dani - silli - tommy dinner: final judgement

based on a "esh glühweinstandl" meeting in last years december, dani, silli and me had a nice conversation about our cuisine, ending up in a variation of the famous "das perfekte promi-dinner" series on tv: "das dani - silli - tommy dinner".
making appointments not that easy, it took exactly a year to have all three of us cook for the others, including their partners of course. it was great fun and at least for me quite a challange to create a menu being worth of taking part in that competition.
U now might wanna know what i did:
cold italian antipasti as a starter
lamb-ginger-ravioli on brown butter
red-wine-roast with malfati
tiramisu

jsut wanna mention the personal highlights of the competitiors creations: silli made the best soup i ever had in my life: rieslingschaumsoup and dani's duck with the serviettenködel was the highlight of her dinner.

to sum it up: on the 13th of december we had the final judgement combined with a "mike-dinner", the master of all cooks. i dont wanna go in any details, it was just what we expected: the best of all - thats why he was not part of the competition ;) at least i had possibility to assist the master during preperation:



and in the end mike announced the results:
the winner is: silli, followed by myself and dani as a superb third place.

for 2009 the next competition is in preperation.

lebkuchenhaus (gingerbread house)

on the last weekend my wife eva and i have been very diligent and creative. we constructed a gingerbreadhouse. not just a simple one, we made some detailled plannes prior to cutting the elements and glueing them all together with evas patented heavy duty sugar glue ;)

check out the results in the following pics.

for all us windows user out there

the matrix runs on windows ;)

and by the way: today there will be a nice "welcome carneval" party in the it department. we already purchased some beer, wine and a lot of cakes, cookies and stuff to eat are expected to "attend".
so letz see what we can do...

surfin' around

hi ppl! today i am just surfing around in the web and i - do u have another chance? - also stopped by youtube.
when searching for the top austrian comedy movies "muttertag" and "indien" i occasionally found some very nice clips dealing with traffic.

so here we go:
why the hell do we need roundabouts if it could be so easy?
this one definitely is amazing

and i found one of my favorite cabaret scenes performed by lukas resetarits long time ago
feel free to post ur own favorites as comments to this entry

one night in eva hotel's t(h)ommy room

a bit later than thought we made it to cash our "1 night in the eva hotel - double room t(h)ommy" voucher we got from angie at our wedding to be used for our first aniversary. as we have been in france on that day, we postboned it a bit.
and as we know now, with a lot of advantages: the landscape looks great with the starting autumn and all the leaves getting colored yellow and red, and the weather was just gorgeous: blue sky and temperatures of 15C and more.
we were really getting hot on hiking up the alps and me getting a "nice" sunburn on the forehead and my nose ;)

and as usual i made a google map with all the important places and routes of this trip, which u can visit here.

besides of walking quite a lot (for our measurements ;)) we relaxed in the wellness area of the hotel and eva and me had a nice massage. a very nice dinner made the stay at the eva hotel quite a nice experience.

so, we both, eva and i, have to really really thank angie for this voucher!

the next day, after our second hiking experience, where we nearly passed the border between salzburg and tirol - if i would have know before we definitely would have proceeded the last mile - we visited zell am see for a small walk at the lake, watching some psychotic birds and having a nice cake and cafe.

so another great, relaxing weekend with eva reached its end.
i really have to look forward saving more time for that kind of adventures, its amazingly realxing and re-energizing to have no it equipment in reach.

ziemlich genial ;)

back from vacation

finally and unfortunately my vacation is now over and i am back in the office.... - no further comments.
but let me sum up the vacation in a few words.
after a very, very busy day in the office on 18.8. with a lot of meetings and even more tasks that have to be fulfilled before leaving, i was done at round 2230 at night with the jobs stuff and also with packing my things - quite too many as i know now. on tuesday, 19th, we started our trip a bit later than planned at 0830. arriving a bit late in st. raphael at 1930 we searched for a camping-place realizing, that most of them are just full. so we took the first free space we found for the first night.
next day we continued to the place we've been 5 years ago - YES i found it ;) - got a place and settled there.
being quite lazy we stayed exactly on that slot during the next 12 days until we started back home on 30.8.
to sum up the 12 days:

• lying in the sun on the campingplace's beach
• visiting st. tropez (by boat), marseilles, grasse, aix en provence
• driving round a lot (and a lot of traffic jams on the route nationale 98 = street directly on coastline)
• having a lot of fun with eva *gg*
• eating tons of baguettes, croissants, moule frites and not to forget all the crepes
  
• meeting a jellyfish in the sea *damn*
• went running in the morning for unbelieveable 4 times! (first time ever during a vacation ever)
• resetting the medion navi for more than 25 times (but it lead us there and back and inbetween)
• savoring 12 days of pure sun, no rain
• ...
  

i could continue for a long time now, but whoever wants to know more or see some pictures -> just ask.
eva started her new job on 1.9. and i continued my vacation at home with frequent visits of the family doctor due to some problems with my shoulder and lake plesching to gain some more sun. and, what news, i found out, that just not having to work is quite relaxing, even at home. only eva was missing to make it close to perfect.

es ist endlich soweit

ich habe soeben die letzten handgriffe angelegt und werde mich jetzt in den wooohhhhlverdienten urlaub begeben.
in gut 7h werden wir, sofern wir nicht verschlagen ;) , mit dem auto, wie es unser ursprungsplan eingentlich vorgesehen hat, richtung südfrankreich aufbrechen und lt. plan ca 10h nach abfahrt in st. raphael eintreffen. dort oder in der nähe werden wir dann unser zelt aufbauen und für ca 12 tage frankreich in vollen zügen geniessen... crepes, moule frite, fisch, meeresfrüchte,.... aja, und natürlich das meer!!

soferns mich freut, werd ich evtl anstelle der bekannten urlaubsmails ein bissl bloggen... aber eigenltich stell ich mir 12 tage ohne pc, internet und pixel grad recht schön vor....

also, man wird sehen!

on the road again

after days, weeks and months of just dreaming and hoping, finally the day came and i had time and the weather to ride my hornet again. this time i officially did not plan anything, so that the weather wouldnt change in the last seconds (like it did on tuesday) and kill my ambitions.

so i started at 845, headed for steyr where i met oliver with his duc 999. the trip wasnt exactly what i was planning in the beginning, but an overall of 470km was quite enough for a day and i got back home at round 1600. and for gods sake, my ass just hurt - i am not used to this "exercises" anymore. but i am really looking forward of doing some more trips this year.
at least for now i have more then 1000km for this season, beating the last years ;) - what an expenseful and inefficient hobby.

safe riding for all you out there!

ps: for all being interested, this was the aproximate route for the trip

a normal day?

not really, it was kind of special day, especially for my wife. she finally for gods sake got a positive reply to her application for a new job! congratulations! it really was time that she can quit her actual position and leave her fu**ing bastard colleague thinking to be her boss (which he definetely is NOT) rotting in his hole and searching for anotherone to tyrannize.
i wish u all the worst for the future, may your boss finally find out, that u just dont do anything dispite thinking being important!

oh happy day

what did i do next to just being happy with eva? in the evening i went playing some basketball to utilize the rare hot and sunny days we got here in austria. i played 4 games overall, having a very, very nice 3rd 3on3 game beating the chinese guys ;) by playing real team orientated basketball. my hitrate was rather high. thanks paul for the nice game!

weekend

on the weekend my wife, the doc and his "wife in spe" and me visited our friend harald, still staying in klosterneuburg. we went to vienna and had the pleasure to stay in a very, veeerryy fine hotel (thering - dont mix with the movie). we walked a lot, ate a lot and were happy to see harald recovering pretty fast from his dreadful injuries.

harald, may the force be with u to completely recover soon!

at night i played a short basketball resulting in a 10:12 loss and a 5:2 win. had some nice distance shots and good defense and horrible middle distance attempts...

no comment...

get well soon

my wife eva is sick and had to stay at home (what a pity ;) )

so get well soon my dear!

the doc is here

yep, he did it! although i was faster than him :) the doc also entered the next level of communication.
and now i can fulfill the only reason i created my blog - to mention that:

we've been playing pool on tuesday. it was my first time since many many years and i was impressed by michaels new "3-point-technique", which he was tought by his personal pool coach named jimmy. after winning the first 2 games, i adapted the amazing "3-point-technique" and beat him on the next 2 games finishing in a fine, nice draw on that evening.
and why do i mention this here? because the doc was slightly pissed by not winning the last game where he lead by 4 balls. there will have to come some more coaching sessions with jimmy ey? *gg*

but now back to work...

welcome to the jungle

heissts doch so schön....
und da bin ich jetzt auch zu finden, mit meinem personal blog (sowas braucht man doch heutzutage oder?).

mir grosser wahrscheinlichkeit werd ich unter der zeit eher selten reinbloggen, aber für die urlaubsberichte ist dies ein weit besseres medium, weil da braucht sich dann keiner über die elends langen emails beschweren. wer lesen will, muss halt reinschaun. so einfach ist das ;)

es wird auch vorkommen, dass die einträge auf englisch sind, weil ich ja auch meine internationalen freunde "beglücken" will. aber ich denke, das dürfte für die wenigsten ein problem werden - sofern mein englisch understandable ist.

somit bis auf weiteres,

live long an prosper