Jeff Billimek’s Journal

It turned out to be a very long day at work for me. I got into work around 7:30am and didn’t leave until a little after 8:30pm. In addition to having a lot of work to do (I was madly coding & testing a change request), I also committed to picking up Jen’s Dad from the airport.

His flight was delayed so I waited around work longer than I anticipated. Eventually it made it in and I picked him up. We didn’t get to our house until around 9:15pm and I was pretty tired.

Jen already made plans up-front to have dinner with her parents at our place. She wanted to make pork-chops. Because of the late-hour that Jen’s Father arrived, our dinner plans didn’t pan out like we wanted. Instead Jen and her Mom ate earlier and waited for us.

When we got to the house, Jen had two plates of food waiting for us. The pork chops were amazing! She did such a great job with them. She used the ‘Mojo’ sauce combined with some mustard to give the chops a great taste. I was impressed.

Jen went out shopping with her Mom earlier and got me some fun new clothes.

As planned, Jen and I woke up early today and got prepped to go to Six Flags. We wanted to get there early to beat the crowds. I was a little uncertain about the weather today because the day started out overcast.

We got a close parking space and made out way over to the season pass office. We had to wait in line about ten minutes before someone would process us for season pass cards. After that it was pretty quick and painless. They entered some info on their computer and then snapped our photos.

A few minutes later we had our season passes complete with grainy photos that hardly represented what we actually look like. Good for passing the passes along to friends & family!

We had a pretty good time. We rode the mine train ride and then the scream machine (wooden coaster). The scream machine made me realize that I’m getting older. I got thrown around so much in the car during the ride that it actually hurt and I was a little sore afterwards. I don’t remember having that sensation when I was younger. Jen noted the same thing.

Later we went on the ‘Superman‘ ride - definitely the flagship ride in the park. It was a blast despite having to wait in line a long time.

As the morning went on it cleared up and got hot and progressively crowded so we decided to head out. We stopped by Publix to get some groceries (actually we bought a lot).

We went home and made some sandwiches for lunch and watched “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones”. I don’t think I liked that one as much as the first one.

While this was going on we did some items around the house. After the movie we went shopping at Marshall’s. Following that we went to the movie theatre off of Cobb Parkway to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

I enjoyed it immensely. It was definitely my favorite of all three movies. There were, of course, some interesting plot holes such as when Obi-Wan doesn’t recognize R2D2 or C3P0 in episode 4. It was also a bit cheesy the way Darth Vader did his ‘NOOOOOOO!’ at the end and the reference to ‘younglings’ instead of ‘children’.

After the movie we went home and had veggie burgers. It was quite delicious!

Work has been very stressful and busy these past few weeks and it looks like it is only going to get worse. I’m not sure if it has been this bad before but it certainly seems worse given the negative state of the company. I hope I’m not getting burnt out.

We had Jen’s wonderful Tofu Rubens for dinner tonight. Everything she makes is so great I can’t imagine what it was like when I made the crap I used to ate when I lived alone.

Scott came over again tonight and crashed at our place. He seemed pretty excited about his new position at his job.

This evening Jen and I went out to have dinner with Katie, Chris, Treymane, and Tracy. Unlike other times with Tom, Terry, and Lynne we did not go up to Taco Mac. Instead we went to a place off of Windy Hill called ‘Blue Moon‘.

We sat outside on the patio and were blessed with the sight of incoming cargo planes to Dobbins A.F.B. It was really cool because they were coming right over us since we were in the landing path to the runway. Some came in low, some came in high, some came in at a hard turn - it was fascinating to watch. It reminded me a bit of St. Maarten. There is something very fascinating about large aircraft landing.

Jen and I split a Margarita pizza and we loved it. Blue Moon also had $5 martinis so we indulged. I tried the Chocolate Martini and it was pretty good although nothing has been as good as the chocolate Martini I had that time in Chicago.

We had a great time hanging out with our friends. Treymane asked for me help with his Xbox - he wants to mod it to put on XBMC like I have. I explained to him that I was horrible at soldering but would be happy to help however I can. Treymane’s girlfriend (Tracy) is a Computer Science major at Georgia Tech and is going for her Phd. It was interesting to hear about what Phd Computer Science majors go through.

Eventually we all left and headed home. Scott came over later this evening to stay in the guest room. We stayed up for a while talking to him before going to bed.

This Sunday proved to be a pretty laid back day. We went grocery shopping (we seem to go at least once a week - no wonder our monthly budget for groceries is so high).

Later we went up to Jen’s parents house for lunch. Today is Father’s day and we went to help celebrate with Jen’s parents. Before we went Jen and I prepared some dishes to take. I made the fun cheese-box dip that we learned about at the Frogtown winery. Jen made a Mango-Broccoli salad which was to die for. I’m usually not a big fan of Broccoli but this was outstanding. The only thing that would have made it better would be to have bacon in it too.

After we ate I went outside and called Dad to wish him a happy Father’s day. He seems to be doing pretty good and I can’t wait to visit him in Austin again.

Quite a while later we departed from Jen’s parent’s house and stopped by Target. We bought some household supplies and then headed home.

The rest of the day I worked on organizing more of the music collection (since we recently added a bunch of stuff from Katie) while Jen watched some episodes of Alias from season 1.

One of the perks about working next-door to the airport is that it’s very convenient for me to drop people off at the airport and pick them up. Today was no exception. I picked up Jen’s Aunt Sandy an Uncle Chuck this afternoon.

I’m not complaining in the least, it’s truly my pleasure to help out - besides it gives me an excuse to see the large planes taking off and landing at the airport. Today was a really good day to go to the airport because it was unusually clear outside despite being mid-June. The sky was a nice shade of blue (unlike the normal white-grey color of Atlanta summers) so driving around the airport afforded me some great views of large jumbo jets taking off and landing.

Every time I go to the airport and it’s like this I get an itch to travel because I see these massive planes going to some exciting location and I wish I was on one of them. I had a hell of a time finding Sandy and Chuck simply because I’m not used to picking people up from the weird segregated American Airlines pickup area. I eventually found it an collected Jen’s aunt and uncle.

We went to the townhouse where Jen’s parents were waiting for us. The plan (Jen is an awesome planner) was to have some sandwiches as soon as we got home and then Jen’s parents and her aunt & uncle would leave for Chastain Park for a concert.

When we got home Jen had everything waiting for us: chips, dip, drinks, and sandwiches. She made me a sandwich and it was so good. I don’t know how she makes them so good but they are definitely better than the sandwiches that I make. Weeks later Jen clues me in to her secret: salt & pepper.

After the older folks left, Jen headed out to spend the evening with her good friend Lynne. I stayed home and slaved away at World of Warcraft.

Sleep last night on the ground in the sleeping bags in the tent was a little rough. Despite some of the padding we put under the tent and sleeping bags, the ground was a little rough. Nonetheless I slept all the night through so it couldn’t have been that bad.

I got up after Mom and Jen and Jim woke up a little while later. Mom and Jim made a wonderful breakfast of cornmeal pancakes, bacon, and some other stuff. I liked breakfast a lot.

While we were waiting around camp, I spotted a cool-looking daddy long legs type spider on a tree and decided to take some macros of it with my tripod.

We broke camp and packed up the car and then decided to go hiking along a nearby nature trail. The trail was pretty pleasant and we saw some small waterfalls. Since I had my tripod (I usually don’t have it when I travel) I took advantage and photographed one of the waterfalls with the fisheye lens. The light was low enough that I could get some cool long exposures of the water giving it that cool motion effect.

After hiking the nature trail we went back to the campsite and headed back towards Atlanta.

Jen and I got home a couple of hours later. We unpacked the car and then Jen made mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner tonight at her parent’s house.

In the early afternoon we left home and drove up to Jen’s parent’s house for dinner. A lot of family was visiting and so we had dinner with a lot of people. It was Jen, myself, Jen’s Mom, Jen’s Dad, Katie, Chris, Jen’s grandmother, her aunt Sandy, her uncle Chuck, cousin Brad, and his two kids Austin and Chandler.

It was a nice dinner - especially the green beans that Jen made.

Ever since we got married, Jen and I have wanted to combine our cell-phone plans. I’m with T-Mobile and she is with Sprint. She’s been getting after me to do something about it and I have been doing a lot of research (howardforums) but still haven’t come to a solid conclusion. I preferred to go with T-Mobile or Cingular because they are GSM-based providers and I prefer GSM to CDMA mainly due to the ease of switching phones with the SIM chips. I also really had my heart set on the Motorola V3 Razr phone. It looks really cool, is _small_ but still has IMAP email capability in addition to Bluetooth.

T-Mobile doesn’t offer the V3 Razr phone but Cingular does. I could have bought the V3 from Amazon.com for $150 with rebates and service activation with Cingular. That presented three challenges: 1) You can’t port your number when buying a phone for Cingular via amazon.com. 2) We would still need to buy a new phone for Jen on Cingular and combine plans. 3) Jen doesn’t want to go with Cingular. It didn’t seem feasible.

For some weird reason, T-Mobile hasn’t offered any new phones in about a year so their current offerings are really limited. The best thing I could find was the candy bar-style Nokia 6600 which is basically exactly like my current phone (Nokia 3650) but slightly newer. I also briefly looked at the Motorola V330 but wasn’t too excited about that phone either.

About two weeks ago I was fed up with the whole process and simply didn’t care anymore. I was willing to do anything and forget about getting a decent phone.

Last week on Tuesday Jen came up with the idea of buying an unlocked V3 Razr from Ebay and then getting her a brand-new phone from T-Mobile. I considered this before but dismissed the idea because the unlocked V3’s on Ebay were very expensive. She was very insistent and twisted my arm until I finally agreed that we needed to do this.

We checked E-bay and found a ‘BuyItNow’ auction for a silver unlocked Motorola V3 Razr for about $300. We bought it and paid that night via PayPal.

The next day the guy said that he shipped it and gave me a tracking number. He said it was FedEx and should arrive this past Monday or so. It didn’t actually arrive then. In fact the tracking info only showed ‘billing info received’ the whole time which leads me to believe that he never actually dropped the package off. I emailed him and he said that he would look into it. That same evening, the tracking info was updated and showed that the package was actually dropped off.

After all of that, the package delivery date was switched to this Friday but this morning it showed up as being on the truck for delivery. FedEx will not leave packages at the door so I checked my calendar and noticed that it was clear for this afternoon so I went home to work from home after lunch. The FedEx guy never came. Instead later the evening a note was added to the tracking info indicating that they did not deliver because it is not the scheduled day to delivery. What crap! I was actually extremely frustrated by this because I came home early for absolutely nothing.

Jen made plans to have some family over this evening for dinner at our place. Ten people were coming over. We’ve never entertained 10 people before and this was a pretty big deal for us.

Last night we got some things together for dinner tonight since we’re supposed to work today and won’t have much time to prepare this evening. We got food together to make beef and chicken fajitas. Jen made a really great-tasting marinade that is very spicy.

I was actually home early today so I was able to get some things ready ahead of when Jen got home. Once she got home things ramped up and we were doing a great job getting all of the food and preparations ready for such a large group.

Katie and Chris came earlier than everyone else and helped out a little. Chris and Katie each had a Corona with a lime. Jen and I had a glass of red wine.

Eventually the rest of the family members came over. In all it was Me, Jen, Katie, Chris, Jen’s Mom, Jen’s Dad, Jen’s Grandmother, Jen’s Uncle Chuck, Jen’s Aunt Sandy, Jen’s cousin Brad, Brad’s son Austin, and Brad’s son Chandler. Twelve people total!

I already moved the Xbox downstairs to the old TV for Austin and Chandler to play Halo 2 on. I also began grilling the fajitas but after about ten minutes the gas ran out of the grill. Very aggravating. I ran over to the U-Haul place to see about getting the propane tank refilled but they were closed.

Jen took over and cooked the meat the rest of the way in the oven under the broiler - it actually came out very good. I was impressed.

I had the table all set outside with an extension table and lots of chairs. It was the only doable solution for us to all eat together.

(feeding a ton of people)

Dinner was absolutely excellent. The fajitas were to die for, the spicy beans were excellent, and the grilled (on the stove) green, yellow, and red peppers were scrumptious. It was all so very good I was quite pleased. It went well.

After dinner we had some cake and strawberry stuff for desert. The cake was actually for Austin’s birthday celebration thing that we also did. Once we were done eating, we worked on some of the dishes and went back inside. All of the guys settled around the television to watch the final game of the NBA final game between the Spurs and the Pistons.

A couple of hours later everyone left. It was a fun and successful dinner at our house. I do think, however, that 12 people are a little too much and I prefer smaller groups.

Jen woke up a little before I did and went downstairs. When I got up and went down to the kitchen I saw that she was making some breakfast! Jen made me a wonderful burrito that consisted of eggs, bacon, and cheese. I loved it.

We didn’t waste much time and got ready for our exciting tubing adventure today. We were to meet Katie, Chris, Lynne, and others at the Town Center The Sports Authority parking lot at around 8:30am or so. We got there first.

A little while later Katie and Lynne showed up in Katie’s car followed shortly thereafter by Chris in his own car. We waited around a while for others but no one else showed up.

Because it was just the five of us, we decided to pack into my car and carpool. Before we left, we took some photos with Jen’s camera.

(Lynne told us to pretend like we’re mad while she took this picture)

I drove up to Helen. We went up 575 and then took some back roads. I would guess that it took us about 2.25 hours to get there. As always, Helen was congested with motorcycles. We were there early enough that it wasn’t too bad though. We pulled into the parking area of the tubing place and parked in the grass.

Jen had enough sense to pack some food for us to have a lunch before our tubing trip. Katie and Lynne brought some food too so between all of us, we had a fun lunch. Jen made some absolutely wonderful sandwiches and we also had some chips and beverages. We brought along some Corona beer but forgot to bring a bottle opener (they are not twist-off caps), so I worked the cap off using the metal edge of a grill.

After we finished up lunch I packed the portable ice-chest thing back in the car and we all headed off to the office to purchase our tickets. We got our tickets, tubes, and hopped onto an old school bus that drove us upriver a ways.

It was a little cloudy today which made me a little sad. The water was also a little cold but I got used to it. What really amazed me was the sheer volume of people tubing. There are about three tubing companies in operation and there were so many people in the river that more space was taken up by tubes then exposed water.

Indeed, it was so crowded that I frequently bumped into others. I know it was never like this when I went tubing in Texas but that was a long time ago so perhaps my perception is off.

With all of that said, it was still a pretty fun experience and cheap too. We were far enough up-river on the Chattahoochee that we didn’t have to worry (as much) about the toxic levels of pollution that are present down near Atlanta.

After the tubing trip (about 1.75 hours?) we dried off and set out to get some ice cream. We walked to a nearby ice cream shop close to the entrance of town. I had a scoop of cookie dough and a scoop of rainbow sherbet. It was delicious!

(All of us having ice cream)

Katie wanted to go walking around so we walked along the road into town and looked around. I’ve been to Helen several times and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a pretty redneck place.

During the drive back to Atlanta we decided to go to a wine tasting since it is on the way. Jen and I decided that the ‘Frogtown‘ winery would be a lot of fun. We found the ‘winery route highway’ road that we took before and headed off to find the winery that is supposed to be somewhere off of the right-hand side of the road. We never found it and instead got lost on a windy road heading into Tennessee. The silver lining in this is that I think I recognized the road as one that leads to the Raven Cliff Falls trailhead - good to know.

Getting lost made me a little grumpy and I don’t think I was fun to be around.

After we abandoned our search for the winery it was getting late so we decided to stop for some dinner. We went to a place called ‘The Smith House‘ which is a family-style restaurant. The food was pretty good although it was a bit expensive.

We dropped Katie, Chris, and Lynne off and then headed back home to relax. I played World of Warcraft for a little while this evening.

I woke up at 6am today and immediately logged into work. I was tasked with assisting the guys in mid-tier engineering with an OS upgrade of one of our servers.

Once I completed my work I got ready for the day and took a shower and got dressed. It was a very long day at work today and I worked until very late into the evening.

When I got home, I had dinner and then went to bed.

Today I spent some time working on the email feature of my new Motorola Razr V3 cell phone. One of the selling-points of this phone was IMAP email support.

IMAP worked well enough with my previous phone, the Nokia 3650. I had a really hard time with IMAP on this phone though. It would correctly synchronize on the very first connection but on subsequent connections it would not update anything.

In other words, if I had 10 emails in my inbox, the first time I set up the IMAP account on the phone, it would update to show all 10 emails. But if after that time I got two new emails and deleted an old one, the V3 IMAP client wouldn’t reflect that - ever - unless I started all over again.

I did a great deal of investigation and started packet sniffing via tcpdump between the phone GPRS connection and the IMAP server (courier imap) running on my Gentoo linux box. What I found (in a nutshell) was that the phone’s IMAP client didn’t seem to ‘ask’ for the new/updated/changed messages whenever it connects. It was very perplexing to see.

Next I did a ton of research on google and other message boards to find any evidence of the same problem with others. Apparently not many people use the IMAP features of this phone and I was unable to locate any meaningful info.

This finding really disappointed me because it looks as if IMAP is not a solution I can use with this phone. I played around with POP, but that is sloppy but it may be my only choice w/respect to email.

Just like on Monday, I woke up at 5:30am sharp to begin work on the work required for the production server OS upgrade.

While I was at it, I kicked off another DB2 query for a replay item I’m working on.

About an hour later I went back to bed and slept for about an hour before getting up again and getting ready for work.

I showered, dressed, and logged back into work to conclude my DB2 work and then kicked off a replay job.

Before I left for work, Jen made me an ‘eggie’ for breakfast. It’s really simple to make, takes no time at all, and is quite good. She takes an egg and cracks it into a bowl. At the same time, she toasts a single slice of bread and spreads butter on the toasted bread. Then, she microwaves the egg-in-the-bowl for about 25 seconds. Once the egg is microwaved (and cooked just about the right amount of time), she places the buttered toast on top in the bowl and cuts it up and then sprinkles salt and pepper on top. It is quite a good treat!

I’ve previously wrestled with email on my new Motorola Razr V3 phone. My last attempt led me to believe that POP was the only solution. The more I played with it, the more I realized that not even POP would work correctly.

I didn’t give up quite so easily on the IMAP solution and did some more investigation. Actually I did a lot of investigation and finally decided to try using a different IMAP server package on the back-end. It _shouldn’t_ make a difference which server software I use since IMAP is a published protocol but I wanted to try nonetheless.

I’m currently using Courier IMAP and am quite happy with it. I did some research and first tried Cyrus IMAP server but didn’t like it at all. Next, I tried Binc IMAP and it was pretty easy to set up and very simplified.

When I had Binc IMAP up-and-running, I tried the Razr client email connection again. To my great surprise, it started to work correctly. I wanted to know why so I did some tcpdump packet sniffing to determine what is different between how Courier and Binc IMAP servers work.

I wasn’t able to determine why the Razr email client would behave differently with the Binc software compared to the Courier IMAP server, but it does.

I did a few more tests to make sure that everything worked as it should and the finalized the switch to the new server software. Finally, after all of the time and effort, I had a working IMAP email solution for the Motorola Razr V3 phone.

This evening I was able to get into a pickup group for the Sunken Tempe and we did the whole thing. It was great to finally get through that since I’ve been trying to for many weeks now.