Last night I went to bed at 11pm, took a little while to
fall asleep, woke up at 5:45, put eyedrops in, took 2 Excedrin, went back to
bed, and got up at 6:30.
I had a pastry with arequipe inside and coffee at Fresco Pan from 7:15am to 7:45. I saw Harry (maybe I should start calling him
Ari to distinguish him from “Dirty Harry”) and noticed his eyes were very
bloodshot. He said a couple days ago he
fell off a chair trying to put in a lightbulb and his head hit the wall. I guess he broke quite a few blood vessels in
his eyes.
Back at the apartment I finished copying all my chess games
into my scorebook.
At 10:30 I saw a 50 something year old man come walking down
the street wearing an “I love Egypt”
sweatshirt and he turned into the house where I have seen the woman coming out
wearing the burka.
Figuring Une
workers probably take lunch from noon to 2pm, I left the apartment from 12:27
to 12:33 to get a bag of milk in which to make a waffle for my lunch.
At 1:55 I called Jhon to tell him Une hadn’t shown up yet and I would call him when they arrive so he
would know if we are having a lesson today or not. He told me that they are supposed to call him
first.
It started raining heavily but I could see the rain cloud
and it should pass shortly. After 30
minutes the cloud hadn’t moved so I didn’t have a lot of hope the rain would
end soon.
Jhon called about 4pm to tell me that Une called and they would be here in 40 minutes. Jhon came over about 4:45 and Une arrived
about 5pm. They came upstairs and saw where
the Wi-Fi is going to go. I understood
they have to connect to a line outside and the worker said they couldn’t do
anything until the rain stopped so they knew there wouldn’t be any more
lightning. They were willing to wait a
while to see if it stopped but I needed to: get him out of there, get something
to eat, catch a taxi to the Stadium, and talk to Brenda with my iPad before the
6:30 start. I told him, through Jhon,
that I didn’t believe the rain was going to end anytime soon so I would rather
they come back tomorrow. He scheduled a
noon appointment for me.
They left, I changed into a long sleeved shirt and took my light
windbreaker jacket and big umbrella because it was still raining and getting
cooler.
I had a slice of ham & cheese pizza and a cup of coffee
at Fresco Pan from 5:30-5:40. There was a taxi sitting next to the curb so
I was pretty sure someone there was the driver.
I told Juliet Maria that I was playing chess at the Stadium tonight and
I needed to take a taxi right away. She
spoke to the driver and we were off. We
got to the Stadium at 6pm and I tipped the driver a little more than 2mil. The inside was flooded again, even worse than
before.
I talked to Brenda with great difficulty using my iPad. I understood she wants to help me find a
woman but wants to know more about what I’m looking for. At one point I called Jhon and he told me she
wants to know how old I am. I never
heard the word “años” from her which would have been a great clue. I told her how old I am and then it was time
to start the games.
This time they set up the chess sets inside – when I was
dressed for outside. My opponent –
Walter Estrada, rated 1725 – hadn’t shown up yet so they started his clock. A man came around yesterday taking everyone’s
picture. I bought mine for 3mil even
though you can’t see my face at all. Now
I know what I look like when I’m concentrating on my game.
 |
| Grumpy at the chessboard? |
A little over 30 minutes later the TD (Tournament Director)
came around and collected the clocks for those games with no opponent so that’s
when I knew I had won by forfeit. This
was the first tournament I remember finishing without a loss: 2 wins, 4 draws,
and a forfeit win. Yah! That should boost my rating! I believe the tactical practice I got with
ChessMagnetSchool.com directly helped in 2 of my games.
Because it was so early, 7pm, I had no difficulty catching a
bus back instead of a taxi, saving about 4 mil ($2).
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