We Made A Roman Shield

Last weekend's homework for my youngest was to make a Roman Shield. After a short  google image search Ryan came up with his design and drew it out. I added the larger version onto card and away he went painting it how he wanted it. He took it to school at the end of the week, and I think it went down well 👍

Original Design

We grew some crystals

Ryan got a crystal set for Christmas. We have tried before to get results but have always failed...
 This time I was determined to get something. It did say you could see them within 2 days, though ours took 2 weeks to get this size of Emerald Green Crystal
 They do look cool under the microscope.

STAR CONTROL ORIGINS - FIRST BUILD

I picked up Star Control Origins about two months ago while still in very early access and at a very low price (£17). I believe I played the original all those years ago on a friends pc. At the time it really wasn't for me as a game, but as I have gotten older it's right on point. I just love games you can invest time in, and come back again and again.

Update On My Son (10 months on)

It's been over 10 months since my 8yr old had his stroke, and I would like to give an update to all the people that have asked, helped and shown concern and love for Ryan...
 To say that the last 10 months have been hard is an understatement, not just on Ryan but his brother his mum and even the dog has felt, and had to deal with some adjustments. So much has changed and we have had to deal with each problem, large and small in different ways that we would not have a year ago.
 In the past week, we had our last appointment this year with his Neurologist, and he is so happy and impressed with Ryans recovery, and after 3 MRI scans he has given him the "ok" that nothing else has happened since his stroke and we will now see him in a year's time. He will stay on medication for next next year, and this might be stopped if in time they believe he no longer needs this. It was a concern to us that he would have to be on medication for the rest of his life, but fingers crossed this might not be the case.
 So physically Ryan is almost back to himself, he just gets tired by the end of the week and grumpy.... which leads us onto where we are now with him. Emotionally he is so different in many ways, he now has a lack of confidence and increased anxiety about new things, places and being on his own in  rooms even at home. He will not go upstairs if there is no one up there, and will only go to bed if I'm upstairs in the next room. This of course has a big impact on our day to day family life (I don't get much done at all in the evenings once I take Ryan to bed). He also has anger outbursts, sometimes out of being mad or being told no about something, and other times it's out of frustration, but all times he almost has to burn himself out before he can stop, which can take an hour plus. This did only happen at home, but on occasions has now happened while out and at school. This has lead us into getting some outreach help. Once a week he gets to sit down and talk or play to see if they can get him to open up about what's bothering him and also to come up with a programme to help him and us. This is a slow process, but something we believe he needs.

 With the Neurologist giving him as close to "all clear" as he can, because it's looking more likely that we will never find out the real cause of the stroke, a high spike in his blood pressure was the reason, but we don't know why that happened, and his bp is now back to normal and is check every two weeks. Anyway with that he has been told he can start rugby again next season, which has made him a very happy boy, he has so missed being on that pitch with his team. Speaking of which, Leyland Warriors had the end of year presentation last week and even though Ryan hadn't played this year they asked him to still come as he had done some training, watched matches and supported when he could. The coaches said some lovely words about him and he got a round of applause. Great club and great bunch of people.
Link

 And just to finish on an even better note, today Ryan was invited to the North West Regional Life After Stroke Awards Celebration, to acknowledge the fact he was nominated for a Life After Stroke Award in the Children and Young People category, very proud of this young man.

 Thank you all again for asking about him it means so much to us.
Lee.

Mortal Kombat Kicking Ass in Really Life (gifs)

Funny Mortal Kombat gif's kicking it in real life.

New Media To Watch In October 2017

It's all about the video this month, as I am still working through the audio books and graphic novels from last month.

Rick and Morty:

 Season 3 is the third season of Rick and Morty. The season will consist of 10 episodes. It was first announced by [adult swim] in August 2015, and premiered without warning on April 1, 2017 as an April Fools stunt. The first episode was looped for the entire night on its first airing on the channel.

The rest of the season started airing on July 30, 2017, nearly four months after the first episode aired. The season concluded with "The Rickchurian Mortydate" on October 1, 2017

Text via: rickandmorty.wikia

Gotham:

Season 3 of the American television series Gotham, based on characters from DC Comics related to the Batman franchise, revolves around the characters of James Gordon and Bruce Wayne. The season is produced by Primrose Hill Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television, with Bruno Heller, Danny Cannon, John Stephens, and Ken Woodruff serving as executive producers. The season included inspirations from Batman: The Killing Joke and The Dark Knight Returns.

Text via: wiki/Gotham

Star Wars Rebels:

The first season of the animated television series Star Wars Rebels premiered on October 3, 2014 on the Disney Channel, beginning with the one-hour television movie Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion. The full series began on Disney XD with the premiere of the episode "Droids in Distress" on October 13, and it ended with "Fire Across the Galaxy" on March 2, 2015. The season is executive produced by Dave Filoni, Simon Kinberg, and Greg Weisman.


The first season, set five years before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, follows the crew of the starship Ghost in the early days of the fight against the Galactic Empire. The crew attracts the attention of Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau, who wants to eliminate them as a threat before they can spark a wider rebellion; and the Grand Inquisitor, a dark sider who is tasked with killing any Jedi who survived Order 66—including Kanan Jarrus and his new apprentice, Ezra Bridger. The crew of the Ghost will eventually help form the Rebel Alliance.

Text via: starwars.wikia

Batman and Harley Quinn:

 Batman and Nightwing discover that Poison Ivy and Floronic Man have teamed up. Much to their reluctance, they decide to look for Harley Quinn (Ivy's best friend and Joker's usual sidekick), to find out where the duo are hiding; however, Harley has gone off the grid since getting paroled. Batman leaves finding Harley to Nightwing, while he gets information from A.R.G.U.S..

Text via: wikipedia.org/wiki

Batman vs. Two-Face:

 Batman and Robin are invited to a top-secret demonstration hosted by Professor Hugo Strange and his assistant Dr. Harleen Quinzel, that may eventually change the future of Gotham forever. Along the way, Batman takes a stop at Gotham State Penitentiary to visit Catwoman (whose suicide attempt from the first movie somehow failed) to give her a book on poetry by Elizabeth Barret Browning; something to keep her occupied for the next 36 months of her life until she is let out of prison for good. At the laboratory, they meet district attorney and Bruce Wayne's ally in the war against crime, Harvey Dent, who is famous for having stopped a coin counterfeit, keeping a two faced quarter as a souvenir from the case.

Text via: wikipedia.org/wiki

Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars:

 After the events of Invasion, Johnny Rico has been demoted to the rank of colonel and relocated to a Martian satellite to train a new batch of troopers. Unfortunately, these troopers are some of the worst low-performing Rico has ever trained as Mars overall has low support for the war, seeing their planet unaffected by the bug conflict and even suggesting pulling out from the war. Because of their laid back attitude, the denizens of Mars weren't ready when the bugs attacked. Unknown to everyone, Sky Marshall Amy Snapp executes her plans for power.


Snapp hatched her own plans to destroy Mars while gaining popular support for doing it. She's well aware of the bug nest growing under Mars for some time, but she decided to take advantage of the bug attack to gain social and political support to scuttle the whole planet. She staged a fleet attack run on the Arachnid Quarantine Zone (AQZ) as a massive distraction. While no one notices, she plans to capture General Carl Jenkins, then fabricate a story in which the Federation was too distracted in the AQZ to save Mars and had to detonate a Q-Bomb (planet destroyer) to cleanse the bug threat and Carl will be blamed for the loss of Mars. Unfortunately, nothing went according to plan.

Text via: wikipedia.org/wiki

How do I consume my media?

Tablet:

Sony Z1 10inch.

16gb with a 64gb sd

Android 5.1.1

Phone:

Huawei P9

32gb with a 32gb sd

Android 7.0

Video app:

Mizuu for organizing.

MX Player Pro.   

VLC just incase I need another.  

AudioBooks:

Smart Audiobooks.   

Podcasts:

Pocket Casts.  

Ebooks:

Moon+ reader Pro.

Play Books.

Comics/Graphic Novels:

ComicRack.

Cool Gif Effect

Seeing a lot of these online, and thought I would share a few that I have seen, and thought they work well.