Wednesday, September 5, 2018

I slept pretty well despite getting up twice during the night finally waking/getting up at 7am.

This morning I managed (myself, alone) to set Teresa’s phone to tethering and then I was able to use her Android internet connection from my cellphone.

After watching the first 20 minutes of the Today show I left for the gym. 

At one point I was next to Francisco (a Colombian who speaks good English) and Charles.  I learned that Francisco has his internet with Claro and is getting good service.  (In fact since he has internet, telephone and TV with them he pays about the same I do just for my Direct TV.)  He told me I should be able to cancel my contract after 1 year (we’ve had it for more than 2 years).  Charles invited me to his house for the Seahawks vs Bears game on Monday night, September 17^th.  I told him I’d bring the popcorn.

After leaving the gym I saw Une workers down the street working on the wires.  Back at the apt I saw 3 Une workers with a truck but they were gone 2 minutes later when I looked out the window.

We took a nap for about 45 minutes after lunch.

The plan was to see the movie Alpha (7.0) which is playing at Vizcaya at 6:40pm.

Teresa wanted to leave the apt at 5:30 because she was afraid traffic would be too heavy with everyone getting out of work.

It turned out to be an interesting evening!

We walked down the hill and 2 occupied taxis passed us and right away Teresa said it’s going to be difficult to catch a taxi.  I asked her to give me 1 minute and sure enough 30 seconds later we caught a taxi.

Traffic was a little heavy on Calle 10 but we got to Vizcaya, there was no line and we bought 2 tickets for 3,750 pesos each to Alpha.  When we looked at the general seats available they were sporadic around the theater.  Preferred seating was only a little better and I ended up choosing 2 seats in the very last row next to 2 seats (on the aisle) that were for some reason marked as handicapped.

It was now 65 minutes before showtime and of course before the feature film there would be 20 minutes of trailers and advertisements.

We went down a level where we both bought a café con leche and sat at one of the tables in the food court.  I went to connect to Cine Colombia’s wifi and was presented with a screen asking for my name and password.  My name and the password I usually use didn’t work.  I noticed when I started typing my name that my email address popped up so I tried that with my usual password but still no luck.  At the bottom of the screen there was a button to press if you had forgotten your password so I clicked on that.  It first asked me to enter my email address then a button popped up that I had to click stating that I wasn’t a robot.  Then a picture came up, separated into grids asking me to click each grid that contained a bicycle.  After submitting that another came up, for example, which grids contain a crosswalk.  After a couple more of those it said something like “CAPTCHA error” and took me back to the first screen for my Cine Colombia password.  I spent about 30 minutes on this cyclical process and then I told Teresa I was going up to the theater for a minute.

Upstairs I found that being closer to the theater might change something but no.  I looked for a manager but didn’t find one.

Back downstairs I explained to Teresa my problem.  We stopped at Subway and bought a sandwich for each of us for 23,700 pesos but we neglected to remind the lady to write the name of the sandwich on the paper she wrapped it in.  On our way upstairs she stops and asks a security guard about that.  I understood from his that there should be a free and easy wifi connection.  I showed him my screen and he got out his cell phone and tried to connect and got the same screen as mine.  He said he’d never seen that problem before.

We went upstairs and luckily there was no line to buy tickets and it looked like, since cashiers were doubled up, that there was some training going on.

Teresa asked one of the cashiers and she looked at the end of the bank of cashiers and spoke to someone who looked like he might be a manager.  He answered her then she repeated it and I understood “we are in the process of changing our platform”.  (I can’t get lucky with my wifi anywhere!)

I made a quick trip to the restroom then we bought a small popcorn, medium soda (for me) and large soda (for Teresa) for 19,200 leaving me with a Cine Colombia card balance of about 23,300 pesos.  I think I’ve now made 33 ticket purchases with my Cine Colombia card.

In the theater they were playing a short and it was dark when we sat down in the last row leaving an empty seat on each side of us.

We were trying to figure out which sandwich belonged to who when we noticed a Cine Colombia employee helping a couple right in front of us to find their seats.  Yikes, that was close!

The movie had just started when about 7 people came in and sat together in the row in front of us.  Then a minute later another couple comes in and they speak with the couple right in front of us and they get up and move to the back where there aren’t any seats.  A minute later the man walks down the aisle.

Teresa and I were in the middle of eating our Subway sandwiches when an usher arrives and asks to see our tickets.  I hand Teresa the bucket of popcorn and reach in my pocket and hand her our tickets.  By then I’d figured out what was going on and we had to move down one space and for some reason they sat in the handicapped seats.  Luckily, the usher didn’t say anything about our Subway sandwiches.

The movie was good but there’s one (at least) unrealistic scene that I didn’t buy.  A young man breaks his leg, sets it himself and puts a split on it and can still walk on it immediately after.   I don’t think so!

Outside we quickly caught a taxi back to the apt.

Teresa must have talked to someone because she informed me that Exito is having a big sale that starts tonight at midnight.  No thanks, I have enough sleep problems without going shopping at midnight.  Even though Laura works tomorrow she went with her and they left at 10:30.

I went to bed at 11:15 and found that Teresa must have been in the process of changing the bedding as there was no sheet in the usual place so I took a blanket.

Today’s Step Count was 7,026.

Joke of the day

Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table.
Husband gets up in a rage and says, "And you’re no good in bed either," and
storms out of the house.
After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and calls her on the phone. She answers after many rings, and the irritated husband
says, "What took you so long to answer the phone?"
She says, "I was in bed."
"In bed this early?  Doing what?"
"Getting a second opinion!"