Kazza the Blank One - Search Results

It was hot at the snow

So I had "Do you wanna build a snow man?" in my head all day Saturday.

Yup, I went to the snow. But I didn't build a snowman. I was too busy skiing.

Steve picked me up at 5:10am but then we had to go back a bit cause Ray had forgotten his snowboard boots. Ski Co in Cooma was a bit crowded but got in and out fairly quickly since I had my paperwork from last time and said just get me the same stuff. But maccas was too busy so I didn't get the breakfast I was counting on. And I was starving. And you shouldn't talk to me when I have low blood sugar like that. Hmmmm.

I was almost too grumpy to take this photo of a fogbow.

But then we phoned through to Mountain Munchies in Jindabyne so I could order a big brekkie roll pickup. So that worked well. And it was it pretty good too.

Hacked a few portals while trying to get through the bottleneck that is the intersection of Barry Way and Kosciuszko Road. Still own them too, four days later.

So got to the snow around nineish. Dumped my beanie and both jumpers in the car - it was that hot even before I started for the day.

I had a fantastic day. Started at front valley then over to Blue Cow and did Pleasant Valley and Roller Coaster and Excelerator and the summit and then over to Guthega. Had the longest wait of the day at the bottom of the Blue Calf T Bar, so didn't go back there. But had a few great runs there, including a couple I'd never done before. Was heading up Blue Cow T Bar for another run when it broke down. Waited for a while there but then decided to give up on it and have lunch. Had a pie at the little kiosk they'd setup at the top of the Car Park Double. So then I was going to head to Freedom to get out, but the Blue Cow T opened up again so had another couple of runs there before heading all the way back to Perisher for Pretty Valley, Interceptor and Happy Valley. At 4pm I could have met up with Steve and Ray or had another couple of runs, but my knees were starting to really ache. I'm getting old!! So we had a couple of beers and they went down a treat :)

Definitely felt like I had a lot more confidence this trip which was good. Maybe I'll even tackle more runs on Mt P one day ..

Pleasant Valley - my favourite run

Me on the Pleasant Valley Quad

Moguls next to Excelerator

From the summit looking back to Blue Cow

From Blue Cow looking across to the summit

Dam at Guthega Pondage

This view of Mt Kosciuszko and the main ranges never gets old for me. Love it.

Obligatory selfie

My phone battery pretty much died by lunch time so no piccies in the afternoon.

I also carted the GPS around, but I'd forgotten to charge it from after my last Sydney trip. So it started complaining of low battery at 1pm-ish. But it soldiered on and made it til almost 4pm, finally conking out half way up my last t-bar. I also realised I hadn't downloaded it from two Sydney trips. It can hold quite a lot of data in memory! Love that little thing.

While Driving

On Horse Park Drive, snow on the Brindabellas

March Jigsaws

Spent entirely too much of my March free time doing the last section of my "Life" jigsaw...

So that's Life complete!

Just look how thick it is - twenty four layers of 1000 piece squares

(it's on layers of paper so that when I set it up on the floor it won't get dirty)

These were a couple of jigsaws TJ brought in for us.

The first was super simple

And the next was tricky but fun

This is a little one of Chicago. I think this was one from my brother's collection .. maybe..

And this little one I borrowed from DC's coast house took me about two and a bit hours in front of the tv. I did a bit of the edge one night, and the rest the next night.

In and Out Again

Had one night at home which gave me a chance to do two loads of washing.

Then headed out to the club on Friday after work. Stayed two nights, which is actually the first time I've ever done that. On Saturday afternoon I pulled all the utensils, crockery and glassware tubs out, cleaned them, sorted their contents and made labels for it all. Took pretty much all afternoon. Yipe. Sunday morning I finished the job by doing all the cutlery drawers.

Left for Sydney from there a bit before midday.

Feed me!!

Went and visited Dad (he's much the same). Took him some hot chips. Also read him the $#!+ My Dad Says list that I've been working on - sayings and stuff that are distinctly him. He laughed at a few of them which was cool.

Mum did a lamb roast for dinner which was yummy, then we continued on with the workshop. Made pretty good progress on one of the work benches in the workshop. Pretty much cleared a whole surface.

OMG a work bench!!!

Tonight (after a dinner of scotch fillet steak) we continued on and around the corner. Found papers dating back to 1976 - gardening and orchid stuff he was into years ago. And a lot of disgusting stuff hidden up the back which probably hasn't seen the light of day in twenty five years. And a piece of HO scale railway track. And unopened tools. And lots of duplicates of tools. We think he would lose things and then go and buy another one because the old one was buried. Silly really. Setup some boxes - one for screw drivers, one for pliers and cutters, and another for "small" tools. And another one for multimeters - at least four of the things.

Dad installed this intercom so that mum could call dad when he was downstairs in the workshop. Except after a while the voice bit of it died, and only the call buzzer really worked. So for the latter years of its life mum would press the button three times, which meant dinner's ready.

A few trips ago I forgot pyjamas. This trip I forgot my phone charger and house keys. Fortunately someone at work has one, so didn't have to go out and buy a new one today.

Will get some photos into this post later in the week.

White Christmas

Yesterday we went out to the club for a Christmas in July lunch. As usual there was a feast of food thanks to R&T and A&J.

Lunch included, but was not limited to, lots of potatoes, turkey rolls, corn, salad

Dessert included, but was not limited to, rum balls, chocolate mud cake, trifles

And then.. it snowed!!

That was pretty exciting :)

Afterwards we debated staying the night, but the sweetie had some work to do for uni, so we came home, as he thought it'd be easier to do at home. That, and it was *freezing* out there.*

This morning there was still snow on the mountains out past Queanbeyan.

There probably would have been snow on the Brindabellas too, but we didn't leave the house all day, so we didn't see.

Bit of house tidying today, and then my tax man came to sort out my tax.

And so endeth the weekend.

* Freezing in the both literal (snow) and figurative (feels like) senses of the word, for people that want to complain.

The Classic 100: Music in the Movies

So Stu told me about this a couple of weeks ago. I didn't bother nominating anything because it looked like it was pretty much all covered from a John Williams perspective ;)

Tonight I voted:

Titanic by Horner, James as performed in Titanic
The Hunt for Red October Score by Poledouris, Basil as performed in The Hunt for Red October
The Man from Snowy River Score by Rowland, Bruce as performed in The Man from Snowy River
Back to the Future Film Trilogy Score by Silvestri, Alan as performed in Back to the Future Film Trilogy
Shakespeare in Love Score by Warbeck, Stephen as performed in Shakespeare in Love
Music from Harry Potter Movies by Williams, Doyle, Hooper, and Desplat as performed in Harry Potter
Jaws Score by Williams, John as performed in Jaws
Jurassic Park Score by Williams, John as performed in Jurassic Park
Raiders of the Lost Ark Score by Williams, John as performed in Raiders of the Lost Ark
Gladiator Score by Zimmer/Gerrard as performed in Gladiator

omigosh it was hard! My first cull had over thirty movies in it. Got it down to twenty three. Then cut out music that was not written for the film (which sadly included things like Symphony No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns from Babe, Finlandia by Jean Sibelius from Die Hard 2 and everything from Fantasia 2000). Cut a couple more. And eventually decided on the movies above.

These were my runners up:

Batman Score by Elfman, Danny
Inception Score by Zimmer, Hans
James Bond Theme by Norman, Monty
Music from Star Trek Movies by Eidelman/Giacchino/Goldsmith/Horner/McCarthy/Rosenman <-- be good if they'd narrowed this down to Jerry Goldsmith's
Star Wars Score (includes music from all 6 films) by Williams, John <-- I'm hoping this will be popular enough to make it in from other people's votes
Superman Score by Williams, John <-- and this too

There's snow on them thar hills!

So I look out the window this morning and what I first thought to be clouds was actually snow! It was *freezing* here last night, and rained quite heavily, but at higher altitudes it snowed! These are the hills out past Queanbeyan, and it's quite rare for them to get snow, especially lasting snow.

Skiing August - Take II

During the week a cold front swept over southern Australia, bringing with it a massive dumping of snow at Perisher. So Peter decided to stay an extra day, and we headed down again yesterday.

Unfortunately the rest of Canberra decided to do the same thing.

Traffic through Jindabyne was a nightmare, and we didn't get on snow til 9:50am :(

But there was indeed a *heap* of fresh snow. In fact more than I've ever dealt with before, so I actually found it a bit tricky! Nothing like Australian snowy mountains to have completely different conditions every time I go skiing!!

I stuck with my mission to continue to try new runs and lifts for the GPS track. I did Mount P for a good chunk of the morning (too much powdery snow - hard!). Did Guthega and Bluecow in the afternoon, heading back to finish up at Smiggins - staying til last lifts on Burke at 5pm.

We stopped for pies in Jindy (it's tradition!), dumped out stuff at Cooma, and made it home around 8:30pm.

Was surprised to see the mountains coming into Jindabyne - was actually expecting clouds to be covering them

So much snow! Dainer's Gap

The crowds! Perisher was full when this was taken at 9:14am. Good thing we were planning on stopping at Smiggins anyway!

Peter and me riding Link T-bar. Probably the only lift we rode together all day!

So much snow! On Link T-bar

Pretty Valley chair

I made it back to Mount P after a several year absence

You can't really see it, but the cars are parked all the way back along the road!

Lunch - pizza pie!! and a vanilla malt milk

I love this view from Bluecow terminal

Heading over to Guthega I was following these borders, and passed a sign that said skiiers/borders left, snow vehicles right. I was following the borders to the right. Whoops. I think this was the "middle traverse" which I'd gotten onto by mistake in 2007. So when the borders headed left off the track down to the lower trail I followed them. And nearly died! Those two feet of fresh snow? They were right there. Untouched. Soft and waiting to be fallen into. Fortunately I managed to stop myself without stacking it before regaining control and just going straight ahead to the lower trail.

My pole sunk a good foot into the soft snow, and when I pulled it out it had a core sample attached

I never get tired of this view of the main ranges from Guthega

I followed the home trail at Guthega, and got to go up another lift I'd never been on - the carpark lift

Another view from the carpark lift at Guthega

It was starting to cloud over in the afternoon, so couldn't see Kosciuszko

Border jumping at Pleasant Valley

Empty - it was after 5pm after all!

And here's my GPS track of the day.

Made it to all sections of the resort this time.

25 lift/t-bar/carpet rides. Didn't bother to count the blue vs green - since a couple of the runs turned into each other. But did go to a few new places and runs that I'd never done before. The only repeats were the t-bar at Guthega, Pleasant Valley Quad, and Cook J-bar and Burke T-bar at Smiggins at the end of the day. Otherwise I basically didn't repeat anything! Gotta love that about Perisher! :)

So a pretty awesome day really :):)

Skiing August

With Peter down, it was decided we should make a pilgrimage to the snow. The only day that was really going to work was yesterday. Unfortunately the weather was not in agreement. Very high winds closed most of the lifts, leaving long queues at the T-bars. Most of Bluecow was shut down and don't even know about Guthega. So the morning was spent at Perisher on front and centre valleys, and the afternoon was spent at Smiggins.

It took us *forever* to get up the mountain too, as they were forcing chain fittings just before Smiggins (Steve has an all-wheel-drive so at least we didn't have to do that). So didn't get on the snow til 9:50am.

The morning was snowy and very cloudy, so terrible visibility from having goggles covered in snow and melted snow as well as no contrast. The afternoon was basically hailing - little balls of very solid snow/ice. So the day was pretty miserable. But it did clear a bit later in the afternoon, with visibility much better, so actually enjoyed the last couple of hours.

Red in the morning, shepherd's warning?

I couldn't find the others at lunch so sat by myself and pretended to have something a bit healthy.

Barely took any photos of the snow - it was too much effort to take off gloves.

This was on one of the t-bars at Smiggins in the afternoon. It had cleared somewhat by this point so doesn't show how miserable it was.

After a few good runs in the afternoon I was much happier about the day, and this beer went down well

Stopped at the bakery in Jindy for pies, then headed home and collapsed into bed about 8:30pm

Today discovered that the GPS turned itself off at lunch time. Don't know if the sudden change in temperature/humidity after lunch confused it, or if it got switched off by accident. Who knows. But it would have been pretty boring anyway with only Perisher in the morning and Smiggins in the afternoon, so no huge loss (other than not knowing how many runs I did since some of the lifts don't have RFID on them).

Skiing July

During our team meeting on Thursday I was complaining about people who didn't respond to emails or meeting invites. Since one of the meetings was for Friday, but I still didn't have response for it, Steve said "come to the snow". So I did! Postponed the meeting til Monday (in which case I'll *still* probably have to call the guy and say "do you want any help with this project or not?").

So up at stoopid o'clock (just before 5am). Dozed in the car but didn't really sleep. Picked up gear at Cooma and had Scottish Restaurant for breakfast.

We parked at Smiggins, but still had a hike to the ticket office. Got myself sorted and was on the snow at 9am.

It was an awesome day for it. Good snow (although a little thin in places) and glorious sunny skies. In fact I had to take my beanie and eventually gloves off because it was just too hot. Queues weren't too bad in most places - only a couple that I had to wait more than a couple of minutes for (Ridge Quad and Happy Valley T).

Lunch was at Blue Cow at 12pm, and was surprisingly uncrowded (probably because most people were outside enjoying the sunshine). Left a bit after 4:30pm.

Blue Cow Terminal from Side Saddle

Main Ranges from Guthega Peak

The last time I did Norwegian Trail at Guthega was in 1999 and I didn't see the dam, presumably because of trees in the way. So was quite surprised when I saw it this time.

Riding a T-Bar in Guthega

Blue Cow Terminal from Blue Cow High Traverse

Last time I was at the snow I had the GPS with me, and recorded a pretty cool track for the day. This year I decided to cover as much of the resort as possible, and go on as many different lifts and runs as I could. I did pretty well, not repeating too much, but didn't get to Mount P. Oh well - next time!

Twenty eight lift/t-bar rides, twenty green runs, nine blue runs (although some of them were mixed up a bit). 44.6 kilometres covered on skis (includes lifts). And I didn't fall over at all. Awesome day :):)

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