Wednesday, September 9th, 2015

I got up once at 3:30am, finally waking up at 7am and getting up at 8:15.

I see I have 2 new bites on my arms.

I sent an email to the Paul Keres chess club in Medellin inquiring about upcoming tournaments.  I would like to play in a Class B tournament (rating of 1600-1800) as long as I have a few months to prepare using ChessMagnetSchool.com.  I hope someone at the club understands English so they can answer my email.

We left the finca at 11:45 and not only did the killer dogs give us a hard time but now Guillermo has a full sized German shepherd chained to a dog house next to the corner of his fence closest to the path.

We were on a bus to Envigado after a 5 minute wait.  A taxi dropped us off at Carbón de Leña at exactly 12:30.  We waited for Lucas to show up (between 12:30 and 1pm) until 12:55 and then we ordered our lunch.  I noticed the park across the street (Parque Envigado) is just about finished.

Lucas showed up about 1:10 as we were finishing our lunch.  Not only does he speak Spanish but he teaches it in the States at the secondary school level.  He’s from Noonan, Georgia and has been working for a movie studio in SantaFe, Colombia for awhile.  He told me he’s staying at someone’s house in Medellin that he found using AirBNB.com.  We talked for 2 hours with him explaining his background and me a little about life in Medellin.  He wants to move to Medellin in the near future but first he has to obtain early disability from Social Security and his theatrical pension.  He bought us lunch (42mil total) and we said goodbye.

We walked through Parque Envigado and I saw concrete “planters” that you can sit on surrounding their full size trees.  I was excited to see three of them had chess boards built into the concrete and they were almost all in use.  I saw several novices with their knights and bishops switched so I corrected them.  Teresa and I agreed that I can come here to play chess when she’s having her hair done in Nohelia.

We stopped at BanColombia as I wanted to pay the Caldas property tax bill but it was too crowded.  We stopped in Exito where we picked up a few items including a 600mil bottle of Coke for my Bears game next Sunday afternoon.  We took a taxi to the highway and were on a Fredonia bus after a 5 minute wait.

Today was an overcast day which helped keep the heat down but I was still almost dripping by the time we arrived back at the finca just before 5pm.  I had to use one shot of spray at the overly aggressive rottweiler.

I watched 1953’s I Confess (7.3) starring Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter and Karl Malden.

I took my sleeping pills at 11:15 and went to bed.

T-shirt of the day: I wear too much black.