Saturday, December 21, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, took a little while to fall asleep, slept through the night (?), finally waking/getting up at 6:30.

Well, I stand corrected. I saw the Samoyed out on the balcony this morning so maybe they just have visitors.

After breakfast, at 8:15 I went back to bed and slept until 9:45.

I left at 10am and took the elevator down to the basement where I ran into Teresa returning from picking up her meds. She asked me to go to Exito with her to buy a swimsuit. I got a spatula out of the storage area, then returned upstairs. While waiting for her to get ready I cleaned up the area around the bathroom faucet. We took a Didi to the mall.

Troyclough resigned our game in 25 moves (I had a mate in one) increasing my rating to 1591.

Teresa tried on several swimsuits in Exito but in the end decided they were too expensive and the lines were too long to pay for them anyway.

In Auros I printed information about our airport pickup and saw this interesting t-shirt of a guy standing in front of me.

We went to H&M where she found a couple swimsuits for a total of 165,000 pesos ($37.50). We got in a long line to pay but there were four cashiers so it went quickly. We returned to the apt by taxi.

About 1:45 I was thinking of going out for coffee but it felt like rain. I checked Accuweather and it said no rain for the next 60 minutes. :)  I checked The weather Channel and saw this:

That’s not encouraging. And then it was soon misting then raining so we both went to bed but it stopped about 15 minutes later. I left at 3:15, replaced a missing peanut and had a latte in Los Portenos while working on more chess puzzles form my “big book”.

I left at 5:30 and bought a jar of Nescafe instant coffee in Tienda D1 for 11,900 pesos on my way back to the apt.

I tried to enter the Check Migration information for Colombia. First, I set up a “frequent traveler” account but now I can’t get Check Migration to accept my personal information for this trip. For example, it asks me to select the reason for this trip but there isn’t any drop down box and entering “vacacion” or “paseo” doesn’t seem to work. I’ll try again tomorrow and if that doesn’t work it looks like it will be another 30 minutes or so we’ll have to waste in the airport on Monday morning.

The Dominican Republic has a similar requirement but the two times I tried to access it I get a “1016 Error” message. ☹

About 8:45 it started raining.

Teresa informed me she’s going with me tomorrow when I meet Glenn for breakfast because she’s concerned about his stomach problems and thinks she can help.

 

JUST FUNNY

Friday, December 20, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once during the night, finally waking/getting up at 6:30.

I keep a pad of paper on my nightstand and I wrote down the time I got up during the night but this morning when I checked it just said, “7 3”. 😊

ONEIPAMETATO1453 resigned our game on the 23^rd move increasing my rating to 1585.

Teresa left at 8am for her gym class and I left for mine at 8:30. I completed my workout, printed some chess notes at the Bancolombia kiosk then had a latte in Ganso y Castor. I left at 11am and returned to the apt.

Teresa returned at 11:30.

I left at 2pm and walked to Metrosur mall where I paid the DirectTV bill for December and January. (I’ve paid about 1,800,000 pesos last year for our membership and I don’t think it’s worked once. In January we had to either get it fixed or cancel it.) I walked across the street and waited in line in Auros to print some chess notes. I stopped in Home Center and asked about plumber’s putty. The girl walked up and down the aisles looking for it and finally asked another guy who said it was downstairs, as I expected all along. 😊  The down escalator was out of order so I had to walk down the up escalator. ☹ I found a girl who found another girl who took me to where the silicone was. It was only 8,900 pesos but I had to wait in line for about 15 minutes to pay at a self-service checkout.

I withdrew 2,000,000 pesos from a Daviviend ATM then deposited 100,000 pesos into Teresa’s Bancolombia account to pay for Netflix for the next 3 months.

I went down to Urbania and had a latte. I stopped in Exito and bought a bottle of salad dressing then got in a short line to pay.

Outside I got in a long line for a taxi. (I was too tired to walk back to the apt and also for security purposes because I had so much cash with me.) My taxi driver could whistle that mimicked exactly the whistle the transit police use. 😊

Back at the apt Teresa had finished her last massage with Kelly for this year.

I think the apt across the street has new owners. I haven’t seen the Samoyed sitting on the balcony as often lately and tonight the place is much more open with a couple chairs on the balcony.

Jack W: Marcos doesn’t play chess and he’s paying cash for the apt.

 

JUST FUNNY

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once at 4:40am, finally waking/getting up at 7am.

Teresa left just before 9am for her gym class. I left at 9:15 in a light drizzle and met Marcos outside Bunuelos. We each had a small café con leche and got caught up on things. He’s going to transfer title to the apt he recently purchased to his girlfriend then try to get her a US Visitor Visa.

I checked my Accuweather app which said no rain in the next 60 minutes (it was still raining). I checked The Weather Channel and it said the rain would stop by 10:15.

He left at 10am and I moved down to Peccato which was just setting up tables and ordered a latte. Darn if the rain didn’t stop around 10:15.

I waited until 11am for my umbrella to dry then stopped at Mercado Madrid where I bought a small carton (6) of eggs for 7,300 pesos before returning to the apt.

ALWAYSWANNAFLY041724 (1430) resigned our game in 12 moves, increasing my rating to 1581.

We left the apt at 11:45 and took a Didi to the main Fed-Ex center in Medellin – Calle 10 #41A-16. As we approached, I saw a sign on the door and Teresa said they were closed. The sign was something about only 5 people inside at once. I pushed on the door and entered and Teresa followed me. She handed a clerk her cedula and he went in back and brought out a cardboard envelope and she signed for it. Outside we crossed the busy street and many occupied taxis passed us. Terresa recommended we walked down a block to the intersection but I asked to give it another minute. Soon an empty taxi arrived and took us to El Tesoro mall. She opened the envelope and there is an impressive looking US Visa stamp inside, good for 10 years. 😊

We had a nice lunch in Natto Bowls for 104,000 pesos.

She shopped in Zara while I waited outside but didn’t find anything. We moved to H&M and she looked inside while I waited outside on a comfortable sofa. She called and asked me to come inside and meet her by the cashiers. She exchanged a few clothing items for an extra 50mil then looked at swimsuit bottoms that were only 29,900 pesos. One of her favorite sayings is “mira los precios tan barato”, her other is “todo feo”. There was a long line at the cashier and I didn’t want her to waste time picking out a swimsuit only to then decide against getting in line again. She ended up not buying anything more. We went up to Valentina’s where we had lattes (good and hot) and shared a slice of fresh yogurt cake.

We left at 4pm and got in a line (the number machine wasn’t working) to catch a taxi. By 4:30 we were in a taxi but going down one of the side streets we were pulled over by the police. Just a typical Colombian “no probable cause” stop. The policeman asked the driver something then Teresa and when she answered with her cedula number then name I understood what was going on. He asked my number

and after giving him all 6-digits he was obviously waiting for more but before I could say anything Teresa said it was a foreign cedula number. He didn’t ask my name but told us we could continue on our way. We arrived at the apt by 5pm for 20,200 pesos.

The rest of the night I just watched the news on IPTV.

 

JUST FUNNY

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once during the night, woke up at 6:22am (but didn’t make a trip to the bathroom), finally waking/getting up at 7:45.

Teresa skipped her 7am-8am trip to the gym, she said her butt still hurts from yesterday’s class but she’s thinking of going to class later in Mayorca.

I looked out the window and noticed this red-headed woodpecker eating a neighbor’s suet.

I left the apt at 9:30 and completed my workout in Smartfit. Today attendance seemed to be back to normal after Monday’s smaller crowd. I saw Nebraskja and told her that Teresa got her US Visitor’s Visa and we’ll be visiting Chicago next summer. She was happy for me.

I had a latte in Ganso y Castor for about an hour. There was a young lady sitting 2 tables over working on a laptop and I heard her speak English on her phone but I was ignored when I tried to talk to her. I replaced all the missing peanuts.

At 11:15 I returned to the apt.

I sent Christmas presents to my son and daughter back in the States.

I took a closer look at our flight and hotel reservations. I emailed our hotel, gave them our flight information and requested airport pickup.

Teresa called Kelly’s (our woman FBI driver in Bogota) son here in Medellin and arranged 61m pickup next Monday for our 9:53am flight to Punta Cana. (We’re afraid Bryan’s car is too small to hold our two large suitcases, carry-on and backpack.)

Per Fed-Ex, Teresa’s passport is “out for delivery” in Medellin.

I left the apt at 2pm, printed Teresa’s medical appointment in the Bancolombia kiosk then had a latte in Los Portenos returning to the apt at 4:30. Teresa was getting a massage from Kelly.

I checked Fed-Ex and Teresa’s passport arrived at their Poblado location at 1:28pm and is awaiting pickup. We plan to go there late tomorrow morning to pick it up then on to El Tesoro mall for some shopping.

About 6:30pm I heard someone blow one of those plastic oogah horns. Per google, Atletico Nacional has a match starting at 7:30 against Deportes Tolima.

I spent the rest of the evening watching the news.

Per google, the soccer match ended in a 1-1 tie.

 

JUST FUNNY

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 11pm, got up once during the night, finally waking/getting up at 6:07 before my 6:30 alarm.

I resigned a game against Troyclough lowering my rating to 1573.

I arrived at Unicentro mall 10 minutes before their 8am opening. Jose joined me a few minutes later. We both had French toast and coffee. We adjourned to the food court where I started with the Black pieces. I don’t mean this as an excuse but lately I haven’t felt like I’ve been “in the zone” chess wise. Remember I had a rating up to 1630 and now I’m down to 1573. I seemed to be “in the zone” when I was working on the difficult “mates in 2” in my large book. Anyway, I asked Jose to play d4 and e4 and his first 2 moves and I played the Czech Pirc opening. He made a tactical mistake on his 7^th move and I was attacking his king the rest of the game, he blundered a rook on the 46^th move but being in a little time trouble I missed it, finally he resigned on the 82^nd move.

From his 6^th move to 7^th move my advantage went from 0.17 (even) to -2.80 (Black has a decisive advantage).

I had White in the second game and I asked him to reply 1…Nf6 to my 1.d4. I played 2.Bg5 and got to practice an interesting line of The Trompowsky Attack. (The computer later said that after the 8^th move, “White is Better”.) He blundered on the 20^th move losing a piece and resigned on the 52^nd move.

I don’t often win both games against Jose so I was very happy. Maybe the few daily puzzles I’m doing on Chess.com are helping after all.

We must have been playing quicker than usual as it was only 1pm. We said our goodbyes as we won’t be playing again until next year and I ordered a Didi to take me to Viva Envigado.

I checked Only Roastbeef but it looks to be closed permanently. I went to Pergamino where there were a few seats available and I had my usual bowl of granola, yogurt, and acai berries with a small latte.

I had brought at least 2,000,000 pesos in 100s with me and I withdrew another 2,000,000 from a Davivienda ATM; it was a nice mix of bills. I paid our apt rental, my health insurance, the gym, and both our cellphones. I had a latte in Urbania while texting the receipts via Whatsapp for the apt and my health insurance.

A new clothing store opened across from Urbania and I shared a photo of it with Teresa later.

I received an email from the US Embassy that today they’ll be handing off her passport to Fed-Ex and gave me the tracking information.

About 3pm Teresa called me and asked me to go to a stand outside Exito and buy 2 Nutella de Bunuelos for her and meet her at Wilson’s bar.

I paid the epm utility bill and after overcoming a little communication problem I managed to buy them for 16mil. I found Teresa with MT at Wilson’s bar.

A Colombiana sitting at the next table with a laptop overheard my broken Spanish and we had a short conversation in English. Her English was very good. I told her a joke in English than the only one I know in Spanish.

At 4:15 Teresa and I returned to the apt by Didi.

I wasn’t monitoring the time but it must have been about 5:45 when the TV went blank. It’s red light wasn’t on so I knew it hadn’t completely lost power. A minute later a screen came on like it was searching for our Wi-Fi network. The lights started getting a little funky, like half power, the bedroom lights didn’t work at all and the bathroom light was also half power. The building across the street seemed fine. I had Teresa call the porteria and a portero explained that power was out in our area. It finally came back on at 7:15, the TV was back to normal and all was good again.

I finished reading Lee Child’s The Affair (Jack Reacher #4) on my Kindle.

 

JUST FUNNY

Monday, December 16, 2024

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, got up once at 5:22am (it was pouring but seemed to stop soon after returning to bed), finally waking/getting up at 7am.

I forgot to mention 2 things from last night: 1) I heard some cheering but not enough for a win and after a google search I saw that Atletico Nacional drew Americas de Cali 0-0. 2) There was a lot of fireworks and they were still going on when I went to bed at 10pm.

I left the apt at 8:15, put a peanut in the tree next to the birdfeeder and proceeded on to the gym in weather between a mist and raindrops. Fortunately, it had stopped by the time I left the gym.

I had a latte in Ganso y Castor before returning to the apt.

I found an unknown payment in my USAA account of $61.19. I called USAA and while they were checking for more information, I checked my blog and found was the payment for my cedula. Mea culpa!

Glenn has been having speed problems with his new Movistar fiber optic service but today a technician came out and he now is getting 700 Mbps.

And yesterday I showed him the new google lens feature that allows for live written translations from Spanish to English.

Teresa and I left at 3:45 and took a Didi to Arkadia mall. Our driver’s name was Aura and she was a young lady that drove very tentatively like she had just gotten her license. Oh, and her Didi photo was an older man, maybe her father?

As soon as we entered the mall Teresa there was a Mimo’s stand and we both got a soft serve ice cream cone with chocolate and peanuts.

We waited a couple minutes outside the elevator where we finished them before we went up to the 4^th floor. It only took about 10 minutes for Teresa to pick up her mammogram results and get an appointment for next year.

We were sitting in Peregamino having a latte (cold) and we each had some type of pastry. I checked the .pdf they emailed me and the date for her next appointment was today’s date. I asked her why it doesn’t have the year 2025 on it so we returned to the clinic and Teresa talked to someone who convinced her that it was okay.

We walked across the street where we bought a bag of groceries for 392,700 pesos ($90.50). There were four families ahead of us for a taxi which turned out to be a 30-minute wait. We returned to the apt in heavy traffic which took about 35 minutes.

With a bag of salted-in-the-shell peanuts and a Coke, I watched the Minnesota Vikings pummeled my Bears 30-12 for their 8^th loss in a row. ☹

I went to bed right after at 11pm.

 

JUST FUNNY

Bob Burford - Part VII

I just found out that Michael Moore's "Sicko" is now free for the taking on YouTube. If you have never seen it, it is well worth the time. If you have already seen it, chance are good you'll want to see it again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbEQ7acb0IE

Moore took some 9/11 first responders down to Guantanamo. He saw in a Senate hearing that the inmates at Guantanamo received bi-weekly health screenings. That's a helluva lot better than what the first responders to get, so he decided to take them on a cruise. All of the first responders wound up with serious medical issues. I remember one of the women in the movie was spending $120/month for an inhaler, without which she would die. They went to a pharmacy in Havana and the same inhaler was only 25 cents. She went back to NYC with a bag full of inhalers.