Monday, October 12, 2020

 Happy Columbus Day!

Last night I went to bed at 10:30pm, got up once at 5:45, finally waking/getting up at 7:45.

Last night I played 4 games on Chess.com, winning 2, drawing 1 and losing 1. My rating is now 1490.

I watched the first 20 minutes of the Today show then met Marcos outside his apartment complex. Ciclovia was going on as we walked to downtown Envigado then turned around and walked back to La Buena Mesa. We looked for a place for coffee but most cafes were closed for the holiday. Parva was closed, Eduardo Madrid was closed but we finally settled on a café that used to be Amanti (don’t recall the new name). He bought because he wanted to change a 50mil bill. He said he needed to return to his apt by 11am because Rob Abshear was coming over to install some new software on his FireStick. He asked if I wanted him to come to my place after. (Background: Last December I exchanged texts with Rob. He recommended I buy specificlly a 4k FireTV Stick from Amazon. It arrived in January and I texted Rob late in the month to install it. He responded he was in the hospital and the next day going in for open heart surgery. Yikes! Then my brother visited for 3 weeks and soon after that the virus struck.)

I told Marcos I needed to talk to Teresa first. (You know how women are about surprise visitors.) Back at the apt I explained to Teresa what I wanted. She thought the 150mil to install the Firestick was too much. I explained that we pay almost 200mil every month for Direct TV and we should be able to drop that from Platinum back to Basic if everything goes as planned. Finally, she relented and I texted Marcos. Rob came over and in about 45 minutes installed his app that gives me all the movies, TV shows and sports. Teresa can even get her Colombian programs. In fact it looks like once I master the interface we should be able to cancel Direct TV. I just have to deposit $20 into Rob’s Paypal account every month.

Right away Teresa noticed a movie that she wanted to see – The Last Days of American Crime. It’s 2 ½ hours long and for some reason it stopped at the 1 ½ hour mark. It’s IMDB rating is only 3.6, maybe that’s why it didn’t catch my interest. At Rob’s recommendation I disconnected the Firestick and reconnected it and it worked again. Teresa was then busy talking to Laura so I started watching Greyhound (7.0) starring Tom Hanks. His next movie is News of the World scheduled for release this Christmas.

 

While most states are reopening or have completely lifted restrictions on businesses, it’s not time to celebrate the end of the pandemic yet. Last week, the US saw the highest number of infections in a single day since the pandemic began, and experts are still predicting a second wave in the months ahead, potentially coinciding with the peak of flu season. So be prepared—get your flu shot, wear your mask, and continue to social distance as the weather cools down.

Coronavirus cases are climbing across the country, with 31 states reporting higher numbers last week than the week before. Five of those states—Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Vermont—saw an increase of 50% or more in that time frame.

Montana is being hit particularly badly. Between September 30 and October 10, the state recorded more than 5,000 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. As a comparison, it took five months at the beginning of the pandemic before the state saw that many total infections.

Only three states—Maine, Texas, and Washington—reported that the average daily number of new cases dropped last week compared to the week before. The remaining 16 states saw no change.

 

A 25-year-old was infected twice with the coronavirus earlier this year, scientists in Nevada have confirmed. It is the first confirmed case of so-called reinfection with the virus in the U.S. and the fifth confirmed reinfection case worldwide.

 

A new study estimates that between March and July, there were 225,000 more deaths in the U.S. than expected, based on the previous five year of data. Of those, a little over half were officially attributed to the covid-19 pandemic.

 

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

 

After Complaining About Voter Fraud, the California GOPCommits Election Fraud. Republican operatives set up ballot drop boxes with fake “official” labels on them. That’s illegal.

 

Donald Trump’s economic adviser Stephen Moore was captured on video complaining about the president’s “crappy” debate performance against his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

“It was not a great performance by Trump; in fact, I thought it was a pretty crappy performance,” Moore told a crowd gathered in Washington earlier this month for the “Election Protection Summit” by the Trump-supporting FreedomWorks nonprofit organization.

 

The US has 7,746,441 ð 7,775,072 ð 7,839,577 coronavirus cases with 214,100+ ð 214,400+ ð 214,900+ deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 902,747 ð 911,316 ð 919,083 cases with 27,985 deaths.  Medellin has 74,922 ð 75,941 ð 77,533 cases, an increase of 1,500 from October 11^th to 12^th. Envigado has a total of 4,992 cases, an increase of 149 from October 11^th to 12^th. Medellin’s new infections continue to increase.

 

Joke of the day

Wife: "What are you doing?"

Husband: "Nothing."

Wife: "What do you mean nothing? You've been staring at our marriage certificate for over an hour!"

Husband: "Yea, I'm checking the expiration date."