Mmm breakfast

Friday's in the office are great!

Mmm Cose Dolci goodness!

Pleasanton.... anything but...

Well it's not really all that bad, a bit of a come down from the sightseeing from the last 2 days though. Today was the start of the training course and it's pretty full on. We're going from pretty much 8:30am until 7:30pm everyday. The course is pretty good, just very long days... also everyone on the course (except me) is staying at the same hotel so I'm a fair bit away from the action... although tonight I did head back to the "course" hotel for dinner (not helped by the lack of restaurant at my hotel).

So onto my few gripes with America.... What is it with Starbucks? Really? There was one IN my hotel in SF and when I walked out the front door I saw another 3. In the hotel here they have thermoses of Starbucks for breakfast (and at the course as well). I don't really know what they serve but it isn't coffee that's for sure.
Also I know why they have a weight problem over here (not that I can point the finger at the moment); 1. the food is... um... well... Let's just say my breakfast selection today was a) an egg pancake wrapped around a cheese slice covered in cheese spread, b) some sort of cake in caramel sauce, c) bagels, d) muffins e) watermelon. And the stuff they put in their "Coffee" is mind boggling... I'll take my camera tomorrow and try and sneak a few snaps.

I had something else really important to say in this post and it seams to escape me at the moment....

Anyway, the people here are great and being the only Australian who isn't from the Vendor (and only 1 of 4 people total not from the vendor) it could have been a little lonely.

It's almost midnight so probably time I signed off for the night and got some sleep for the long day tomorrow.

Oh wait... I remember... We went out for dinner at this really nice Mexican Restaurant and I had a fantastic Mole Poblano which I had to try after the Ominvores Hundred post.

A big day of sight seeing in San Francisco

I tried to pack a lot into today, for one tomorrow is Labor (sic) day so I'm not really sure what is and isn't open and two it was a really beautiful day...

I've updated some more photos and I know I promised to blog but it's late, I'm sunburnt and the jetlag are all too much....

Quick Highlights
Golden Gate Bridge
Union Square
Riding on the outside of a cable car
The Pier
Lombard St
and a fabulous steak dinner at the Urban Tavern.

Ominvores Hundred

This is a list from the Very Good Taste blog of food that Andrew thinks should be tried at least once in your life. He has asked the following:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

I'm trying to be a good web 2.0 and filling this out as well... thanks amyo. (what else do you do with 10 mins before boarding)

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

A post for a Monday morning

Well we’re back at Monday again and I’m back on a plane, this post comes to you from 8900m above sea level (well technically it was written at that altitude but obviously I won’t be posting it until we land... we still don’t have Wifi on planes just yet). Yesterday was a bit of a role reversal for travel, Ness was off to a conference on the Gold Coast so I was the one staying home (well at least for one night) and bidding farewell. Being at home on my own I spent some quality time with the projector and settled in with a movie on the big screen. I’m still wading through the huge list of HD and BluRay titles that I’ve been accumulating. The new setup has made a substantial difference to the performance of the Sub. It’s now in the middle of the front 3 speakers directly under the sub and up against the brick wall. The deep bass is now much more integrated with the rest of the front stage and delivers the music aspect of soundtracks better than ever before. Explosions still have their same usual punch and deep rumblings as before, something the system never really struggled with. The best bit about the whole thing though was I got to use the projector in complete darkness something that doesn’t happen too often, no matter how good their ambient light performance, it always feels a bit more like a cinema when it’s just the light bouncing back off the screen.

We took the C4 for a drive on the weekend and will now be picking it up on Saturday. It was a bit of a shock going from MinX to the C4 but it was a really comfortable ride and the glass roof is just great.

We also started stage 1 of Paris preparations for the nursery. Although there isn’t anything that looks like a nursery, we’ve started relocating the study into other rooms of the house (or other people’s houses as the case may be. The iMac has found a new home on the Transformer bed and the gaming station is going to be relocated around the arcade table. The ‘Library’ as it’s now called has had the bookshelves rearranged and consolidated.

For those who are interested (probably no one but it helps pad this post) we’re now at 12600m above sea level.

As this is turning into a weekend update here’s the rest of our weekend, Friday night we went to Salon for a bon voyage dinner for Tom and Susan before they headed on their 6 week holiday. We went to Salon because Tom had missed out on the Slow Cooked Beef dish at my birthday party. So we had a bit of a Spanish style dinner with a Pork Belly, Slow Cooked Beef and Wild Boar dish. After one bite of the beef, though, Tom was hooked. We cut a deal with the girls and traded sweet desert for beef desert. Best Desert EVER!

Ironic Dinner

On top of everything else this week, I ordered the "Spanish Style olive rubbed Chicken Breast" for dinner. Turns out Spanish style means on a bed of Seafood Paella. There were more prawns, scallops and other shellfish than there was chicken. Lucky I ordered a side of steamed veg, because that was my dinner....

Finally some time at home

I had a short trip to Adelaide this week, which is ending in some welcome time at home for the first time in a little over 3 weeks. I've got 6 days in a row in Brisbane which hasn't happened since at least Christmas and some time in June before that. As a result I've tried to cram about 6 weeks worth of catch up in one weekend so there isn't going to be too much time for relaxing but it will be great to see everyone.

There have been a few more HD DVD sales this week, not least of all the EzyDVD beat the bomb sale this week which saw a few more titles make their way into my collection.

I've still be on the look out for a new DS but I haven't really made many inroads. There are a few new colours around Japan and the US that I'd like to get my hands on but none of them have turned up here. In fact most places here have been sold out (or offering pink models).

Back on the Adelaide trip for a bit, last night I went out for dinner and stumbled across a noodle
place that would do traditional Malay or Thai dishes with Kangaroo meat. I was determined to have something with the 'Roo so I asked for a recommended style. They came back with the Mango Coconut and it was fantastic. I'd never thought of having Kangaroo in a stirfry dish but it was great.

Another wet day in Sydney

Today has been a horribly wet day in Sydney. I got completely soaked on the way home. The whole place is a wet shade of grey. The wind is really strong as well it's been blowing so hard the whole balcony of the apartment is soaked.

The weather was particularly bad at lunch. Everyone was trying to keep out of the rain so the cafe's in the building were packed and out of food, without an umbrella I resorted to the vending machine in the office. Fortunately tonight I didn't have to venture too far to get some good Thai food.

The weekend was great, I made it back for some of the 20/20 cricket although the match was all but over by the end of the Indian innings. I headed to Freestyle to meet Ness at the tail end of a birthday party.

Saturday Dad and I headed to the Motorshow. There weren't a few missing big names like Porsche and Lambo. Still a good show lots of nice car. Also ran into Mick and Brad while they were waiting for Craig Lowndes to sign autographs at the Ford stand.

Saturday night Ness and I had a night out to Tonic and to watch Juno. Tonic was ok, the food was really good but the service (for the price) was very ordinary. Juno was a good movie and even though I didn't have the same wait to see it as Mandy it's definately worth seeing.

Sunday a few people came over for lunch and some Wii time. A great lunch, both thanks to Ness's great Spanish style food and some of the best Wii Tennis points ever. Tom took some great shots of the Wii Zapper action and the lunch.

This week has it's another week in Sydney but I'm going to be back in time on Friday to head to the A League Semi final.

Oh and in some tech news I put a Dual Format High Def player on hold with the idea of jumping into the next gen HD media format war without picking a side. The other advantage is that I can take advantage of some other big sales at Amazon, probably more news on that to come soon.

Monday.... and back to the airport...

The trend continues and I'm back at the airport this morning ready for another trip to Townsville. It's not too bad this week because Suse will be up there for the same time as I will so there will be someone to catch up with for dinner.

Weekend Overview
We seemed to have a busier than normal weekend, first off we started trialling some grocery deliveries. Ness discovered a place called My Fruit which does a Fruit and Veg box delivered right to your door.

The box looked great and all the fruit looked great so I was a little inspired to do some juicing on Saturday morning. I thought I try for a combination with a bit of raspberry in it but it didn't turn out quite as I planned.
The juice itself was fine and quite tasty, but it wasn't so good for the juicer. The result of the berries in the juicer was something a little like blending a small mammal. The berries also don't juice so well, I think for the next run we will definately be squeezing the juice out of the berries separately.

We also manage to fit in a little bit of shopping on the weekend. We have some people coming to stay in the near future and the Desk Bed isn't going to really fit 2 people for a couple of weeks. After seeing some adds for these air beds on the web (and last week on the TV) we ventured to find one... A little (very little) haggling and a bit of a discount later we had the bed... The only real problem is that big boxes (like those of a queen sized air bed) don't fit in MX5s..


The other big event on the weekend was a huge session on the Wii with Mario Galaxy. I haven't picked up the game yet but someone come over on Saturday with their copy and 5 hours and 14 stars later we were still playing... I can see why all the reviewers are raving about it. The added 2 player function means that it's no longer a spectator sport if you're not controlling the little guy in blue and red. Playing one star each while the other plays the 2nd player support is great fun and the graphics are just gorgeous (even on the 100" screen). If you were having second thoughs about it... you should buy it today! I think it will need a few more sessions over the Christmas break so I'll be grabbing a copy as soon as I stop travelling.

That's about it for the weekend and my flight is about to board so until Townsville.

The Greg Cooley Wine Tasting Lunch

Just a short follow up post to add the photos of the great food.
Entree - Sand Crab on Green Tea noodles (I didn't eat this one)
2nd Course - Goat's Cheese and Beetroot stack
3rd Course - Pork Belly
4th Course - Wagyu

Yet another Monday Breakfast at the airport....

In what is becoming an all too familiar Monday morning ritual, I'm having breakfast in the Virgin Blue Lounge again. On a bright note on the travel though I have almost enough points to get to the UK and back.

After planning on having a quite weekend together with all the travelling we only managed it a little on Friday and Sunday.

Friday night we tried out a new local Red Room DVD store, someone had recommended. I've never been big on hiring DVDs usually preferring to buy most of the title that I like. We were only looking for a trashy movie experience so it seemed the perfect time to try it out. It's a pretty impressive system allowing you to reserve titles from there web as well as instore and all the titles are held in a storage system saving the endless walk up and down shelves. They also charge based on how long you have the title so if you can get it back in 6 hours it's only about $3, you can even opt to keep the title... for a fee of course.

Saturday was a bit of a marathon of eating with morning tea, followed by a Wine lunch at Bespoke and then an Election BBQ at Mandy's.

Lunch was fantastic. The event was for Greg Cooley Wines and was a matched degustation menu. Probably the longest lunch I've been to in a while, which we skipped out early at 5pm, with just enough time for us to make it to the polling booths before heading to the BBQ. In what was slightly unexpected for a young wine maker the Reds were much more impressive than their white selection but we still managed to leave without any! I took some photos of the meals but I have yet to upload them so you'll have to wait.

Yesterday, after singing in the morning, Ness pottered around the house and I finished off some work I didn't get around to on Friday.

This morning I'm off to Sydney (and delayed 20 mins already due to traffic control) but a relatively short trip with only 2 nights before I'm heading back.

Europe Photos, some more

I've started uploading the photos I took on my real camera while we were overseas.

Holiday Post Cards

I've called the album Postcards from Europe and I'm including all the big attraction photos of the trip. One of the best things about the upload is there is a new feature from Blogger allowing you to put the photos in a slideshow in the blog (I'm going to leave all the camera phone photos up as well). As a result I've done a bit of a redesign of the layout of the blog... There's still a bit of work to do but I figure there will be a bit of time to play around while I'm in Townsville this week. I don't have many more photos but there will probably be some more changes to the blog.

Speaking of Townsville, for dinner tonight we went to the Watermark Restaurant on the The Stand and they had the most fantastic Orange and Chocolate Brulee for desert. If you're in Townsville it's worth a look.

A little of (GF) Spain in Sydney

First of all I'm going to make an effort to do a few more posts.... Last night, however, I went out to dinner with a Vendor and they took us to a Spanish Restaurant on Oxford st called Raquels Spanish Kitchen. The food was fantastic, but the most impressive thing was the service. We had a largish table and ordered the Banquet. The thing that really surprised me was they asked if anyone needed specially dietary requirements. Normally in big groups like that I just steer clear of anything that might be risky, after telling them I was both Seafood and Gluten Free they not only brought out special meals just for my needs (included as part of the banquet) they also went to great lengths to ensure that the rest of the food was not placed too close to my food and told me which dish I could and couldn't eat.

It was a level of service for dietary requirements I've never seen before (even in restaurants that are big on Gluten Free menus). To top it off the food was great and it was the best Patatas Bravas I've had since we were at the Taxidermista in Barcelona. The food was quite authentic and there quantities were well and truly more than any of us could eat... We were all completely full even before the Paella came out.

I would definitely head there if you were looking for some nice Spanish cuisine