Jun 30th, 2006

Hello, you have reached my liver. However, I am not in right now, so please leave a message. I am burying my liver in the back yard.

Well we did it. We got to Paradise. I’m so happy to be here, and so glad. it’s kinda weird that after waking up at 3:30 AM, flying to Mimi, connecting, then on to St Martin, Hitting Putt-Putt golf at Sputters to let some people we were meeting know we were arriving late (more on that later), going out to Free Happy hour, then .50 Happy hour (they jacked up those prices every ½ hour at Bamboo Bernies), then going out to dinner at Jimbo’s, letting the kids go crazy, getting back to the Pelican Resort, going swimming for two beers (oops I mean 47 minutes), then going back to the room….. I suddenly find myself alone, typing away, and after a quick 20 hours, wife, and kids have crashed.. Pansies… haha..

Anyway. First impressions. WOW. It rocks here. Everything goes like clockwork.. Ok the clock runs a bit slower, but it’s nice.

How was your day honey? “Better than going to work”, said my 6 year old.

What’s better than waking up at 4 AM to go on vacation? Waking up at 3:30, or so my wife told me around 11 PM last night. That was a short one. Naturally having an excellent internal clock, I simply woke up wide awake at 3:00 AM just to show that Damn alarm! There’s simply no falling asleep after that one!

Nonetheless, getting up any time to leave on vacation rocks!.

YUM
Raisin-Encrusted Wheat English Muffins with Clarified Butter Sauce.

All I got to say is where’s my FU$#%in BACON!!!!!

Leftover from Last vacation:
Fun things to do on vacation day #1: Run into the kids room when you wake them up, screaming: “Of my gosh, we overslept, we can’t go to St Martin. That’s the thing memories are made of, and works like a charm on it’s second anniversary.

Wanna know what’s weird? Clowns on laughing gas. Seriously though, my son, 6, was up at getting dressed at 4:40 AM when I walked into his room yelling aforementioned joke.

He indicated that he simply woke up because he smelled something good (see Raisin-Encrusted Wheat English Muffins with Clarified Butter Sauce above), but that it did not smell as good as bacon.

Note to self: Call Bob’s Bacon Emporium and see if they deliver.

Awoke, packed car, went to airport, checked in with no delay, and had 30 minutes at the gate to relax, no real tales here. Tri was uneventful, the best kind, and arrived in Miami.

A funny thing on the plane: For all the planning I have done, I sat next to a group of 20 somethings, renting a villa in Terre Basses. I realized “Younger Jon” was one of them, when we started talking about how 4000-5000 hours of planning for a one week trip was perfectly normal.. haha..

Anyway, We spent an extra 15 minutes upon the ground in Miami, when the pilot came on and indicated he called away a maintenance ticket to be solved. It seems that a “couple of latches were loose on the pre-flight visual inspection of the outer shell of the airplane, and we thought we’d get them fixed before we took off.

Well I HAD HAD ENOGH!! My luggage be Damned! Structural integrity BLAH BLAH.. I demanded an audience with the pilot and let me TELL YOU:

1). Duct tape hurts
2). There really ARE air marshals on those flights
3). They are big and take their job seriously

Just kidding.. Sorta.. Ok Duct Tape doesn’t hurt it washes right off.

Got under way, and arrived, deplaned through two exits, fore and aft (They do NOT like you deploying the rafts, regardless of what you may think).

Customs was a smile and 5 minutes in line. Friday is definitely the way to go here. I heard Saturday could be really bad. My intro to the island was Michael from Unity, with my name on the board, waiting, even though we were 48 minutes late. His Service and car rocked so far.

Definitely like everyone here mentioned, and he even told me not to spend any time waiting for Craig from PACK-LITE, who was servicing other customers, that he would go tell him to meet me at Unity lot while I filled out paperwork.

A quick trip, and 5 minutes of paperwork later, I was turned around to CRAIG, who was actually BOB, and Chairs, Umbrellas, and a cooler for the ext two weeks. Craig/BOB is meeting me at Unity when I leave so that I don’t have to make any extra trips. Great service guys at PACK-LITE.

After a quick stop at Sputters on the way past the Pelican, we briefly met KAREN and RICK from TTOL (Travetalkonline.com). We told them we’d catch them in an hour, since we had not checked in. Met up with them at 5 PM for “BEAT the CLOCK” happy hour at bamboo Bernies (The clock still won!). Also met Linda and Robert (BOB) from TTOL too. Great folks, and we ended up going to JIMBO’s for dinner afterward with Karen, Rick and Family.

Let me tell you, Jimbo wrote me and told me that his restaurant was the greatest babysitter in St Martin .I think He’s right. Swim-up bar around the restaurant is perfect for the 5 kids we had between Jon and Rick’s families. The food was good, and Jimbo himself came over and introduced himself to me, remembered the email chain we had, and took good care of us. The food was “gourmet Mexican” and very good. Kids’ meals were pricy, but we split them between two kids. I had a Shredded beef Burrrito with Ancho Chilis that was good. Great hospitality, I would recommend Jimbo’s!

Beware the Heniken are 10 Oz here. I thought I was Growing massive hands! That was scary for a bit.

11 PM, I am finishing a Carib, and rambling on. Tomorrow, it’s a meeting with the island wholesaler of t-shirts, etc, Rima’s, and a trip to Philipsburg, where my wife wants to look at diamonds. 2 to 1 says she couldn’t stomach buying one. I, on the other hand, must be VERY careful to stay away from the Breitling Watch Dealership.