Category Archives: Photos

Kingscliff Short Break

Life, Photos, Travel

Hugo Lattimore splashing his feet in the water at Kingscliff beachClaire, Hugo and I recently had a weekend escape to Kingscliff on the Tweed Coast in Northern New South Wales. It takes between 30 and 40 minutes to get to Salt Village from the Gold Coast. Claire and I had been to Salt Village outside Kingscliff previously, however it’d been quite some time ago. We figured we could find our way there by nose, which mostly worked but we weren’t sure which road to take out of Kingscliff to get back to Salt Village.

We were booked into stay at Mantra on Salt Beach, one of three accommodation options available at Salt Village – the other two being Peppers Salt Resort & Spa and Peppers Bale Salt. When we arrived at the reception, we were also greeted by a friendly porter. I don’t recall a porter when we stayed at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa last time, however it was great to have one available at Mantra on Salt Beach on this stay. The best thing was he took care of the luggage, which meant it was no hassle for Claire & Hugo. The other benefit I liked was he was able to direct me where to park in the secure underground car park to be close to the lifts that were servicing the section of Mantra on Salt Beach we’d be staying in – nothing worst than going up a lift into the wrong section of a building.

Hugo Lattimore crawling toward the surf at Kingscliff beachThe room we had booked was a two bedroom ocean view apartment and we’d requested a portable cot for Hugo to sleep in as well. I was happy to find out when we arrived that the cot was already set up and it even came with a complete set of toiletries and linen – not bad for a little fella! It was setup in the master bedroom but Claire and I thought we’d move it into the second room. That proved a little harder than first thought as it didn’t fit through the doorways easily and I couldn’t manage to unpack it. A call to the reception and another staff member came up, unpacked, moved and set it up again in the other room in about 2 minutes flat – very efficient!

Hugo had his first real encounter with the beach, which was fantastic to watch unfold. Claire took Hugo down to the water to let the small waves roll over his legs and feet, which he took delight in – kicking and stamping in the water. It would have been great if the beach water wasn’t quite so cool, I think he would have really enjoyed the waves. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do in all the sand, so we put him down onto the firm sand to start with – which went without a hiccup and proceeded to move him into the soft, loose sand. He was fascinated by it, waving his hands furiously over the sand, hitting and knocking it everywhere and had an all round great time. After he had finished playing with the sand, he realised there was a big blue thing in front of him and took off towards it!

Hugo Lattimore enjoying playing in the soft sand at Kingscliff beachWhen Claire and I stayed at Peppers Salt Resort & Spa last time, we ventured into Kingscliff to have a mooch around and were happy to discover some great cafes and shops. The cafe we remembered had changed hands in that time, I tried a barramundi burger but I now realise that the error of my ways and will remember not to betray the beef gods next time. One shop we were excited to see was still operating was Boardwalk Books, a small book shop with good mix of mainstream reading and a fabulous range of eclectic books that you don’t see in other book shops. We couldn’t help ourselves and picked up a children’s book named Everybody Poos and a book by Ben Mezrich named Bringing Down The House – the true story behind the recent “21” movie featuring Kevin Spacey.

You can’t help but fall in love with Kingscliff, its small, quaint and is absolute beachside living. I think the Kingscliff Beach & Lawn Bowls Club must have the single greatest location of any bowls club in Australia – their backyard is the pristine Kingscliff beach. I imagine Kingscliff now is what the Gold Coast must have felt like back when it was still a tiny town growing up. Salt Village is also a really relaxing place to be, with the majority of the shops you’ll need to simply remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of everyday life to unwind.

I don’t know when we’ll be back to Kingscliff & Salt Village again next but I’m quite sure I’m going to enjoy it.

Metal Sculptures

General, Photos

Vladimir Bulatov metal sculpture Rhombic Triacontaheddron IIII came across some of the most magnificent metal sculptures by Vladimir Bulatov. The metal sculptures are amazing, not only because they are visually mesmerising, but you’re mind immediately starts thinking about how you’d create such an intricate and interweaving sculpture from metal. Vladimir provides a brief description of the construction process as:

The process of making my sculptures starts from mathematical idea.

I build a computer model to represent this mathematical idea in 3D world. At this stage I have some very rough understanding of how the object will look. Next I apply custom algorithms to give the model nice body and organic look. I write all software I use for this process. At this stage I have detailed computer image of the future sculpture which I can rotate and manipulate in real time.

Next step is to play with computer model and to select parameters of the model to make sculpture look most interesting. The selected model is saved in special 3D file format as hundreds of thousands of tiny triangles representing surface of the object.

The file is transferred to state of the art metal printing machine, which assembles real piece from thin (0.002 inch) layers of stainless steel powder, heats fragile porous piece in the furnace and infiltrates with molten bronze to make it solid.

On the final stage I hand polish pieces and burnish them in tumbles with steel shot for a day or two in tumbler.

My first encounter with mathematic fuelled artwork was at university, when a textbook was covered with the now famous, Umbilic Torus NC by Helaman Ferguson. While the Umbilic Torus NC is also compelling, the detail, smooth lines and complexity of metal sculptures by Vladimir Bulatov is hard to beat.

Princess Is On A Holiday

Animals, Photos

A close up shot of a white Ragdoll cat's faceAfter months of discussion, procrastination, discussion, deliberation and more procrastination – Claire and I finally decided that we needed to find our beautiful ragdoll Princess a new home.

The decision has been really difficult to make as we love Princess a lot, she is positively gorgeous and has a fantastic nature. However, since Hugo arrived – she is no longer our baby. At the start it wasn’t quite so bad as Hugo was sleeping more, which meant there was more time to give Princess the affection that she craves. Unfortunately as Hugo has grown up, we’re left with less and less time and we’re honestly not giving her the attention that she deserves.

We were very reluctant to simply give her away – as we really wanted to know she was going to an excellent home – not just an okay one. I talked to some friends at work, to see if any wanted their first cat or optionally a second or third but that didn’t pan out. However, when Claire’s younger sister Lucy suggested that they’d love to have her – Claire and I thought it perfect. Perfect because Lucy & Michael already have a fancy pants Layanese and Lucy was in fact the person that gave Princess to Claire as a birthday present back in 2006!

White ragdoll cat sitting inside a paper bag, happily restingLucy & Michael were a little unsure how their Layanese named Boost would react to another cat in the house and we were a little nervous as well. To make sure things were going to work out, we packed up Princess’s gear for a night or two away as a test. As it turns out, neither of us had anything to worry about as Boost & Princess hit it off straight away. Initially there was a lot of sitting close to one another, looking each other dead into the eyes and then the rampant playing started – which is a sure fire way to know Princess is relaxed and happy.

We’re really sad to not have Princess in our lives on a daily basis, Claire and I are constantly expecting to hear her distinctive little ‘burr’ sound around the house. Fortunately, she isn’t far away and we know that she is in a fantastic environment with people that love cats as much as Claire and I do.

Naked

Family, Photos, Travel

Maori tribal necklace pendant made of jadeIn the mid 1990’s, a group of the Lattimore and Morrison family whom live in Australia made our way back to New Zealand to relax and catch up with our extended family. While in the South Island of New Zealand, the weather was perfect for snow skiing and we made our way to one of the most well known New Zealand skiing holiday destinations of Queenstown.

During that trip, my older brother Cameron and I were exploring the Queenstown shops and found our way into a tourist style gift shop – full of the obligatory items such as stuffed Kiwi plush toys. One of the things that caught my attention while looking around were necklace pendants made from jade in the shapes of traditional Maori tribal markings. I was quite taken by them and on a subsequent visit to the shop, picked one up to bring home to Australia.

Once putting on the necklace, I didn’t take it off for months and it turns out, for good reason. As summer approached that year, I was around at a friends place to cool off in the pool. No wanting to damage the leather necklace strap, I took it off and sat it on a near by seat. You can imagine how horrified I was when some friends were fooling around beside the pool, knocked the chair and the jade pendant hit the bricks and broke in half! I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I thought I’d see if I could repair it and thanks for some an unknown super-esque glue available at the time – it worked a treat.

Since fixing it that afternoon, I have literally taken it off a handful of times in over 10 years. When I say handful, I mean literally, I could count the times on my fingers – so few in fact that Claire hasn’t seen me without it in over 10 years. It has survived football, soccer, karate, tennis, swimming, water skiing, wake boarding, motorbikes, BMX, rollerblading and every other thing I can imagine and it made it through completely unscathed.

Triangular jade locking clasp for a Maori tribal necklaceEnter our beautiful son Hugo in September 2008, positively gorgeous and has little fiddle fingers. He takes great delight in touching, grabbing, fiddling, smooshing, yanking or banging on anything he can get his hands or feet on to. For the last month or so, he has loved fiddling with my necklace and it has stood up to the test – until last week when, after years of wear and tear – is finally undone by an eight month old baby boy!

The question on my mind now is – after it being with me for such a long time – should I replace the worn leather strap and return it to its rightful place around my neck or simply move on?

Year In Review

General, Life, Photos

Hugo Lattimore in Dad's arms when he was approximately 4 months oldTime just seems to keep on zipping by and 2008 is already behind us.

I think I can safely say that last year was the most incredible year that I’ve ever experienced and it has everything to do with Hugo. I  had no idea that a single little person could have such a profound impact on your life but it has been magnificent.

At the end of 2007 and the start of last year, I had a seemingly endless run in with different fauna:

Thankfully since the start of the year, we haven’t had any more wasp stings, massive cockroaches or cane toads inside the house.

At a similar time to all that going on, I bought the insides of a new computer to help re-establish my geek prowess and for the first time in a long time – had a bit of trouble with things. First off it was the power supply whirring, which took longer to fix than it should have. That was followed by a video card making high pitch squealing noises. After far too many weeks and months had passed, I finally got everything back together and now the fan on the video card is playing up! One of these days I’ll get everything sorted and I’ll have a fully functional and very fast desktop computer.

April saw a bit of activity as we were able to get out and about a little bit. We travelled out to Somerset Dam for Phil’s birthday bash with family and friends. Phil and Cam brought their new jet skis with them and I came very close to being bucked off the back while Cam was driving at a moderate pace. It’s been about five years since I’d ridden a jet ski, so I’d forgotten how much power they have and how aggressively you can turn them – it was great. I got to go and watch the Gold Coast Titans play the New Zealand Warriors at the new Skilled Stadium at Robina. The stadium was great, easy to get to with public transport (no on-site parking) and the venue itself was easy to navigate. We both went and saw The Phantom of the Opera as a present to Claire from her parents and it was positively magnificent – I’d see it again in a heartbeat. At the end of the month, I set up a blog for Andrew & Belinda which they’ve taken to with gusto – now I just have to get the others to get one!

July and August saw Claire and I attend antenatal classes on the Gold Coast. Over the five different antenatal classes, for the impending birth, we both learned a lot. Our instructor, Alex, was young and energetic and delivered each class really well. She was open to what probably seemed like odd questions too. I was surprised that the average age of our class would have been close to 35 and after watching some of the videos during the classes, I developed a whole new level of respect for women and the human form!

September saw the arrival of Hugo Rankin Lattimore at 12:50PM on Thursday 4th September. Claire was due to have Hugo at the end of August or possibly the first day in September but that wasn’t to be. Following is a brief chronological list of events from the day in question:

  1. 12:00AM: Induction
  2. 08:00AM: Waters broken
  3. 08:30AM: Drip attached to bring on contractions
  4. 09:00AM: Things are underway
  5. 10:30AM: Epidural
  6. 11:00AM: Action stations!
  7. 12:50PM: Hello baby!

From that time onwards, our lives have been changed forever and I wouldn’t want it any other way. We noticed early on that Hugo has definitely inherited some skin colouring from Claire. I’ve posted three major updates since then, 1 month, 2 months and 4 months. At the moment, Hugo is still growing like a little trooper and weighs in at approximately 8.8Kg and 70cm long. Those sorts of figures put him right at the top end of the growth charts for a baby of his age. It may sound like a lot but he is in good proportion and certainly isn’t overweight – just a big boy, which I think is awesome!

I suspect we’re no different to most other new parents in that we had a limited amount of knowledge about how to care for a newborn child. Over that time, we’ve stumbled and fumbled our way through, learning as we go, which has been really rewarding. Claire has been positively magnificent with Hugo, the understanding, care and compassion she shows him amazes me daily. One thing that I’ve come to realise, with a little help from Claire, is that babies will do baby things, whenever they want. Early on in the piece, I had an expectation that they’d know what was best for them (instinctively) and would march along to their own beat. At times that didn’t happen and I’d get frustrated because I thought I wasn’t able to do the whole baby thing. As it turns out, I was just anxious and not long after, I found my own drumbeat to march to.

December is meant to be relaxing, with Christmas and the new year to ring in – however this year it was rather busy. Mid-month we made our way up to the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre to attend Lucy’s graduation and were pretty disappointed with the parenting facilities (how life changes!) and the lack lustre cafe. We embarked on our first major road trip with Hugo on our way out to Chinchilla – approximately four hours worth of driving. We weren’t sure how that was going to pan out but with a little planning, it was smooth sailing and no screaming! Christmas was meant to be a low-key affair this year, however that just didn’t happen – I don’t think I’ve seen so many presents before in my life and soon thereafter I turned 28 and got more wicked presents!

Early indicators suggest that 2009 is going to be a bender, I can’t wait to see what it offers.