BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #298 01/31/06 I’m in Tennessee, Paris Tennessee, about 2 1/2 hours from where I touched down in Nashville around 5:00pm tonight. Along the way I stopped at Loretta Lynn’s Country Kitchen, why not it was a touristy thing to do. It was a buffet, not a very good one and it was filled with alot of country kitsch. So now I’ve made it to my hotel. Watching the State of the Union Address. This little plane is made out of many little tiles and is at the exit of the Nashville Airport. Happy little plane. Here are some other photos from the drive to Paris. The wall of Fame in the Loretta Lynn Country Kitchen Big buffalo outside of the Country Kitchen The Billboard for the Loretta Lynn Country Kitchen

Here at the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre airport they have Hooters airlines but no bathrooms beyond the security checkpoint. How about a wireless hotspot that works and a bathroom or two, that would be nice. I don’t see a U.S. Air jet around, maybe that big orange one is being used as a regional affiliate. That would be funny seeing the group here in the waiting area.

Photo-A-Day #297 01/30/06 Today I thought I was going to Philadelphia then on to Scranton (maybe look for Dunder-Miflin) and be at my hotel by 11:30am. Well, it is now 11:00am and I am at New York’s La Guardia Airport, sitting in the near empty plane waiting for the plane to be refueled and head back to Philly. We made two attempts to land, well we circled and were diverted to a shorter runway with more visibility. The actual attempt was probably 100 feet or so from the ground. We pulled up HARD at the last minute. I was dozing expecting to open my eyes at the moment before landing (as I usually do, I can never sleep through a landing). But instead of the bump and wiggle that usually happens I was blasted back into my seat as we rose back into the air. So now I am in New York. The flight crew has been very nice. The busted out the complimentary peanuts and biscuit cookies and water and coffee. I suspect that there are now about 10 people left on the plane. We may be leaving for Philly ...

Today I introduced Allison to the defining movie of my teenage life. Say Anything. This movie came out in my freshman year of high school and made a profound impact on me. Lloyd Dobler became for me the epitome of how to be a good boyfriend. I wanted to be just like Lloyd. I must have seen that movie about 25 times. Now Allison has never seen this movie. Until today. And she liked it very much. We got the special edition DVD. Today I learned many things about the movie. One, it holds up, it is a fantastic movie and is still one for many great lines. “I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.” The movie was the directorial debut of Cameron Crowe, the man who has given us such great movies as Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Elizabethtown. There was a great featurette on the film and I got to relive 1989 and watch all the TV spots that made me excited to see this movie. If you haven’t seen this movie ever, you must see it and if you’ve seen it before share it with your friends. I...

Photo-A-Day #296 01/29/06 Tonight we went to the Fortune House for dinner. We went to celebrate Mom’s birthday, which is tomorrow. We had some great food as always. They even surprised us with a chocolate mousse cake for everyone. Pictured from left to right is Allison, Mom, Tara, Shelby, Erik and Dad.

Photo-A-Day #295 01/28/06 This is my King Arthur Library. Books by Stephen R. Lawhead, Jack Whyte, Bernard Cornwell and A. A. Atanasio. The inspiration for this image today was that I watched King Arthur. The short run movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It was really good overall. A more human face on the myth of King Arthur. The story comes at the legend from an era of Roman occupation. This is very much like the King Arthur series by Jack Whyte. Rent it, it was very enjoyable.

Photo-A-Day #294 01/27/06 Andy created some paper pre-spitball art. Rondi is attempting to rearrange that art. Tonight Allison and I went back to the Moose Cabin for dinner. Tonight we went with Neil and Andrea and Andy and Rondi. We had a very nice dinner and conversation. We also stayed for a comedy and mentalist show. We say Rory Raven the mind Reader and Stephanie Peters the R rated comedian. There were very few people at the show. That is unfortunate because when we talked with Al, the owner of the Moose Cabin, he said that a lot more people bought tickets to see the show. That probably would have been great with a lot of people. As it was there was not a lot of people and we were in the front table so we got to participate in the acts. Well, participate with the mind reader and ‘get abused’ by the comedian. We thought Andy was gonna tussle with Stephanie, but we were wrong. She picked on me pretty good but I was laughing so hard that my whole neck and head hurt. We had a really g...

Because I am now an affiliate of the Soda Club I am going to feature a different Soda Club Flavor each week. This week’s flavor is Grape Soda . Grape Soda has to be my favorite soda flavor ever. The Soda Club captures the flavor of Grape Soda perfectly. It is a real treat to sit down on Wednesday nights, make a liter of Grape Soda , a batch of popcorn and watch Lost. On Wednesday’s that has become a little ritual that Allison and I have. We each pick a flavor of Soda Club soda. I make them in our Soda Club machine (We only have the basic one not the Penguin, we want the Penguin.) then I make a batch of popcorn on the stove. (I never did get around to making that Guy’s registry with my wish list for the Harley Davidson Popcorn Machine, someday). The whole process takes me all of 6-8 minutes. Heat the oil, make the Grape Soda and the Orange Mango Soda (which will be discussed as a future flavor of the week) for Allison, pop the popcorn and get into the living room to enjoy Lost. Sadly...

Photo-A-Day #293 01/26/06 Tonight Allison and I went to the Moose Cabin in Attleboro with my childhood friend Autumn (make sure you play Autumn’s Trivia Game, which was added to the list of Daily Trivia games below Our trivia game link.) and her boyfriend Kenny. We had a great dinner and conversation. It was so nice to go out and spend time with new friends. Well Kenny was a new friend for me and Allison and Autumn a new friend for Allison (and vice versa), but Autumn and I go way back to when I used to live in Attleboro. You know before the big move to North… Attleboro.  Autumn lived two houses down from me and we were childhood friends. Recently Autumn found me through MySpace. The world is certainly a small one. It was great that she got in touch with me. We look forward to more evenings out with Autumn and Kenny. The image is from inside the Moose Cabin. This bear caught my eye during dinner. We are heading back to the Moose Cabin tomorrow night with Andy and Rondi to have dinn...

Photo-A-Day #292 01/25/06 This is my cousin David’s cat Akira. Akira lives with my Aunt Candy. Tonight I went over to visit Aunt Candy and help her with some computer problems. Her computer kept freezing up on her. I downloaded Ad Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy and cleaned out all the internet baddies that were lurking in her computer and causing the problems. If anyone reading this right now has not used Ad Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy then I implore you to download them right now and run these programs. There are lots of things that get their way into your computer and you don’t want them, believe me.

To Double Midnight Comics on July 8th. Double Midnight Comics is a comic shop that is owned by two guys I went to college with Chris and Scott Proulx and a friend of theirs named Brett Parker. Chris and I graduated from Saint A’s at the same time and when I was a Residence Hall Director at Saint A’s Scott was living in one of my buildings. I met Brett back when I used to take Youth Ministry courses at Emmaus House. They are three really nice guys and they are going to have Wes Molebash at their store in Manchester – Double Midnight Comics – for a book signing. I figure since Wes announced this on his website and let the cat out of the bag then I could post something about it here too. You see Wes contacted me about comic shops in this area and I suggested Double Midnight Comics and also Wild Times Comics however Wild Times is a bit small and wouldn’t really be able to hold many people coming in for a book signing, whereas Double Midnight Comics is a large place with lots of room. Doubl...

Last night Allison and I attended the wake for Peter Gonsalves. Peter Gonsalves was father to my Uncle Dave. I knew Peter Gonsalves and visited Mr. And Mrs. Gonsalves when I was growing up. I remember one summer working for my father as he remodeled The Kilburn Glass Co. Factory in Norton. That was where Peter Gonsalves worked for 62 years. He was always ready with a smile and something nice to say. Peter Gonsalves was a very hardworking and good man. That same summer I also helped my father build an addition to Peter Gonsalves’ neighbor’s house. We’d often pop in on Mr. and Mrs. Gonsalves during the day or right before we left. We will miss you Peter. From the Sun Chronicle Online Peter P. Gonsalves, 83 NORTON — Peter P. Gonsalves, 83, of Norton, died on Friday, Jan. 20 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He was the beloved husband of Therese B. (Menard) Gonsalves, to whom he was wed on April 17, 1948. Born in Norton on Sept. 29, 1922, he was a dear son of the late Pete...

  Today is Marcia’s 50th birthday. Harry and Sherrie sent Marcia this great bouquet of cookie flowers. We had a great time at her pre-birthday party. Marcia was Photo-A-Day on Saturday.

Photo-A-Day #291 01/24/06 I was lazy today. Didn’t find anything very interesting to photograph. This is the infamous halloween tree. A decoration I hate but Allison loves. So it comes out for Halloween. So are we just really really prepared for Halloween ’06 or are we too lazy to take the decorations down? Neither, there is no place to put it in the apartment. The box that holds decorations is in the front hall, however it is covered by the mountain of wedding gifts. So up it stays. I tried for get an interesting perspective from which to shoot this, hope I accomplished that.

Photo-A-Day #290 01/23/06 Oliver Close up. I worked from Home today and this is what I saw all day. He loves to walk in front of the computer. He’s all bunched up looking because I shot him with the macro lens and I was holding him in the crook of my arm like a baby. Our cats really like to be held that way. At least Oliver does.

Just wanted to Point out that there was an article about Dog Eat Doug in the Metrowest Daily News. I’ve been following this comic for a while now and very glad for Brian Anderson’s success. MetroWestDailyNews.com – Local / Regional News: After layoff, new career takes off: Local man finds success with comic strip

Allison and I took my cousins Madison and Haley to see Hoodwinked this afternoon. A clever and fun movie. The best character clearly was the squirrel Twitchy, teaming Twitchy with the Wolf was very fun indeed. And “D-na-Me-Tay” is not the funniest thing he says. So the trailers don’t give it all away. The homages to TV cop shows and other movies like XXX was fantastic. The voice actors were also great. Patrick Waburton was great as the wolf and his lines while being interrogated were good too. Madison and Haley enjoyed the movie and were great movie watchers. I also finished Firestorm this weekend. This is the 4th Nevada Barr book I have read this year, and it also happens to be the 4th in the series, funny how that works out. This one is the only one that between Tara and I we do not own. So I got it from the library and our library is doing a thing now where they attach a tag in the book and ask the readers for their feedback. Pretty neat idea. The Anna Pigeon series by Nevada Barr i...

Photo-A-Day #289 01/22/06 Allison and I went back up To New Hampshire yesterday and stayed the night because we had too much fun at Marcia’s 50th birthday party with everyone. So we came home this morning but before we did I spent some time taking pictures and video of Bonnie and Clyde playing with and within this gift bag. They had lots of fun playing in it.

Photo-A-Day #288 01/21/06 Happy 50th Marcia. This is my mother-in-law at her 50th birthday party. Her friend Dot is next to her and Clyde is sleeping on the couch behind her. Marcia really liked the card I gave her. Caught her reaction perfectly.

I was listening to the radio in Texas and the DJ’s asked folks to call in to tell them things that they may have missed from LOST this past Wednesday. I don’t believe that stupidity is limited to a geographical region but rather stupidity stems, on many occasions, from our activities. One activity that I have observed time and again that gets the idiots from out of their respective woodworks is calling in to a radio show. People are dumb. More than one person called in to tell the DJ’s that they couldn’t believe that Sawyer knew ‘Zeke’s’ name. WHAT! I roared at the radio. “Have you ever SEEN an episode of LOST before?” Why would I have such a reaction? Well for one thing I value accuracy. If you are going to speak in a public forum at least know what you are talking about. Sawyer, whose name on the manifest I’d James, gives people nicknames to distance himself and also to exert a power over the people he is around. He calls Kate ‘Freckles’, he called Locke ‘Mr. Clean’ in that episode. ...

Photo-A-Day #287 01/20/06 At the T.F. Green airport local businesses have display cases. Hasbro is one of the businesses local to Providence. I’ve walked by this many times and this time decided to take a picture of it. And Optimus Prime is in the case! Sweet!

Yes, a real post from me. But why is there an image for the soda club, and why am I showing The Pacifier as one of the DVD’s for the weekly entertainment selections. First The Soda Club. I just signed up as an affiliate for The Soda Club and I got an email from Kristin in the Marketing Department of The Soda Club. I’ve never gotten a message from a real person who checked out this blog from an affiliate program. The reason that I know that Kristin checked out the blog was that she commented on how cute Bonnie and Clyde are. That was a really nice note I got from her. So now I am even more committed about getting the word out about The Soda Club. Love soda? Get a Soda-Club soda maker! About the size of a coffee maker and even easier to use, you’ll make fresh seltzer and soda at the touch of a button, with no clean-up. No more lugging, storing and recycling. Over 25 great-tasting flavors. And why would I put The Pacifier up as a selection for weekly entertainment? The past two nights I s...

Photo-A-Day #286 01/19/06 Tonight I went to Razzoo’s for dinner got the fried pickles and the seafood combo platter (fried shrimp, catfish and crayfish tails w/fries, corn on the cob & pups). Probably the biggest two plates of food I ever saw in my life. Unnecessarily huge. I could barely put a dent into it. But it tasted really good. I love me some fried pickles. The photo is of the outside of the building.

Photo-A-Day #285 01/18/06 Sorry the picture is lame. The movie theater looked alot better than what this picture showed. And it was huge! Plus I only had the camera phone on me. I saw the movie Casanova today. Pretty good. Nice diversion. Saw a preview that made me tear up. A Disney movie called 8below. This is based on a true story about sled dogs in Antarctica. They were left at camp and the story is about their tale of survival. The trailer made me practically bawl. I am either overtired or very soft hearted when it comes to animals. Probably the latter. I am looking forward to seeing this movie. Like Old Yeller, 8below looks to tug at the heartstrings and may become one of those “acceptable” movies for men to cry. Because if you didn’t cry at the end of Old Yeller your heart may be made of stone.

Photo-A-Day #284 01/17/05 I’m in Richardson, TX. No free internet in the hotel room. So photo today is from the Treo. I took a real picture of this sculpture too. It is in the lobby of the hotel. I hate that fancy hotels make you pay for internet but cheaper hotels offer free internet. It is annoying. (This post took over an hour to happen because of dial up. ArrgH!!) Decided to dial in tonight to check e-mail. Watched a great show on the history channel about Benjamin Franklin. Read the book, The Giver on my flight to Dallas. Started Reading Firestorm this afternoon. I liked this sculpture.

Photo-A-Day #283 01/16/06 This is Grace Episcopal Church. It is in our downtown. I love how this building looks especially the tower and the ramparts on the top of the tower. It is a nice building

Photo-A-Day #282 01/15/06 Another picture of Bonnie and Clyde. Bonnie is making quite the jump here. She and Clyde both can get some really good air. We had a nice weekend up in NH with Dan and Marcia. Getting to know the new kittens was a lot of fun as was Taco night and The Longest Yard with homemade popcorn (thanks for showing me how it is done, Dan.). Today was a little tough because of the wake for the Sparks’ family friend Fred. He seemed like he would have been someone I would have liked to have met. Tonight was nice because we got to have dinner with Andy and Rondi and the still growing Stephen. We had homemade hot and sour soup and homemade raspberry and white chocolate ice cream. Then we played Scene It the TV Edition. A good night with good friends. And Rondi let me borrow their copy of the original The Longest Yard.

Photo-A-Day #281 01/14/06 Today Allison met Bonnie and Clyde. I named them. They are Dan and Marcia’s new kittens. What with Moxie and Frasier and Lola passing on the house began to feel empty and Izzy had no playmates. So Dan and Marcia got Bonnie and Clyde. They are so cute. I promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with them but that is impossible. Bonnie is the brown one who is in the foreground, and Clyde is grey and in the background. I took a bunch of pictures of them that can be found in my Pets Gallery.

Farmers Market Allison and I went into Boston to take Ian out for lunch for his 30th birthday. This was the view from the Parking garage. 

Photo-A-Day #280 01/13/06 This is my desk at work. I have many transformers, I actually have 18 of the alternators and for months they lived on my desk as various Cars and Jeeps and a Scion Xb. A friend at work asked why they weren’t all robots. That was on Tuesday. It took me till today, a few at a time, to transform them all. I wonder what state they will be in when I return the week after next. I am sure that they will be in various states of nefarious activity.

I have added a new link sponsor. Something that I truly believe in because it is something that I use very often. It is Soda Club USA. Soda Club USA is probably one of the best inventions ever. Why? Because you can make your own soda or sparkling water at home for mere pennies.  A $2.99 bottle of soda flavor from Soda Club USA makes 12 liters of soda. You can save so much money and control the fizziness of your soda with Soda Club USA supplies. And you can order those supplies right through this website. Just click on any Soda Club USA link or the banner ad under the profile pictures or on the right side of the screen. I truly love this product and use it in my daily life. Check it out for yourself. Soda Club USA sodas have less sugar than regular sodas as well as less sodium. See for yourself at Soda Club USA.

Photo-A-Day #279 01/12/06 Prior to today we were $40,000.00 credit rich. That means that if we had wanted to we could have purchased $40,000.00 worth of junk on various credit cards and at select department stores. I am happy to say that we are now $40,000.00 credit poorer. The plastic shackles and their finance charges will one day be unable to rule our wallets. And this should improve the credit score so that when we get serious about house hunting the score will be nice and high. At least that is the plan man.

Photo-A-Day #278 01/11/06 Oliver takes a big yawn. He has some nice teeth, doesn’t he?

What is Flatwater? Flatwater is the online bookstore I set up about a year back. I haven’t been too good about keeping it updated, however I recently updated it. I will be making some other changes and adding additional authors to the lists but recently I added Michael Crichton, Kathy Reichs and Piers Anthony. I am attempting to continue to make the bookstore better and better to provide people with a place that they can go to read some quality books that either I or Allison have read. Also Flatwater will be a place where you can see the order of any series of books so you can start on the right books. I am a completist and need to read a series from the beginning to the end. I also never skip ahead. I like the suspense. I like to find out what happens in the natural progression of the story. I added Michael Crichton because of my recent reading of State of Fear. I finished it last night. I thought I had a ways to go but apparently there is a rather long authors note at the end. So Sta...

Photo-A-Day #277 01/10/06 Tonight we went to Fortune House with Tara and Erik for Allison’s birthday. This was my meal, the two flavors chicken. It was really good. Fortune house is one of our favorite places for Chinese food. It was nice to spend an evening with Tara and Erik as well. Thanks so much for dinner guys.

Today is Allison’s Birthday. I’m very lucky to have her in my life. Happy Birthday to my beautiful wife. Leave a comment and wish her well.

Photo-A-Day #276 01/09/06 Here is Duncan dancing. And because of the position of his collar it looks like he has the white man overbite going on. He could also be setting up for some kung fu moves.

Photo-A-Day #275 01/08/06 Today Allison and I got a new TV. A 26 inch flatscreen LCD TV. It can also be used as a monitor for a computer as well. Eventually when we move (that is a ways down the road at this point) we may use it as a computer monitor after all. But for now it is our new TV that we are breaking in by watching X-Men. Pretty sweet. It isn’t the biggest but it is an upgrade for us and it was on a really good sale. I love this thing. Yesterday Allison and I watched X-MEN with Jenn and then in the afternoon we broke open the Smallville DVD’s and began watching those. We are starting with Season one and going to watch all 4 seasons off and on until we are caught back up. I had seen episodes 1 and 2 of Smallville back when it first came out but had a conflicting show on at the same time so I dropped Smallville. But it is a very good show and I think by watching all the DVD’s we’re going to like it even more. Of course we should have started watching the DVD’s about a month ago...

Photo-A-Day #274 01/07/06 Tonight Allison and I went to Neil and Andrea’s for dinner and to play Trivial Pursuit the Pop Culture DVD Edition. I won and Neil came in second place. The race for second place was a long one. We played until about 12:30am or so. Dinner was very nice with a maple pork chops, some twice baked potatoes and sweet potatoes infused with chipotle.

I was checking out Buzznet today to see if anyone had added any comments to any of my pictures and then searched for a few buzzwords that I was interested in, like cat, pet, landscape. You see when someone adds a picture to Buzznet they can also add buzzwords to that picture and then if you are following a particular buzzword you will be alerted that someone has uploaded a picture with that buzzword. I noticed that there was an upload today with the words brown coats. And this is what I found. Yep, that Wil Wheaton and Me, we are both folks that have uploaded pictures that have the buzzword brown coats. Just thought that that was interesting seeing as Wil Wheaton is one of the more famous celebrity bloggers. He even got a book deal from his blogging. Here are some books he has written.

Photo-A-Day #273 01/06/06 I ended up getting home early today because I got two earlier standby flights out of Oklahoma and then out of Chicago. I had a feeling that I could catch a standby flight if I went right to the airport and I just made it too. I WAS selected again for Special Screening. Still no notice of the feet. I am 452 pages into State of Fear. It is a really good book. Allison is reading a book called The Giver, that sounds interesting too. She told me about it when I got home. Also looks like Marcia has two new additions to the family. A couple of new kittens, names to be determined later.

At the Louisville airport this morning I was randomly selected for additional screening. I thought to myself, “Oh great now I’m gonna have to explain the taped up feet with a strip and full body cavity search.” Well, I didn’t because it was not discovered or brought up at all. I’m not sure if I feel grateful for not having to explain or annoyed that something like taped up feet wasn’t checked. Especially since shoes need to be removed after that shoe bomber guy in 2002. So what is the point of taking off shoes that do not set off the detector anyways. Especially if the feet are not ever even looked at? A whole lot of nothing if you ask me. (Great, now that I say this I’m gonna get some problems tomorrow.) Ended up getting sucked into the movie Troy last night when I should have been sleeping for my 4:20am wake up call. So glad I filled up the rental car last night. I finished Ill Wind by Nevada Barr and didn’t have a backup book with me. I know I didn’t have Firestorm (the next book in...

Photo-A-Day #272 01/05/06 Sooner Theater in downtown Norman Oklahoma. A very interesting history of this place can be read here. I loved the sign and the angle at which I shot this. I noticed it as I drove by on my way to the hospital today and didn’t have my camera. Stupid, gotta have it all the time.

Okay I got up at 4:00am this morning and only got to wash my hair in the sink before running off to the airport. And I only ended up getting a drastically inadequate shower the day before and another hair washing in the sink on Tuesday. It was time for me to actually get a real shower in. So yesterday I picked up some Hefty Freezer bags and some Purple Duck tape. That was the brand name, I know that duck tape is actually duct tape. I got purple because since it was the same price as plain old grey, I might was well have fun waterproofing my feet. I documented the entire process before and after, not during the shower. And Mo, all pictures were taken while clothed. I give you… Showering with Feet unable to get wet

Optimus Prime at Wal-Mart I stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up duct tape and some plastic bags to keep my feet dry. There were 8 Masterpiece Primes dropped to $55.00 each. I haven’t seen this around in about 6 months.

Directly behind the hotel is Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.

Photo-A-Day #271 01/04/06 Today after I got out of the demonstration I headed to my rental car. When I walked around to the trunk I noticed that my suitcase wasn’t in the car. I got really nervous and pressed the trunk button on the keys, I heard the car beep. But it wasn’t coming from the car I was looking at. Oops, guess I didn’t notice that the exact same car was parked two spaces away from me. Whew!

So, I have Plantar Fasciitis. I have had foot pain for near over a year now. I finally found out what it was today. The soles of my feet have felt weird, sometimes painful (like at the beach on the rocks, that is why I have such a funny tan line, I cannot go to the beach without my water shoes.) Sometimes really painful, cramps that pull the foot into a ball. And sometimes very cold, like first thing in the morning when I get out of bed and go to the shower. I went to a very good podiatrist this morning (no snow was keeping me from that appointment.) And he explained to me what my foot pain was, taped up my feet and gave me an anti inflammatory prescription for the pain. X-Rays of my feet were also taken. With the taping I have to leave the feet taped for 5 days, stay off my feet as much as possible and oh yeah, can’t get them wet. Showering for the next 5 days is gonna be fun. And I have to present this week, tomorrow in fact. I guess my problem is that I tend to roll my feet outward ...

Photo-A-Day #270 01/03/06 I am at the Pittsburgh Airport again. This time only for a short stop between flights. I head out to Louisville Kentucky at 8:35pm. Then I’m driving from Louisville to Campbellsville Kentucky. So I should be in bed around midnight. While In Pittsburgh I ate at the Quaker Steak and Lube. A cool little restaurant in the airport. Good wings and hot pretzels. Their Guinness infused cheese dip left something to be desired though.

Photo-A-Day #269 01/02/06 Taco Bell. Can you believe that I have never had Taco Bell before today. It is true. I have never had it, and now that I have I don’t know why I haven’t sooner. It was very good. I got two chalupa’s one with steak and the other with chicken and it came with a hard taco with beef. Very tasty. Last night Allison and I watched the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal. What a nice movie. We liked it alot. And I know Mo is not a fan of T.H. but I am and he’s one very good actor. The movie was fun and enjoyable.

The year 2006 is here. Where did 2005 go? Many things have happened in 2005. We lost some of our loved ones, Great-Uncle Richard and Frances Dusablon. We lost some cherished pets, Moxie, Fraiser, Lola and Daisy. Many good things happened as well. First of all we got married in late 2005. We had our first real vacation alone together in Aruba for our honeymoon. Allison’s brother got married. We spent a nice time in Disney last January. We got to spend some time at the Cape, in New Hampshire and we worked on making our home in North Attleboro better. I completed 267 photos in a row starting on my 31st birthday on April 9. We’ve met many new people online and in Real Life. We discovered web comics and now are experiencing the joys of some great artists and their work. We went to many concerts with our favorite folk singers. We saw many good movies. We planned and had the best party of our lives, our reception. 2005 was a good year. What is ahead for 2006. Well, you can look forward to Pho...

Photo-A-Day #268 01/01/06 Doesn’t Allison look like she would be a great mom? I think that our ‘boys’ Oliver and Duncan know that they will be well protected by us.

Last night Allison and I went to Derek and Michelle’s for the 3rd annual New Year’s Eve Bash. In attendance was Derik and Sarah and their daughter Riley. Mike and Anna, Matt and Beth and Neil came by (Andrea we missed you, feel better soon.) Great food as usual, Sarah made kielbasa in brown sugar, yummy. Michelle made chicken tulips, and I made Pepperoni Chicken and Pasta. Shouldn’t have told Neil what was in it and maybe he would have tried it. You’re missing out man, missing out. Derek and Michelle and Coco were once again great hosts. We played Balderdash before the ball drop and had a great time making things up for the game. Derek was very good at that, go figure. Riley had us all smiling, she was so cute and loved Coco. Neil gave Derek Men of Honor, (Again) for their DVD exchange. I caught it on tape this time. And Derek, the look on your face was priceless. But Neil was crafty and wrapped a real gift for Derek. The book, Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! I took picture...