marc.vic.max.elliot

It’s been almost a week and a lot has happened (although it’s probably all boring for anyone but us )

The weekend was busy with a friend around for dinner on Friday nite. I finished a quick-start, week-long diet that night (14 lbs lost!) as well so no nice pasta dinner for me 🙁 Saturday we visited the same friend at her place and I checked all her fuses (one had blown and they are those old wired type and too far up the wall for her to reach safely) That night we had the 30th birthday party of a friend Larry (Laraine) and the theme was 70’s A great time was had with some truly atrocious clothing and pretty scary music during the night!

We got home about 00:30 and as Max hadn’t had a feed all night we got him up to feed him and got to bed about 02:00. 07:00 and it was up again to feed the little monster and then out for brunch at a new cafe that has opened up just down the road. Kai in the Bay was a huge disappointment with coffee very mediocre and the food overpriced for the small portions offered. It’s a shame really as the location is great and it’s within easy walking distance 🙁 Oh well, you live and learn……

After postponing last week, Deb and I got together on Tuesday morning for a coffee. She’s a lovely lady and conversation covered all sorts of topics from pMachine to blogging to life in Wellington to babies, birth and bottle feeding. A nice time and hopefully it’ll happen again at some stage.

On the Max front the big news is that he’s started to pull himself up onto his knees when he’s in his cot!  Leave him sitting there and he’ll be up and smiling over the rail in no time

Job wise I had a second, face-to-face interview today with a large international company – yay! Unfortunately I think I could have done a lot better – boo!  I’ll hopefully get some feedback in the next day or two……….

OK, it’s hot in the UK at the moment.  In fact it’s record breaking hot. 37.9C (100.2F) in London and a UK high of 38.1C (100.6F) in Gravesend, Kent.

I thought this was hot (and it really is) until I read this post from Tom. Tom lives in Phoenix, Arizona and the Walmart sign in town read 118F – That’s 47.7C for crying out loud! How on earth people can be expected to function in this sort of heat is beyond me!

We’re heading for a high of 11C (52F) today with rain and chilly Antarctic southerlies – nice 🙁

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It’s lovely day here in Wellington so we thought we would go for a walk down along the waterfront.  The ice cream, espresso and caramel nut sellers were out in force and I couldn’t resist doing this

Today started off in a bizarre way.  I got up and checked our emails to find an email congratulating me on another POTD win at digitalphotocontest.com The unusual thing was that POTD’s are announced at about 20:00 NZ time and I had seen the site last night and my photo wasn’t there.  The email went on to say Your photo, “swirling,” is today’s winner in the Landscape/Nature category.  The previous winner in the category had to be disqualified because it was not appropriate for the category. Your photo was in the runner-up position from yesterday and, therefore, moved into first place today. Very strange but I won’t turn it down!………

This afternoon Vic went up the road to meet up with a ex-neighbour that has a son about 2 weeks younger than Max. Given this I thought I’d nip out to take some photo’s around the coast on the other side of Wellington Harbour. This little expedition really showed me how unfit I am.  I was probably a bit silly by taking so much gear for a walk that ended up being three and a half hours! Here’s the kit I took in my back pack:

? EOS D30 body with additional battery grip

? EOS 33 body with additional battery grip (not used)

? Sigma 17-35mm lens

? 28-135mm IS lens

? 70-200 F4 L lens

? 1.4x TC

? 100mm macro lens (not used)

? Manfrotto tripod (not used)

? Manfrotto head (not used)

? Film (not used)

All up 20lbs worth of kit and I was knackered when I got back to the car It wasn’t really even worth it as the coast is, quite frankly, bloody boring!  Here are the only two shots that are worth photoshopping.

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A first for us this weekend – this morning we were up and showered before Max even woke up!  We went out last night (leaving Max with Vic’s Mum) for Ali’s 30th birthday party which was great fun. It was, of course, even better due to the fact that the AB’s beat Oz by a record score of 52-21!!!!  We got home and got Max up to give him a decent feed and eventually got to bed about 02:00 We were up at 08:00 and were ready to go before Max stirred! It really was a strange way to start the day I can tell you!

I also had a wee photo shoot with Max yesterday and have posted 5 new images to the image database. Here’s one of them:

I think my interview/meeting went pretty well yesterday.

I seem to be a good fit for the role from a skills perspective and the agency seems to agree. They put my CV forward to the client last night and I should hear if I have a phone interview by the end of the week.

This is the furthest I’ve got in 4 months so fingers crossed

When having a bath with your son don’t wash him with very slippery soap and then drop him face first into the water!!!!!!

Even though his face will only be in the water for about 1/2 a second and he will take it pretty well you will almost have a heart attack and you will almost pull a muscle with your super fast, panic enhanced, hand speed.

I was shaking for about 30 minutes………..

Good weekend!

Yesterday we drove out to see my Dad in his new house and had lunch.  He’s recently moved to a small town about an hour away and we’d promised to visit.  We then drove about another hour and a half and went to the first birthday party for Abbey, the daughter of friends of ours Ali and Al.  Great afternoon with loads of cake, cheerios and champagne! After leaving there about 20:00 we got home just after 23:00 (coffee stop at Vic’s Mum’s on the way ) and Max played up until just after 01:00!!  A very exciting day for him I guess with loads of new people and things to see.

Today was a quiet day with our friend Gayle popping around for lunch and then my Mum visiting for a coffee. Here’s a couple of shots I took while Mum was here.