Jeff Billimek’s Journal

I woke up a few times during the night and checked the clock on my PDA. It was still too early to wake up, but my body was still set to Eastern Time. Finally around 6:30am I woke up and joined everyone else in the common room.

Because of the sheer logistics involved with moving around ten people (including two children and a toddler), Larry and Amy suggested that we hang out at the beach at the house today. This seemed fine with me.

We all went down to the beach and basked in the sunshine and waves. The surf was pretty rough today probably due to the low pressure system that came through.

Around 11:30am we decided to head out for lunch. We packed up the cars and went down the street to Zelos. Zelos changed their menu and now they are a Mexican-food restaurant. I had a couple of fish tacos.

During lunch, Amy informed me that she had been reading my online journal. She said that she wasn’t sure if I was dating anyone or not. She also asked about Michele and I explained to her that Michele and I have been broken up since January.

When we got back to the house after lunch I grabbed my book and began to read. I was pretty sleepy (probably from the two strong drinks) and took a nap in the living-room for about an hour.

When I woke up, Larry asked if I wanted to go swimming with him down at the beach. This part of the beach isn’t very conducive to snorkeling because it’s all just a big sandbar with no coral or other underwater stuff. There were, however, decent-sized and consistent waves. We watched some surfers out there riding the waves and walked out on the sandbar quite a ways out to where the waves were breaking.

It was pretty fun to square my shoulders and brace myself as a big wave crashed into me. I also dived a few times under the water just as the wave was going to hit, so that way it would miss me. I also tried to ‘ride’ a few of the waves and was fairly successful at it. Larry noted that he wants to rent a surfboard or at least a couple of boogies boards because that would make the waves a lot more fun to play in.

We were in the water for an hour or two. When we got out and walked back to the house, we rinsed off at the shower outside. I grabbed my book again and sat in the sun, reading, to dry off.

The day was wearing on, and I was happy that it remained mostly sunny throughout the day. The weather on the north-shore of Kauai can be unpredictable and it isn’t uncommon for small rainstorms to pass through. The whole area is very tropical and wet all the time. This is nice in that everything is always lush in appearance.

We made plans to have dinner at a place called ‘Hanalei Dolphin’ (a seafood restaurant) at 5:30. Larry had also shipped out a case of wine (from his collection) to someone who has a wine cellar in his house. Larry doesn’t know the guy personally, but the guy is the father of a broker Larry works with. I went with Larry to go pick up the wine. We went in my car. The house was about twenty minutes south of where we are staying.

When we got there it was a large and new house. It looked very expensive too. The house was on a large lot overlooking the ocean. The owner, Norm, gave us a tour. The whole house is laid out such that every room faces the ocean. There was a glassy ‘workout’ room, a large guest bedroom, a wine ‘room’, a big study, a large kitchen and dining room, a large room that is a closet, and a huge master bedroom. Everything was fine and expensive. All of the ceilings had crown molding. All of the wood was custom imported; the fireplace was made out of special stone imported from France. The floors were this kind of fancy flagstone. While we were going through the tour, I couldn’t help but think about the episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm‘ in which the main character refuses to go on a home tour and gets chastised for it.

We got the wine and headed back to Hanalei. We went straight to the restaurant since it was already 5:20. A short while later the 8 other people showed up. It’s amazing how big a production it is moving around so many people. We got a table right away and had dinner.

Five of us shared a bottle of wine that Larry took out of the case he shipped. I had some sort of teriyaki marinated Ono fish with butter dipping sauce and grilled vegetable kabobs. It was delicious.

After dinner we went back to the house and watched ‘Remember the Titans‘ after the kids were put to bed. While watching the movie, I wrote yesterday’s journal entry in Larry’s iBook. I figured that I can type out my journal entries on the iBook and then copy them to the CF micro drive in my digital camera to access when I get home.

I went to bed after the movie ended.