BenSpark Family Adventures

With 2005 right around the corner I look back on the year that was. Lots of big changes this past year. We lost a long time family member in Sophie our dog. And on a happy note Allison and I got engaged and I got a new job. A preview of the coming year and a look ahead promises: our wedding, more travel for me, more challenges for both of us, possibly a house, and some fun times as always, all of which will be documented for posterity here so stay tuned. I would also mention that 2005 is the year of the Transformer since that is the year that Transformers the Movie (the original cartoon one from the 80’s) was set. It is too bad that the live action movie isn’t coming till 2006 but 2005 should be a great Transformers year anyways. Also the trivia contest has become more and more popular. Over 100 people played this past month. Be safe tonight and celebrate the coming of the New Year in style. Allison and I are heading to Derek and Michelle’s for a get together. I’m trying out a new Chic...

stay home from the movies during school vacation week.” Last night Allison and I went to the movies to see Spanglish. We had some movie passes that needed to be used up before the end of the month. And since I am not going to just throw money away we needed to use those passes. Unfortunately this is school vacation week, yipee! Spanglish is an Adam Sandler movie but not like you would expect. It is funny but not in the way you are accustomed to seeing the funny from Sandler. It is touching and has heart and is funny, but not really a movie for teenagers or pre-teens. Why? Because you have to pay attention, not talk on your cell phone or bounce around on the soft springy chairs. I always feel like I could go for a nice vasectomy after spending time around most of today’s teenagers. Because I know that no matter what I do to raise my kids right they will probably fall in with the wrong element just to spite me and my ‘uptight’ ways. Allison and I were lucky enough to have four Fast and ...

You’ll notice I have added a box for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief for the people of East Africa and Southeast Asia. There has been nearly $4,000,000.00 donated through Amazon.com. America pledged $35,000,000.00 and was matched by one U.S. company, Pfizer. This water may recede but the disaster is just beginning to unfold. From the Amazon.com website. “At least 80,000 people have lost their lives in East Africa and South Asia in the aftermath of the earthquake and resulting tsunamis on December 26. Thousands of people in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Indonesia are still missing; many others have lost their homes and livelihoods. Sri Lanka and Indonesia suffered the highest number of deaths, but India, East Africa, Seychelles, Maldives, and Thailand were all affected by the tsunami waves, which reached as high as 20 feet. Aid workers and volunteers are focused on stopping the spread of disease and delivering food and drinking water to survivors. The American Red Cross reports...

The 30 second bunny theatre presents some movies that we all know like The Shining and Jaws, but for the holidays it has Its A Wonderful Life. Check out Angry Alien Productions.

Ever wonder what your Pimp name would be, yeah you do… http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp By the way. Andrew Bennett = Master Pimp Andrew Shmoove Allison Sparks= Sugartastic Allison Large Allison Adds: Okay, I tried a few times to get that one, but I like it!! Halloween ideas or costumes for a Pimps and Hos party.

I just finished the book on CD by Clive Cussler called Cyclops. Cussler’s stories interweave some fantastic plots. This book was no exception. It starts with a shipwreck or some other maritime tragedy per usual that spawns a mystery and eventually reveals an incredible plot of intrigue and suspense. Cussler’s hero, Dirk Pitt is the ultimate action hero, he is tough, he is witty, he is good with the ladies, and he is smart. All rolled into one that makes a great action star. Why hasn’t Hollywood picked up this character for a movie, ah but it has. (one of Pitt’s earlier adventure called Raise the Titanic) And it has done a craptastic job with Cussler’s characters. But Hollywood is producing Clive Cussler’s book Sahara as a spring/summer, can Hollywood redeem itself and its past treatment of this literary franchise. Let’s hope so. But it looks unlikely. And the reason why is the casting of characters. The main beef I have with the casting of characters is that of Dirk Pitt’s longtime fri...

Last night Allison and I went to Tara and Erik’s for a martini and Cheese Cake party. Tara made her very own pumpkin vodka. You coulda used it to strip paint and there were some straining malfunctions, but it was a good first effort. Luckily her prowess with the cheesecakes is so much better. Tara made cherry cheesecake tarts, a pumpkin cheesecake and a peanut butter chocolate chip cheesecake. Those were awesome. And I hear that Shelby made a mean Appletini. Allison sure liked them. Thanks for having us over guys.

In sudden and shocking news to me Jerry Orbach who played Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order has passed away from Prostate Cancer. A full story is found here. I am sad to see that Jerry has died. He was a great part of the original Law and Order series and I was looking forward to his new series Law and Order: Trial by Jury. We wish his family peace and comfort in their time of loss. Goodbye Jerry.

So I picked up TIME magazine the other night while my Dad and I were watching the football game. I noticed something really interesting in the magazine. TIME magazine worked with HP to create the TIME Archive. This is a digital archive of every TIME magazine from 1923 to present. That is 4,100 issues that came out over the course of those years. It also has an area where you can see all the covers. You can also put in your birthday and get the cover closest to that date. Here is mine. April 8, 1974 (My birthday is the 9th but this was the closest cover. In case anyone was confused.)

Good morning. Last night Dad and I went to see Meet the Fockers. It was a nice follow up to Meet the Parents. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Deniro were hilarious. I was even able to tolerate Ben Stiller too. (He’s got only a couple of original characters and I can tolerate about 2 of them.) But the movie had me laughing out loud alot! Not that that is hard to make happen. I am easily amused. So, I’ve become addicted to the online multiplayer game called Runescape. All I can say is thank God it is blocked at work or I would get absolutely nothing done. Since I sold all of my games I found this one by accident. It is a free or subscription game where players earn experience by doing certain tasks like fishing, crafting, fighting, or mining. Its alot of fun because your character is totally your own and you control how they advance in the game. It is alot of fun. Another online game is called Second Life where you can create anything. It is a 3D multiplayer world where you can build make your...

Merry Day after Christmas. Did you go to the sales, was Christmas not over at your house? Today Allison and I headed to the Cape to visit with the Grandparents Williams. We had breakfast with Grandma and Grandpa and Jim and Donna, Carissa, Shaun, Chris and Karen. Tara and Erik and Mom and Dad and Shelby came also. We had a nice visit and then headed further down the Cape. In the Bennett family, Christmas comes twice a year. Each year we have the annual family Christmas Party with the Bennetts. That would be the Grandparents Bennett and their eight children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. The event is a very special one to Allison and I and we wouldn’t miss it for anything. The highlight of the day is the traditional Yankee Swap, (Where gifts are generally items from your home that are in good working order that would be useful to someone else but you no longer have a use for. Toothbrushes and half rolls of toilet paper excluded.) I have some photos from the weekend and will ...

Good morning folks. It’s early and I’ve already been up shovelling, as I figure many of you have been doing as well. I figured while I was up I would post a selection of photos from the holiday weekend. Enjoy. Shelby’s Cat Lilah, All Christmassy with the red bow and green glowing eyes. Movie Night Snack Pack from Tara and Erik Mom and Dad by our tree on Christmas Eve Marcia and Allison on Christmas Day Dan opening gifts on Christmas Day Allison, Grandma Theresa and Mom on the day after Christmas Grandpa Bennett and his personal Red Sox World Series Bat The Three Andrews, Jr. Sr. & III Actors in Grandma’s Annual Christmas Pageant The Grandchildren, Great-Grandchildren, Spouses, & Fiances.

Merry Christmas everyone! Allison and I have been making the Christmas rounds. Yesterday we spent time with my family. Al and I went to 4:00 mass at Sacred Heart Church. I must be getting old because I can’t remember there being that many screaming kids in mass on previous years. After mass we had dinner with my family. We had a bacon wrapped pork roast from Bob’s Market (very tasty) and then we opened presents. Mom and Dad surprised us kids (including Erik and Allison) with 4 day passes to Disney for our upcoming trip! Thanks Mom and Dad! The three kids and Allison and Erik gave my Dad an extended stay in Disney and a three day Harley rental. So Dad gets a couple extra days to himself to soak up the sun on an Iron Horse. Tara and Erik gave us a movie night basket and Shelby gave me a great shirt and fleece from Old Navy. We all gave and received some very nice gifts. Thanks everyone. After our exchange downstairs Allison and I went upstairs to give each other our stockings. Allison go...

And we’re at our house. Allison and I each had today off of work and we spent it doing domestic things, like cooking and cleaning and wrapping gifts. I hope everyone has a great Christmas!

One of my earliest Childhood memories about Christmas is when I was 5 years old and my grandparents Williams gave me a Lego set. One of the original sets with plain red and black and grey bricks, the standard little guys with the smiley faces. With this set you got an entire book of things you could create. One of those being a Mac Truck. I built that truck and spent hours playing with it. What a fantastic toy. My imagination gave me more fun than any other toys until I got into the Transformers. At 10 years old when I got my first Transformer (Wheeljack and then Prime) my imagination was sparked again. I would spend hours setting up battles with my Transformers, then I would take each apart with a tiny screwdriver set (pilfered from my father and then stripped pretty bare because I unscrewed everything.) and then put back together. I still have the love for the Transformers and thought I would share with you the view looking back at me from my desk. Grimlock – 2005 Mustang GT Tracks –...

In my previous post I put up my transformers. This post will showcase my Harley Davidson pin collection. I just got my newest pin today. One from Aruba. Ruth went to Aruba and picked me up one of the shop pins. I’ve had four other groups of people go down to Aruba and try to find me a pin. Because they had been sold out and on backorder I didn’t get one. But luckily the pins cleared customs and Ruth was able to bring one back. Thanks Ruth! I have quite a few pins in my collection, mostly from places I have been while working for MEDITECH. Others I’ve gotten from vacationing friends and family. The collection keeps getting bigger and better. Enjoy. My Aruba Pin One of these was from Yos-E-mite Harley Davidson The Cape Cod Harley Shop, Schaeffer’s in PA and Boswell’s in Nashville Mardi Gras, Pacific Harley in Hawaii, Las Vegas, New Hampshire and a keychain from the Bahamas

Okay while not actually cookies these quick and easy (can you tell I’m in marketing now?) recipes will satisfy the most discerning tastebuds. Our friend Mo sent me this recipe and it sounds so good I had to share it. The “Poor Man’s” Truffle (though I like them better than the real thing!) Ingredients: Small pretzel twists Rolos Pecans Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place pretzels on cookie sheet (non-stick…preferably with a sil-pat) Place one rolo on top of pretzel. Put in oven for 5 minutes Take out and squish rolo down to fill pretzel. Put nuts on top. Refridgerate for 10 minutes to harden. SOOO goood!! How can it not be with the word “squish” in it!! Another twist on this recipe is to substitute the mini pretze twists for the checkerboard style pretzels (I think they are called snaps) and hersey’s kisses they are prepared the same way but you squish an M&M on top. A couple of years ago Marcia made them for us and I must have eaten 2000 of them in about 15 minutes, (exaggerated b...

My friend and trivia maven Lorie sent me this message. Here’s a good website link for the blog..if you know people with kids.. www.northpole.com It’s an interactive web site for kids, parents teachers etc.. with all kinds of activities related to Santa, the North pole and Christmas. The coolest part is there is a link to NORAD where they do a Santa tracker on X-mas Eve so you can see with your kids where exactly Santa is on his journey. Check it out!!

One year ago today Allison and I started this blog. We are very happy that our friends and family have been faithfully reading our posts throughout the year. This coming year promises to be even more exciting. What with our wedding coming up and all.< Anyway Thank you very much for reading. And have a Merry Christmas! (I’ll post again before the New Year to wish you that too.)

This one is for Rick…. Garden State comes out on DVD on December 28th. So its time to get out the ugly shirts and shout into the Abyss. This fantastic movie that I can’t say enough about is hitting stores next Tuesday. Another bit of entertainment news would be the release of the the short lived (4 or 5 episodes) series called Wonderfalls. Well the complete series (unfortunately only a scant 13 episodes were taped) comes out on DVD on February 1, 2005. And I will also mention three other DVD sets that I saw yesterday at Target that you may want to pick up before the next time I do 80’s TV trivia (Although Season one of the Dukes was from 1979, I remember watching that show with my friend Kevin Cryan.). Those would be season one of Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider and The A-Team. I also threw in Season Two of the Dukes and an Unofficial Guide to the Knight Rider Universe because that makes me laugh. I dug deeper into this item and found the complete synopsis of every one of the Knight Rid...

I may have to break my resolve for book buying to get my hands on the next Harry Potter Book: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. J.K. Rowling announced today that Book VI is done. Seeing as I’d gotten books 4 and 5 on the days they came out and read them within the next two days thereafter, I may have to save the gift cards I have so I can buy that book (Which doesn’t break my pact with myself because tecnically a gift card for a book store is not the same as paying cash or putting a book on my credit card.) I’d also like to thank my pal Meghan for getting me the first 3 books back when I was a Saint A’s working as a Residence Hall Director. And for her telling me to hurry up and finish so we could talk about the books through our entire bus trip to Montreal and back. Update 12/22/04 – Amazon.com has put up a preorder page for Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince which will be released on July 16, 2005. Pre-Order Yours Today.

Well, Christmas is in the air and falling all over my car. Did you know that at 5:45 AM ice is the coldest and hardest to get off your car? Its 100% true. I’m starting to get the Christmas spirit, almost time to pull out the Jimmy Buffett and Kenny Chesney albums. And of course I need to listen to the album by Walter Brennan and the Elvis Christmas songs and Christmas will be here. This weekend Allison and I went to Fitchburg to visit Eva and John, Allison’s Grandparents to bring them their Christmas gifts. They took us out for an Engagement Meal and we exchanged gifts over Eva’s fantastic homemade lemon squares. After our visit we drove down to Hopkinton for Christine and Marc’s rocking Christmas Bash. What an amazing array of food. And there were babies galore around so Allison was quite entertained for most of the evening. It was nice to catch up with some of the folks from implementation. We even found out that Allison and I stayed at the exact same place that Patty and Chris did a...

I am convinced that the Internet is one guy who comes up with cool stuff and then sends a message to his talkative friends, who pass along the information like wildfire all over. Basically what I am saying is I am taking note of a cool website that I found on another cool website. I give you. The Church Sign Generator. Okay here’s an interactive bit of the site. I want you to use the The Church Sign Generator to make a witty sign. I know you’ve seen them in front of churches all over and I bet that some of the good ones stick out in your memories so here is what I’d like you to do. Go to The Church Sign Generator and create your witty (please no offensive materials messages.) and save the file and send it to me. I will create a page for the signs so everyone can see your creativity. How to save an image from the Internet. If you already know this please skip. Generate your sign at The Church Sign Generator then once the sign is created put your mouse over the picture and use your right...

Allison and I put up the tree last night. It is a Colorado Blue Spruce and we intend to plant it after Christmas. No room for a large tree this year as in past years, even my parents scaled back. Instead of the 11 foot trees of the past they went with a 9 foot one instead. Still it fills the space nicely and has a great shape to it. Our tree is decorated with handmade ornaments that my Grandmother Theresa made. She also made the giant stars in the same manner, that Tara used to decorate for her wedding. Speaking of wedding plans, have you seen the Wedding F.A.Q. located at the top left of the blog. That will be the best place to go for wedding information and where you can go to ask questions. Last night after we set up the tree, Allison and I finished making this year’s Christmas gifts. Once Christmas is over I’ll post some photos of the gifts we made as well as some other information. But for now I can direct you to the books where we got our inspiration. (Our first Gifts in a … Book...

Have you seen the new candy bar by Hershey’s yet? It is called the Take 5. Why is it called that? Well it has five awesome ingredients blended into the world’s most perfect candy bar. Let’s look at the ingredients shall we.Pretzels – Out of the gate this candy bar caught my attention. Pretzels, pretzels in my candy bar, not since the invention of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby have I been so excited to try a new product. Caramel – Well everything tastes better with Caramel. Peanuts – Crunchy and tasty, a winner. Peanut Butter – Peanuts and Peanut Butter, well this can’t get any better can it? Milk Chocolate – That’s right Hershey’s signature chocolate encapsulates the 4 previous ingredients. The Take 5 candy bar comes as two pieces like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The bottom layer is the pretzel, then the peanut butter then caramel then peanuts and finally the whole thing is wrapped in milk chocolate. These are great candy bars and they are on sale at stop and shop, buy one get one free ...

I have sold my first item on Ebay. I carefully checked out similar items to the one I was selling and saw that they were getting $150 – $200+ so I thought hey why not put up an auction. $61.00 was the winning bid. What! Oh well, its more than I would have sold it in the rip off store in the mall, but still. Now that I’ve done one auction its time to get the rest of the items up and out the door. Maybe the next auction will get me a nice shiny nickle. Also I am trying to sell off my comic books to make wedding money. Here is a list of my comic books for sale selllist.xls

If you are a fan of CBS' Two and a Half Men and saw last night’s episode you know that Charlie and Alan found a website called www.charlieharpersucks.com (The site is now gone replaced with ads to buy DVDs from Warner Bros. Please support a little guy like me and consider buying your Two and a Half Men DVDs through my Amazon Affiliate links below.). Well CBS actually made the website and all the funny parts of the site were revealed on the show but it is funny anyways. The show is a riot, not as good as Scrubs, but then again what is.

Last night Allison and I went to see Neil and Andrea for dinner. We had some wedding questions to ask them and also wanted to see their wedding picture proofs to determine if we were going to work with the same photographer, sorry guys we are stealing many things about your wedding that we liked a lot. Dinner was excellent as always with fresh baked bread and real grated cheese and an Alton Brown chocolate mousse. Fantastic! And during the evening I asked Neil to be my best man. Neil has been a friend of mine since second grade, (granted there was some little tiff along the way that little boys have over little girls, but we moved on.) and I am so happy that he said yes.

I’ve started my very own Amazon.com Associates Bookstore. I’ll be posting listings of books that I have read or would like to read or have heard are good. I will also be listing music CDs and DVD’s. So far I have one post of Clive Cussler books because that is the series I am reading right now. The bookstore is a separate blog but I have added a link to is on the side-bar. To access the booksotre directly follow this link. http://flat-water.blogspot.com/.

Yesterday my cousin Bill married his fiance Jen in Keene, NH. Allison and I stopped in Fitchburg to visit Bob and Jackie for lunch before we continued up to Keene. The wedding was very nice and the ceremony very moving. I used the new camera to tape most of it. After the wedding we went down to Rindge to the reception at Hidden Hills. The whole family was there. We got to see all of my Aunts and Uncles. Dinner was great with some sweet dinner rolls, (they were actually sweet). Lots of dancing and excitement. And Aunt Carol made the cake, my favorite kind of cake ever because it has the best frosting ever. I’ll have some pictures up soon. Bill and Jen leaving the church The Mother/Son dance Carol with Bill The Wedding Cake, So good get me a glass of milk and I’m all set. There are no pictures of Allison and I yet because there were none on my camera, (I haven’t shown anyone how to use it yet) but I’ll have to get the pictures from mom’s camera to put up. Gotta show everyone how beautifu...

This is the Wedding F.A.Q. It will be a permanently updated link until the wedding. These are the questions that we have been asked since we were engaged. If you have a question please ask through the comments section. We will do our best to answer any and all questions (Within Reason) Latest news! – 11/11/05 So here is what has been happening as of late. 11/12/05 – The Wedding Day! The guys are going to be arriving soon to go for breakfast. The rehearsal went very well last night. The rehearsal dinner was alot of fun. Everyone got to see the wedding favor for the first time and they were very happy with it. I’ll give a very detailed account of it soon. Not So Latest news! – Before November 12, 2005 11/11/05 – Last day before the wedding. Man this has flown by so quickly. So quickly. So let’s see about updates. Pretty much everything that needs to be done has been done. Now it is here and the roller coaster is slowly ratcheting up the hill, the twists and turns are on there way! We wil...

The other night when Allison and I saw the Jimmy Buffett Coastal Confession Concert, (which was awesome!), I found a new kind of advertisement. Dan got us some popcorn and soda and on the top of the soda cup enclosed in a special lid was a CD. The advertising company is called LidRock and they create CD’s that have advertisement items for video games, music and movies as well as for major stores or events. This CD has a Circuit city advertisement and a couple of music videos and 5 free downloads from more music.com. There are also movie previews and video game previews contained on the disk. It certainly caught my attention. I’m thinking of contacting LidRock to make our wedding favor CD’s and having them placed on the beverage lids at the McDonalds where the reception will be held.

You may have noticed a couple of new links on the site. I am working on setting up a bookstore through Amazon.com. There will be a link to it on the sidebar, but in the meantime I have added some Amazon.com banner ads to the bottom of the page. I’ve also added a link to the Bank One credit card site if you are looking for a new credit card. I’ve been with Bank One since they were First USA and this has been a great credit card for me. I won’t stand behind anything I haven’t used myself and I won’t be cluttering the site with ads, but I’ve added some and will continue to recommend items and link to Amazon.com. When I recommend a book or CD you can click through to that book or CD or DVD right to Amazon.com. And if you buy anything through one of our links then you are helping us with the wedding fund because I have set up an Amazon.com Associates account. I figure that millions of people are buying on Amazon.com all the time and why not connect to Amazon.com through this site. The onl...

Story from Reuters, Oddly Enough News. BERLIN (Reuters) – A German couple was shocked after a 275-mile car journey to discover a surprise stowaway cowering next to the engine of their car — a 6-week-old kitten. The meows of the tiny animal only became audible after Elisabeth and Dieter Gesehl had parked their car. “First of all we called the police as we feared for a moment that we must have run over and seriously injured a cat,” the 64-year-old woman from Eggenfelden told Bonn express newspaper. After checking under the hood, however, they discovered the unharmed kitten. The animal, which the couple have since adopted and named “Pussy,” was soon back to normal after a few minutes of petting. There is so much one could say about this story. I’ll leave it to you to make your own punchlines.

Last night Allison and I took her parents, Marcia and Dan to the Regal Cinemas at the Solomon Pond mall to see A Coastal Confession: A night with Jimmy Buffett. What an awesome event. Jimmy Buffett was in New Orleans for a night of music and readings from his book, A Salty Piece of Land. The book is actually centered around one of his characters, Tully Mars from a series of short stories called Tales from Margaritaville. I’ve read that set of short stories and I am so excited to see Tully Mars back in action. The format of the event was a LIVE simulcast across the country to over 100 movie theaters. And lest you forgot that the event was live a message would appear at the bottom of the screen that said Live from New Orleans. I just found that funny, but that’s just me. Here’s the press release on the event. What I found awesome was how Jimmy discussed his writing style. Sure it is the good old write what you know sort of thing. (Hence my heavily airport themed raving posts.) But Jimmy ...

Here is a great ad from Nokia featuring my favorite Autobot, Optimus Prime. The ad uses the best toy ever, the 20th Anniversary Optimus Prime Action figured, which is prominently featured on my desk at work. I should take a picture sometime. But since I am in Canton today I cannot. On a side note I had a rockin’ demonstration dry run this morning and hope to keep the momentum going tomorrow during my formal demonstration. Not bad for 4 hours of sleep.

On Sunday night Allison took me to the Vance Gilbert concert at the Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry NH. Vance was incredible. But before Vance took the stage, as a favor to his friend Ellis Paul (Who was prevented from coming by a family emergency), we listened to some guy I think his name was Dave or Dan or something. Anyway he loves Jerusalem (He told us 25 times in one song, subtle)…. Yeah, well I hope that works out for you buddy. His songs were hard to follow and got annoying quickly. Vance Gilbert was great though, this guy has such a range. He sings so well and he is funny as hell. He had to match wits with some lady in front of us who kept blurting things out at random times. But he handled himself well and didn’t let her rattle him. Obviously she annoyed me, but then again what doesn’t annoy me. But you all know that Allison and I have the absolute worst luck about picking seats at any event that we attend. It is a given that some wacko will be sitting near us and want to int...

Originally posted by Allison That’s right folks, usually one to sit quietly and let his family be the wild and crazy attention-getting bunch, Dan-o has pulled an unexpected move and announced the biggest news of the year for the Sparks family – he has received an offer and accepted a job!!! Where is he working, you might ask… I haven’t a clue. He will be doing Marketing for a company that is spread nationwide and he will be working from his home office in Manchester. Way to go Dan-o!! We’re all very proud of you!

Originally Posted by Allison This weekend, my friend Joe Hausmann got married!! Congrats to Joe and his lovely wife Jen!! They are a fabulous couple and we are truly happy for them. I met Joe at Saint Paul’s Advanced Studies Program in Concord, NH. We had a great experience at the ASP and continued our friendship beyond our time there. On Saturday evening Joe and Jen were married at Saint Joseph’s Parish in Epping, NH and a lovely reception followed at The Three Chimneys Inn in Durham. The reception was very festive with Christmas trees Gingerbread houses decorating the room. It was a wonderful evening – Thanks to Joe & Jen for inviting us to celebrate with them. Here are some pictures from the evening with Drew’s captions. The Wedding Cake Cutting the Cake Allison and Drew, looking festive This was above the ‘throne’ in the men’s room. I didn’t notice it at first because I grabbed some toilet paper to blow my nose and as I am blowing my nose I look up and am practically nose to sn...

Dirk Pitt, a Special Operations Director of NUMA, is featured in: In Chronological Order Pacific Vortex! (1983) The Mediterranean Caper (1973) APA Mayday! Iceberg (1975) Raise the Titanic! (1976) Vixen 03 (1978) Night Probe! (1981) Deep Six (1984) Cyclops (1986) Treasure (1988) Dragon (1990) Sahara (1992) Inca Gold (1994) Shock Wave (1996) Flood Tide (1997) Atlantis Found (1999) Valhalla Rising (2001) Trojan Odyssey (2003) Black Wind (2004) Kurt Austin is featured in the underwater exploration series, NUMA FILES: In Chronological Order Serpent (2000) Blue Gold (2001) Fire Ice (2002) White Death (2003) Lost City (2004) Polar Shift (2005) The Oregon Files: An organization of intelligent and superbly proficient mercenaries, known as the Corporation, is headquartered on the ship Oregon, a seagoing marvel of science and technology disguised as an ancient, rust-bucket cargo vessel. The leader of the Corporation-cool, brainy Chairman Juan Cabrillo-explains the mission of his organization: “We...

The trivia Contest from last month is now complete. A new tournament begins today. Remember to play every day to stay in the running for the top ten for the month of December. Here is the final standings for the Month of November. Nov 04 61 players played during the month. abennett48 (396 points, 3 wins) roller74 (365 points, 1 wins) smartgirl (316 points, 4 wins) ekstaron (311 points, 2 wins) Jo’CRAZY (308 points, 3 wins) Mo (307 points, 3 wins) triviamonkey (297 points, 4 wins) Emperor Wesley (283 points, 1 wins) alsparky (263 points, 0 wins) Gamblor (259 points, 0 wins) 61 Players! That is awesome! Thanks everyone for playing and inviting friends to play as well. A new topic and tournament started today. 80’s Television. Enjoy!

Today I heard about the word Blog being the top of the list of new words being introduced by the 2005 edition of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I’ve found many new blogs of note. I’ve added additions to my list that already includes the outstanding Zach Braff (No Scrubs last night, Blast it!), and The Incredible Hulk and Neil’s View. I have added Renee’s Rants. Renee is a friend of Tara’s who has created an insightful and humorous blog. Gelatometti A Blog by Amazing Comic book artist Jim Lee. Kung Fu Monkey. A Blog written by John Rogers, the reported writer of the now in production Transformers Live Action Movie slated for a 2006 release and being produced by Steven Spielberg.