by Kimliatach Armour build video part 4.
Editing part 5 at the moment and stewing on alterations to the weekly maths program as I work.
Of course I found my macro lens just days after purchasing a replacement, but I was glad of it today. My principal caught two baby browns on school property this morning. I took the opportunity to get some closeups of the deadly little buggers.
by Kimliatach Painted all of the remaining costume elements by hand today. I tiny bit of dry brushing and they are ready for clear coating and a build complete announcement. For now I need to get editing because filming was interrupted by filling up my 64g camera memory card today and there is no way I have room to store it all for long.
Sir Vader’s ruby meteorite Damascus steel short sword below:
I also did a fair chunk of manual labour helping move one of the principals aquaponics systems into the outer wet room attached to my classroom. He had a gravel bed system in use which needed mucked out. In the classroom we will be trying a suspended foam system. I am now expecting a whole lot of jokes about Mr.Langs ‘Hydge setup’.
In another exciting turn of events today we looked at properties around town suitable for N to use as a photography studio. Now that both boys are in care or at preschool at least two days a week she is feeling ready and keen to begin working. There are a couple of promising properties the best of which is only $100 a week.
by Kimliatach Here in the western district school not only starts a full week later in term one, we also get a midterm break in week five of each term. That is a full four day weekend in the middle of each term! ostensibly to allow visits to medical professionals and other difficult to access businesses in regional centres. I’m making stuff.
Both boys were booked into and well enough to attend day care today. F and I have cleared up and L never got the bug for a blessing. So today I made some good progress in planning, primarily in writing in which I’ve got content for at least the next eight weeks nailed down.
I’ve also began painting detail on L’s costume and have only just finished the first pass with silver.
Still reaping the benefits of paying for ‘Alien Side Boob’ by Birmingham with genuine lol’s on Fridays, Mondays are generally amusing but not as humorously vitriolic as with today’s which included the lines:
“Like a Brylcreamed Huntsman spider you thought you’d drowned in bug spray suddenly coming at you from a dark corner, the Abdominator dashed out of the shadows ‘to unveil a sweeping conservative manifesto for the next federal election’. Like his last spell as PM it was all but satire-proof by reason of congenital hypercrazia.”
by Kimliatach One Infant down with the first day care flu of the year.
I blame the lack of UV in the little kid space. Completely anecdotally of course but I swear the colds are less common from the bigger outdoor kids areas. His big brother is now also showing possible early signs of infection.
Dog help us all.
The book tree has sprung some leaves, I’ll share another picture when it is a little more verdant.
L insisted on a costume test after yesterdays undercoating.
Leaving off with the joy of Infinite Immortal Bens
by Kimliatach Up past my bedtime to post this having only just finished a couple of the tasks I set myself today.
The costume is built and all foam pieces have been given a plastidip undercoat. Time allowing through the week I’ll add some detail in acrylic before clear coating and calling build complete.
I also did a bit of carboard dumpster diving yesterday, for N’s photography, sheet mulching the ever recurring catheads in the garden and building and hanging a new classroom feature. My very own book tree. The leaves of this tree will be made from book report/reviews done by students throughout the year. It will make an interesting way to show participation in the premiers reading challenge later in the year as well.
Just finished putting the fiction leaf template together now. A variant for non fiction books will also be required. Students can earn in class XP by participating in such activities beyond the two I will require from everyone.
by Kimliatach Phase complete on the Sir Vader Armour, ready to paint tomorrow. Which is a huge relief. Way behind on progress vids I know. In time in time.
Changed the blogs theme while trying to figure out what has broken in its CSS. Working fine in the big three browsers but broken display and back end in my preferred Opera in the last week.
I’ve pent the last couple of evenings indulging in a little gaming care of the Freedom Bundley. In particular I’ve been entertaining L with a little ‘Octodad‘ which has ‘QWOP‘ levels of frustration and hilarity and challenging my reflexes with a bit of the ol’ FPS bullet hell ‘Tower of Guns‘ As in inane and wonderful as it sounds.
This spectacularly lame screenshot brought to you by an unwillingness to get drawn in while trying to write.
Politics has been stormy this week and my prediction of a loss of majority is looking more and more likely. But I don’t have energy for a rant. This article (pay walled but available free as your first of the week, or in full text here) read over breakfast this morning upset me. Not that it was in any way unexpected, suicides are the inevitable result of the robodebt policy. But it is just so fucking pointless, so completely unnecessary and to be putting so many people through this Brechtian horror show is just unforgivably ghastly.
by Kimliatach A hectic couple of days with late nights and early mornings. N’s new computer arrived as two large boxes and required assembly, which along with software installation took the better part of two evenings. It has now been running smoothly with steady uptime now exceeding exceeding twenty-four hours. With thanks to the gods of technology
Colour me relieved.
It’s an i7700k with 16gig ram and a Radeon rx470 for those into that kind of thing. I went to r/buildapc for support choosing parts.
There were two hiccups during setup. The first when we went to turn it on for the very first time and nothing happened. It was apparently only a cable that needed taken out and put back in again but my oh my it gave me a fright. Then a genuine and still unexplained peculiarity, during driver installations the screen took on a bright magenta hue and could not be convinced to change back, despite many settings tweaks and restarts, the loading screens were coloured normally, only windows was pink. Anyway changing graphics cable types solved the issue and since then it has all gone swimmingly.
In addition I’ve had two extremely busy days of PD and preparation and I’ve spent every spare moment from those tasks creating more classroom resources now that I finally have my class lists.
A free worksheet for any who are interested is included below. Heraldry and fantasy elements are all tying in as I’ll be using Classcraft as my central reward system this year, I’m even going so far as to pay for it and split the fee with another teacher.
Speaking of fantasy elements, I haven’t made time to work on L’s costume in a week but I also haven’t shown the most recent addition. Cut from a 3 ply block of 12mm foam the blade edge is actually 12mm wide. There are two very fiberglass rods providing core strength. Lots of sanding and detailing to go. Painting of the whole costume is within reach now.
by Kimliatach Foam work and time line labels ate the productive hours today. Only three elements and a little glue required to be ready for painting now. What a relief it will be to have that project complete. The elements remaining are the cloak attachments and the sword and shield, principle pieces for which are now all cut. I am way behind on build videos and going to devote some time to trying to finish one tonight.
I had a question about the time line I’ve been making and I guess I have not explained the project very well so far. A time line is a pretty indispensable teaching tool and pretty much every classroom needs one. In the past I have bodged up something similar, but without as much detail or orderliness as this new one. Typically a class room time line is used to order a small portion of events around a specific topic like the ‘Gold Rush’ or ‘Ancient Rome’. I have always found such time lines inadequate, they don’t have room for broader consequences or causes and they rarely give a contextual relationship to the students lifetime. This project is an attempt to create a timeline that includes at the start a whole bunch of critical events and dates as well as the lifetimes of a great number of famous historical figures.
My time line will be 14m long and will stretch across the whole wall above my whiteboard and around the corner slightly at each end. It will use a log scaling to allow inclusion of the big bang at the left end and one hundred years in the future at the right. It will have 1m for this year, to the left and right of this year 1m for ten years in the past and future. Beyond them another meter to the left and right for the 100 years before and beyond that. After that it extends only left each meter a length of time ten times the previous. Most of the final meter is unnecessary as the Big bang will be right at the right edge of that frame but it wont fit otherwise.
Today I added another twenty or so name and event labels and then began the odious task of transferring all I’ve made so far into Indesign as Illustrator was beginning to have serious difficulty with the file size.
by Kimliatach I began setting up and cleaning my classroom in earnest today. Which also afforded me opportunity to make my first prints on the schools 3D Printer. There remains a lot to do. But I have a space arraignment that I am happy with for now and I’ve found some treasures hidden in the cupboards, a couple of powered microscopes, lots of paint and dice. Happy days.
I won’t have students until Feb 6th as I’m in NSW’s western district. Work officially starts the Wednesday prior but that is professional development. I have planning and decorating to do.
Spirographs FTW.
Also finished attaching the pvc scale armour pieces to L’s Sir Vader tabard. A few foam details; Including a cloak attachment, a sword and shield and we are all set for painting and calling this particular project done.
by Kimliatach Yesterday was one of those days where everyone got up on the wrong side of the bed. Things went from bad to worse at the breakfast table where even the bananas were not of acceptable standards. Things improved by the time we finished the day with a family barbecue and sun headaches. It was a hard day compounded by relentless heat and irritability.
Today a heavenly break in the weather allowed a very productive day. Knocked out a few little jobs in the garden that have been waiting for soft ground and cool conditions to be completed. Also made a lot of progress on the Sir Vader costume, which is now almost ready for painting.
Finished Stephenson’s ‘Quicksilver‘ this morning which has taken a while to get though, having first attempted it in Scotland. Already almost finished book two of eight ‘The King of The Vagabonds’ (technically published in the one volume with the first). It isn’t often that I hear nine plus hours of an audio book in one day though.
