Back to the Drawing Board

Or thin this case? The operating table.

So turns out I don't have any significant cartilage damage but the bone fracture is causing me some issues and leaves me in a precarious position.
Of these three mine is the third case. It has left an angular edge on the joint which causes cartillage irritation and possible tearing/rupturing. My procedure is going to be focused on bone remodeling to ensure I have a smooth surface for the cartilage to sit on and reduce the friction. The good news is that the surgery is scheduled for next week; the 26th of September. A little better than the wait I had in Canada eh? Expected recovery time is 3-4 days off my feet. A week-10 days on crutches. 6 weeks before doing any impact.

In my position I can devote a lot of time to rehabilitation and muscle hypertrophy to I should be pretty strong by the time I start in Sweden.

My start date has been set quite a bit earlier than I expected. My birthday, the 8th of December, is the first day of the introduction week.

So it would seem that despite my best efforts, my body is far from perfect. Hopefully with a little help from my good friend scalpel we can take another step in the right direction so for now; back to the drawing board.

You Know What REALLY Grinds My Gears?

I now see the folly of my ways. Never again will I let my email address loose in cyberspace. I am now paying the price.

4-5 times a day... "Hey I would like to meet you ut I can not get msn to stay online. I am always online here ChirawanPisit-nazsyc.blogspot.com kelly :P"

What did I do to deserve a schizophrenic bot who can't spell harassing me constantly? What sins have I committed and what must I do to repent?

A look online shows I am not alone in my harassment hell but what is to be done about it?

Let us pray to the great internet god; Bless me Google for I have sinned. The sins of sinners are brought back upon me and yet they, who are not human (or rather computer programs designed to piss people off), know not what they do.

Wait, did I just resort to prayer? Now THAT really grinds my gears.

Still the King

The Up? It's been a long time in the making; but I finally got offered the job in Are. I had to pretty much harass poor Jonas; the director of the ski school in the north of Sweden, but I got there in the end. I got an email early last week saying that I made an excellent impression on the interviewers last time and now that I have my ski instructor's certification and a bit more Swedish under my belt? I am in. I am just waiting for a final email confirming my start date and then I am hitting up Singapore Airlines to sort out my ticket at the end of the year.

But what would good news be without a little dose of the bad to go along with it?

The Down. So I finally got an appointment with a highly coveted orthopedic surgeon here in Melbourne. It took me over 6 weeks to get in but I got to see him. About five minutes later, a quick look at my old MRI and a poke around and he could see that unlike my previous diagnosis of just a tibia fracture; I have some cartilage damage as well. Shit. I am booked in to have another MRI later this week to take a closer look at it and will most likely need surgery again in the next month or two.

The big questions are, will I make a full recovery in time? Will my insurance cover it? And will anybody ever insure me again? I did it before and I am going to do it again. I am fitter and healthier than I have ever been so I should be equipped to handle the recovery process with a vengeance.

Anyways, this is a travel blog and traveled I have. This weekend Mamma shot over to Sydney to pay my big sister a visit and nurse her through her hip surgery (what a grandma) So I decided last minute to jump on a plane and join them for the weekend. Coincidently Pappa was at Melbourne airport on his way to Sydney one hour before my flight... small world. I changed my flight over (resulting in a 4am wake up on Saturday morning for me) and met him at the airport for the first of 3 breakfasts. The weekend turned out to be a little family reunion of sorts; the first time we have all be in the same city for almost 4 years. I spent most of the weekend eating, but managed to squeeze in a quick personal training session with Amy and went out with Dad and his girlfriend of three years (who I have not had the pleasure of meeting until now) for lunch on Saturday. Mamma flew in Saturday night and we did a lot of eating and a little walking. The weather cleared up for a walk along Coogee beach before shooting back to the airport on Sunday for the flight back to Melbourne.

In the meantime. Sales sucks but it gets me money (hopefully hit my bonus and then some this month; so far so good!). Training is kick-ass but I am getting no sleep (5am wake ups and 13-14 hour days). Study is coming along very slowly, trying to squeeze in some progress but by the time I get home I am dead to the world. Ah well, I can take it. After all; I am the king of ups and downs.

Some Things Never Change

As much as I might change in some ways; the old James always comes out here and there. So I am well behaved, work a lot, eat healthy, study during the week and a lot of the weekend and generally lead a healthy, responsible life.

This doesn't mean that I am physically able to say no to going out for a 'quiet beer' and have it end up being a big night out where I inevitably run into Mr. Jagermeister. One of the other trainers at work asked me out for a few beers at the local and what started out as a few games of pool over a couple of jugs turned into a big pissy night with stupid dancing and pulling stupid faces in front of the camera. Sweet.

I got myself a new house-mate this week. After putting a couple of ads online I got about 50-60 calls/texts/emails about the room. Seems like the market is pretty tight right now. I narrowed it down to two girls and a guy and to help me make the final decision I got all three of them down to the Arcadia on Saturday night for a few drinks. Best idea I ever had. I was leaning more towards one of the girls but after a few drinks and a bit of normal conversation Ben stood out miles ahead of the rest. A 25 year old legal accountant from New Zealand and his two beautiful leather couches moved in on Thursday and so far so good. Seems like he keeps similar hours to me, has some study to do that'll keep me motivated to get mine done and is pretty keen on his training.


Last month I moved over to the role of a sales consultant with the temptation of commission being dangled under my nose. My first few weeks went really well and I hit my sales target and landed myself a tidy little bonus for the month. This month has been rough. It's one of those 'in between' months and with all the promotions we've been offering of late, it's been hard to find potential members. Looks like I have fallen shy of my target for this month. Not so sweet.

I have started taking on clients at work and I'm loving it. Still doing sales for the time being until I am fully qualified (still 6-8weeks away), the extra hours and experience certainly keep things interesting. Personal Training is a job you can have a bit of fun with provided you have the right clients. So far I have a couple of really cool people to train and because I am not relying on it as my source of income; I can be a bit picky about who I decide to train.

Practicing what I preach is a pretty important aspect of PT for me at this stage. Hopefully I won't fall behind like some trainers who eat crap and hardly work out at all. While so far I am taking my training seriously and being mindful of my diet, when I do go out I am still drinking a lot of beer and grabbing people and lifting them up when there is a camera around.

But hey, some things will never change.

Things sometime take a turn for the... unexpected?

I put it off for a while and realised the stupidity of the whole situation. I was going to be taking a risk with my knee that is still not 100% from my latest injury, the season was looking pretty average no matter how it turned out and I had a bit of debt racked up so I thought... the hell with the snow. I'm going to get a job.

And so that's what I did.

I landed myself a tidy little apartment with a super-sweet catch basically meaning I pay way less than I should for way more than I should be able to afford. Sweet. And as you can see; Melbourne in winter? Not as bad as everyone says.

I got myself a job so quickly I am sure I set some sort of record. I sent off an email; 30 mins later I had a phone call; 16hours later I had an interview and 24 hours later I started work. Wham. I am working in administration for Australia's second largest chain of fitness centres; Genesis. I am also studying for my certificate 4 in fitness part-time which will qualify me as a fitness instructor and personal trainer; I thought it would tie-in nicely with my snowsports qualifications in preparation for future non-shitty non-Australian seasons. Not that Hotham are going to be hiring me again any time soon. They weren't too pleased when they got my 'I'm not coming' phone call. But hey. That's what you get for telling me to sit tight and suck it up for two weeks.

I have slowly been getting myself settled in, catching up with the masses of Perth people who have made the exodus to the east coast: Oli, Monque, Simon, Miles, Miranda and I have recently heard from Mark Nevin as well. There are a lot of us here.

Genesis had their 11th birthday party on Friday night and things got surprisingly wild. Free drinks were flowing all over the place which made for an interesting cocktail of people. I even ran into one of my roommates from Whistler who was a friend of a boyfriend of someone at work. Small world eh?

Saturday was quite possibly the strangest, most surreal night of my life. If I am not open-minded I don't know who is. We'll leave it at that.

So as it comes up on one month in Melbourne things certainly didn't turn out quite the way I had expected. Welcome to James the Wanderer.

In Limbo

So there is still no snow. Awesome. I must say I didn't expect to be held up in a hostel in Melbourne.

So what does one do in this situation? Why go on a massive bender of course, what else? I have been partying it up with my dorm-mate Paul from Seattle. Actually it's probably now a good thing that he's gone: I'd venture a guess that we were a bad influence on each other in one way or another.

So as I wait around for the snow to come I am keeping other options open; I might even find myself staying in the city and getting a... wait for it... normal job? Pretty unlikely that I will actually do that as it feels a little dumb to walk away from snowboarding but cash is soon going to be an issue.



In the meantime I am closely watching the weather and it's finally getting colder. Not much snow falling just yet but as long as it gets cold then at least they can fire up the snowmakers

Oh by the way...

I suppose, considering this is a travel blog and not just a space for me to vent when I am feeling particularly preachy, I should do some travel-blogging instead of being Al Gore's smallest fan.

I am still in Melbourne and looks like I am here a little longer than expected. My first staff meeting has been pushed back indefinitely due to lack of snow.

If you will take a look at the date on this webcam image you might notice that is today. Not exactly looking like ideal conditions for snowboarding is it?

So for now I am setting up at a hostel in the city and waiting until it gets cold. Awesome.

You know what really grinds my gears? (WARNING: Preachy Rant)

People.

Quite simply put: people never cease to amaze me with their utter stupidity. In between my wanderings I somehow manage to find a little bit of time to spend on Facebook. Shocking; I know.

During that time I have come across a couple of groups of Facebook that say something along the lines of "15,000,000 for lower gas prices" or "Amazing new way to lower gas prices!". I try to ignore a lot of the crap that goes around on facebook because otherwise I will have discovered a new way to rot my brain (I have enough of those thanks...) but it seems that more and more of my 'friends' are joining these groups and as such, showing up in my mini-feed.

When I first see these things I instantly think: pffft... like anyone is stupid enough to think that a facebook group can make a difference, let alone 15 million of them! But seeing this more and more often has driven me to click on the link and see what's going on. OVER 1.3 MILLION MEMBERS!?Utter insanity. OK. So there are a lot of stupid people out there. But this is only the beginning. If you type in "gas prices" in facebook's search bar you get 500+ groups showing up (Facebook searches max out at 500 by the way) many of which have in excess of 100,000 members.

So what is inside these groups? Nothing. Perhaps something like: "description: If you think gas prices are too high Click on "Invite People to Join" from the menu on the right."

Really?! I didn't realise that was all there was to it. So if 15,000,000 people join this group oil companies are going to have this sudden epiphany: "Oh.... I get it now. People don't want to pay so much for oil products. I had no idea. Quick Bob, turn off the giant crude oil geyser that we use as a reading light on the oil rig at night!"

So while this is the largest group I came across I must admit that not all groups take such a simplistic approach. Some of them have an idea!

We need to take some intelligent, united action. (this is my favorite part)

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas. (this is my second favorite part)

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:
For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

Try to buy from like Kangaroo, BP, Phillip's 66, Chevron, Shell, or Q-Gas.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

Genius! In fact that is so intelligent I don't know why people even taking economic classes at university. They should just hang out with THIS GUY!

Because really that is the problem. Petrol stations are simply over charging consumers. They are getting away with it and it's getting worse and worse. It has nothing at all to do with suppliers, increased transport costs, conflict over supply areas, increased labour costs, inflation, inceased market demand and ultimately the cost of crude oil.Sarcasm aside for the moment there is really only ONE thing that consumers can do about the price of petrol. Buy less.

I know it's a complicated notion to get around but I will try to make it simple. My very out-there theory is based on two principles.

1) If you buy less, you spend less and therefore you will have more money.

2) If people buy less generally then this will positively affect the supply:demand ratio and drive the price of oil down right up the chain of supply.

Sure it's a tough concept to grasp. Deal with it.

Here we go again...

A 5 week stopover in Perth: About 15 trips to the beach... in Winter! Ah that is really why I came home. I missed the sun and the sand. Not many places in the world where you can do that in Winter. It was good to catch up with everyone after all this time. People have wives, dogs, houses and... children!?

A few random nights out remind me that Perth is actually not all that bad. Some quiet days reminded me that it is a really small town with small people and small things to do.

And here I am back on the road again. Staying with Oli and Monique again; much as I did a little over two years ago. This time however I won't be going too far away; Hotham is a mere 5 hours away by bus..

I want everyone who reads this to send me positive, knee-mending vibes as the chances of me coming home early with reinjured tibia fractures are scarily high...

End of the Journey

We finished things up in Are nicely. Clinton and I both passed our exam quite comfortably and proceeded to part ways. He's headed off to Greece with his girlfriend as I jump on a painfully long train journey down to Stockholm. 2 Weeks in Stockholm consisting largely of going to the park for a few drinks with the Hard Rock crew. I shacked up at Valeria's place with my own room: Something I have never had in all my time in Sweden.

It was good to see everyone in Stockholm again. 6 months had passed and very little had changed. About the biggest difference I could see was that Jason was now fitting comfortably into his role as manager and they had added Brisket to the menu. Wow.

A couple of short weeks later I jumped on a plane to London- it was a bit of a near miss as my flight was canceled and the replacement almost didn't match up with my connecting flight. It all turned out in the end and I managed to meet up with Ben who had come out to Heathrow for dinner and drinks. Good of him to make the effort as I wasn't going to have time or the money to make my usual week or two pass through London city.

And here I am. Back in Perth after 2 years and here I will stay for 6 weeks before making the trip over east for the season in Hotham. It's good to be back.