Baking Brad Episode 69

This is episode sixty nine - chocolate oat bars.

Recipe

• Link

Good

• Chewy oats
• Pre-cooked mixture was great

Bad

• Hadn't finished cooling when I needed to cut it into pieces
• Needed a shallower tin

Ratings

• The Cook - 7/10
• The Taste - 8/10

Bottom layer ingredients.

Top layer ingredients.

Chocolate oat bars.

Apollo Bay 2015, May 17 (Road Rules)

In no time at all it was 5:30am and already time to check-out and get ready for the big race. I had a couple of muesli bars for a quick breakfast, then stepped outside into total darkness and extreme cold. After driving down to Apollo Bay I parked the car for the morning and got in line for the buses back up the coast to the start line - since the road is closed to other traffic for most of the day.

I had a bit of an upset stomach since lunch the previous day which kept going through the night, and was made even worse by a bumpy ride on a bus, which was quite a concern. I'm not sure why we had to arrive so early, but the buses got us to the start at 6:50am when the race didn't start until 8:00am. The temperature had increased a little since the sun had come up, so it wasn't a total disaster to stand around in the cold until 7:30am.

After saying goodbye to a warm jumper at the clothes truck and doing a warm up run it was time for the race to start. In most races people queue up for the start by joining the existing line from the back, but here they did the opposite which meant I was further back than I wanted to be for the beginning. I wasted a couple of minutes getting past stupid people that had no reason to be near the front, but then it was all good.

After a couple of kilometres up and down the biggest hill of the day came from 3-5km. I actually thought there was a bigger hill still to come between 6-9km after driving the course the previous day, but I must have confused myself regarding where the start line was, as no more hills ever came after that point. Having lost some time at the start I ran a bit faster than I had planned to catch up, I passed Jason after about 4km since he was also just running the event at a conservative pace instead of trying to set a personal best.

Between the road, the ocean and passing other competitors there was plenty of distractions from the running itself, but after about 13km I started to run out of people to catch. There was a big pack of about ten more but I was only running slightly faster than them, so the race started to become a bit of a grind and my body started to break down at the 17km mark. I kept going with a bit of difficulty, but I overtook most of the group up ahead at about 20km and passed the hotel which gave me a bit of momentum again, with the end not far away.

A couple of people sprinted past me at the official half marathon timing mat, for no good reason, but I was able to outlast them to the line in the final two kilometres to finish with a time of 1:35:05 and 61st overall out of about 2500. Jason had started running faster behind me as well, as he came in less than two minutes later. Another highlight for the trip was seeing Steve Moneghetti on the way back to the car!

Because we were one of the first finishers we were lucky to get into the 40km/h escort back to Skenes Creek with no wait at all, then had to detour inland to get all the way back to Geelong. The route wasn't really too much longer, there was still lots of slow bends in the road, but there was a few more straight sections as well. Driving through the forest was a fun experience too, with the sunlight occasionally breaking through the trees in a sharp beam of light, although sometimes it made the corners a little hard to spot.

I stopped off again in Geelong for lunch again, this time at a burger place which was quite good. My leg was killing from sitting down for so long straight after the run, so it was good to just get up and walk around for a bit. I gave the driving over to Jason for the final section home, only he thought it would be a good idea to take the West Gate Bridge route instead, only to land in the middle of AFL and A-League traffic, plus all the other jerks who drive around South Yarra on the weekends.

Burger time.

So that was it, a good trip, it just might have been better with a little bit more time to spend along the way next time.

Magnet and medal.

Apollo Bay 2015, May 16 (The Great OC)

At about 11am on Saturday it was time to see if the old Mitsubishi Lancer could survive a trip along the Surf Coast. I opted for the Western Ring Road rather than West Gate Freeway, about ten kilometres extra but avoiding any Saturday traffic around the city. After about an hour and a half we'd made it to Geelong without any trouble, and the first highlight of the day was seeing the basketball stadium where the Geelong Supercats play - they still exist!

Continuing on into the city centre there was no parking anywhere, but after doing a couple of laps I got lucky with a prime spot right on Eastern Beach as someone was leaving. We stopped in to the Town And Country Pizza restaurant for lunch, which was funny because a local place in Mitcham that operates under a different name uses their pizza boxes for some reason - maybe cardboard is cheaper in Geelong. After lunch there was time for a quick lap along the waterfront, past Cunningham Pier and some of the bollards trail which seems to be famous - even people on instagram have heard of them.

Geelong.

After getting some snacks at the local Westfield it was back on the road and past another famous landmark, Kardinia Park, or whatever they call it now. I was quite surprised by how big the Geelong city centre was, definitely a worthy poor man's Melbourne if you had to live there, it exceeded my expectations and I wouldn't mind going back again with a bit more time to spend. Soon we made it to nearby Torquay, there was a bunch of surf shops right alongside the highway which seemed worth stopping for:

• Billabong - had expensive stuff
• Quiksilver - had relocated somewhere
• Rip Curl - had even more expensive stuff, like $120 for board shorts!

Back into the car again, I realised the highway didn't go through the actual city centre, but I figured I might come back through Torquay again tomorrow instead. Soon the actual Great Ocean Road began, which was exciting and scenic in about equal amounts. The road was pretty straight until about Anglesea, but then it was all bends and windy roads which slowed things down a lot. I didn't stop at Lorne either, but got to pass through the city centre at least, which was really just a main street.

I think it was after Lorne that the road went inland for a while, then back to the coast before the final 23 kilometres from Kennett River to Apollo Bay finally arrived - a preview of the entire route for tomorrow's Great Ocean Road "half marathon" - since an official half marathon is a shorter 21.1 kilometres. I was a bit worried at the start with some tough looking hills, but it turned out to be limited to the first half of the race, the rest was casual downhill and a lot of flat road.

The hotel was a couple of kilometres before Apollo Bay, so we checked in quickly and went in to check out the town. Again the city centre was one main street, but there was lots of runners out and about stocking up on supplies for the night - no surprise that the sports drinks section of the supermarkets was the first thing to sell out. There was even a newsagency selling magnets, and I managed to find a decent one.

Apollo Bay.

Then it was back to the hotel for the night, the location was great, right next to the ocean, the only downside was all of the TV channels except seven were a bit sketchy, but I needed an early night anyway.

Hotel view.

April Review

This is the slightly delayed April review, perhaps the most productive month so far...

After finally settling on a plan I went to Sydney for a three day holiday during Easter. The full report is over here.

I had a bad start with my running, tripping over while running downhill and landing hard on my arm and knee over the Easter weekend. I kept running for another fifteen kilometres afterwards, but my arm had gone numb and I couldn't lift it by about half way. I had serious pain in my arm for at least three weeks afterwards, but I didn't really miss out on training because of it. I also did my first interval sprint session in months, eight repeats of 600 metres. The same day my plantar fasciitis problem came back, for the first time in months, but it may have been because of a new pair of Nike Structure I had started wearing that are slighty too small.

Falling down.

I entered two races for the month, the first was the 7km Sri Chinmoy at Centennial Park that I already covered in the holiday report, and the second was the 10km Sri Chinmoy at Princes Park. The whole race was completed in pouring rain, I started out alright but after about four kilometres my shoes and socks were soaked and my feet were slipping about in my shoes, making running a little difficult. I died off after about six kilometres, and more so in the final two kilometres with the hills. Some jerk tried to sprint past me at the end but I managed to hold him off. The pancakes were quite disappointing compared to the big thick ones they served in Sydney, they were more like thin crepes this time. The final result was 38:58 and seventh overall.

Race kick off.

The AFL season is back underway and I attended the opening Thursday match between Carlton and Richmond, with a crowd of about 83,000. The first quarter was looking promising, then Carlton didn't score a goal for almost two quarters, so it's pretty clear they won't be any better this year. I was also considering going to Carlton vs. Essendon and possibly Carlton vs. Collingwood, but I made a good decision in both instances as the matches weren't even close. The NBA playoffs are also underway, but just prior to that I had a day working from home which coincided with the final day of the regular season - with lots of playoff positioning still up for grabs. Sadly every game that mattered was over by the end of the first quarter, and Oklahoma City missed the playoffs completely, but I've just about given up trying to support them since their move from Seattle, I may just have to wait for a new Sonics team instead.

AFL kick off.

I purchased the NBA League Pass to watch the playoffs which has been quite good. In addition to watching the end of a few live games over the weekend I've also been watching the last quarter of most games during the week too. The website is a little poor, but it is still possible to skip to the final quarter of the games and not have the scores spoilt.

The Fantasy NBA season concluded, and with a bit of luck I managed to win both the ESPN and Yahoo leagues I had entered. We also kicked off the Fantasy AFL league a bit late, missing the first three rounds but having a belated draft night with pizza that was a bit of fun - unfortunately the pizza turned up right as the draft was starting, which made things a little difficult.

At work I have been so busy I barely have time to think, as well as trying to juggle multiple projects and responsibilities. I like being challenged and working hard, but this is probably about to become a bit too much. We are in the middle of interviewing for a contract role, so that will either free up some of my time, or waste more of my time trying to bring someone up to speed and manage their problems - possibly the second option. I also got stuck helping out with a major incident when some database servers failed, which meant I didn't get a break for my lunchtime run until after 3:00pm - a new record.

Sadly I added no new baking projects for the month, I did repeat a couple of recipes but I don't count them. I expect to get back on track in May though.

I made some good progress on my to do list, which is now getting slightly smaller:

• Queens Birthday holiday
• I came up with a good plan for New Zealand that wasn't too costly
• I decided against it though, mostly due to the expected weather
• Might do it at the end of the year instead
• Europe holiday
• Only slight progress, need to get the basic plan worked out soon
• Everything depends on the release of the Premier League schedule, which isn't out for a while still
• Finally used up the rest of my movie and video game vouchers that were about to expire
• Organised tickets for the Comedy Festival
• Finished shares research...
• Purchased shares
• 8 companies with a total investment of about $62,000 - for now...
• Only a couple of risky ones, particularly a child care company
• House research
• Kind of given up for now since the prices and competition keeps increasing with no end in sight
• An identical house to ours in the same estate recently sold for $730,000
• We paid $575,000 about four years ago

I saw two acts at this year's Comedy Festival, the first was Lawrence Leung's "The Escapist". It was an hour show at the Trades Hall, most of the jokes and the presentation was enjoyable and well presented, I didn't really like some of the magic topics though, 8 out of 10 overall. The second was Tripod's "This Gaming Life" which only ran for two nights at Hamer Hall. I didn't find it very interesting, went for too long and there wasn't even any game music. Speaking of which, they announced a "Video Games Live" show which is run together with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and they play nothing by licensed game music...only it's on the same day as Manchester City vs. Real Madrid in July so I'm going to miss out!

So that's it for another month, except for the summary:

• Books
• Black House by Stephen King
• Captivating story
• Didn't really have the suspenseful ending that it was building up to
• Have to go back and read The Talisman now
• 7 out of 10
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
• Taking a break from Stephen King temporarily
• Very short, only 4.5 hours at most
• A few weird differences from the first season of the TV series
• 8 out of 10
• Movies
• Fast And Furious 7
• Too long, particularly several car or fight scenes
• Too many ridiculous plots that made no sense
• 5 out of 10
• Music
• None
• I did buy a ticket to see Jebediah in June though
• TV
• The Challenge Battle Of The Exes 2
• Great as always
• The exiled contestants got a second chance like Survivor
• I didn't really like that idea, was never that good in Survivor either
• 10 out of 10
• Video Games
• None
• I did buy several new games though!
• Batman Arkham Origins (360)
• Final Fantasy XIII Lightning Returns (360)
• Uncharted 2 (PS3)
• Uncharted 3 (PS3)
• The first EB Games had the box but not the game!
• Second time lucky...
• And a batch order from Oz Game Shop
• Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
• Gears Of War 3 (360)
• Metroid Other M (Wii)
• Ni no Kuni (PS3)
• Rage (360)
• Watch Dogs (360)
• Zelda Twilight Princess (Wii)

Baking Brad Episode 68

This is episode sixty eight - banana bread supreme.

Recipe

• Link

Good

• Golden syrup is much easier to use when not refrigerated
• Left over bananas put to good use
• Very easy to make

Bad

• Not sure it was supreme
• Taste could have been a bit stronger

Ratings

• The Cook - 9/10
• The Taste - 7/10

Ingredients.

Banana bread supreme.

Baking Brad Episode 67

This is episode sixty seven - choc chip fudge slice.

Recipe

• Link

Good

• Chewy off cuts
• Easy ingredients

Bad

• Chocolate bits didn't add much

Ratings

• The Cook - 8/10
• The Taste - 7/10

Some ingredients, missing a few.

Chop chip fudge slice.