Anita dropped in yesterday to wish Hugo a happy 3rd birthday and gave him a spectacular present, a crown tail Siamese fighting fish!
When Anita asked Claire what a cool present might be, Claire suggested a pink fighting fish because pink is one of Hugo’s favourite colours. Of course, not knowing what colours fighting fish come in, we were shocked to see a beautiful pink/purple coloured fighting fish arrive.
Needless to say, Hugo is very excited by Finnegan and regularly stops to gaze into his bowl and drag one of his chairs over to get a closer look. Throughout the course of the day, Evie managed to say “fish!” a few times as well. In case you were wondering, the exclamation point is there deliberately, Evie says fish with gusto.
I’m absolutely delighted to announce that we have a new baby girl to add to the greater Lattimore family, Grace Ivy Lattimore.
After a long wait and a lot of heartache, my oldest brother Phil & his wife Tammi welcomed Grace into the world 10 days early at 1:48PM on Saturday 12th March 2011 – weighing in at 5lb 15oz and 46cm long!
Claire, Hugo, Evie and I dropped into St. Vincents Hospital in Toowoomba on the way back to the Gold Coast to meet our newest niece/cousin and it was such a happy meeting.
Grace is a gorgeous little girl and I’m now looking forward to Evie having another cousin a similar age to play with in the near future. There is just something completely amazing about meeting a fresh baby, it is the miracle of birth realised in the flesh so to speak.
The Surfers Paradise car park located under Circle on Cavill houses a lot cars, which range in quality from complete crappers all the way up to the unobtainable.
One bloke in particular, I’m quite sure takes great pleasure in parking his car, his motorbike and his jet ski – spread across two car parks.
For those that don’t recognise what is in the picture, the motorbike is a new Ducati which start at about $25,000. Next we’ve got the Mercedes SL63 AMG, which packs a 6.2L V8 producing 385Kw and 630Nm of rubber melting goodness and will lighten your wallet by about $440,000. To cool off, of course you need a Seadoo jet ski and they are about $25,000.
Amazingly, the guy that owns these three happiness creation devices is under 40 years old and if I ever get a chance to have a word – I think I’ll feel compelled to ask him what the hell he does!
After being involved in a car accident on the Gold Coast M1 in late June, my trusty 1989 Ford Telstar Ghia has been written off by my car insurance company.
I’ve been tottering around in the Telstar for the better part of 10 years and only now is the odometer finally approaching 200,000 kilometres.
George & Jude bought it for me as my first car while I was at university, which was a massive upgrade from the family Ford Falcon XM ute with distinctive blue cobra stripes. It was powered by a 2.2L 12 valve 4 cylinder engine, which even in its hay day probably wasn’t the most performant engine, nor particularly free revving – however I suspect that might have been part of its recipe for longevity. I still remember how excited I was, especially when I realised that it had a velour interior, power windows, power mirrors and wait for it, oscillating air conditioning vents in the front!
In that time, I really haven’t had any major problem with the vehicle either mechanically, in the interior or on the exterior of the car. It gets serviced once or twice a year, I put fuel in it and it just goes. On the mileage front, in my mix of highway and city driving to and from work, I get approximately 500km from a tank of fuel and over 550km if its strictly on the highway.
I’ll miss the Telstar, it has been a great little car and served myself and Claire really well over the years. Now I just need to find an adequate replacement and hope that I have a hassle free existence with it as the Telstar has provided.
It was about 4:55PM and I was driving north on the M1, approaching exit 57 for Hope Island. At this time of day, there was a lot of traffic around and the intersection is notorious for being heavily congested as it serves as a massive interchange for some large roads. The traffic had already filled both of the offramp lanes and was now backing up a few hundred metres further down the M1 in the shoulder of the motorway. To give you an idea, the accident happened about 150m south of the overpass to the right of map marker A (see link above) and there was a few hundred metres of cars lined up behind us within seconds of the accident.
Mitsubishi Pajero, after being rear ended by a Mitsubishi Lancer at about 100kph
I indicated and slowed down like normal and just as I was coming to a rest I glanced into my right rear view mirror and thought to myself for a split second that I hope there isn’t an accident. Nearly as soon as that thought left my mind, all I can hear is an enormous smash as a dark blue Mitsubishi Lancer ploughed into the back of a Mitsubishi Pajero, which proceeded to hammer a Toyota Camry and then onto my Ford Telstar. Fortunately, I hadn’t come to a complete stop yet so was still a reasonable distance from the Mazda 3 in front of me and was able to stop my car before hitting it.
Toyota Camry, after being rear end by a Mitsubishi Pajero
A lof of people that weren’t involved in the accident pulled over on the motorway to make sure everyone was okay, which I thought was fantastic. I’m sure to passing traffic, they must have got a shock as the man following the blue Lancer suggested that he didn’t even put his breaks on, or if he did – momentarily before he carreered into the back of the Pajero. After talking to the other drivers, the guy in the Mitsubishi Lancer said he wasn’t looking at the road, for some eight seconds (his words) – which scares the hell out of me. If that timing is true, eight seconds on the motorway is approximately 240m of travelling distance and a hell of a lot of things can happen in 240m of motorway, like say a four car multi-vehicle accident!
Ford Telstar, after being rear ended by a Toyota Camry
The emergency services were amazing, there was a motorbike police officer on the scene within five minutes and the first of the ambulances arrived a few minutes later, followed by fire engines, more police, ambulances & traffic control. Surprisingly, the tardiest of the lot were the tow trucks, who are normally like vultures circling waiting for something to die.
Incredibly, everyone came away from the accident with no or fairly light injuries. The guy in the Lancer had a broken finger and was struggling to breathe a little, which doesn’t surprise me given the rather abrupt stop he made coupled with the airbag. Probably the worst effected was the young woman in the Pajero, who took the brunt of the force and was really shaken up but visibly unharmed.
Being completely unsure what I should do in a multi-vehicle accident, I asked one of the police officers on the scene. They informed me that I didn’t need to worry about getting everyones details, they’d provide me with an incident number to provide to my insurance company. Now comes and interesting time ahead to see what’ll happen to the trusty Telstar!
Anita dropped in yesterday to wish Hugo a happy 3rd birthday and gave him a spectacular present, a crown tail Siamese fighting fish!
