Clayton Reeves

Written by Clayton Reeves, who was able to attend an early screening of the film to facilitate this review.

Johnny Depp returns as the dashing Captain Jack Sparrow in the new Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Like several other great movies with many sequels, I was worried that they would try to ride out their brand regardless of quality. I am very happy to say that they continued to build the brand up, with another hilarious, adventurous and completely wonderful film!

In this movie we start by meeting 10 year old Henry Turner, Will Turners son. Henry vows to free his father from the curse of the Flying Dutchman, and the rest of the movie follows his adventure to fulfill this vow. In his quest, when he’s holder, Henry works to hunt down the “famous” Jack Sparrow and runs across the very spunky young woman Carina Smyth. These three team up to find a way to destroy all of the curses, so that they might each get what they want.

As they search for their solution, they have to also steer clear of the undead Captain Salazar and his crew. Salazar’s hate for pirates, especially Jack Sparrow, drives him and his crew to hunt them down ruthlessly.

Through the story, there are plenty of moments that are quite fun and a few that are gut-busting hilarious. I had the wonderful opportunity to see it in all of its IMAX 3D glory. Although they use the 3D to do some fun things, I am not sure you need to have it in order to enjoy the experience. IMAX, on the other hand, would be great if you can swing it. Getting to see the vastness on such a large screen brings a lot to the movie. The other great thing about this movie is some of the family messages that are in it. I was surprised by some of the spins that they did and the family bonds that are shown.

I am very excited for the addition of the new characters and what that could mean for the future of the franchise. It does make you wonder though, will they ever try to pull off one of these movies without Jack at the helm?

Whether you are a fan of the franchise or just want to come in now and see what the buzz is about, I think Dead Men Tell no Tales is a great addition to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Head out and get your tickets now!!

We received a Circuit Scribe kit free to facilitate this review. As always, all opinions are mine alone.

One of my favorite parts of being a Dad is being able to share things with my kiddos. When opportunities to do that with science, imagination, and curiosity come around I like to grab them by the horns and hold on tight. One such opportunity was Circuit Scribe, an electrical kit that lets you draw on paper and turn it into an electric circuit. How AWESOME is that!

Before I get much farther I probably should introduce myself. Hi, my name is Clayton and I am a Nerd. More importantly I am a Husband, Father, Dad, (yes I think those 2 things are different, so they both must be listed) and many other things to boot. I hope to soon fill up The Nerd Dad with all sorts of questions, comments, suggestions, and concerns, but am starting here today.

So without further fluff and stuff let me tell you why I think that the Circuit Scribe is one of the best things you could get your family.

These kits start talks. You get to sit down with your kids and talk about what to build, why things work the way they do, and how to build what they want. If you are lucky during all of this you will get to talk about all sorts of other things too!
Electricity is important! so being able to understand it and talk about it is a very good skill to have as well. The kit we got, the Ultimate Kit, has loads of stuff in it. We used LED lights, buzzers, switches, dimmers, knobs, blinkers, and the list can go on. All of this is powered by a simple 9V battery. The whole time we did it we found ways to add more to a circuit we had already built, ether giving us more we could do or creating something bigger.
Problem solving skills are one of the best things you can help your kids gain and these kits are a great tool to help with that. There where many times that we would place the last piece on the paper only to find that the circuit didn’t work. Then we would have to go through step by step to see what could have gone wrong.
Science is fun! All too often I have heard kids say or boring science is, and I understand why a bit. If I had to learn about things the why some of our kids do I would probably think so too. With this kit you could even wrap things up with the scientific method:
1. Ask a question – What would happen if we put all of the LED bulbs into a parallel circuit vs a series circuit.
2. Research – Talk about how it would affect the voltage and wattage at each light in each case.
3. Hypothesis – Have the kid(s) write down how they think the lights will be in each case.
4. Experiment (The funnest part) – draw out both types of circuits.
5. Data/Analysis – Have them look at the LEDs and decide together their brightness.
6. Conclusion – Decide whether they should accept or reject their hypotheses.

There is so much more that can be done that what I have listed here, the Circuit Scribe kit we have allows for you to link into an Arduino making your abilities practically endless. I am super excited to get this kit out again with the kids and do something else with them and let them slowly take more control as they learn what they are able to do.