I’m Here!

Hey hey!
Well, I’ve arrived, stayed last night in Braidwood at Tims place, then drove the last two hundred or so k’s here, arrived about 11:30 this morning. Went straight to the realestate agents, and got keys etc, and went in search of Kirwan 43, which was interesting, but the directions were good, and all was well. Sharing with 8 others, all of which are very nice, a few coasties, one sydneysider, a tasmanian and a british couple. There’s five guys and 3 girls, so no-one feels *too* outnumbered. We’ve all brought literal tons of food, so we’re not going to starve by a long shot, and everyone seems to be well dressed for the climate (bar Dominic who’s already gone for a swim in the pool XD). The Brits are nice, and its hard to not start mimicking their accent, not out of mockery, just because its cool! Theres no snow yet (obviously!) but there is a little left over on the highest peaks, which is exciting to see as you come over the mountains leading into the valley. The lake looks spectacular as usual, deep blue and shining in the sun, managed to snap a few photos of it while i was driving, none too safe, but it did the job! .

Went to lunch at Nuggets Crossing, then dinner at a pizza joint in the old shopping center which i’ve forgotten the name of (not Bits n Pizza’s or whatever its called, the other one, up the stairs), which was very nice. Set up internet, as you can see, so I’ve got 40 hours of 25kkbs down/56kbs up, unlimited downloads, for 50 bucks courtesy of Airlan to use. Anyway we’re all sitting around watching telly now, so i’ll sign off for the night, and save my internet!.
tomorrow is big exploration day, going for a drive to the Skitube, to see about times and the likes, to make sure i leave early enough, and i’ll do a little more unpacking i think. Might need to do a milk run fairly early, otherwise it’ll be very crunchy nut cereal for me in the morning!
“Eagles can soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines”
Ciao!
Pip

Last night!

Well, the car is fixed, most of my stuff is packed, and i’m off earlyish tomorrow.
i’m going to take it in two steps, first to tims at braidwood, stay the night there, then the second to jindabyne from then, which means it will be a little less tedious.
Anyway, hopefully there’ll be a few more eyes reading this, seeing as i mass-emailed everyone earlier this evening, so i’ll be sure to update it regularly!
Bear with me if I dont update for about a week after this, because it may take me a little time to get internet connection down there, so until then, ciao!
Be sure to email me/text message me, i dont want to get lonely!
Cheers
Pip

Accom Details \o/

Well, got onto PB HR this morning, talked to the very helpful Katie Wise, who’s confirmed that I’ve been allocated JSA, which also means that I’ll be in jindabyne itself, which will be nice. I can only move in on the 31st, but that suits me very well. Otherwise, I’m still set to begin on the 2nd, at 0830, so some early morning starts are in the works it seems!

On other matters, my car had its last day of work today, so from tomorrow its mine, all mine! *evil cackle*. Ok, not really, but its mine now at least, so i’m looking to start putting some stuff into it, the powder extinguisher, my fire gear, etc etc. I’ve been looking at a CB radio/scanner combo, the UH015SX from Uniden, which should be pretty well suited to my needs.

Anyway, they’ve made the repairs to the fan of the lil barina, and she’s in getting her handbrake tightened this morning, and tomorrow i get the fan put back into it, so it should be all peachy by then!

More soon!

Pip

Love the smell of Proban in tha morning…

Well, I got back from the Rural fire service region east championships this weekend, bruised, battered, broken, missing a fingernail, and i swear i bruised a rib. All in all, it was an excellent weekend, with our brigade performing very well, nailing the MVA and Structural incidents, doing very well on the flashover and rakehoe trail events and getting hammered on the pumping exercise, but still perfoming very well. All in all, apart from shoddy food, and some dodgy practices by certain markers, it was an excellent weekend!

On other matters, having next to no luck getting onto Perisher HR/Accom/Santa… Its amazing how hard these people can be to nail down one day, and the next, it seems, all they are doing is answering phones.. complete BS.

Also, my lil’ red barina’s heating fan has given up, so mum took it to the auto electricians today, in kiama, who kindly informed me that a new one would cost us between 190 and 400(!) WTF?!. Apparently he had to take the entire heating/cooling unit out, so now the air flows freely through the car, meaning that i’m going toi have to have it fixed by thursday, or its going to be *very* cold once i hit the highlands..
urgh!

Anyway, bought myself a Belkin Tunebase Fm transmitter today, and i’d highly reccomend that you leave it alone. Aside from the fact that it costs more than a radio with an aux in, it transmits random bursts of static, and depending on the car, also has a whine that corresponds to the revs that the car is putting out, probably from the alternator interference. The auto channel search function is good, but not perfect, and more than once picked a channel that had something on it.

So! At the moment i’m a little (ok, a lot) nervous about headin down, its going to be fairly interesting to see how it turns out.. theres not much snow at the moment, and only a little on the horizon, but i’m not giving up yet! Also, just starting to reach a pinch now, where its a bit crazy getting things packed, and i’m worried that i wont be ready in time etc etc etc. It’ll be sad to leave a lot of friends behind, but I will be up homewards way from time to time, so dont forget me too fast (except for Pickles, if you’re reading this, answer my bloody calls for once, mmkay?)

Anyway, stuffs starting to pile up in my room that needs packing, so i’m going to go and do that
‘Night

Pip

Final Preparations

Went up to extreme surf and ski today, and got my boots heat fitted, which seems to involve shoving them in an oven of sorts, and heating the crap out of them until they’re hot, then (quickly) putting them back together, and shoving my foot inside, before tightening the crap out of them so they moulded to my foot (and i think my foot moulded to them somewhat, too!) Also bought myself some ski poles, 50 buck alum, 130cm, Salomon Arctics.. they’ll do! At this point in time, i’m most likely going to hire me some skis from PB, because of the discount, until i begin to get paid, at which point i’ll buy myself some skis, which will be nice

Final Preparations

Went up to extreme surf and ski today, and got my boots heat fitted, which seems to involve shoving them in an oven of sorts, and heating the crap out of them until they’re hot, then (quickly) putting them back together, and shoving my foot inside, before tightening the crap out of them so they moulded to my foot (and i think my foot moulded to them somewhat, too!) Also bought myself some ski poles, 50 buck alum, 130cm, Salomon Arctics.. they’ll do!  At this point in time, i’m most likely going to hire me some skis from PB, because of the discount, until i begin to get paid, at which point i’ll buy myself some skis, which will be nice.

Anyway, starting to pack now, so i should go do some more of that!

Ciao

Pip

Staff Accommodation!

I made a quick call to PB this morning, more specifically, their HR and Employee Housing dept., and spoke to a very nice lady who kindly informed me that i’ll most likely be staying at JSA (the staff apartments in jindabyne).

So, as such, now i need to call Kelvin, at the Station resort in a few days time, to organise my arrival and to confirm this all, which should be a plus.

Otherwise, i’ve been running around in circles, I went shopping with mum yesterday, which led to lots of money spent, but a lot of stuff bought, which is good, so now all i really need to do is get my boots heat fitted and get a few more little household’y bits of stuff together.

Cheers
Pip

Snow falling around the Snowies!

Well, the system that we’ve been following for quite a number of weeks has paid off, its snowing at all the resorts at the moment, with more snow forecast into later today (Sunday 18th May). BOM are fairly positive, but they’re also telling us that it’s going to stop later today, which is dissapointing. That said, it feels (with wind chill and my shocking choice of clothes for work tonight, to be around 5/8 degrees C.

A few images from the PB Cams

Blue Cow looking halfway decent. Now all we need to do is begin the countdown of fence palings remaining above the snowline. Last year it almost got to two, but never quite made it. This year, I’ll tip it to go the whole way!

And again, front valley looking picturesque, even if you can see the dirt through it. Bear in mind, this is all just bonus snow here… they’ve been hammering the snow guns, so it’ll be beautiful for opening weekend!

A few links for people interested, who may or may not have already been to these sites

- BOM forecasts for the Snowies region.

- Ski.com.au Forums, some very useful stuff on here, as well as some very friendly people!

More pics to come, as well as pics from Ballistics which was on last night (Saturday 17th May), which turned out very successfully, with just over 400 attending, and a lot of good reaction to the DJ’s as well as the MC’s
Broke in the new camera, starting to get used to it now, and it can take some very nice pictures without much effort on my behalf.

Anyway, if you notice the timestamp, its very late (or very early), so i’m going to head to bed.

“This isn’t Oak!.. Why’d you get so much?!” - Black Books

Regards
Pip

2nd of June; My start date!

Greg Isele, my dept manager at PB flicked me an email this arvo with the magic words “Start date” in the header.. nearly fell over myself trying to get to the computer to read it

Anyway, I’ve been given the 2nd of june which is about as awesome as I could have wished for, seeing as the season doesnt open till the 7th, which means I’ll get plenty of time to settle in and get used to the hours, etc
This means that I’ll be leaving Gerringong on or about the 29th or the 31st, which gets me there with about a day to spare to get myself unpacked and ready…

Not sure how the accom works so far, but I’m hoping to have at least a week or two before other people start turning up, just to get used to living there, before they throw another person (or three) in the mi.

Anyway, I’m off to pack… Ok, ok, maybe a little too early for that just yet

Pip

Hello Worl.. Wait.. not this again!

Well, it had to happen at some point, I’d start a blog, then become another mindless blogging drone, slaving away day and night, at this website. Oh well.. its not as if I have better things to spend my time on.. XD.

My name is Pip, and I live in Kiama, half an hour south of Wollongong, in NSW, Australia. I finished school last year, and immediately realised that if I were to go on with another 4 years of study, I’d most likely go a little fucking mad, and probably get sudden urges to throw certain people out of certain windows.
So, I took a gap year, and decided, that with my impending onset of chronic SDS (Snow deprivation Syndrome; a terrible and dehabilitating diseased, recogised by absolutely no doctors as one of the leading causes of spending binges at snowsports stores) that I should take a shot at working at the snow, in an environment I love. So, after an initial unsuccessful attempt at applying for a job at the snow, I went for a group interview in Sydney, and was successful in getting a position.

Now, let me backtrack here. Since the start of the year, I’ve been busy working my ass off. I began working for Dick Smith Electronics, where I was offered a fulltime Sales Assistant Position, at the Nowra store. I actually really enjoyed this store, even if there were a few minor problems. (Aaron, dude, you’re a legend!). At the same time, I’d started working as a bartender at the fantastic Berry Hotel, doing Friday and Saturday night shifts. Soon enough, travel costs began to mount, and I found myself asking for, and recieving a transfer to wollongong, which suited me better, as it was a casual position, however, again, I found myself wanting something else. So, I asked my managers at the pub if they wanted another fulltime employee, and i was given a job there as a shift manager on monday through to thursday nights. This job is my dream job, its exactly my style of pub, and its been a pleasure working there.

So, thats me, and where i’m coming from, I hope to develop this blog into something people can look at at say, “hey, so thats what he’s doing now”, but also something i can look back at, and say, “See, look where I’ve been, and what I’ve done”

“Take care to get what you like, or you will be forced to like what you get!”

Regards, Pip