Will Gauvin

Last year on 11th May, I decided I would try to be like superman and jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane at 14,000ft. The end result is that I broke my ankle. Everything is as good as it can get.

Anyway, life is good and I've been very slack in updating this journal.

So the Bureau of Meteorology has forecasted the worst heatwave in 100 years in Melbourne for this week. The temps for today all the way through to Saturday is as follows:

Tues			38C / 100F
Wed			41C / 106F
Thurs			40C / 104F
Fri			40C / 104F
Sat			40C / 104F

Oh I so need one so I can spend hours on updating my LJ

OMG!!! Nothing could have ever prepared me for what I saw. Seriously, this was the most amazing experience of my trip to New Zealand.

I got to Franz Joseph at about 1pm on Dec 29. I had 2 hours to waste before my trip up to the glacier. So I went to the camping site in attempt to put up the tent, one that I had borrowed from the sexy Toby and Carlos, but since I didn't know the tent and it was windy the final result was more like the Leaning Tent of Franz Josef.

At 3pm everyone met at the HQ of the guide company, we all got our boots, rain coats and instructions. We were finally on road at about 3:45pm. After a 5min ride, we hiked about 3kms to glacier face, or the terminal marine as it is called. We treked about 1km or so to our high point, and then enjoyed the view for about 20 mins before doing the return trip. We got back to town about 8pm. (BTW the sun went down at 10pm which is still mind boggling for me).

The good news is that my ankle survived with flying colours.

( A few images of the glacier )

For all the pics, have a look at my MobileMe gallery - http://gallery.me.com/willgauvin#100008

What started out as a joke by 3 brothers who made fun of those people offended by sex scenes in porn films, has finally come to fruition. The other day they released the first PG rate porno online.

Checkout the following news link, and then go watch it: PG Porn

PG Porn's - Nailing Your Wife

You know that you're the laughing stock of an election campaign when there is a website dedicated to create bingo cards about what you say. Yes, there is the Palin Bingo website:

http://palinbingo.com/

Yes, this is another LHC post, but I studied physics at uni and working at CERN has been my dream job since I was about 16 yrs old.

I wanted to study particle physics at uni, just that the uni I attended didn't have a course and I couldn't afford to move to the big city and take a course in it.

This however has never stopped me in being interested in what happens in the particle world. I studied quantum mechanics and special relativity, and have brief overview of the Standard Model (for a better word, the 'theory' behind high energy particle physics). I have also taught myself introductory general relativity (and that's a mind bolging exercise in itself), which is all about gravity. The granddaddy theory of them all is string theory, which attempts to combine the quantum mechanics world with general relativity. I've not tried to even attempt ST, as it's PhD/postdoctoral level physics.

While I don't want to give the doomsday nutjobs any helping hand, I would like to point out to those who are posting 'were still here' entries that the tests run yesterday was having the protons only going in one direction. The real experiments start next month. It is these ones that will have the extremely high energies, these are the ones that will hopefully produce minature blackholes and finally prove or disprove the existance of the the Higgs Boson.

The LHC is literally a wet dream for a theoretical physicist. Also the engineers who worked on the machine. This is a great achievement in physics.

Today sees that it's 25th Governor-General to be the first female to take the vice-regal role. While I'm a republican, I am glad that PM Kevin Rudd decided to recommend to Queen Elizabeth II that Quentin Bryce become Australia's next GG, and that Quentin will be the first female GG in Australia.

The media is also hyping that Ms Bryce could very well be the last GG we have. I doubt it, as republican movement is only now getting some wind again since Kevin Rudd and the ALP took government last year.

A bit about Quentin Bryce:
She grew up in a country town of only about 200 people.
She has served as the federal sex discrimination commissioner
Queensland director for he Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
Was Queensland Governor
plus many more.

So while the new GG is female, one must not over look CV and say this person deserves be in the position.

Australia gets first female GG

In support of my best friend from Atlanta

Bisexuality is Real.

I also like to make it known that before I met him and his wife; I didn't think bisexuals we 'real' (i.e. I joked about them just being confused, and other stuff). Sometimes really getting to know someone makes you see things less black and white.

Anyway, he knows who he is (msg me, it's been nearly 4 yrs since we last saw each other and we haven't really chatted since I moved back home).

I'm almost back to my full self now. The left foot is still a bit sore when I walk, but I can have a shower standing up, I can walk 4 blocks from work to the tram stop without issue (and I still overtake slow people). But the problem I have the most with at the moment is going down steps. Going up is fine, but going down is quite painful. In the last day or so I've been trying to force myself not to hold on to the railings when going down steps in a hope that it will help me build strength back in my foot. The only other thing I can't do at the moment is drive my car, because it's a manual and I don't have enough strength to do the clutch. Though, I can drive if I put the boot back on.

At least I'm very mobile, and that's a good thing.

The ankle is doing okay, though it's itchy where my leg hairs is growing back (I have a bandage over it all so I can't even scratch it). I've been getting around with no crutches or the boot since Sunday evening, which is really cool but there is a bit of pain. I have to say, having panadine (paracetamol + codiene) and endone (oxycodone) is wonderful. Though I'm about to run out of the endone but still the panadine does do the trick.

I have been back at work since Thursday, and that was fun especially getting home on the tram on Thursday night were it was jammed pack. A guy looked at me like 'sure right' when I asked if I can have a seat because I had a sore ankle. I showed him the scar, so I think he realised afterwards that I was serious.

I've survived the first week after surgery, and well it only gets better from here.

So I had my last surgery regarding my broken ankle. It was to remove the screw that was helping the tissue between my fib and tib to heal. I had to be at the hospital at 7am (I didn't know there was such a thing), so I had to wake up at 6am. I got to the hospital just on 7. Turns out I was the first patient to be operated on and I was on the operating table by 8 and I was awake and out of recovery by 9.

Everything went great. They also gave me some really good drugs to help with pain, panadine forte (tylenol + codeine) as well as endone (oxycodine). Boy do they work :)

I spent 24hrs at a good friend's place, because the hospital doesn't allow patients stay by themselves for 24 hrs.

Right now I can walk without crutches but I'm using one just to make sure I don't do any damage.

It really does feel good to be back on the mend and that I don't have to wear the boot all the time. I don't have to go back to work until Thursday, so I will catch up on some rest and I will do some other stuff that I need to do.

I've been very slack of late. There has been no excuse for not posting other than forgetting.

Anyway the biggest thing of recent time is that I developed the new VicBears website. http://www.vicbears.org.au I developed this from the ground up. I had a prototype done 12 months ago, but the real guts of this website was done with some late nights and some downtime at work.

I have surgery this Friday to get the screw out of my ankle. Hopefully I will be back on my feet not too long after that. The surgeon says I should be up an at it in a couple of days providing I keep my foot up when ever I can.

I know it's been a while, but there has been so much going on. Anyway, this will be the short and sweet version:

1) Southern HiBearnation went off! Seriously best one I've been to and involved in. Many thanks to the Phil for being the great president, I know what he has gone through because I've been there. Many thanks to the rest of the organising committee, you guys rock especially since you were all SH planning virgins.

2) Ankle is going great. I'm walking pretty fast now, still have to use the boot, but that will be until I get the screw out.

3) Ducted heating is still not working, have been told by agent that the electrician is going today to wire up the heater and when i should have heat.

4) TV broke! Just in time for the weekend too.

5) Was in some form of 'funk' over the weekend. It seems to have gone. I put it down to a case that the previous weekend was a huge rocking party and it was the first weekend in ages that I didn't have to worry about Southern HiBearnation.

6) Work on the new VicBears website is moving along! Like in the last 4 days I've but a shitload of time and effort in to. The few people who have seen it (Phil, Lawrence and some of the committee) are really impressed. I certainly can't wait to show it off. Only things left to really sort out is: online membership apps, photo library, e-news. All I can say is that horrid navy blue background will be gone, and there will be no frames!!! Oh and I've written some 'bling' in to it, with rotating banner ads and also have fade in/out sponsor ads.

okay, so the joke might be starting to wear thin, but I'm so excited!!!

I've been able to walk around the office with no crutches. I can do stairs if there is a railing. I even was able to get to the elevators and go down stairs to the cafe and get my lunch today.

I know that I have to take my time, but as will everything at the moment, I have only done things if they don't hurt and that I feel comfortable with. I do push myself a little bit.

I will still take one crutch around with me to work and to Southern HiBearnation events this week, as it will be a long week and if I get tired I can use that as support.

During Southern HiBearnation, the Laird Hotel is running the finals of the Men On Men Art competition. Unlike previous years, they're only hanging the finalists because it started to get right out of hand, and over time it didn't fit in with the masculine feel that VicBears had invisaged it to be. The piece of work that I've bought is call New York City Boy and it's a photo of this cute guy who has a weird grin, almost like a 'cum f*ck me' look. I've heard that the model is actually a straight guy that the photographer ran in to in the NY subway and asked if he could take a pic of him.

Speaking of art from the art comp, there is a piece of art called 'Undouched'. It's a comical piece of work, but I won't explain it you just need to see it (for those who really want to know, private message me and I will tell you all about it).

Yesterday saw the start of Southern HiBearnation, a bear run held in Melbourne by VicBears. The 2 events I went to was, pack stuffing and 4x4.

Pack Stuffing is a fun event, though closed to those who had been helping out getting SH08 ready. Clint made this wonderful vegetable and barely soup, and Carl brought cheese cake. By the time I turned up there, due to clint picking me up really late, most of the packs were already stuffed. We have some great stuff in the packs again, and Dungeon Warehouse really came through with the goods again this year.

At 2pm a dance party called, 4x4 started. It's a funny sort of dance party, it's a relaxed event and over half the guys who went just stayed out in the beer garden. At about 4pm dragged myself and another committee member away from pack stuffing to go selling SH08 raffle tickets. We sold 100 or so tickets in an hour. I could of sold more, but broken ankle does slow me down a bit. At about 6pm the remaining committee members ventured downstairs and enjoyed the night. I made a new friend, will see how things go at underbear night ;)

Tonight is den night, can't wait for that. Stay tuned for more updates during the week.

OMG! over the last 2 days I've been trying out how to walk with only one crutch. After finding out today that my crutches were at the wrong height (a case of setting the wrong height after getting off the plane), I was able to do a few steps. Now I'm doing about 10m, and that's only because that is far as I can go before I have a door or something to worry about.

I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but it seems more comfortable with using the crutch on the right hand side, which is on the opposite side of the broke ankle. It's like swinging your arms when you walk, you have the opposite arm to the leg so it does feel more natural and does feel more stable.

I still officially using 2 crutches, but by the end of the weekend I should be down to 1 full time. I'm so excited! :D

Yesterday evening, Lawrence picked me up from work and we went to K-Mart to get a new doona for me. We also went to the supermarket to get a few things, including the new litter.

Anyway, after getting home, Lawrence started to clean my bed for me. At one stage Lawrence got walked out of the room and Bucky went in there and peed on the bed. ARGH!!! This is when we both thought it might pay to fill up his litter tray with the litter he likes. The more I read about things online, the more I'm sure the stress and the change of litter were major factors in this. I rang the vet and they said its very likely the stress and change of litter too.

At least getting all this while the bed was wet made things a lot easier to handle and deal with. Cat pee stinks when it dries and starts to break down, so while it's wet it a lot easier to deal it. Anymore peeing in unwanted places will be a trip to the vet, and getting a pet behaviourist in.

Bucky has been using his tray (a very good sign) and the bedroom door is constantly closed unless I need to go in there, which should help avoid the temptation he has in going in there to pee.

On a related note, the new doona is GREAT! It keeps me warmer than the 2 doonas I used to have on the bed.