Friday, March 17, 2017

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I’m one-fourth Irish on my mother’s side.

I left the apt at 9:45 for the gym.  When I was walking to the locker room a 40ish attractive woman with a nice figure acknowledged me with a nod which I returned.  I remember her from the Comfama gym.  When I was working on my first machine she came over and asked me something about this gym.  I made a wild guess and told her I’ve been here for the last two weeks.

A few minutes later I was on another machine right in front of the water fountain and she asked me how it works.  I showed her how to push the lever in front or on the sides.

I finished my workout in 2 hours and headed back to the apt.  

Teresa had her 2^nd workout with a personal trainer.  His name is Jose and he speaks English.
 
In a few months he promises she will have a beautiful new body.

After my shower and change of clothes I left for $efecty to pay the Caldas tax bill but they don’t do it there and the lines in the banks were too long.  I made a quick trip to Exito for a banana (to ward off leg cramps) and 5 Snickers to get me through the remaining chess games.  I thought I saw a Hare Krishna just outside selling trinkets he had spread out on a blanket.  And also some books that are probably advertizing his religion.

I hadn’t played the English opening in a while so I got out the booklet that my friend Ruben had given me back in 1999 and studied it for awhile.

Among new US movie releases I would like to see The Belko Experiment (6.7) and Betting on Zero (8.8).  Locally, Silence is playing at Oviedo at noon and 3:40pm.  Kong is still playing (Teresa says she wants to see it now) at Oviedo and Santafe.

Laura had to go to her old job to collect her paycheck so we left the apt together at 4:30.  We waited 20 minutes for a metro bus and one arrived just as we were giving up hope and going to walk to the metro.

The metro got cattle car full at the Poblado station.  A few more people got on at the following few stops.  We transferred to the west line and again it was pretty full.

I’ve noticed there is something going on between Colombia and France this year as I have seen a number of billboard signs advertizing their relationship.

We split up as we approached Calle 50 by the stadium.  I arrived at the chess league just before 6pm.  Edilson arrived a few minutes later and I showed him some more chess games from my Chess Life magazine.  I usually just throw my issue away after I read it but he asked me to give it to him.

It started raining, pretty heavily, starting at 6:15 but it tailed off and eventually ended.  Tonight they have ratings for the players but mine is still zero (unrated).  My opponent tonight has a FIDE rating of 1666 which might translate to a USCF rating of 1766, a hundred points higher than when I was in my prime.

I noted there are 59 players in the tournament and 8 of them are female.

They started the clocks at 6:30 and my opponent showed up 10 minutes late.  I played the English opening and he parroted my first 7 moves.  We both castled and he had a pawn in front of his king and the bishop and queen next to it.  I noticed that if I took his pawn and he captured it with his only available piece (the queen) then I could fork his queen and king, if I could get him to move the knight that was guarding that square.  Then he moved the knight himself so on the next move he could fork my rook and queen.  I took the pawn and if he wasn’t careful I had the opportunity to mate him with my 2 knights.  He moved his king which allowed me to take his rook with check which gave me a tempo.  After he took my knight with his queen I had to move my queen so it wouldn’t get forked by his knight.  I moved it up to trade queens as mine was protected by my other knight.  But it turned out I wasn’t observant enough, I blundered and he forked my queen and king and I resigned.  Sigh!  Now I know how the guy last night felt.

I took the metro and a bus back to the apt and was back by 8:45.  

By the way, for the first time I was on a metro bus with a separate entrance and lift for a wheelchair and a special place for it to be stored safely.  One advantage now is that people can get on the bus without waiting for people to exit because there’s a second door.

T-shirt of the day: HARVARD.  Just kidding.