If you don't want to pay, then it gives you clear instructions on how to install the driver yourself, which was easy for me since I already knew how to do this.

So after updating the driver with Driver Easy, I was getting speeds over 400 Mbps, which is quite adequate. If I want higher speeds then I most likely would have to run an ethernet cable from the computer to the router directly and not use Wi-Fi.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Remembering César Pelli’s lost mark on the Midwest

I was 11 or 12 when they built the Commons mall. I loved it. They tore most of it down and turned it into offices. There is still a restaurant and a small "Commons" area with a children's playground.

https://www.archpaper.com/2019/08/remembering-cesar-pelli-lost-midwest/?fbclid=IwAR17ffAEkJqKu0tAl9hj_FlYiNTsSbo78O0v0OvB127RQlgaV9brI7Nrylo

Chessmaster, The (NES) - Online Game | OldGameShelf.com

https://oldgameshelf.com/chessmaster-the-176.html   

Before the internet, the only way to play chess was in person or with a dedicated chess computer, and the dedicated chess computers didn't start to get good until about 1983, when the best one was about 1800 strength.

From 1984 to mid-1990's I owned 3 chess-playing computers.   I sold them when I switched over to desktop computers, but I kind of regret not having them any more.  Part of me wonders if they would still beat me today like they did back then?   I am wondering if I could now give them a better game?

The 1984 Novag Super Constellation was pretty impressive considering that it was running on just a 4 MhZ 6502 8-bit processor.  The USCF assigned it a rating of 2000, which is likely a little high.  It is my understanding that the program only looked at 500 moves per second   Compare that to my 64 bit 3.4 GHZ iMac with 4 cores.  Stockfish on this computer looks at around 5 million moves per second.

Nevertheless, I had trouble beating the Super Constellation at level 1 which was 5 seconds per move.   At the time, I was rated in the 1700's.  I could win most of the time, but the higher levels game me trouble.

I am surprised to find my name on a webpage about the Super Constellation.    https://www.chessprogramming.org/Super_Constellation    Apparently in 1998 I made a forum post where I was wondering the exact same things that I am wondering now.  Even then I referred to this as an old chess computer.

The 1988 Fidelity Designer 2100 (http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/designer_2100.html)  series running an 8-bit 6502 at 5 MHZ was a slight improvement over the Super Constellation.  The USCF gave it a rating of 2100 which some claim is too high.  I certainly found it a challenge, but I wasn't content to stop there.   Later got the 16-bit Fidelity Designer Mach III 2265.  For its time, this thing was a beast.  I played it a ton of games at G/30 and only won once.  At the time I was rated 1800.

I can't go back play these old chess computers, but I can run some older videogame software through emulation.

I found a website that runs The Chessmaster program from 19991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  This is emulating a 1.79 MHZ 8 bit 6502 processor.  This should be a little weaker than the Novag Super Constellation.  

First of all, I am surprised that a website can emulate an old videogame system.  I also found this fun to play.  The controls take a little getting used to.  You have to press "Select" (shift key) to get to the options where you can control the difficulty.  There is also an option to make it full screen.  The graphics aren't the best, but are okay.

As as I said, I found this fun to play.  There are a couple of beginner levels, and then level 1, 2, 3 etc.  After beating level 1 at 5 seconds per move, I only barely beat level 2 at 7.5 seconds per move.  I had to outsmart it in the endgame to win.

I am able to run the SNES version of this program through emulation on my NES Classic videogame system and on the PC.  The SNES 65816 processor is twice as fast and a little more sophisticated, so the SNES version should be as good as the Novag Super Constellation.   At the time that these Chess Master programs were released for the videogame consoles, which was around 1991, the version of Chess Master for computers was called Chess Master 2100.  I later owned a copy of Chess Master 3000 which seems extremely crude now.

In the 1990's I programmed SNES videogames for a living.

John Coffey

 

"How does that turn?"

I'm impressed.

http://www.youtube.com/w/VsOvmtTDwx0


Best wishes,

John Coffey

This is what a Mensa IQ test looks like

I find IQ test questions interesting.  In particular, I got fascinated by #8 in this video.  She doesn't give the answer, but I figured out the pattern by doing the square of 63 in my head.

https://youtu.be/h36cpwlslHk?t=152

I have one problem with some of these questions ...

Imagine if you had two pairs of numbers like so ...

Five is to six as 10 is to ____?     Well, by one rule you would have 11 as an answer, but by another rule, you would have 12 as an answer.   If you have just a number problem then they would most likely make it unambiguous, but I feel like some geometric shape problems can be confusing because I'm not sure which rule to use.  For example, in one problem she had to base things off of the geometric center, which I did not think to do.   In another problem, she seemed to go backward, like 1 is to 2 as 4 is to 3.   In a completely different test, they had shapes arranged in 3 by 3 grid, so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to look at these shapes horizontally or vertically.  Again, I wasn't sure which rule to use.

In the above video, I was confused by #7.  The problem is like this ...

1, 0, -1, 0.  What is the next logical number?  

I am guessing that the four numbers are the cosine of 0, 90, 180, and 270 degrees respectively.  Then the next number is the cosine of 360 degrees, which is 1.

However, they might be looking for something completely different.  What if these are two pairs of grid coordinates?  What if there is some other pattern I am missing?

Fwd: 2452 Cedar Crest Dr - Google Maps

FYI.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: John Coffey <john2001plus@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 8:16 PM
Subject: 2452 Cedar Crest Dr - Google Maps
To: Kevin Keyes 

I was telling you about my small little neighborhood.  Ideal for walking.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/2452+Cedar+Crest+Dr,+Columbus,+IN+47203/@39.2352972,-85.897347,535m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x886ba06460a503bf:0xf6b79d4acab8b9be!8m2!3d39.2352972!4d-85.8959278

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Three different salads

Microsoft Just Revealed How INSANELY POWERFUL The Xbox Series X Will Be.

https://youtu.be/3qreWiBtcFY

I've been interested in how powerful the XBox Series X is going to be, because I can't build a computer this powerful for $1000, and maybe not even $1200. I want a computer with this much power.

Well, this video reveals that the custom APU chip, the central processing unit with the GPU built in, is going to cost over $500 by itself. That doesn't include any other parts.

Rumor has it that Microsoft plans to take a $200 loss on the system. The rumored price is $599. They can make that up with subscription services.

I want AMD to sell me the APU. It will never happen. They have revealed plans to release a video card with the same GPU technology.

Phosphates and dishwasher detergents

For about 50 years the United States has been phasing out phosphates used in detergents, and they were completely banned about 10 years ago. The phosphates cause algae blooms that are supposedly harmful to fish.

The problem is that the phosphates were very effective in automatic dishwashing detergents. They not only helped clean the dishes, but they acted as a kind of water softener to prevent hard water stains, calcium build-up, on glassware on other dishes. About a dozen years ago there were a ton of complaints by consumers that dishwashers weren't getting dishes clean as they used to, and because of the hard water stains, the glassware looked dirtier after they were washed in the dishwasher than before.

I have been having this problem. There were noticeable hard water stains on my glassware and other dishes. So I tried washing once with dishwashing detergent, and a second time with no detergent, but I poured vinegar into a 16 once container and set it in the top rack of the dishwasher. After the second wash, everything was spotless. Since the vinegar is acidic, it dissolved any calcium stains.

It is believed by many people that "Tang" can be used to clean out your dishwasher. Since "Tang" is an acid, it might actually work. I had a dishwasher salesman tell me to put "Tang" powder in a cup on the top rack. (I would not do this with the detergent, because one is basic and the other is acidic. At the very least they would cancel each other out, if not react with each other in unpredictable ways.)

However, if you have stains in your dishwasher, bleach is much more effective. In my old house, I had a cheap GE dishwasher that was not stainless steel inside, but it had a cheap plastic interior. That interior got so badly stained that I thought that I was going to have to replace the dishwasher. After I played around with the dishwasher, I realized that each wash would go through three cycles: an initial rinse and drain cycle, a long wash cycle, followed by another drain and rinse and drain cycle. All dishwashers work this way. To solve my stain problem, I waited for the long wash cycle to start, and then I poured a bottle of bleach into the dishwasher. However, when it got to the final drain and rinse cycle, which could have drained out all the bleach, I turned the knob back to the wash cycle so that the bleach would not drain out. I did this a few times so that there was plenty of time for the bleach to circulate in the dishwasher. The end result was amazing because the dishwasher was spotless inside.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Salads

I have been experimenting with making salads with store-bought shredded cabbage because it stays fresher much longer than lettuce. I could also see using a combination of the two.

My simple recipe is to use 20 to 50% of a package of shredded cabbage with a generous sprinkling of bacon bits and a generous amount of Italian dressing. This is very good by itself, but with tomato wedges, it is almost perfect.

In the last couple of days, I have tried adding strawberries, chopped apple, and cashews. These don't necessarily make the salad taste better, but it is a good way to eat fruit and nuts. I especially like the apple in the salad.

--
Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Power outage/Transformer blowing up?

A major storm front moved across Indiana in a southeastern direction, causing property damage across the state and about 50,000 people to lose power.

On Monday nights I run online the Greenwood Chess Club that I started five years ago. We are not meeting in person because of the pandemic.

While I was playing chess online, I noticed that it was storming outside and at 8:35 PM my power went out. This was accompanied by a very loud buzzing sound that had me worried. The first thing I did was to text the guy I had been playing to tell him that my power went out.

The power toggled on and off, again with the troubling loud buzzing. I decided to investigate. The power came back on. I opened my garage and stepped outside. This time I saw what looked like a huge electrical spark above my neighbor's house accompanied by that loud buzzing sound again, but this looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was obviously an electrical spark, but it looked more like an orange vertical bar. (Electrical sparks cause the electrons to be stripped off of air molecules, which turns the air into the 4th state of matter, called Plasma. When you see an electrical spark, what you are really seeing is the plasma emit light. You can't actually see electricity.) I figured that this had to be a transformer in the process of blowing up. Maybe it was on fire, which might explain why the spark was orange in color, although I'm not sure that this is a good explanation. Maybe the chemicals in the transformer caused the spark to look orange.

This looked scary. My first thought was that I did not want this to burn down my neighbor's house and then take mine with it. There were people in the street watching this strange sight, and I yelled at them and asked if they had called 9-11. They said that they had. One of the neighbors yelled that there was a tree on fire, but I couldn't see this from my vantage point. Then immediately the power went off again and I was relieved because the situation looked very dangerous. Very shortly fire trucks drove by, so I thought thank goodness the Fire Department is here, but they just kept on driving. In the middle of a thunderstorm, they probably had other problems to deal with.

I was not inclined to get any closer to investigate, especially since it was still storming outside. There was a huge crack of lightning close by which convinced me to seek shelter back in the house.

So I mostly sat in the dark texting my friends about what happened until the power came back on 2 hours and 20 minutes later.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Re: Frustrated

I tried to send this from my phone.  I incorrectly copied his comments and copied his same comment 3 times.  I'll fix that below.

On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 8:48 PM <john2001plus@gmail.com> wrote:

Craig:

I am really really frustrated

I think I'm studying and learning more and it's like I play worse and worse.

I think that I have been expecitng hard work to pay off too fast.

John:
It is a common complaint.  I don't seem to have this problem.  I have a friend who thinks that studying tactics makes him worse. My attitude is that I try to master the easy stuff trying to make that as automatic as possible. Someone once said that to be "extraordinary" you have to do "extra ordinary" stuff.  It is like the pro who practices layups hundreds of times. The 1, 2, 3 move problems on my website I have done at least 200 times over the last 25 years.  Same for the slightly more advanced 1000 problems on the Shredder App.  I have rehearsed basic endings just so that I can do them without much thought.

Craig:

I guess that what I put in will keep building on on what I got.

John:

Slow and steady wins the race.

You have a plan that you follow consistently, not that this is always possible since human existence is difficult, but I really focus on mastering the "fundamentals".

Best wishes,

John Coffey

Frustrated

Craig:

I am really really frustrated

I think I'm studying and learning more and it's like I play worse and worse.

I think I'm studying and learning more and it's like I play worse and worse.

John:
It is a common complaint. I don't seem to have this problem. I have a friend who thinks that studying tactics makes him worse. My attitude is that I try to master the easy stuff trying to make that as automatic as possible. Someone once said that to be "extraordinary" you have to do "extra ordinary" stuff. It is like the pro who practices layups hundreds of times. The 1, 2, 3 move problems on my website I have done at least 200 times over the last 25 years. Same for the slightly more advanced 1000 problems on the Shredder App. I have rehearsed basic endings just so that I can do them without much thought.

Craig:

I think I'm studying and learning more and it's like I play worse and worse.

John:

Slow and steady wins the race.

You have a plan that you follow consistently, not that this is always possible since human existence is difficult, but I really focus on mastering the "fundamentals".

Best wishes,

John Coffey

Commodore History Part 3 - The Commodore 64

This guy is a huge Commodore 64 fan, understandably so.  However, in terms of inflation adjusted dollars, it was expensive in 1982, like $1580 in today's dollars.  Even more so if you bought any of the many Commodore 64 accessories.  

A company called Sinclair came up with a cheap computer called the Spectrum that was enormously popular in England and Europe, and Timex sold an upgraded version of the Spectrum in the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpXFB8ZEH30

So I had to write this:

"In 1983 I got a Timex Sinclair 2068 for $200.  It also had a great sound chip and a 3.58 MHZ Z80 and a keyboard that I actually liked.  It had many advantages over the Sinclair Spectrum.  It was much computer for the money, compared to the $595 for the C64, equal to over $1500 today, which for me was way cost-prohibitive.  I temporarily had a healthy business selling software I wrote for the 2068.  I loved this machine.  I'm sure that I would have loved the C64 more with the better graphics, but the cost was a huge issue."

I am actually very proud of the business that I ran selling 2068 software.  This helped me get computer jobs later, and eventually, I worked in the console videogame industry.  

Get Free Coffee at Panera Bread

I've been getting free coffee for about 3 weeks.  I need to cancel the coffee subscription by the end of September in order not to be charged.

https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/mypanera/mypanera-coffee-subscription.html  

Cracked tooth

I got a crack in a tooth. For insurance reasons, I had to go to an oral surgeon in Seymour to have it removed today. I saw my Dentist yesterday, who said that the tooth was cracked and recommend that an oral surgeon take it out. He first tried to book me for a "3D XRay" at an Endondist, but I was going to have to wait a week to get the XRay, so I called the Dentist and told him that I did not want to wait that long. I was in too much pain. He then booked me with the Oral Surgeon today.

On Saturday I ate some hard croutons on a salad that I made. The tooth started hurting on Sunday, and it only got worse over time. By the time I saw the Oral Surgeon on Tuesday I was more than eager to have the tooth removed. It was hurting me quite a bit. I tried using Orajel, which only helped a little. (BTW, I have used both the name brand and the Walmart generic. I suggest sticking with the name brand. The generic did not seem to work as well.)

The surgeon told me that the croutons could have caused the crack, but he thinks that the tooth already had a crack in it and the hard croutons made it worse. I told him that I used to eat popcorn quite a bit, which I no longer do because of diverticulitis, and he said that popcorn can be hard on the teeth.

I asked the oral surgeon if I should avoid hard foods in the future, but he didn't think that was necessary. I brought up the fact that I'm now 60 years old, but he didn't think that it mattered.

My recent experience with dental procedures is that it takes an extra shot to make me numb. He started to remove the tooth but I was still having pain so he gave me another shot. He said that he would wait two minutes for it to work, but I think that he waited less than a minute. He seemed to be in a rush. I had some strong pain as he pulled the tooth out, but for only about 15 seconds. I'm unhappy with the way he handled this.

I assumed that once the tooth was out that everything would be fine, but once the numbness wore out I was in almost as much pain as I was before. The oral surgeon put me on a regiment of both Tylenol and Advil, which maybe is helping. I am just trying to get through the day hoping that tomorrow will be better.

Prior to this I only had about five hours of sleep because it is hard to sleep with a sore tooth.

--

Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com