Jeff Billimek’s Journal

SXM from a different vantage

Published on May 20, 2007 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

The sun seems to comes up very early in this morning time time of year in the caribbean. Jen and I slept in late, taking our time. Eventually we woke up and ambled over to the ‘Dragons Gate’ Chinese eatery/store for breakfast. They have outdoor seating and it’s really nice and half as expensive as the crappy hotel breakfast place.

After breakfast we planted ourselves at the boat bar which sits on the other side of the beach as the sunset beach bar. It’s nice to see the beach & incoming planes from a different vantage point. We took some photos and enjoyed the warm morning.

Later we went back to the hotel because Jennifer wanted to lay out by the pool. Eventually it was time to change and check-out. Jennifer wanted to go back over by the pool so I used my 100mm macro lens to photograph the planes coming in over the bay. It wasn’t a great spot to photograph.

Finally we went over tot he boat bar and hung out for about 2-3 hours having some drinks. It was a nicer more friendly atmosphere than the sunset beach bar. A couple of German guys were there too also plane-spotting. One of them, a travel agent, had a schedule of all arrivals so he gave me a heads-up before each plane was due to arrive.

The Delta flight came in a little early so we hopped a taxi and went to the airport. Literally in about 5 minutes after leaving the bar we were checked-in, through security, through immigration/customs, and at the gate. It was crazy-fast!

The flight was pretty empty and we sat next to each other. We watched a movie on the flight back. When we finally got home and got to the car, Jen was hungry and grumpy. We went home, had something to eat and finished laundry. I uploaded photos and went to bed. It was a great trip!

very hot in St. Maarten

Published on May 19, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

As Jennifer and I got to the airport this morning, it took a little longer for us to check-in because of a new place for employees to check-in for flights. Normally we could use the kiosk even for this international flight, but Because Jennifer got her passport before we were married, it doesn’t match to her new last name and it must be manually checked. Maybe it is different now but I don’t understand why when the passport is amended with a new name, they can’t reissue it with the correct name instead of just some text slapped onto the last page.

After wading through a longish security line we got to the gate as they were boarding. It was a pretty full flight but we got cleared to board. We were not able to sit together but ended up near the front of coach which is nice for deplaning quickly.

As the boarding process was almost done, a gate agent approached me and asked if Jen and I were ok being split up. I thought that he meant that one of needed to be pulled from the flight (many a ticketed passenger showed up late and they needed our seat). I said that we both need to go together or we can’t go at all. He said ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’ and asked me to come talk with him in private in the galley.

It turned out that there was one seat available in first class. I immediately told him that Jen should have it. I went back to my seat and he went over to Jen and asked her to collect her things and go with him. She got worried – thinking that she was getting pulled from the flight. As she was led towards the front of the plane and passed my row, she called out to me. I just smiled at her. It was pretty funny. You probably had to be there.

So Jen got the hot-towel treatment (that’s what they give you when you fly first class). The flight was great. I watched the in-flight movie titled something like ‘Music and Lyrics’ with Hugh Grant. When we got to St. Maarten we deplaned quickly and blew through immigration and caught a taxi and got to the Maho Hotel. We managed to go from the plane to the hotel in less than 15-20 minutes which is nice. Unfortunately it always takes a long time to get checked-in to the Maho hotel – but we don’t have many choices.

As soon as we got our room, we quickly changed and headed out to the sunset beach bar. It was unusually hazy and very hot outside! I guess it’s because it was May and there wasn’t much wind. We sat in the shade. It was definitely much hotter than I remember from prior trips.

We were hungry and got a fresh tuna sandwich along with some fries. There wasn’t much airplane activity today so we decided to hit the hotel pool. I neglected to pack a swimsuit so we bought one from a little store near our hotel. At the pool we got a drink from the swim-up bar and laid out by the pool while a while.

As the sun was going down we changed and went back out to the sunset beach bar to watch the sunset. Afterwards we had an early dinner at the wonderful sushi place called ‘Bamboo Bernies’ We ordered a large sushi boat – it was fantastic!

After dinner we went back to the bar and hung out for a bit. I wanted to get a timed exposure photograph of an incoming plane (it looks really cool like an incoming fireball) but nothing ever showed up. Both of us were pretty tired. However unexpectedly Jennifer was up for going out later in the evening (for the first time ever in St. Maarten), but we decided to go to bed instead.

tennis, drinks, and dinner

Published on May 18, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

After working hard from home today I ’stopped’ a little early and went to our gym at 4pm. Jennifer rented a ball machine for us to practice with. Katie and Chris showed up a little later. All four of us used the ball machine from 4-6pm. It was great practice and the machine worked very well.

Once that was done we all went up to the Woodstock area to have drinks with Lisa and Alan. We didn’t stay long. Next we went over to Jen’s parents house and had dinner with Jen’s parent’s and her aunt Sandy. There were some problems with the grill. We had burgers with organic beef and they were pretty good!

We got home around 11pm and I stayed up a bit late getting things together for our trip to St. Maarten tomorrow.

spider man 3

Published on May 16, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Clint, Erin, Chris, Katie, two of Erin’s friends, and I went to see Spider Man 3 in the theater tonight. Jen was supposed to come but she skipped out because she was having a bad day and not feeling well. I ate way too much popcorn and felt sick afterward.

things keep coming up

Published on May 14, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

The first thing I did after waking up this morning was to log into work and check email. Alex needed a build for a code change, so I worked on that. A deployment issue came up so I worked on that next. Next there was a major issue with the reference data so I worked on that. I got on a long conference call – by the time it was over, it was 11:30am. I decided to just work from home today instead of driving in since it was already so late. I worked all day and worked through lunch.

Jennifer got home at 5:30pm and we went running on the silver comet trail. Afterwards we did some grocery shopping at Publix. I had chips & queso and Jen made salsa and burritos. It was a nice evening.

mothers day brunch

Published on May 13, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Katie hosted a mother’s day brunch at her house. We had mimosas, bloody marrys, fruit, hand-made cinnamon rolls, hash-browns, and a pastry egg salmon avocado thing.

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clint & erins wedding

Published on May 12, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

We were up at 9am and dashed off to a group exercise class at LA Fitness. It wasn’t as hard as last week. Afterward we went to Publix to do some shopping. We went home and Jen made us some tuna fish sandwiches for lunch. I made a batch of mojitos and then we went down to the pool where we laid out for about two hours. It was another nice day.

After getting back and cleaning up, we ran down to the shoe store so Jen could get some shoes that would match her dress. We were running a bit late so I quickly changed into my suit and we drove over to the church for the wedding. It was at that huge cathedral-looking church called the ‘Church of the Apostles’ that some people name ‘Six Flags over Jesus’.

Clint and Erin had a very nice wedding. The inside of the church was grand and cathedral-like. They each had size people standing with them including Chris and Tremyne. After the wedding we went to the reception over at the Marietta Conference Center. It was a really fun time. I had my camera and took a lot of pictures. We got home around 11:30pm.

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