The restaurant is set out with several large tables (about eight tables holding eight to sixteen or so people).  It does mean that if there's only a couple of you, you'll have trouble getting a table.  Most of the tables were reserved today, and we saw some people leave again straight away.

We got there just after twelve, and ordered their Sample Paddle - a 60ml sample of seven different beers, with a half pint of whatever was your favourite.  This was a fantastic idea!  Getting to try all these different beers together was great.  They suggested starting with the light beers and moving up the the heavy darker beers.  Well I drank the first, light, beer, then decided to do a mouthful of each up the line.  When there were only two mouthfuls of each left, I went back down the line in reverse order, on account of not really liking heavy beers and preferring the lighter ones. :)

A while after receiving these, maybe twenty past twelve, we ordered our food. Entrées eventually arrived, however I didn't order one, as usually if I have an entrée I'll have trouble finishing the main.  So I had one of Chris' salt and pepper squid thingies, and one of Stu's mussels.  And then we waited.  Ages and ages.

It was nearly 2pm by the time our mains arrived.  Now we were having a nice time anyway, but that really was very slow service.  I got the pork belly, which was delicious and nice and crunchy skin, although the portion size was a heck of a lot smaller than I expected.  Stu got some sausages which were pretty good too.  

By the time we'd finished, Nanette and I decided we were still hungry, so ordered some wedges to actually fill us up.  We shouldn't have had to do this! Seriously!

So anyway.  Nice enough lunch and the beers were good, but very slow service, and portion sizes left a lot to be desired.

Saturday (as usual) was mostly a cleaning/tidying/organising/shopping day.  

Cooked a nomm roast pork and potato bake and had Julia and Paul over to enjoy it.  They brought their PS3 and Queen Singstar over, but their PS3 wouldn't talk to our TV, so most disheartened about that.  So watched Rockwiz instead.  Dessert was a chocolate fondue with strawberries, banana, rockmelon, and biscuits to dip. 

We were very full by the end of the night :)

Sunday was fairly quiet.  Stu went out for a bit, which left me alone to tidy up, and then feel a bit down.  Not really sure why.  Maybe all the rain.  

Sunday arvo I got NRMA to jump start my car.  Really need to drive it more often.  Every three or four weeks is just not enough.  Took it for a drive out to Mitchell to dump some speakers, a (working) CRT monitor and a few bits and pieces.  I decided it would be better to go late in the day rather than early. WISE DECISION!  We were in and out of the place in about two minutes (whereas people who went early Saturday were waiting in traffic for an hour or more).  The piles of CRTs (monitors, tvs) and computers were amazing.  Would have been good to take some photos, but we were in and out so fast and I was driving so didn't have the chance.  The guys were having fun throwing things around on the piles to smash them heh.

Geotagged just about all my Japan Day 2 photos, most of them to within a few metres of where they were taken.  

And then it was Monday.  It really felt like a Monday too :/  Got home, had dinner and watched a special on the Lockerbie bombing, and suddenly it's nearly 9:30 .. how??

And the interwebs is broked.  So think will just go to bed and read some more of The Daily Coyote.  .. Edit, internet is back.  Posting, but then going to bed anyway.

Got up at the same time, had a bit of breakfast, and Steve gave me a lift to the bus stop.  Coach was a little delayed, and got progressively more delayed as we waited for people.  We got to Bullock's Flat just before nine o'clock, however we arrived just after all the other coaches.  So it was absolute chaos in the rental shop.  They rushed us through getting boots, then we stood for forty minutes queuing for skis.  It was an absolute nightmare, I'll definitely not be doing that again.  I'll do what I've done previously - drive myself, have brekky in Cooma, hire gear in Cooma or Jindabyne and rock up all casual like for an early Ski Tube.  

So managed to get on the 10am Ski Tube and went straight up to Blue Cow where I went and got breakfast.  I figured if I had breakfast at 10:30am I wouldn't need to stop for lunch.  (Steve caught the 9:20 Ski Tube)

Had a couple of runs on Pleasant Valley by myself, then down Roller Coaster and up the Ridge Quad, where I met up with Steve and Al.  Did a couple of runs each on Side Saddle and Zali's.  Then they went off to get some lunch, and I went back to Pleasant Valley to get my confidence back (which I lost a bit on those scary blue runs ;) ).

Pleasant Valley lift

Top of Pleasant Valley

Met up with Steve and Al again and we did Pleasant Valley and Roller Coaster and Side Saddle and I think Zali's again.  Then we did Excelerator (!)  Managed to do well enough until right near the bottom where I stacked it in front of the lift queues - doh!!  That was my fourth and final stack of the day, so didn't do too badly.

Al and Steve on Summit Quad

Blue Cow

Steve at the top of Excelerator

So then meandered our way back through Blue Cow, Pleasant Valley, Copperhead Road, up the Pretty Valley lift and back down to Front Valley.  By this time it was nearly 4pm and they wanted us on the 4:12 Ski Tube back down, so I called it a day.  

Front Valley

So the day actually was pretty good after a grumpy start.  I got boots that were the same make as last week, and in fact a size smaller (25.5 instead of 26.5) and yet these ones weren't as uncomfortable as the ones last week which really hurt my legs where they squeezed tight around my lower legs.  Didn't spend as long on the snow, but then didn't get as exhausted either.  The conditions were a lot better, although that meant the snow wasn't as good - getting slushy in places and icy in others.  This and last weekend were the first times I'd ever been to the snow on a weekend - I've always only gone midweek before.  But the queue lengths weren't really any worse.  The Ridge Quad late morning had a ten minute wait, but everything else was quite quick.

Coach ride back was pretty uneventful, and even managed to doze a little - after my coughing fit.  For some reason I didn't cough too much during the day, and didn't feel short of breath either - go figure!  It did catch up with me somewhat yesterday day though.  Starting to feel better now finally.

On account of having been stood up two weekends in a row, we decided we'd do our own fondue anyway.  It was fricken awesome! ;)  Altho I did mean we ate over half a block of chocolate each .. oops!! ;)

The Great Glass Elevator was actually pretty lame.  Really only two things happened - a silly story about saving a space hotel from aliens and another silly story about sending old people to the minuses and back again.  Danny, well I guess not a whole lot more happened, but it flowed so much more betterer as a story and I enjoyed it a whole lot more.

At the end of Danny there was a reference to some larch trees.  Which wouldn't have meant anything to me, had it not been for an episode of Monty Python the other night that kept referring to The Larch trees. 

Ok, so small things ;)

The Airport Open Day last year was totally awesome.  And yet for some reason I never blogged about it?? Go figure.  The best part was getting up close and personal with some of the jets that I've flown on.  My favourite of course being the 767.  They told people not to touch, but I couldn't resist.  I was walking under its belly and it was *just there* so I had to give it a pat :)

The Booze Train to Tarago (actually the "Dance Train") was definitely an experience.  Me little brother begged us to go to make up numbers, so we went along.  Fortunately Y was there as well. Unfortunately for her she had a sprained ankle at the time, but it did mean she sat with us the whole night ;)  I have to say though, I've never seen so many Canberra bogans in one place.  Most of them were pissed before they got on the train.  They drank what they could all the way out to Tarago where they all got off to go down to the local hall with their entire eskies full of booze.  We stayed behind and enjoyed the atmosphere of the train with the staff who were all having their dinner.  Then the power went out and my brother scrambled off to fix it.  Then all the bogans came back.  Some of them continued to dance in the dance car, and others passed out in their seats.  If we could get cost price again and good company again I'd probably go again.

Left a bit before one and headed down for my unit's AGM.  Was cool to catch up with some peoples and see my place which I haven't seen up close in a year and a half.  

Went down Rocky Point Road and went and saw the house where Clive James grew up (6 Margaret St, according to his Unreliable Memoirs), as well as the street he used to billy cart down the hill from.  

Had some Maccas for a linner/dunch and then we headed home.  Only made it half way before Stu decided he was too tired to drive, so I took over.  Got home (via the bottle-o) and declared it beer o'clock.  

Saw an article on Boing Boing about Michael Winslow, so of course decided to watch Police Academy :)

And so now it's bed time.. how'd that happen..? :)

Have asked the adminy type peoples if they've done any upgrades in the past day or two..