Tuesday, March 28, 2017

I had a pretty bad night, taking a long time to get to sleep (probably mainly because of my cold) and waking several times during the night, finally waking/getting up at 8am.

I decided to skip the gym today.  I watched 30 minutes of the Today show and left the apt at 9:45.  On my way to the bus stop I asked the Citibank guard if the ATM was working and was told no.  I quickly caught a bus to Medellin.  From the bus I noticed quite a few people in Colombian team jerseys.  A young man in one sat right across the aisle from me so I asked if Colombia is playing today.  I was told yes and I asked what time and was told 4pm.  Today is a mostly sunny day so the weather was feeling pretty warm. 

At MBE I picked up my 2 packages which turned out to be 2 small red umbrellas (free) from Shedrain.  I did have to pay an extra 20,400 pesos (about $7) in delivery charges for them.  I also paid 44,800 pesos for my box rental for April.  I asked if Victoria was there.  Another young woman named Nobraska (sic) came and in very good English informed me that Victoria’s in a meeting.  I was told that she does speak English also.  Now they tell me.

As I walked up Avenida Las Vegas I noticed there is now a Starbucks in the Plaza One Business Center.  I stopped at Citibank and took out some much needed cash.  In Starbucks I was pleasantly surprised to find it air conditioned.  Standing in line ahead of me was a young lady in a short skirt just above her knees and very nice slim legs.  She also had a pretty face.  She was obviously with the man in front of her.  I don’t want to give everyone the idea that all ladies her are beautiful but there are quite a few – especially in this area of town.

I paid 7,700 pesos for a small vanilla latte and when the girl brought it to the counter she showed me the heart made on top before she put the top on.  The place wasn’t crowded and I settled down on a nice couch to read my Nook.  I noticed the cup my small drink was in was labeled as 300ml.  I rechecked the price board (what do you call it, marquee?) and saw that it’s advertized as being 354ml.  What happened to the other 54ml?  Hasn’t Starbucks gotten in trouble for things like this back in the States?

I walked back across the street and up to Oviedo where I bought a package of French toast bagels for 7,900.  I was looking forward to sesame but I guess they were out today.

Back outside a Sabaneta bus had just pulled up, a woman jumped off, no one immediately got on so it pulled away.  I had to wait about 10 minutes for the next one but I was still back at the apt by noon.

I received an email from Jose Cruz with 2 links.  In his words:

I am sending you 2 links related to chess. The first one is for the chess league where we play; it gives you all the information about the present event or the next one and also in the 'calendario' at upper right, a list of all future events. As you may see there, there seem to be 2 tourneys coming up in April and one in May.

http://www.actiweb.es/ajedrez-deporte-paisa/

The other link is for chess results for all chess events in the world...amazing. I am sending you the link for Colombia directly. Here you can find the results for our event round by round. And see also your opponent for tonight's game. Enjoy it...

http://www.chess-results.com/fed.aspx?lan=1&fed=COL

Omg, in one of them it stated that the final match is tonight not tomorrow night.  I double checked with Jose who confirmed that. 

My performance rating in this tournament thus far is 1649.  My opponent tonight has a rating of 1658 so how I do tonight will increase or decrease that number.  At least, since I have the white pieces, I should be able to play my favorite opening tonight.

I asked Laura to switch her black umbrella for the new red one but she told me she wants to keep the black one – she tells me it’s more classy and goes with whatever she’s wearing.  Sigh!  The only reason I ordered another red one is because that’s what she told me she wanted. 

Teresa came back from the gym at 2:15.  She accepted one of the red umbrellas and I put the other one away.

At 2pm I heard some thunder in the distance and dark clouds rolled in.

I took a little nap from 3:15 to 4:15.  At 4:45 I finally turned on the TV and Colombia was beating Ecuador at halftime 2-0.

We had a little storm come through between 3 and 4:15 so I didn’t leave the apt until 4:45, walked downtown to catch a taxi and was at the chess league by 5:30, an hour early. 

I talked to Jose Cruz and he talked to someone and reported that the only way we get a FIDE rating is by playing in tournaments identified as IRT – which I guess means something like Internationally Rated Tournament.  The upcoming IRT tournaments are a Holy Week Pre-Game tournament (whatever that means) April 12-16 and an under 2000 tournament April 12-16 April 27 to May 1^st.  Then there’s a Pre-Game open tournament for Seniors May 17^th to 21^st.  Maybe I’ll enter that one.  Now I know that they have some kind of tournament going on almost al the time.

My opponent, Hernan de Jesus Correa, rated 1658, and I started our game on time.  I was able to play my opening but he quickly managed to brake open the center.  (I’ll have to analyze that to see what I could have done differently.)  He soon had his queen, bishop and 2 rooks aiming at the pawn in front of my queen which was protected by my queen, king, and 2 rooks.  That didn’t give me much space to maneuver.  I held on and in the endgame he had a passed pawn, bishop and king against my bishop and king.  But the bishops were of opposite color so as soon as he tried moving his pawn I would take it and it would be his king and bishop against my king and that’s not sufficient material to checkmate.  So we ended up playing a 2-hour, 62-move draw.  My performance rating for this tournament ended up being 1650.

I walked to the bus stop and quickly caught a taxi back to the apt.  I learned that Colombia won 2-0.

I just relaxed with some mindless TV for the rest of the evening.

T-shirt of the day: If you met my family, you would understand.