Sunday, June 18, 2017

Happy Fathers Day – to everyone who qualifies!

I slept well last night despite getting up twice.

It’s another overcast day thus far.

I guess I didn’t sleep so well last night after all as I took a nap from 10:30 to noon.

I see Samuel Sevian has the Black pieces today against the Peruvian GM Jorge Cori – rated 2618 – on board 2.  The matches started at 10:10 this morning.

I received a Happy Fathers Day email from my daughter.

I wanted to have deep dish pizza today at Chicago’s but just before we left I got the index card with their address and saw that they are closed on Sundays.  Drat!

I suggested we go to Mercado del Rio and everyone could have whatever they want and they were all excited and agreed.

Samuel Sevian earned a draw against his opponent giving both of them 8½ points.

Outside Laura was standing next to the front door in order to get a weak wifi signal (and stay out of the rain) so she could use an app to request a taxi.  In the meantime I counted 3 taxis that drove past us empty.

After about a 15 minute wait we were in a newish private car.  I was surprised when the driver took a bridge over the river because Mercado del Rio is on our side.  I looked at his gps and it showed him doing 3 straight cloverleaf turns at the highway so I guess he wasn’t able to do a right turn onto the highway before.

We finally got to Mercado del Rio and as expected it was pretty crowded.  

They had live music but it was very loud.  There were speakers everywhere and lots of wires leading to them.   The standalone tables were pretty much all taken so we went upstairs and got one of 3 free tables at Sinko. 

Our table was right in front of a speaker and I took the opportunity to put in my earplugs which helped.  

I ordered their Italian Sausage Pizza, Laura ordered a Sinko pizza, and Teresa ordered some seafood.  

My Italian sausage pizza

Laura's pizza

When Teresa’s order arrived I understood it was “hard” and she sent it back.  

Teresa's "hard" seafood

She ordered chicken breast and it took another 30 minutes or more to arrive.  In the meantime Laura and I finished most of our pizza and got the remainder to go.  The total bill came to 102,704 (about $35) which included drinks, tip and 8% tax.

It was misting as we left but we were able to wait at a bus stop for the 5 minutes it took us to hail a taxi.

We were back at the apt by 5pm.

It appears that GM Samuel Sevian finished first with 8 points on tie breakers so he will advance to the next round of the World championship.  Ten other players tied with 7 ½ points and they started playing some 30-minute elimination games.  I don’t really understand why – tie breakers?  I look forward to reading about the tournament in the July or August edition of Chess Life magazine.

Usually on Fathers Day I receive an email from my son giving me the dates that he’s coming for a visit in September.  Today’s email informed me that he’s coming in 11 days! 

At 6pm I did a speed test with these results – 4.36Mbps download and 0.62 Mbps upload.

About 6:45 we heard lots of shouting, clapping, and other noise from upstairs.  I can only guess that it has something to do with the Atletico Nacional championship match and it hadn’t even started yet.

I just heard that last night someone set off a bomb in a women’s bathroom in a Bogota mall – 3 dead and 11 injured. 

At 7:09 from the noise downstairs it was obvious that A/N had scored against Cali.  1-0.

At 7:17 A/N scored again – 2-0.

At 7:22 Cali scored 2-1.  Teresa gave up on what she was watching so I switched to the soccer match.

At 7:43 A/N scored again and it’s 3-1.

At halftime Laura wanted to watch something else so I gave up the TV.

Laura and I had leftover pizza for dinner; we just warmed it up in the microwave for a little more than a minute.

At 8:30 when lots of people should be watching the soccer game I got 4.36Mbps download and 2.18 Mbps upload.

About 9:30 there was a lot of noise as the party downstairs broke up and they all left.  We could hear the occasional firecracker outside but otherwise it became very quiet.

It started raining lightly about 10pm.

We went to bed at 11:20 and there was still the occasional loud firecracker.

T-shirt of the day: I have CDO.  It’s like OCD but the letters are in alphabetical order as they should be.