Crab racing at Friend in Hand Hotel isn’t something you see everyday. It may look normal from the outside, but once inside it’s a totally different story. You have a pub packed with people, who are dripping wet after being doused by the bar staff, cheering for these tiny little creatures who undoubtedly have no idea what’s going on. I wonder if this is classed as animal cruelty?

We were there to celebrate Dom’s birthday and boy was it an experience. The pub alone is a novelty, so if you can’t make it there on a Tuesday night for the crab race I’m sure you’ll be just as entertained by the decor.

It has to be the most overly decorated pub I’ve ever seen. There’s so much random stuff from police signs to fireman mannequins, antler heads to full length canoes and did I mention the pub cockatoo?

Awesome awesome food
We were all pretty starving and ready for a feed. G and I shared the eggplant parmigiana and a combo meal of steak and lasagna (can you tell we were hungry?). OMG the food was amazing! You know that moment when your food comes out from the kitchen and you anticipate that first bite? This first mouthful was sheer heaven. If you go there I would highly recommend the eggplant parmigiana – the best I’ve ever had. They look a bit like little fish fillets.

The race
The crab race only took a minute, the little creatures must have been scared. Dom’s crab, Chichi, finished in the top 5 (Well done Chichi!). So to battle it out for first place they had a South Park inspired “Chocolate Salty Balls” eating competition.

Dom didn’t win, but he sure does look like a champ!

Most of my friends know I’m a bit of a geek. I love my mac, I love the internet, I love playing computer games (especially my wii and DS) and I love technology. So you could imagine just how excited I was to hear that I was going to visit the Google Office in Sydney and attend an event on ‘Searchology’. I was absolutely over the moon. It felt like a kid the night before Christmas.

Now I’m sure at one stage you’ve received an email forward with pictures from a google office and thought “Wow, that’s crazy”. I know I have. I remember the first time I saw a photo of the Google Office in Zurich. I was absolutely gob-smacked. Surely it wasn’t a real functioning office. Well it is.

I seriously don’t know how they do any work with all the distractions. If I worked there I know where I’d be most of the time, the cafeteria.

Fully stocked with hot food, snacks, fruit, cereal, coffee, tea, juice, soft drink and of course a nice place to enjoy it all. And it’s all free!

If that wasn’t enough, there are also several smaller kitchens if you wanted a quick snack or sugar fix.

If you need a place to kick-back and relax or feel like reading a book, there are several places for that too.

But if computer games are more your thing, then this has to be heaven. They’ve got every console under the sun.

Random tent in the middle of the office. I guess if you’re really tired you can take a nap in private.

This is one of the many funky meeting rooms. Would be really confusing for people attending the meeting via web cam.

The talk on “Searchology” was really interesting too, but I’ll save that for another post. At the end of the meeting we all got goodie-bags filled with google-goodness. The coolest thing in the bag, this awesome USB stick man with notes from the talk.

I LOVE snow! And there was A LOT of it in Perisher this weekend. It was nice and thick so you were able to carve (or try to carve) some pretty sweet s-curves.

Day one was a beautiful sunny blue-sky day, making it the perfect day snowboarding.

Most of us are beginner snowboarders so, as you can imagine, we spent a lot of time on the ground or tumbling down the slopes. One friend in particular, Jess (pictured below), spent a considerable amount of time on the ground. Whenever Jess fell – she fell spectacularly! I’m talking stack and tumble or face-plant and slide down the mountain head first on your chest. It was very entertaining and absolutely hilarious.

Say no to T-bars
We’ve decided for our next snow trip we’re heading to Thredbo, why? So we never have to deal with a T-bar ever again. Those things are dangerous. The first time I hopped on the T-bar I was partnered up with Jess – bad idea. We went about 2 meters then totally stacked it with Jess’s board colliding with my knee which now feels like a tenderised piece of steak – nice and mushy.

On the next attempt we thought it might be easier to go on the T-bar individually instead of in pairs. After a bit of stalling and a crash course on how to use the T-bar, the line backed up considerable giving us a big audience for our performance on the T-bar. The pressure was on and unfortunately we didn’t perform. One after the other we fell off the T-bar with the audience Oo-ing and Aww-ing as we fell and then cheering when someone finally made it up – which wasn’t one of us. It was the most embarrassing experience of my life.

We decided to give up on the T-bar and just do the walk of shame back to base. It was a good 20 minute walk in thick snow.

That night we started planning for the next day with the main objective of avoiding all T-bars. We successfully mapped out our day so that every time we reached the bottom we would meet a chair lift not a T-bar.

Day 2 – a successful day T-bar free
We caught the chair lift up to one of the highest points on the mountain and were met by a terrible snow storm. It was so windy and snowing so much that no one could snowboard up there. Pretty much everyone took their boards off and walked the entire run. It was so miserable that some of us just wanted to pack up and head to the pub, and this was the first run of the day.

The storm eventually blew over and the rest of the day was nice, not sunny like the previous day, but better then a blizzard. We found a really sweet run called Copperhead, it’s a smooth downhill run that has lots of turns and corners, that was by far my favourite run. Followed by a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

And the perfect sunset to end the trip and send us home.

Organising holidays and trips are always a pain, especially when there’s lots of people involved. Fortunately, my mates are real easy going and aren’t fussed about things like star-rating or sleeping on the couch (sometimes we actually fight over who gets to sleep on the couch).

This weekend we’re heading down to Perisher for a quick weekend dash, I can’t wait! After spening the past few weeks planning and chasing people to charge my credit card (that’s right they weren’t chasing me for payment, I was chasing them. Geez!), I’ll be glad when we’re all finally there with our gear and passes all sorted. Hopefully the weather doesn’t warm up too much, it’s actually quite warm in Sydney today, otherwise we’re going to be slipping and sliding around in slush. Yuk!
I’ve done that before and it’s not a fun experience.

I’m a huge fan of Masterchef Australia, so as you can imagine I’m really sad that it’s over. For the past month I would rush home after work to make the 7pm start, I neglected my gym routine and at times had refused to go out for dinner because I wanted to watch my beloved Masterchef. And yes I did cry when Justine left and again when Julie won.

As a tribute to Masterchef, g and I decided to make Lucus’ Chocolate Cigars as a way to finish the series, similar to what they do in Boston Legal at the end of every episode except they actually smoke their cigars and theirs are real cigars. Anyway…

I’d never worked with filo pastry before and after last night, don’t think I will ever again. It’s so thin and fragile and you have to butter it, layer it, then butter it again. What looked like a quick and easy dessert to make turned out taking us about 2 hours to make.

The result, 15 very sweet chocolate cigars that ate well after the show had finished.

My friend Esther is in town this weekend for her nephew’s 1st birthday party and we were invited. It was such a big party for a 1 year old. They’d hired a hall and filled it with balloons, had about $2,000 worth of food catered and even had a huge banner with his pictures on it. It felt more like a 21st birthday than a 1st. But apparently in Korean tradition, the 1st birthday is a big thing and if we were in Korea the celebration would have been even bigger. It’s pretty crazy considering the birthday boy had no idea what was going on and will probably not even remember the day (expect through many many photos).

The birthday boy, Zac, was actually sick today so he looked extra chubby and drowsy. The poor boy, most of the time he just looked like he wanted to be cuddled up in bed fast asleep, instead he had heaps of people carrying him and dressing him up in traditional clothes. He did look very cute in his traditional Korean clothes, but I’m not quite sure why it was pink. He’s a boy!

As I mentioned earlier, they got about $2,000 worth of Korean food catered for the lunch. This was music to my ears and is why I got out of bed so early this morning. At 10am (yes that’s considered early for a Saturday for me) Esther calls and tells me that there was heaps of potato noodles and Kim Chi – and I was up. I didn’t eat anything for dinner the night before, the only thing I ate was a few chips and pretzels and about 4 mouthfuls of soup. So as you can imagine, I was starving.

When we arrived at the venue all the food was there nicely set up and staring us in the face. It was so unfair, we were starving and we couldn’t dig in. It was a tease, but it was well worth the wait. There were a few odd dishes on the table; some strange pig intestine sausage thing, pickled radish stuff, bone marrow stew and others; all of which I didn’t dare try. My stomach was still a bit queasy from the night before and I thought it was best to play it safe and eat what I know. The winners were the potato noodles, kim chi, crispy chilli chicken wings and sweet and sour pork. Yum!

After eating a mountain of food (and some more) we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the kids. It was mostly us trying to jump for helium balloons or boost the kids to grab the balloons. I think they were letting the balloons go on purpose because they liked getting carried.

As we were leaving we each got one of these happy meal looking boxes. Kobie thought it was filled with candy and was uber excited, then sorely disappointed to find that there was only cake and strange looking glutinous rice balls inside. When I got mine home, I realised that I must have picked up someone elses box because the cake was half eaten.

Whenever I go to my friends bar she drills into me “Drink IQ” which is an initiative for drinking responsibly. I have absolutely no problem with drinking responsibly, in fact, I love that most of the time I’m the driver so it gives me a reason to drink less.

Now it’s a bit hard to DrinkIQ when you’re getting served free drinks with double-shots in it and your drink is ready and made even before you get to the bar to ask for it, it’s like the bartender was reading our minds. When I got to the bar to get a round I asked for the order “4 grape caprioska’s with Ciroc” and she said “Yup here they are, I knew you’d be back soon so I made them ahead of time”. Sweet! And she made us 6 when there was only 4 of us. Our table was pretty full and the bar was getting pretty empty.

Anyway, to help DrinkIQ I made sure we had plenty of water with us for the night – gotta keep those fluids up. As you can see I had a very heavy bag filled with a ton of bottled water. I love these bottles, they’re the perfect size to take with you when you go on a jog.

We get a pretty good view of the sunset from my office, but today’s sunset was crazy. It seriously looked like armageddon, the sky turned bright orange with waves of purple and you were half expecting to see a giant comet scream across the sky, followed by Will Smith chucking overly exaggerated tantrums at how he has to save the world from aliens.

Every now and then I have to attend these networking events. Oh how I dread them, the thought of sitting there uncomfortably asking people “So what do you do?”… It’s just not my cup of tea.

Yeah it’s a free lunch with yummy food and drinks, but I just don’t like people. Okay that came out wrong… But it’s true. I’d much rather hide behind my computer and work than go to a networking event with hundred of people I don’t know.

It’s not that I have anything against people, I do like people (generally speaking). I just don’t like it when they’re trying to put on the hard sell and that’s all that happens at networking events. You go there to make contacts and to promote your service or product. Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re a great for business owners and entrepreneurs, but it’s just not something I’m in to or are terribly comfortable with.

Even though I dread going to these events, I can’t complain. It’s free lunch and I grabbed a handful of the free chocolates. Score!

Last year was the first time I ever went snowboarding and I immediately fell in love with it. I remember for weeks after the trip I would fall asleep dreaming of curving down that soft powder. I use to drift off to sleep practicing S-turns in my head, remembering to keep my toes up and point with my shoulder – then SMACK! I would stack it. Yes even in my dreams I would stack it, which is a true reflection of the time I spent at the snow. Last year I got the worst bruise I’d ever gotten in my entire life. It was bruised to the point where it felt like it was bleeding out. Anyway, even though I did stack it many a times, I still love it. And I’m finally heading back.

We booked and paid for our accommodation today. I was so excited! We’d been talking about doing a trip for ages, but never really did anything and for a while I was beginning to wonder if we were going to make it. Now that it’s booked and paid – we’re all set.

When I got home I decided to whip out my gear. After last year’s trip I knew this would be a life long hobby so I bought all the gear: I’m talking boots, bindings and board. With this new gear (some even still in the plastic) I’m extra eager to head to the snow to test it all out. Just look how nice and shiny my board is!

We bought our gear online around about the end of July 2008, which was the perfect time to buy. The Aussie dollar was trading up at about 96c and it was Summer in America so they were clearing all of last year’s Winter stock. Total bargain!

After using an assortment of rented snow boots, and trying out a few at the shops, I knew exactly what I wanted. I dreaded having cold sore fingers from trying to tighten my laces and I knew that was something I could do without. The shoe that fit was the DC Scout Boot. It uses a BOA lacing system so all you have to do is spin the little wheel and the laces tighten. It’s priced decently too, most other BOA boots are a lot more expensive. And the clincher – it’s green (My favourite colour).

The bindings are B by Burton Notori with a hi-back and CapStrap for super responsiveness. I love the level of detail on the straps, though it’s a bit pointless seeing that they’re going to get absolutely trashed anyway. But never the less they’re pretty to look at for the meantime and I’m going to try really hard to keep them nice and clean. Wish me luck!