Baking Brad Episode 34

This is episode thirty four - choc-mallow jelly slice.

Recipe

• From Super Food Ideas magazine

Good

• All the layers stayed intact and separate from each other
• Four layers - a new record

Bad

• Jelly is alright but not great
• Lots of refrigeration time
• The marshmallow burnt a little, even with low heat

Ratings

• The Cook - 6/10
• The Taste - 6/10

The bottom two layers ingredients.

The third layer ingredients.

Choc-mallow jelly slice.

Baking Brad Episode 33

This is episode thirty three - chocolate scones.

Recipe

• From 1001 Cupcakes Cookies And Other Tempting Treats

Good

• Easy to make
• Great when microwaved

Bad

• Mixing the butter and flour by hand again
• The recipe only made nine scones

Ratings

• The Cook - 9/10
• The Taste - 8/10

The ingredients.

Chocolate scones.

Wangaratta 2014, February 23 (Day Of The Ned)

Sunday started early at 6:30am to have enough time to be ready for the 7:30am race start. I clearly hadn't kept my fluids up the previous day, as I woke up looking and feeling very dehydrated - and the previous days pizza wasn't even salty. I'd also been dealing with the incredibly annoying leg discomfort / restless / soreness thing since about Wednesday, which I haven't really had any issues with in the last six months, so it was a big worry if that problem is about to come back too.

Putting all of my depressing physical state aside we jogged off to the race start, which was about 2km from the motel, and made it with a bit of time to spare. Strangely there didn't seem to be a timing mat at the start line, only the finish, which I have never seen before - how would they know when you actually crossed the start line with respect to the official start? I think the answer is they don't.

I tried not to go out quite as hard as usual in the first kilometre since this was a slightly longer race than the others I've done in the past few months, this meant I was running down in around 30th after the first few hundred metres and just ahead of Jason who seemed to have employed a similar strategy. Within the first kilometre we had pegged back a few and by the first turnaround point I was able to count 23 people ahead of us. This was a few more than I hoped for, and we also weren't making up a lot of ground on the people ahead, but you can only run your own race - I knew I wasn't a chance of a top three or even a top ten finish really.

After the turnaround I caught a few more people before the 6km mark, but there didn't seem to be anyone else up ahead except for a few marathon runners that you could easily identify by their (understandably) much slower speed. So the final 4km I was left mostly to run my own race with Jason hanging right behind. After the 9km mark we finally started to close in on another runner, I was planning to make a dash past him up the last small hill only for some idiot cyclist to fall off his bike up the narrow hill, causing everyone to slow down to get around his bike and the others runners coming back the other way. I did my best to chase him down anyway, but he had enough left to stay ahead. My final position was technically equal 18th since they did not use milliseconds for the timing, but I really came 19th. Jason was a few seconds back in 20th.

The final time was 10km in 38 minutes and 17 seconds, a new personal best for that distance I think.

The finishers medal. Everyone's a winner !

With the race over it was another jog back to the motel before packing up and getting back in the car. We stopped off again at Glenrowan to see if there was actually anything we missed the day before - turns out, not really. However I did manage to buy a Ned Kelly magnet which almost makes up for missing out on one in Wangaratta.

Old police shop.

Old blacksmith shop.

Neddy again.

I managed to drive as far as Wallan without too much discomfort, before a quick stop and driver change again for the final half hour into metropolitan Melbourne.

Overall it was a good event and was worth attending once. Since Wangaratta didn't have much to see and do I don't think I will feel the need to go back again next year, instead I'd want to try some other events and towns instead.

Wangaratta 2014, February 22 (110%)

The long drive to Wangaratta started at 10am on Saturday morning, and it wasn't too long before I was glad to find out the whole way would be 110km/h on the freeway. By contrast the trip to Echuca was almost always limited at a pedestrian 100km/h and down to 60km/h when passing through several towns. So the 110 speed limit was a bonus but the endless driving with no change in scenery and no towns to pass through eventually became a bit of a bore, particularly when the FM radio dropped out 75km out of Melbourne.

It took about two and a half hours to reach Benalla, I'd been driving non-stop so I decided to pull in for a break in the last big town before Wangaratta. Benalla seemed quite alright, they have lakes and gardens as you drive into the city centre, which like everywhere else is pretty much limited to just the one street. Walking down the main street there was a few bakeries but they didn't seem to have much supply left, and the Subway had a queue of about fifty people in it, so I decided instead to just push on another twenty minutes to Glenrowan and switched into the passenger seat as well.

Glenrowan was smaller and more dead than I expected, I figured since it is the famous Ned Kelly town there might be a few interested tourists around, but given that it's two and a half hours out of Melbourne, maybe not. The day was already starting to get much hotter than was forecast, so instead of spending too much time exploring we stopped in at the creatively named Ned's Burger House for some lunch.

Neddy.

After a tasty meal it was back on the road for just another fifteen minutes into Wangaratta. The town seemed quite similar to Echuca with the range of big car dealerships and hardware stores as you head into the town, before reaching the once again typical main street. I'd remembered to research directions to the motel this time (the Melways is not a Vicways sadly) so it was easy to find it just off the main street. During check-in I noticed a lot of admin staff for the Collingwood football club including none other than two-time Brownlow medal winner Robert Harvey walking through the motel car park. This means either:

1. The motel was so great even former AFL stars stay there
2. There isn't that much accomodation in Wangaratta

I was pretty exhausted after the long drive so took a quick rest while unpacking and flicking through the TV channels - they had about six Austar channels including all of the Fox Sports but sadly no ESPN :(

Wangaratta doesn't seem to have a lot of tourist activities, so I hadn't made any big plans for the afternoon, in part also due to wanting to conserve energy for the big race the next morning. We spent some time looking around town and discovered three things:

1. There are heaps of cafe bakeries
2. There are even more pizza restaurants
3. There are no magnets

Well maybe there were magnets, but half of the shops in town had already closed down for the day by 2pm on a Saturday. Before long the other end of town had arrived, which is marked by the Ovens River, also known as the poor mans Murray River. There is a nice shaded walkway that runs along the river and it seemed like it would be a relaxing place to spend an afternoon, I suppose.

The world famous Ovens River. I did not take many photos...

With that out of the way it was off to the footy for the afternoon. Coincidentally there was an AFL preseason match with Collingwood vs. Richmond the day before the race. We got there about an hour before kickoff which normally would be plenty of time to get a good seat, but the locals must have been aware of the lack of seating and turned up even earlier than that. There is a small ridge that surrounds the oval which is good for a few rows of people to sit on, but most of that was taken already, particlarly anywhere that had some shade.

I was still pretty exhausted so had a short rest in the shade before the game started. We managed to find a decent spot to watch from, but:

1. It was directly in the sun
2. I didn't bring a hat
3. There was a whole lot of sun glare

So these things combined made it a little hard to watch the game, but luckily we had sunscreen at least. Surprisingly most of the senior players were in the game too, such as Pendlebury & Swan for Collingwood and Cotchin & Deledio for Richmond. The key forwards Cloke and Riewoldt seemed to be too important to risk though. The game was alright, but because of the difficulties imposed by the sun we left before the end. My highlight was when Tyrone Vickery got punched in the face right in front of us while going for a mark and didn't even get a free kick.

For dinner I think there was a choice of:

1. Pizza
2. More pizza
3. Kebabs
4. Fish & Chips
5. Even more pizza

We went with pizza which is a pretty good choice for energy before a big race - at least it hasn't let me down so far. I was keen to watch the hour recap of Roy & HG's Russian Revolution but it was pretty poor. The Melbourne Victory vs Adelaide FC game was on at the same time on one of the Fox Sports channels, it ended with a dramatic 4:3 scoreline but I managed to miss all but the last goal while switching between channels.

Baking Brad Episode 32

This is episode thirty two - marshmallow slice.

Recipe

• Link

Good

• Chewy marshmallow and hard chocolate was strange at first but quite addictive

Bad

• The main supermarkets still only sell mixed marshmallow
• The surface layer looked pretty amateurish

Ratings

• The Cook - 7/10
• The Taste - 8/10

Bottom layer ingredients.

Top layer ingredients.

Marshmallow slice.

2013 Running Review

This is a list of the major running events I participated in during the year. I also entered some smaller fun runs such as those hosted by Coburg Athletics, Sri Chinmoy and VRR which are not included here.

• March 10
• Albert Park - Grand Prix Run
• 10km @ 43:21 (13.84 km/h)
• March 24
• Run For The Kids
• 15km @ 64:58 (13.85 km/h)
• April 21
• Albert Park - Angela Taylor (Victoria Road Runners)
• 10km @ 41:03 (14.61 km/h)
• May 05
• Puffing Billy
• 13.2km @ 54:38 (14.49 km/h)
• July 21
• Run Melbourne
• 21.1km @ 90:01 (14.06 km/h)
• September 14
• Yarra Valley Grape Run
• 13.5km @ 54:13 (14.94 km/h)
• October 13
• Melbourne Marathon
• 21.1km @ 86:46 (14.59 km/h)
• October 20
• Echuca Sweat vs Steam
• 12.5km @ 48:39 (15.41 km/h)
• October 27
• Hurstbridge Fun Run
• 6km @ 23:41 (15.20 km/h)
• November 17
• City 2 Sea
• 14km @ 54:47 (15.33 km/h)
• December 11
• Albert Park - Emma & Tom's Christmas Run
• 5km @ 19:03 (15.74 km/h)

The distance and time may not always be 100% accurate, but they are pretty close. Running semi-seriously for about nine months (and staying relatively injury free) I have managed to increase from about 14km/h to a little over 15km/h. That is roughly going from 4:15 per kilometre to maybe 3:55 per kilometre at best.

If I could get down to around 3:45 per kilometre for a 10-15km race distance this year I would be quite pleased.

Baking Brad Episode 31

This is episode thirty one - triple decker fudge slice.

Recipe

• From Homestyle Cookies Muffins & Cakes

Good

• Great combination of taste from the layers
• Hiding the top layer deficiencies with icing sugar

Bad

• The top brownie layer cracked like the double chocolate brownies, but maybe it's normal

Ratings

• The Cook - 8/10
• The Taste - 10/10

Bottom layer ingredients.

Middle layer ingredients.

Top layer ingredients.

Triple decker fudge slice.

January Review

This is my first attempt at a monthly review. I already know that I'm generally wasting away the days (and months) but now I will have hard evidence of it.

The year started off on a high note due to having bonus paid holidays from December 25 right through to January 1 thanks to some old bargaining agreement with the university staff union I suppose. Starting the working week on a Thursday is always great, but particularly because not many other people bothered to turn up. Getting back into the rhythm of a five day week afterwards was a little bit harder to deal with...

The only downside of having so much time off was that I did a lot of running, too much in fact, and picked up a right hip injury and left hamstring injury at the same time. The left hamstring has been particularly frustrating because it refuses to get better, and I seem to keep aggravating it just by sitting in a computer desk chair at work or at home. It still hasn't really got any better going into February yet.

Throughout January the trains were not running between Ringwood and Blackburn so that the train line could be moved underneath the road (at last). Thankfully it only lasted for three weeks, and even though it was only two stops closer to work, I already started getting used to spending a little bit less time on the train. This just serves as more motivation to move closer to the city this year (or next).

I had to do my second on-call shift for work early in the month, this time during the week instead of over the weekend. Everything was going well until Wednesday morning at 2:30am when I got a text message on the on-call mobile phone saying that logging in to one of the servers had failed. I had to get up, turn on the computer, connect to VPN and run through the on-call guide just to find out that it was a false alarm. It took me 2-3 hours to get back to sleep afterwards. On Wednesday night the same thing happened, first a false alarm from a different server at 10:00pm and then the same false alarm as the previous night at 2:30am again. I got paid about $400 after tax for the week of being on-call and the couple of hours of actual work I had to do, but I'm not sure if it's worth it if I'm going to be woken up in the middle of the night that often...

Despite just having a mini holiday (at home) in December, I was already keen to get planning my next holiday, and I have managed to organise and pay for a short trip from March 7 to March 16. More on that in the coming months...

In the middle of the month we encountered a crazy heatwave with four days in a row of 40 degrees or more. The beginning of this coincided with me picking up a cold, not sure how that it possible. Once I had worked through that illness I was ready to tackle the heat with a lunch run of Thursday and Friday, approximately 44 degrees each day. On Thursday I took on two laps of The Tan and Friday I was up around Princes Park. The first day went alright, but the second day in a row really took a toll, and I was close to total heat meltdown on the way back to work, I had to stop every couple of minutes to get some energy back, and there was no drink taps around the city to help either. As an example of the amount of fluid I lost, after one run I had a 500ml Mother energy drink, followed by a 600ml plain milk and 500ml of water, and I was still thirsty. My weight from the Thursday morning to Friday dropped from 72.4 kilograms to 69.6 kilograms.

The Australian Open tennis ran through January, despite the heatwaves, as did the Big Bash cricket. I found that I really don't have the attention span to spend much time watching either, I tend to get bored within half an hour usually unless something particularly dramatic is happening.

One sport that I can still watch is the National Football League. I arranged a "work" from home day to watch the NFL Conference Finals - Denver vs. New England and Seattle vs. San Francisco. Both games were alright, although I knew New England didn't have much chance and that game was over well before the final quarter.

The Big Day Out lineup for 2014 was quite poor, but there was a couple of good sideshows that I attended. On the Wednesday before the festival was Arcade Fire at the Music Bowl. This was running the same time as the second week of the Australian Open, so traffic and parking was a bit of an issue but we got there before the start although we were right up the back of the hill. The setlist was good although I would have preferred a few more tracks from the first two albums. They also came out on stage a couple of times with these big heads on which was pretty cool.

The Thursday right after was Grouplove supported by CSS at the Hi-Fi Bar. CSS were quite underwhelming and didn't seem to have their usual energy, perhaps because they were only the support band. Grouplove made up for it though, with a very good and exciting set. I hadn't heard of Grouplove before this tour so it was a good find too.

The weekend that followed was the Australia Day weekend, which of course means the annual Triple J Hottest 100 barbecue, this time hosted at Daren's new house in Prahran. I looked up the projected top twenty beforehand and I didn't mind most of the songs too much, definitely was better than the last couple of years. A few in particular I liked:

• Lorde - Royals
• Daft Punk - Get Lucky
• Arctic Monkeys - Do I Wanna Know
• The Preatures - Is This How You Feel
• London Grammar - Strong
• Arcade Fire - Reflektor
• Birds Of Tokyo - Lanterns

I spent a bit of time finally finishing off Grand Theft Auto V, I wanted to get the (pointless) achievement of 70 gold medal missions in single player. A lot of the missions weren't too hard to replay and get gold, but the loading time is horrendously slow, it really ruins the game. I was also having a bit of fun going around in online mode again, but my Xbox Live Gold membership has just run out, so I'll have to decide if I want to subscribe to that again. Next I will probably go back to Grand Theft Auto IV briefly to finish off The Ballad Of Gay Tony and maybe a few achievements from the main game and other expansion too.

2014 Goals

I recently reviewed (made up) my 2013 goals after the fact, whereas this is an initial list of goals that is subject to change during the year.

• Finance
• Car
• My Mitsubishi Lancer that I purchased around 2003-04 is getting a little old now, so I would like to replace it with something a little more modern and powerful. I hardly drive my car though, so I cannot really justify a significant upgrade, but I may see if I can find something good for a reasonable price later in the year.
• Job
• My job isn't perfect but it's alright, and I've only been at it for eleven months, so I don't see any need to change right now, unless a great opportunity turns up somewhere, the dream would be to have a job in the USA of course.
• I am trying to build a slightly better "online identity" than what I currently have (nothing). I have already started with a few contributions to Stack Overflow and I will also try to start up a small software development blog with various tips and tricks I come across during my work. Finally, I need to make sure my Linked In profile and resume are kept up to date throughout the year.
• Investment
• Now that the home loan is paid off I plan to save up a little bit of money before deciding what to do next. If the housing market wasn't such a disaster I would be looking at a rental property, but the numbers would have to make sense. If this plan doesn't eventuate just yet, I will probably look at some investments in shares.
• Super Annuation
• Also now that the home loan is paid off, I should start putting some extra money into super like I was doing at my previous job. Probably something in the 3-5% range would be good.
• Health & Fitness
• Half Marathon
• I think my body is probably too broken down to attempt a marathon this year (and perhaps ever), but I think I should be good to register for at least one half marathon and try to set a new personal best. One or more events in NSW or Queensland would be great too, possibly as part of this goal or a separate one.
• Triathlon
• This is a bit of an unrealistic goal perhaps, but I would like to try to do a small and full triathlon at some stage. The logistics of competing in a triathlon are much more complicated than running (plus I don't even own a bike) and I would also need to become much better at swimming before contemplating this. I may move this goal into 2015 instead...
• Other
• Blogging
• I just don't have the time (or an interesting lifestyle) to do regular blogging, but I will try to update with at least a few topics:
• Cooking
• Holidays
• Monthly reviews
• Running
• Sports
• I also would really like to go back over my 2003-13 emails and see what summaries I can make of it.
• Residence
• I would like to investigate the possibility of living much closer to work (to the city). I am not sure what form this will take yet, it could be (1) renting a small unit or apartment somewhere or (2) buying a second property and renting the Mitcham townhouse.
• Study
• I will try to keep up my record of completing one certification per year.
• UK Passport
• I think I am eligible to apply for a UK passport. The process so far sounds extremely complicated, but I would like to make an attempt at it, even if I haven't decide if I would use it for future job possibilities or just for holidays.
• Recreation
• Cooking
• Nothing new here really, just keep trying to improve and try new things. I finally discovered a good method for cooking nachos!
• Holiday
• I have already started planning a short nine day holiday for March, but I also want to take a longer holiday to escape some of the terrible winter weather. Since I will almost be back to zero days of annual leave in March I think it will be a 2-3 week holiday in Asia (and perhaps Dubai as well).
• Reading
• Nothing new here either, just continue to read books that I enjoy.
• Video Games
• And nothing new here either, just try to find some time for video games every now and then.

2013 Goals

Ideally I would have written this somewhere around January 1 2013 instead of February 1 2014, but here we are...

I don't really subscribe to setting new year's resolutions, but I don't hate people who make them either. I see resolutions usually as a list of things to change, whereas I usually set out to achieve some broader goals, which you may consider the same thing or totally different. With that said, I didn't really consciously set myself any goals for 2013, or if I did I certainly don't remember them now, but I do know that I introduced some goals during the year, and so I will use them as the basis for this review.

• Finance
• Home Loan
• I did not initially have a goal to pay off the home loan by the end of the year, but with the payout that Jason and I each got for changing jobs (voluntarily or otherwise) during the year, it became a goal by the middle of the year. The last payment was made in the middle of December and a week later the home loan account disappeared from my online banking. So long, farewell.
• Job
• I was getting pretty sick of my job and intended to once and for all make a change. As it turned out I just missed out on the chance to get a redundancy (although I may have been one of the unlucky few to be kept on without a say in the matter) but I had another job to walk straight into (actually I had three to choose from at the same time after spending a few months looking without much success). So I finished up my old job after about nine years and eight months and started my new job at the university on March 15. A few months later I even got a bonus payment for a software patent that we submitted before leaving, I had completely forgotten about it.
• Health & Fitness
• Running
• I plan to write another article soon which lists the running events I have participated in over the past year, plus there is a running page that lists some of my all-time records. I've gone from occasional to regular runner without any debilitating injuries so far (just the ongoing and never ending left calf and knee problems, but I've pretty much given up on those). I can now run under 4 minutes per kilometre for 10 kilometres or more, which was a nice round number to get to, 3 minutes per kilometre is of course impossible unless you're an olympic athlete, so 3:45 and 3:30 would still be very difficult, but not impossible to achieve in time.
• Weight Loss
• I had the very stereotypical goal in 2013 (actually since December 2012) to try and lose weight, since I was up around 86 kilograms. Since I was quite poor at eating less, most of my opportunity for losing weight came from extra exercise, in particular running at lunch time during the week and then some races on the weekend. I started the year at 84 kilograms and ended at 71 kilograms. Now I would be able to just control my wait at or below 70 kilograms without having to worry too much about my eating habits - by doing enough exercise to take care of it.
• Other
• Study
• My goal in the past years has been the same, try and complete one certification course each year. This year it was going to be the Java Web Services exam, but being busy with the change of jobs I didn't get around to it. No matter though, as I had to attend a four day course for ITIL which ends with an exam and certification. The exam was a breeze, I think I got two incorrect answers for a total of 95 percent.
• Recreation
• Cooking
• I've been cooking my own vegetarian dinners for years now, but in 2013 I discovered a bit of an interest in baking as well. It's fun to learn a few new cooking skills and as a bonus you have something sweet and tasty to eat at the end. The bakery tag lists all of the things I have baked.
• Holiday
• I don't know what the hell I was doing or thinking between 2003 and 2008 (the first six years I was in full time employment) but I never went on an international holiday for this entire period (excluding a one week work trip to Hyderabad in India). I guess I was desperately saving money to pay off my HECS debt, buy a car and then try to get a good deposit for a house (in an increasingly more expensive housing market no less). I will try to look through my old emails and stuff some time to try to piece together what I was doing between say 2003 and 2012, but that's a different story. Despite changing jobs, I was just able to squeeze in a good international holiday. I opted for South East Asia for a couple of reasons: (1) it was much closer, meaning a much shorter (and less painful) plane trip and (2) it didn't require as much time off, and I only had two weeks of annual leave. A full review of my holiday is available from this Asia Holiday 2013 index page.
• Music
• I've had a separate music page going for some time now. Stupidly I never put any dates against the bands, so I can't go back and see how many bands I went to see last year. I try to see at least five good bands a year, but I don't get much time to listen to new music right now, so I've probably missed a lot of opportunities too. The bands I can remember seeing in 2013 includes:
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
• Crystal Castles
• Franz Ferdinand
• Metallica 
• Metric
• Muse
• Reading
• I purchased a cheap model Kobo e-book reader during the year. Prior to that, I don't think I'd read more than five or ten books combined over the past several years. So my travel to work and back is now either listening to music (or ESPN podcasts), reading books on the reader or catching up on sleep...in particular I got stuck on the extended version of The Stand for months it felt like, I've started listing all of the books I've read (or can remember reading) on a separate books page.
• Video Games
• I still just play video games at an irregular rate. I've probably got about twenty good quality Xbox 360 games I haven't even started yet. The only game I really dedicated a good amount of time to in 2013 was Grand Theft Auto V. I don't have a goal to play more video games, just be able to have a bit of time to relax and play some games from time to time. I compiled a list of my gaming history from 2007 to 2013.