Hadrian's Wall

Novelist Supermum came back from a shopping expedition in town with a few new books - she'd also bought me an Osprey book on Hadrian's Wall today.
Osprey do those thin paperback books on military uniforms . This one is about the History and Archaeology on Hadrian's Wall.

This is an area that I've long had an interest in, since I grew up about quarter of a mile north of "The Waall", and my school was built on top of, or is very close to Milecastle 13. One of my best 'O' levels was a grade 'A' in "The History and Archaeology of Roman Britain" - most other schools did Greek Archaeology at the time, however we had some very good teachers who didn't want to waste the historical resources that were literally on our doorstep.

The book is a relatively new publication, and has new illustrations by a couple of Italian Artists - rather than the usual colour plates by an artist who's name I 've forgotten, but a quick search on Google reveals that I'm thinking of the late "Ronald Embleton" (now there's a fine Northumbrian surname).

Here's one of Ronald Embleton's classic pictures of Romans wiping their bum's with publicly shared sponges on sticks

Less Wires 2

Yipee it works!

Checked the phase of the moon, lit 7 black candles, stripped naked, took a bowl of fresh goats blood and smeared on the symbols of power, danced widdershin's around the device of electrickery until commune with the daemons of the internet was achieved. Cleared up the ectoplasm afterwards...

Or I may as well have done - somehow I got the thing working in just over an hour. Not bad for me.

Bought the card from PC world for 20 notes. Asked a dishwasher salesman if I could get a refund if I discovered that I'd bought a device that wasn't suitable. He told me that they would, but would keep 10 percent. Got a second opinion off a car salesman to check the compatibility of a Belkin Wireless card with an Orange/Wanadoo livebox ADSL modem/router. He started with "think of your router as Radio City, and the cards as different makes of radio that you tune in with". Actually that's not too bad an analogy now that I think about it. Basically he was saying that any brand of card should connect.

I ran the installation disk (which installed the driver for the card) and invoked the Belkin Wireless Utility.

Using the utility I entered the name of our Wireless Network, and the WEP key.

The utility detected our network, but surprise surprise it wouldn't connect.

I ensured that the "Windows Zero Configuration Service" was running, set it to 'Automatic' and restarted it. Still no joy.

Then I discovered the most useful part of the Belkin Wireless Utility - checkbox that says - "Windows Wireless Network Configuration".

I ticked this, then with the aid of the Orange (ex-Wanadoo) online support guide (via another connected machine) I ran through the configuration process for 3rd party (i.e. not supplied by Orange/Wanadoo) wireless devices that I used the last time.

First of all I wasn't connecting. Then after a couple of double checks, and re-entering of the WEP key I rebooted. This time I was connecting, but the connection message said 'Limited or no Connectivity'.
Hmmmmm - ponder ponder....

Rebooted again - not connected at first. This could have been a coincident but under Wireless Network Connection=>Change Advanced Settings=>Wireless Networks there's a field called 'key index' which defaults to 1. I flicked this to 2 then back to 1 again. Just as I did this the connection was made!

On rebooting again I'm connecting on startup every time. Passed the machine back to it's owner.

We're now surfing the web wirelessly from opposite ends of the couch, so we can swap insults by electronic media as well as verbally.

Less Wires

Not much blogging tonight as I'm about to set up Novelist Supermum with a wireless connection to our Broadband Wireless router (rather than her plugging directly into the router).

Will rant tomorrow about the success/failure of this.

Not So Lazy Tuesday

Made a couple of phone calls this morning - sorting out Frodo's start of term at his school. He's repeating his reception year to see if this helps him cope better with school, and gives him a chance to catch up, so we weren't sure of his exact start date, or if he was to attend all day.

Also called the Tax Credits renewal line, to inform them of a couple of changes of circumstance. I knew that we hadn't done this when we should have done, and that any changes to our payments would only be backdated 3 months. The Scottish chap I was speaking to at the call centre started to berate me for not informing them of each change as it happened. That got me off onto a rant about how come the government is spending millions of pounds on computer systems, yet none of them can speak to each other and they rely on the public to act as the communications link between systems? Also I normally carry out these updates online, however the reason that I was calling is that the online system has been taken down because it isn't secure enough.

At this point he started to agree with me (perhaps he was wary of being monitored) and logged the changes. He did admit that it's more difficult for him to alter anything for the previous year (even though this is in the same financial year), as the system fires warning messages at him.

Spot of essential shopping, then I began sorting out the garage.

Will also make a start on the big paperwork sortout later tonight.

A good start I think - except that the whole family appears to be going down with a cold. Everyone is snuffling and sneezing except me, guess I'm next...

Lazy Bank Holiday Monday

Living up to the subtitle of my blog - all of those vague plans that I had to get on with something have not materialized today. Instead I've caught up on sleep, entertained Frodo and Samwise, watched the entire set of Samwise's Peppa Pig DVD's, caught up on more sleep, watched "Mystery Men" on the box, dined, wined, pigged out on hot apple pie and ice cream/single cream and finally chilled out with some blogging.

Cue the sarcastic comments from Novelist Supermum about why change the habits of a lifetime...

Week off work next week, so perhaps I'll clear out the garage ready for it's demolition, and also sort out 4 years of unfiled letters, bank statements and other paperwork...

Little Blister Visit

Frodo had the rest of his Birthday presents, that were given to him at the party open by yesterday afternoon.

One of them was a set of Superman pyjamas (blue, Superman logo and built in external underpants), which meant that we could finally peeled him out of his cyberman pyjamas, which he's been wearing since Wednesday night.

Little Blister visited as promised on Saturday afternoon and entertained the hobbits until it was time for bed. I cooked a meal, we opened a few bottles of wine and got chatting until we started passing out.

She had to sleep on the sofa bed, since the spare room is currently full of junk waiting to be sorted. I tried to hold the halflings back as long as possible upstairs, but by 08:00 they were downstairs and entertaining her with their tumbling skills.

Frodo's present from Little Blister was a large cyberman figure. This went down well as he already had a smaller cyberman from us, so he can now play bigger than and smaller than comparison's (which is something that we're supposed to be working on with him). Samwise is calling them "Daddy Cyberman" and "Samwise Cyberman".

Frodo's Birthday

Frodo started to stir at about 06:15 this morning.

I say he was stirring. Novelist Supermum insists that he wasn't and that we could have had another hour in bed, but somebody was too excited about playing with Frodo's presents.

I got up quickly, lifted the Dalek and control unit from out of it's box, switched both on and steered the Dalek into Frodo's room. "You will obey the Daleks! Obey! Obey!"
"Daddy!" "On the floor!" "In my room!"
"What is it Frodo?"
"A Dalek!"
"We are Supreme Beings!" "Seek! Locate! Annihilate!"
"Daddy, that's from Dr Who!" shouts Samwise from his room.

Soon both of the hobbits were in Frodo's bedroom, jumping up and down and pointing excitedly whilst the Dalek paraded around in front of them.

They discovered that the Supreme Beings plans to conquer the Universe could be thwarted by standing on a rug, that's thicker than the carpet.

We moved downstairs. Most of the presents were opened by 07:30. Soon a Cyberman and a Tardis (together with a "The Doctor" action figure that belongs to Samwise) were helping form a Dr Who Universe on the living room floor.

Frodo had breakfast, then played with the Dalek a little more. We usually allow the hobbit who's birthday it is to give a little gift to the other hobbit (to compensate for all the attention not being on them) so Samwise got a Peppa Pig DVD box set from Frodo. He also got a smaller Dalek to play with too (this used to belong to Frodo).

We were up far too early, so Novelist Supermum and Frodo went back to bed for a bit, before we opened the remaining presents - mostly musical/percussion instruments that I'd bought from a local music shop.

Onto the party at 13:00. This went well and all the kids who came had a great time for 2 hours or so at the Aztec themed play centre. Samwise wouldn't stick to the toddlers section, and he climbed to the top of the play area a few times. He went down both snake slides, and at one point I saw him happily wandering through a maze of stalactites and stalagmites before crossing a lava flow by himself.

Following the food and Birthday cake the staff let everybody have a go at the Ball Shooting gallery. This is two rows of air powered cannons which one child aims at the targets, whilst the others load up with foam balls, that are blasted out immediately after loading. Loads of fun trying to knock down Quetzacoatl.

Home again to see Grandma Gandalf and eat more of the giant football pitch Birthday cake before bedtime. Everybody absolutely knackered, and the hobbits went straight off to sleep at around 18:30 - although Frodo was disturbed by Auntie Crystal Healer who called to sing "Happy Birthday" to him down the phone.

Frodo has 14 extra presents, which he's going to open over the next few days.

He's definitely had the Birthday that he's been looking forward to, and went to bed an extremely happy hobbit. Only 365 days to the next one.

Little Blister called to say that she's visiting us at the weekend, although she's got a free ticket for a Rolling Stones gig so she can't stay on Sunday night as originally planned.

Just nodded off at the keyboard. It's now way past my bedtime and I'm well knackered so time for bed...

Dalek Mission Preparation

Leaving for work this morning an intergalactic battle was taking place in the front room. Frodo had constructed a "lazer beam" from lego and was "shooting Replicators". Samwise was doing likewise, except that he was "shooting Alligators".

Samwise then made a twin engined spaceship from 4 pieces of lego and flew it around the room whilst Frodo took potshots at it with his beam weapon.

Frodo's 5th Birthday is tomorrow. We wrapped his presents - a Tardis/moneybox, a Cyberman, some books and several musical/percussion instruments.

We didn't wrap the 2 foot tall, radio controlled Dalek, but took it out of it's box instead. Took us about an hour to get through all of the security ties and safety packaging. Why are there so many blooming plastic wire ties on kids toys these days? Surely if anybody's going to nick the thing then they'll just take the whole box?

We set the Dalek up and took it for a test drive, voice, voice lights, eye stalk light, weapons, battle body and radio control all working OK.
The plan is to get up early tomorrow morning and steer the Dalek into Frodo's bedroom for an "Exterminate!" Birthday surprise. (Hope that we don't traumatise him for life).

Have to pick up a large Birthday Cake today for the Birthday Party tomorrow.

Revenge of the Sith

Saturday night was DIY night, which this week involved swapping the cabinet that the fish tank is standing on for another taller cabinet. Discovered that the fish were too fat to all fit in their holding tank. Novelist Supermum describes
the moving of the fat fish in her blog.

The hobbits spent the night at Grandma Gandalf's, where apparently they watched "I Robot". Frodo is now leaping around doing "jumping robot" impressions.

Sunday was another sports party for Frodo. This time the kids got their first taste of indoor hockey. Much high swinging of the sticks, but fortunately no injuries. I think that Frodo must have tried this before at his Holiday Activity Centre, since he seemed to know how to hold the stick to hit the ball (and also how to balance the stick in his hand).

We walked to the party, and just missed a bus on the way back, which meant that I had to carry Frodo home on by shoulders for almost a mile.

Borrowed "Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" from Grandma Gandalf and watched it on Sunday night. As expected I was as disappointed with this as I was with episodes I and II. I've got a leaflet from the cinema when I first saw episode IV (1977 I think) explaining that Obi Wan chucked Darth Vader into a Volcano - so that went as expected. I guess that's what the problem is, no surprises. You know what's going to happen, you've spotted in Episode I that the actor who plays the Chancellor is the same one who played the emperor in the earlier trilogy, and you know that Anakin Skywalker is going to turn to the Dark Side - just a matter of when and how. You also find yourself rooting for the bad guys all the way, since they're more fun than the Jedi Council, and have better theme tunes.

Too many drinks on a Friday night...

... result in much suffering on Saturday. Groan... Never again (until the next time).

First Cycle Accident

One of the advantages of my Study day and "working from home" yesterday was that I got to take the Hobbits out to the park first thing in the morning.
(I did do some studying for a few hours in the afternoon when they were knackered and resting upstairs).

I was pushing Samwise along on his trike, using the "parent handle" and Frodo was ahead of me pedalling furiously on his shiny 2-wheeler pro-bike, with stabilisers, when he came to a steep hill.

He decided to tackle the hill, so down the hill he went. I shouted to two old ladies, who were on the crest of the hill to stop him, but they either didn't hear, or didn't understand, and parted to let him through.

He would have been all right, charging off the path and onto a grassy bit, where he would have probably fallen off at speed - he hasn't learnt how to use the brakes yet.

Unfortunately the park rangers have staked a few wooden posts into the soil to act as route markers for nature trails.

Frodo lost control as he hit the grass, and the nearest wooden post acted as a small-boy-on-bike magnet.

KERRASSSHHH!

By the time I'd parked Samwise and got to Frodo the accident was over. Frodo had picked himself up, he wasn't crying but looked rather shocked, and winded.

I think that the bike took most of the force. Judging by the scrapes and bruising Frodo hit the handlebars or post with his chest and top of his leg.
I don't think that he'd hit his head at all - he does wear a bike helmet, just in case.

When I got to him he started crying and wanted a cuddle. When I looked at him he asked if he could "go to hospital". I must have had the sort of look on my face that is usually followed by a visit to Alder Hey.

The old ladies just said "Oh Dear" and walked past.

5 minutes of cuddling, a check over for any obvious injuries, and a post-accident wee against a tree and he was all sorted. I expected that he would want to walk, but the brave lad climbed back on the bike and started pedalling again (I didn't make him, he wanted to carry on).

So a first for Frodo - a cycle accident. Hopefully it hasn't put him off. On the next cycling trip he'll be having braking (hopefully not breaking) lessons.

Oh, and the bike was OK. Not a mark on it and nothing bent.

Hope the phone doesn't ring

Bugger! I'm on call this week (I'm remaining on the on-call rota for my previous team [Applications Support], whilst I learn the DBA team ropes), so I've got the out of hours support mobile phone.
Novelist Supermum has gone out to her regular "Write Club" meeting. Our usual arrangement is that if I'm called out, then I'll give her a ring and she'll head for home. As soon as she's back I can set off. If we have to do this I reckon that I should be within the required response time.
Unfortunately this week she's forgotten her mobile. Bugger! (again).

I guess that if I am called in then I'll just have to wake the Hobbit's and take them round to Grandma Gandalf's, before I head into work.

Speaking of DBA team ropes, I discovered that my colleagues had played a little initiation trick on me. They'd physically swapped the 'o' and the 'p' keys on my keyboard. However the joke was on them. I didn't notice for a few days, mainly because I touch type using a Dvorak keyboard layout, as I'm not looking at the keyboard when I type (I'm looking at the screen) I didn't notice that the labels had been swapped.

Liverpool Evil Cabal

This site has been in the news recently.

Looked interesting, but it looks like it's been taken down for investigation, whilst the council are trying to ban it.

Busy

Yes I'm into the second week of my new position (DBA) at work, and I've been given stuff to do i.e. backing up an environment and patching it ready for integration testing - therefore no time to blog on Monday.

2 pieces of good news today.

The first is that the new position will result in me obtaining a company mobile phone again (my last one was taken off me when I stepped down from what was effectively a helpdesk manager role).

Upsides and downsides to having one of these I know from past experience i.e. they expect you to use it for work as well, and to be able to contact you on it :-)

The other good news is that I'm allowed a day away from the office every now and again to concentrate on uninterrupted studies in order to acquire essential skills for the job. So I'll be working from home on Thursday.
Not sure how frequent this will be, as it seems to be on an informal trial basis at the moment, but it could be at least once a month.

Was I in Time?...

... to blog an entry before midnight?

Sports Party Games and World of Knights (Schleich Models)

Another party for Frodo on Saturday. This one was a "sports party" in the sports hall at Hope University.

This meant that rather than the usual pass the parcel the kids got to play "cat and mouse" (half the kids stick a sports bib in the back of their shorts, the other half chase them and try to pull out the bibs), relay races, duck and goose (sit in a circle whilst one child walks round the outside, tapping each person on the head and saying "duck". When they say "goose" the goose has to get up and chase them around the circle, trying to catch them before they get back to their seat).

Also a couple of games involving a multi-coloured parachute. One kid on top of the parachute trying to catch another kid underneath, which sounds easy, except that the parachute is being flapped by everybody else. Throwing balls in the middle of the parachute and sending them flying out again by flapping the parachute up and down.

Novelist Supermum has been doing some research into Xmas presents already! We've been buying a few Schleich model Knights, and putting them away for the day we get a suitable wooden or similar castle. The Edix modular mediaeval village stuff looks good.

We've come across
this site which shows the full Schleich range, and will be useful for the harder to find models. I like the Arabian Knights in particular.

So that's my present sorted - I wonder what Frodo and Samwise are getting ;-)

Quality News Item

Good to see that amongst all of the current panic and speculation that some reporters have got a grip on what's important in the world and are putting out
quality news items.

Impulsive Shopping at Toys 'R' Us

Went out to Toys 'R' Us on my lunch break to buy a £9.99 3xdisc box set of Peppa Pig DVD's and came back with this, plus 'Robots' & 'Sharks Tale' DVD's, a Dr Who Pencil case and a 7 inch high Cyber Controller figure. "Like you do"....

Dr Frodo and Dr Samwise

Stepbro' and his family appeared to enjoy their visit to Liverpool. They commented on the "lovely big houses" that they saw as they navigated their way to my place (I think that they went via Princes Park).

They were surprised when I told them that they'd been through Toxteth. I think that they were expecting something different.

The hobbits enjoyed playing with their cousins. They've been playing at Doctor's recently, using bits of other toys for medical equipment. So Novelist Supermum has been out today and bought them a Doctor's dressing up outfit.
I was given a thorough checkup yesterday, and prescribed a cure of "Juice and a Book".

We had dips for tea.

Liverpool Pyramid

Stepbro' and his family are visiting this afternoon, so I'm taking the afternoon off work. They have an appointment for their daughter on Rodney Street (this is the Harley Street of Liverpool).
It's the first time that he's visited Liverpool so I've told him that Rodney Street is the area where they filmed some of the last series of Sherlock Holmes. (I believe that they may have used cha0tic's front lobby too, which is in another town).
I've also told him to look out for the pyramid that is on Rodney Street. He doesn't believe me, but there is one there. I think it's fab.






I always presumed that it was the tomb of an archaeologist, since it looks very like the mud brick pyramid builders tombs we saw at Deir el-Medina in Egypt. Google tells me that the tomb belongs to W. Mackenzie, a real gambler, who wanted to be buried upright at a card table holding the winning hand. So they built him a pyramid grave!

But I digress. Of course this visit by Stepbro' meant that most of Sunday night, and last night was spent scrubbing, cleaning and tidying. We tend to clean the house once every visitor, so you can tell how popular we are by examining the level of mess.

New Job

Started in my new role as a Database Administrator at the Assassination Bureau today.
As you can see from the number of posts I'm making, there's *loads* to do to start with. Time to read some documents, ho hum. No doubt they'll catch up with me later in the day/week.

Martians

Tried out the War of the Worlds Download in Celestia.

It worked OK. The fighting machines looked good, and the script worked, with some nice ideas on the recreation of the scenes at Horsell Common.

I used the .jpg version, of the download, rather than the .dds (which I think is a Microsoft only file format).

However the overall feeling was "a bit naff" - no point in trying to do something that's already been done with far better special effects elsewhere, but still a bit of fun all the same. The script has been written by a German chap, and I think that this shows.

On the whole the flying/orbiting spacecraft look better.

Barney Bodger 2

That wet-n-fix stuff really worked!

(See previous post on hole drilling/wall fixing/shelving disaster).

I just wet a pad and wrapped it around the wall plug, then inserted it into the hole that I'd drilled that is too big. Admittedly oversized hole number 1 took 3 pads, and super oversized hole number 2 took 8 pads.
Both set solid in 5 minutes and the shelf bracket screwed on nice and securely.

Learning my lesson for the remaining 16 holes that I had to drill I started off by deliberately using an undersized drill bit. This got the hole through the plaster and accurately into the brick without going off kilter.

I then resized the hole with the drill bit of the correct sized.

Only one hole went slightly oversized, and I correct this with a single pad of wet-n-fix

Three rows of shelves, two shelves per row, with a little bit of sawing to cut each corner wall shelf to size only took me 7 hours to complete! (Novelist Supermum) will tell you that's a quick job for me).

I'm pleased with the result. Novelist Supermum has already loaded the shelves up with boxes of our junk, and they appear to be taking the weight.

Late Night Work and Play

Done about half of the essential updates to Novelist Supermum's website (but not put online yet).

Couldn't resist having adding some more stuff to Celestia. Added a low resolution Star Destroyer, and the Planet Coruscant to the Star Wars stuff.
The Star Destroyer is actually chasing down Princess Leia's Corvette around Tatooine, just like the start of Episode IV (but without the gunfire).

Discovered a Star Wars tour script in the scripts area. This gives you a nice little tour of all the Star Wars eye candy, and saves you having to fly about yourself.

Samwise was amusing at tea last night. Answering "Yip" to every question. "Say, Yes Samwise" says Daddy. "Yes", says Samwise. "That's better". "Yip", says Samwise. I think that when he starts school the reports are going to contain the word "impudent".

Bought Frodo a Tardis Moneybox for part of his Birthday present yesterday. Also a toy knight - we're putting together a collection of some really good knights-in-armour/mediaeval figures for when the Hobbits are older.

I was also very tempted by the Cyberman voice changing helmet. But it was about 30 quid and wouldn't fit an adult :-( Quite scary too!
Both Samwise and Frodo enjoy stomping around the house shouting that they are "Cidermen" (wasn't that a Viz character?), however I think that this one would freak them out - plus it was helmet only, you'd have to make a silver suit to go with it (or borrow Cha0tic's).

Spaceships, DIY and Musical Instruments

Filled in the cracks in 3 of the downstairs doors last night ready for painting.

Following this I loaded up most of the rest of the Star Wars spacecraft into Celestia. Most of them looked pretty good. Because this is essentially planetarium software you can't fly the spaceships around, or start blasting away at them - one for future enhancements on the Open Source Project.

Best to start with the First Death Star, since this also loads Endor and Tatooine, around which the rest of the spaceships orbit. The X-wing looked pretty good because it had been put in an orbit so that it flies into, along and then out of the Death Star's trench.

Will have to put this toy away for a while, as updates are required on Novelist Supermum's website, and there's DIY planned for the weekend.

Been getting ready for Frodo's Birthday at the end of the month. We decided to get him some "proper" musical instruments that he can play i.e. one's that are designed to be played, and not as toys for kids. Nipped out to a local music shop and purchased a tambourine, guiro, castanets and a pair of maracas. The young lad who served me asked if I was having a Samba party.

We also need to get some more Dr Who figures to go with the large Radio Controlled Dalek (the plan is to wake him up on his Birthday by sending this into his room), so I reckon that it's a trip to Toys 'R' Us today.

DarkDwarf Galaxy Image

This might do for an image for my profile

More Celestia stuff

Cleaned the fish tank last night. Happy clean little fish so did some more stuff with Celestia. (Note for Novelist Supermum, will tackle your website tomorrow, after a little DIY).

The Celestia add-ons don't always come with the greatest of instructions as to where to copy the files.

I'd started by putting them into the existing directories based on directories of the same name being suppiled in the downloads. This works, but means that you cannot rapidly see what you've added, and what came with the original install.

I've changed this to just using the extras directory, however you have to use a bit of interpretation.
For instance for Death Star 1 and 2 the .ssc files go into the top level extras directory (a subdirectory that is also called extras doesn't seem to work) and then the models and textures/medres directories can be copied as they are into the extras directory. However for the imperial shuttle I just had to copy the whole supplied SW-tyderiumshuttle directory into extras.

So now I've got two Death Stars. I realised that last night I'd missed out copying the DSBODY file, so my Death Star was a bit on the smooth side.

To see Death Star 2 I had to edit the .ssc file so that it is in orbit around the planet called b in the RHO Crb solar system, otherwise I think that they're occupying the same space/orbit (I wonder if this is why the 'b' planet was created in the first place).

The Imperial shuttle worked first time. I've found that the one of the best ways to view a spacecraft, or even a planet is to select it, go to it, back off a bit, or get closer as necessary with END and HOME, speed up time so things are moving quickly and the Track the object.

When you're looking at a spacecraft that's in planetary orbit you get a great sensation of space sickness as you spin around the planet, and other features whizz past around you.

Tired Space Explorer

Feeling somewhat tired this morning. Guess why? See previous post. Playing with this new toy meant that I didn't get to bed until 01:00 AM.

Can't wait to load up the rest of the Star Wars add ons and show Frodo :-) Unfortunately it's Fish Tank Cleaning and Filling cracks in doors ready for painting scheduled for the rest of the week :-(

Speaking of Frodo, we had a meeting with Parent Partnership yesterday, where we decided that the best course of action for Frodo was to arrange for him to have a Statutory Assessment. This should assess his educational needs and determine whether or not he can cope and make progress in a mainstream school (which at the moment he is doing). If he can, then his school will HAVE to provide the resources. If he can't then this should help decide what's best for him. This will all take a while to arrange (i.e. the assessment won't be until after he goes back to school) but at least we've started the ball rolling.