Thursday, May 3, 2018

I slept pretty well last night despite getting up 3 times.

Teresa and I left the apt at 9:30 and took a taxi to Mayorista.  First we stopped at El Langastino where she bought a large piece of salmon.  We paid for it and had them keep it for us until after we finished our grocery shopping.  We walked over to Euro and I helped Teresa find some things.  In a center aisle I noticed a display of some hard to find imported items – Welch’s Concord grape jelly, Knotts Berry Farm strawberry preserves, and Vlasic dill pickles.  I bought each of them since I never know when I’ll see them again.  They also had Planter’s Crunchy Peanut Butter but I already had that.  They also had Kraft Cheez Whiz but I took a pass on that.

After paying we loaded all our stuff into an old car.  When we got over the bridge leading to Envigado his car died in traffic.  He couldn’t get it restarted and ended up pushing it across a cross traffic lane and onto a spot under the Avenida Las Vegas bridge.  We flagged down a taxi and transferred our bags to it.  We arrived back at the apt by noon.

Teresa made a nice lunch of chicken fajitas.  Afterward we took a little nap of about an hour.

About 3:30 I left the apt, stopped at the ATM for a withdrawal, deposited the additional 63mil into the R.E. agency’s account, paid the utilities bill at Cotrafa, and picked up my month’s medications at Todo Drogas.  I bought another 100 Centrum +50 tablets and got another 30 tablets free.  Woo hoo!

I passed through the park and past Bartolos on my way to the copy center.  I logged onto their computer to print Laura’s letter from my email account.  I couldn’t figure out how to print and the young girl came over and showed me how.  She just cut and pasted it to a Word document and then printed that.  After paying for that, I stopped at the bakery and edited Laura’s letter.  Walking through the park I saw Chuck at Bartolos with Darnely.  They told me that today is their 6^th wedding anniversary.  How romantic, he took her to Bartolos for dinner.

We talked for awhile and about 6pm Darnely went to the church for mass.  It started raining and soon it was pouring.  Willy, the Belgian, then joined us.  About 7:15 the rain stopped and I said goodbye and headed back to the apt.

I showed Laura my changes and we applied some of them to her letter.  I decided it would be better if it wasn’t too polished.  That way it would be cuter and wouldn’t misrepresent how good (or poor) her English is.

It started raining again at 8:30.  Well, we are entering the rainy season of May, 2^nd only to October.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner.  I told Laura that lots of American children eat this for lunch.  She didn’t want to try it because she had just brushed her teeth but Teresa tried it and proclaimed it delicious so I have at least one convert.  I’ll start using the jelly on my toast and muffins in the morning.

T-shirt of the day: Go where you feel most alive.

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Well, I slept throught the night not waking up until 5:45 finally getting up at 6:15.  I, and my eyes, feel great!

It’s obvious we got some rain overnight but I didn’t hear anything.

I received emails from Envios Market that I have a document and package waiting for pickup.

I completed most of my exercises at the gym in an hour and 45 minutes.

I met Chuck and Darnely at the copy center where we had his form printed out. Darnely signed it and we gave it to the girl to fax to the US.  She said it went ok but when I looked at the receipt it showed “communication error” and “0 paginas” sent.  I mentioned this to her and she agreed that it hadn’t worked.  The second time was a charm.  I said goodbye to them and headed back to the apt.

I thought after my shower we would first go to lunch and then to the bank but I understood Laura has an au pair appointment at 3pm so she wanted to do the bank first.

Laura and I went to the bank and we had to wait 90 minutes for me to pick up my money.  Just to save about $20?  Either I do this days earlier in the future or I forget about using World Remit and go back to using ATM machines.  Again the teller asked me “why?” I sent the money to myself and this time I had a better answer than to avoid ATM fees.  I said the money is to pay for the apartment and my health insurance.  After I got my cash we stepped outside and I deposited the cash into the appropriate accounts for the apartment and my health insurance.

By this time it was 2:15.  We went to La Casita Parilla for a quick lunch, caught a taxi at 3pm and were at the au pair office by 3:30.

I understood Laura and the rep filled out some general information forms and others for medical history and childcare experience.  I asked about getting the “before July” discount and I understand Laura just has to have everything in place including passing her English interview by then.  I think Laura chose an availability date of July 16^th.

A little after 5pm Laura told me they are almost finished and I could go if I wanted as she was going to visit with friends afterward.  I picked up an envelope and a package at Envios Market.  The envelope was junk mail – my first? - an attempt to get me to subscribe to Smithsonian magazine.  The package was a chess book I ordered.  I walked over to the ATM machine in Clinica Medellin to get some small notes but it was out of order.  I caught a bus back to Envigado that was almost “cattle car” full.

I was back at the apt by 5:45.

I soon realized that I forgot to include the rent increase we just incurred this May.  I’ll take care of that tomorrow.

Laura came back at 8:30.  Later she asked me to take a look at the profile and letter she put together.  I asked her to email it to me.

T-shirt of the day: Who is that girl?

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Today is another Colombian holiday – Labor Day aka May Day aka International Workers’ Day – one of 18 that Colombia has each year – second highest number of holidays in the world.

I did not sleep well last night, in fact I might not have slept at all.

I cancelled my chess meeting with Jose because not only am I tired but I’ll probably crash later.

I tried to take a nap after watching some of the Today show.

Chuck emailed me his form and I downloaded it to my flash drive only I’m sure all the internet cafes will be closed today for the holiday.

12:30 and it started raining hard.  An hour later it lessened some but still continued.  I’m supposed to meet Chuck in the park for coffee around 2:30 or 3pm.

The rain stopped completely and I managed to meet Chuck in the park a few minutes after 2:30.  He was with Willie and a young Colombian named Alejandro.  After a little bit Alejandro left and then Willie.  Chuck and I walked over to the bakery for coffee and, for me, a churro. 

We met a couple from Ohio named Shelly (Shirley that’s right; sorry, inside joke) and Chet.  She’s an endodontist and he’s an eye specialist.  They are staying near the Vizcaya mall in El Poblado but are looking seriously at getting an apartment next year in Envigado.  I mentioned my tired eyes that only produce 20% of the necessary tears and Chet told me about a simple procedure called Punctal Plugs.  Per the internet Punctal plugs are tiny, biocompatible devices that can be inserted into tear ducts to block drainage. This increases the eye's tear film and surface moisture to help relieve certain forms of dry eye. Also known as punctum plugs, lacrimal plugs or occluders, these devices often are no larger than a grain of rice.

Chet said this is a simple procedure that can be done in the office.  I’m going to have to talk to my ophthamologist about this procedure.  My next visit should be in a couple months.

I made plans to meet Chuck at the copy center tomorrow after my gym workout.  I’ll use my memory drive for him to print his form.  Then Darnely can sign it and they can fax it to their lawyer.

An acquintance of mine, Gregg Opelka, had another article printed in the Wall Street Journal called Of Dogs and Men.  He sent it to me as a pdf file but I have no idea how I could include it in my blog.

Using World Remit I sent myself $630 (+$1.99 charge) to pay for the apartment and my health insurance.  First time I’m trying such a large amount.  Before I was sending a small amount - $100 – just to make sure I had the procedure down.  The advantage is that it only costs me $1.99 while using the ATM I would have to pay 12,600COPx3 plus another 1% for my bank.  That should save me approximately $18 every month.  The disadvantage is waiting in line for 30 minutes or so for my turn to see a cashier at the bank.

Upon further review I was thinking that maybe I don’t need to buy a new battery for my laptop since I never use it without the power cord anyway.  I wonder what will happen when I disconnect it and move it from the computer room to the dining room table.  Will it do an automatic reboot?

T-shirt of the day: Smiling is the best exercise.

Monday, April 30, 2018

I slept reasonably well, waking at 6:15 and getting up at 7:15.

I did all of my exercises in 2 hours at the gym.  So far no pain using the leg curl machine with 65#.  I can feel it in that area but no pain.

Laura was leaving to go somewhere and Teresa asked me for 5,000 pesos for lunch for her.  I literally had no cash so Teresa took 5 1,000-peso coins out of our piggy bank.  I’ll be going to the ATM later.  It turned out that Laura only went to buy a avocado but I have no idea why it took her an hour to return.

And then she left again.

I was going to go to Monterrey for a new battery for my laptop but there is an episode of El Socio on at 3pm that I haven’t seen before and at 4:45pm there is a 2-hour program about Bernie Madoff that should be interesting.

After lunch I made a quick trip to the ATM for some cash.  It’s nice that my pension money comes in on the last day of the month.  I’ll probably have to wait another day or so for SS to arrive.

About 6:30 Laura returned with MT and they watched TV together in the evening.

I received an email from my friend Chuck.  He has a legal form that he needs to print, sign and fax back to the US ASAP.  I asked him for some additional information.

T-shirt of the day: Not need makeup.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

I slept pretty well despite getting up several times during the night.

Well, instead of going to Mayorista Teresa wants to take her mother to see Pricesmart.  We left about 10am, picked up MT at her apartment and arrived at Pricesmart for a 12mil taxi fare.

As soon as I got there I realized I had forgotten to bring my debit card.  I only had about 150,000 pesos on me but Teresa had another 210,000.  We picked up a few things (I got another package of a dozen English muffins) and then stopped in their cafeteria where we had chicken wings for an early lunch.

At the checkout we had to exclude a couple things due to our lack of funds.  I was surprised that the lines weren’t very long.  Not sure if it’s like this every Sunday or if it’s because Tuesday is a holiday – May Day.  Maybe we just got lucky!

We pushed our cart downstairs where there was a line of taxis waiting.  It cost 13,000 pesos for the ride back.

At 2pm it started raining but it stopped about 30 minutes later.

The Colombian Peso closed for the weekend at 2,806 to the US Dollar.

I talked to an old gringo from the US who has been communicating with a young Colombiana here in Envigado.  I think I gave him some good advice.

I just got a message on my laptop “consider replacing your battery”.  Uh-oh!

I solved more puzzles on Chess Magnet School and was promoted to Commander.

Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but to get some cardio I’ve started using a jump rope.  When I started out a week or so ago I could only go for 7 seconds before exhaustion or tripping over the rope.  Now I am up to about 55 seconds.

T-shirt of the day: I don’t believe you woke up like that.

Saturday, April 28, 2018

I slept pretty well despite getting up several times during the night.

We got some rain overnight and we have a leak coming from the ceiling next to the bedroom window.

Rounds 4-7 of the NFL draft start at 11am today but I was unable to log into my Slingbox; something about incorrect userid or password.  I checked with my son and he gave me the 6-character password and I could see that the filled-in password was longer than that.

Today the Chicago Bears added the following picks:

·       4^th round (#115) – ILB Joel Lyiegbuniwe, Western Kentucky.

·       5^th round (#145) – DT Bilal Nichols, Delaware.

·       6^th round (#181) – OLB Kylie Fitts, Utah.

·       7^th round (#224) – WR Javon Wimms, Georgia.

I accidentally found that they are having a Westworld marathon on Direct TV today - all episodes of season 1 and the first episode of season 2.  Previously I had only seen the last half of episode 1, episode 2, and episodes 8-10.  Today I missed most of the 1^st episode again but I caught all of 2-10 which made it a lot more sense now.

After visiting the finca Teresa went to see her mother then came back at 5:30 and asked me if I wanted to go looking at antiques and after for pizza.  After some discussion she went with her mother to look at antiques and I planned to meet them at Antica Pizza at 7:30.

Teresa called me later and reminded me to bring an umbrella.  At 7pm I looked out and saw that it was raining so I brought the large umbrella with the 2 small umbrellas in my tech bag.  As soon as I got downstairs I found the rain had changed to just a mist.  When I got to Antica Pizza and was waiting for Teresa and MT I met a couple of gringos from El Poblado that were waiting to pick up a pizza.  One was from Iowa and is teaching 3^rd grade in a private school here.  I learned that he teaches all his subjects in English.  Similarly, the other gringo is from Alaska but he is teaching 8^th grade.  All of his students will receive a Colombian and American high school diploma.  Interesting!  They are both here on 2-year work visas.

They have another gringo friend that just got out of the hospital.  They said he was riding his bicycle down one of the mountain roads and misjudged his speed and ended up in the wrong lane and got run over by a car.  Yikes!

Teresa told me that the guy likes the finca but he needs to find a fiador (co-signer) in order to rent it.

Tomorrow Teresa wants to go to Mayorista to buy fruits and vegetables.  I warned her I only have about 650mil left on my debit card.

T-shirt of the day: Addicted to crazy, sarcastic love.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Wow!  I didn’t wake up until 6:45, finally getting up at 7:15.  Was it because of the little exercise I got yesterday?  Was it the Coke and popcorn I had last night?  Lol.

I completed all of my gym exercises today in 2 hours and 10 minutes.  Why so long?  Maybe because I told Jose 2 jokes instead of 1.  Jose told me he saw Avengers but hated it despite IMDB giving it a rating of 9.2.  Wow.

Remember I had a problem with my hamstrings back in mid March?  I was lifting 80# at the time.  I shut the leg curl down for a week and then started lifting only 50#.  The first couple days I felt my hamstrings but it wasn’t really painful.  After about a month I’ve now moved the weight up to 65# and again I feel it but no pain so we’ll see what happens from here.

Teresa informed me she might have someone to rent the finca.  She’s going to show it to them tomorrow.

Among new US movie releases, there isn’t anything I want to see.  Among local movie showtimes, there isn’t anything I want to see.

I left the apt at 2:30 and took the Envigado bus to Envios Market.  They gave me an envelope which was just one of those pension obligations.  While there I paid 39mil for next month’s rental.  On the way back I stopped at Starbucks for a mocca latte blanco but I think they forgot to include the milk as it was very strong.  I caught a bus at Oviedo mall and after a few minutes I even got a seat.  About 5 blocks from the apt the bus took a detour in heavy traffic so I got off and walked the last few blocks.

Rounds 2-3 of the NFL draft start at 6pm tonight.  The Bears have the 7^th pick in the 2^nd round but none in the 3^rd unless they trade up.  Anyway, I’ll be watching.

In the 2^nd round - pick #39 - the Bears chose center James Daniels from Iowa.

Then the Bears traded one of their 4^th round picks - #105 - and next year’s 2^nd round pick to the New England Patriots to move up to the 51^st pick in the 2^nd round where they chose wide receiver Anthony Miller from Memphis.  Since they don’t have a 3^rd round pick I’m pretty sure the Bears are done for tonight.

T-shirt of the day: I beat anorexia.