BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00943 This morning I joined about 40 other students from America’s Best Defense for a Krav Maga class at Mason Field. Master Garcia led the class and we started with some warm up exercises. Then we got into some drills. I worked with a bunch of people that I had not met before. It was great getting out there meeting other people and throwing punches and kicks. We also did some self defense drills with knives and guns. It was a great class and lots of fun. I’m going to have to start hitting the Saturday 8am classes because once I got to sleep I slept straight through to 5pm. I should also do the Saturday morning classes to work on my conditioning as I prepare for my Black Belt.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00942 I bought a new computer to help me make videos. This has been the way it has been with every new computer for the past several years. I start making videos and at first everything goes great, then technology changes and the way I do things ends up getting slowed down and unworkable. I noticed that my Fortnite videos were starting to drop frames and so the image would totally freeze and sometimes I could not redo something to make it work right. I was getting extremely frustrated. At the time my laptop was completely suited for making videos.  Then, it got slower and slower. I tried several things to speed it up but I needed more power. With this new computer I doubled the amount of processing power I had and even got 4GB of video RAM to make things even faster. I picked up the computer, a monitor and two 16 GB memory chips. The computer is a gaming computer and so it has all these fancy lights. The 16GB RAM chips are stylized and have lights on them as...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00941 We were backing into a space at Karate to pick up Andy from Camp and we saw this chalk drawing in the back up camera. I thought it rather funny so I had Allison pull forward and slowly back up so I could photograph it. After we picked up Andy at camp we ran over to Best Buy so that I could pick up my new computer and also get new screen protectors for my phone and for Allison’s phone. We got everything swapped out and the new computer picked up quickly. We went home and had dinner. Then I set up the new machine. I didn’t take photos of the new setup yet, though. I was tweaking it a lot first.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00940 It must seem like all we are doing is eating out lately. Well, tonight Allison had a night with her friends and since Andy and I were left to our own devices we went and had dinner at Bliss. But I am getting ahead of myself. Today was a long time spent in the car. Last night my brother-in-law and his friends and their 3 year old son were supposed to arrive in Providence and my sister was going to pick them up. The flights got cancelled and they were stuck in Washington. I offered to pick them up today once they arrived. Well, after a seventeen hour delay between their actual departure and arrival time they made it to Providence where I picked them up and then took them down the Cape. I stopped there long enough to say hi to everyone except for Eva who was out with her Aunt. I am looking forward to having her home and miss her very much. I did have to get home so I couldn’t stay until she returned. So, I guess it is a good thing that I did not sell or trade ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00939 The Cousins Maine Lobster Food Truck was at Gasbarro’s tonight in North Attleboro. We had heard about it a little while ago and Allison had remembered and she wanted to try it out. Andy does not do lobster but they make a grilled cheese or cheese quesadilla for kids so he got that. I love lobster but I decided to go with their lobster bisque. Allison was the adventurous one and she got the lobster tacos. I didn’t think to take a photo of everything or even at the food truck so I got this photo of the last taco with a bite taken out of it. They were quite delicious and so was the bisque.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00938 We had a great lunch at Boneyard BBQ today with our great friend Meghan. Meghan and I went to high school together and it has been several years since we last saw each other. She was home for a little while and was able to come out with us to lunch so that we could catch up. We did a lot of catching up on each other’s lives and it was a great time. We spent several hours talking about everything under the sun as we enjoyed some amazing wings. Meghan was impressed with my selection of a combination of buffalo bacon and buffalo blue cheese sauces for my wings.  We also split some curly fries and enjoyed dipping those into the sauce as well. We look forward to her next visit coming this November. It was such a nice time to spend together. Luckily Eva was at the Cape and Andy was at Karate camp because both kids get freaked out by the décor of the place. The tables are covered in concert posters and some have skulls and other things on them that freaked th...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00937 Tonight Andy showed us his artwork from his Science School class these past three weeks. He took Ecological Art and his teachers were so impressed with how he created his artwork. Andy made a collage, paintings, sculptures an sketches. He loved making everything including some painted rocks. I think his best piece is a sculpture of a sea otter. He took so much time working on this and adding such detail to his sculpture. I took a close up of the sleeping otter and it is below. You can see how much detail he put in to the fur on this otter. The otter is sleeping.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00936 While we were on the Cape these past few weeks we discovered a shop in downtown Falmouth called Eugene Henry’s Gastronomical Delights. This shop sells a bunch of specialty food products. There I found some great products. Tonight we tried out the Chesapeakles. These are pickles brined in Old Bay seasons. They are dill based, too and that makes them even better. Andy even liked them, too. I also picked up these Buffalo Blue Cheese stuffed olives. These are amazing and I wonder how they’d taste fried. I bet they’d be amazing. Some things were also a bit of a miss. We’d been enjoying peanuts in the shell on the beach. I had seen some special fried peanuts that you are supposed to eat shell and all. I picked up the Ranch, Hot and BBQ ones. I ate a bunch fo the ranch ones and I think I had a few too many, they wreaked havoc on my insides that night. I’m not sure I want to try that again. I will try to shell them instead. Eating the shells didn’t sound like the b...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00935 Today was the last day of Science School for the kids. Eva decided that she would make a t-shirt and bring it with her to class so that her classmates could sign it. Eva also picked up a shirt for Andy. They put the name of their class and the year on the shirts. Andy made his best effort to see Ecological Art. There was no picnic or open house this year because of the pandemic. So, we were not able to go in the evening to get our inner harbor photo so today Allison and I parked and walked up to pick up the kids. Both kids were playing games when we arrived. Andy was playing some sort of hide and seek game. However, he was such a good hider that he was not picked for some part of it. That made him upset and he was having a tough time. We talked with his teachers and they were both super complimentary to his art skills and his enthusiasm for each project they tackled. I think that this was not about the game. I think that he’s going to miss his sister becaus...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00934 This morning Allison and I went on our morning walk with our friend, Stef. She was staying here for a few days. We met her at Maravista and together we walked along Great Bay and enjoyed one of the best mornings, weather-wise, in a while. After our walk Stef came back to the house for a while and visited with the family. Both of the kids enjoyed chatting with Stef. Andy showed her a bunch of things that he made in Minecraft and with Nintendo Game Builder Garage. Tonight was our last night at the Cape before Allison, Andy and I headed home and Eva stayed for an extra week. We decided to go to Paul’s for dinner and when we came home we had a nice family walk along the beach.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00933 Today was the last day of Kayak Camp for the kids. They have had so much fun. Eva has tried three different things. She had a small Kiwi kayak for the first day and on day two Justine suggested that they bring Eva a better kayak because she had good control. Today Eva did a stand up paddle board and she loved it. She and Andy both enjoyed stand up paddle boarding more than kayaking. It is great that they had the chance to try them out. I did bring my drone with me today. I ended up with getting some good footage and had the memory card as well so that I could record things properly. I did a decent job of flying the drone and filming. I made a mistake in landing and dumped the drone into the sand. I am hoping that with some compressed air there won’t be too much lasting damage. After Kayak Camp we took the kids to Science School. Allison and I walked around Woods Hole. We had our lunch by Garbage Beach and there was a cool old rowboat there. We continued wal...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00932 Today was the second day of Kayak Camp for the kids and today I brought my drone. However, the memory card was not in it so I was not able to capture anything substantial and the images were of low quality. I also have to replace some of the rotors that had gotten chewed up by a tree on a previous flight. I kept getting messages that the rotors were going too fast or something like that. I did not get that message back on the 4th of July. The image below was taken with the drone but sent to my phone it is of lower quality but it does capture the kids looking at the camera and the other kids in their class looking away. Tonight we had dinner on the beach. My friend Stephanie was supposed to come over for dinner and we were going to do a cook out but plans got changed around a bit and instead we did pizza on the beach thanks to Auntie Tara. We also got the yearly photo of the kids in the Lifeguard chair. They’ve gotten much bigger and so they don’t all fit se...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00931 Today the kids went to their first day of Kayak Camp. They are in morning camp for three days with Cape Cod Kayak and are doing their paddling at Monk’s Cove near Monument Beach. I’m not sure if this is Pocasset or Monument Beach. I’m not as familiar with the area but will be going there for three days so We’ll get acquainted with it. Monk’s Cove Park has walking trails and we were there early so we started with a quick hike through the woods before the class began. Got this really nice image of the kids while we were hiking. The kids were in a small class. There were three other kids that would be paddling with them. A lone girl and a brother and sister who were close in age to Eva and Andy. Their guide, Justine, was really good and she gave them great instruction and got them out paddling pretty quickly. Allison and I went for a walk around the area while we waited. We did not go back in the woods because it was super buggy and we did not have any spray w...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00930 We arrived back at The Cape today and the cousins have been very busy painting rocks. Later in the Summer they are going to set up a table to sell them. They are going to raise money for Tommy’s Place in Falmouth, a house for families with kids with Cancer to use for vacations. The kids have been collecting rocks to paint but they also have some other painting projects going on. Allison picked up some wooden figures for the kids to paint, A tiger for Kylie and sharks for Andy and Dylan. There were also some canvases that Eva is using to paint more things. She is doing mushrooms.

  We were provided with a .pdf file to preview the new young adult graphic novel called Poison Ivy: Thorns. Opinions are our own. For Young Adult comics I have Eva help me out with our reviews. I get asked to check out different comics and then we read them separately and talk about them together. Poison IVY: Thorns is a new take on this anti-hero, villain, misunderstood character. She’s been many things over many years. In this comic we see her origin from shy Pamela Isley to confident Poison Ivy. This is also an LGBTQIA+ book as Pamela meets a girl named Alice and they have a romantic relationship. Poison Ivy has sort of been one of those characters that is always in the background when I read Batman books. She had her own storylines as well but most of them are of her as an established villain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery. In Thorns we see how she came to be who she is through her relationship with her controlling father, bullies in school and a school administration that blames t...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00929 Well, I’m back in the office. My desk is exactly as I left it over a year ago. I think I have cleared everything off my desk once or twice and put everything in boxes. Then I end up getting more things to collect. Some are given to me and some I get myself. I work with Playmates toys often so there are plenty of TMNT toys in my collection. Then another company sent me tons of little Fortnite characters. Also got some of my LEGO Marvel mech suits have ended up here, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00928 On my way to work I stopped off at Walmart and there I saw this Hot Wheels Real Riders car., When I looked at the card it reminded me of my favorite Transformer character, Wheeljack. It is a Lancia Stratos Group 5 and it looked just like Wheeljack so I picked it up. The car is part of the Boulevard series and there are 4 other cars in the series but I really only wanted the Lancia for the Wheeljack connection. I left the Cape early today because I knew I had a bunch of videos to take care of today including one about a special delivery that I received from the Manly Man Company. They sent me a bouquet of Beef Jerky Flowers. Here’s what that looks like. I received the mixed set that has teriyaki, hot and mild flavors. I added a brief mention of them in my latest Fortnite video. You can pick up this Beef Jerky Flower bouquet at their site at https://manlymanco.com/collections/care-packages-for-men. There they have many different gift options for the men (or w...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00927 Our morning walks have been super foggy lately. I have wanted to bring my drone with me on our trips in the morning. However, I can’t be flying in the fog. Despite the fog I have been able to take some good photos like today’s Photo-A-Day. Next week our walks will be at Monk’s Cove Park as the kids do their kayak class. Maybe I’ll get some drone footage of their classes, too. We’ll see. Today I cut Andy’s hair. Afterwards my dad cleaned him off with the leaf blower. I have been slacking a bit on the daily vlogs. I’ll be better about them next week.

I cannot wait for this movie, DreamWorks Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans when it comes out next week! I loved all of the shows in the trilogy and was happy to see that there would be more content in the form of this movie. All of the people from the series are coming together one more time to save the day, we hope. I watched the first clip and I can’t wait to see how the rest goes! Watch the first few minutes of DreamWorks Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans The epic finale premieres worldwide July 21 on Netflix Today, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker and executive producer of the multiple Emmy® Award-winning Tales of Arcadia series Guillermo del Toro, shared the first few minutes of Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, the epic feature film finale of the saga premiering July 21 on Netflix globally. Watch the action-packed opening scene below! “No More Running” Clip: In the clip, as Douxie (Colin O’Donoghue) attempts to hide Nari (Angel Lin) from the evil Bellroc (Kay Bess) and Skrael (Piot...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00926 Our morning started with a walk along Great Bay. It has been super foggy around here lately. Our morning walks are filled with fog. We do love the morning walk but it can be very foggy lately. The weather has not been totally cooperative lately. It is still a nice walk. When we took the kids to Science school today we went for a walk downtown Falmouth and picked up a few things from Eugene and Henry’s Gastronomical Emporium including rainbow salt and sour grape candy. We also picked up some old bay pickles to enjoy at home. On the way back we stopped at The Barking Claw and picked up a jumbo lobster roll. We took it with us to Spohr Garden to enjoy in a very nice setting. For the afternoon I was part of Sweet Suite Virtual 2021. I talked to a few of my favorite companies and learned about some great upcoming toys.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00925 Hanging out on the porch at The Cape and my sister’s dog is chilling out. I took a few photos of her while she was relaxing. She looks tired but content to have everyone around to pay attention to her. She loves doggie scritches on her head and ears. Today I received a box from the Space Jam movie. Eva helped me make a quick video about them. Today and last night I went to my Krav Maga class. We’ve been doing knife defense and man my left wrist is hurting. I also received my paperwork for my upcoming black belt test. It is all too real.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00924 I have been buying two copies of each issue of the Batman Zero Point comic books so that I could do a giveaway for my YouTube channel subscribers. I am finally ready to do the giveaway. I made this video announcing how to enter.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00923 I’ve had this Black Widow’s Helicopter Chase LEGO set for well over a year. I wanted to wait for the movie to come out and because of the pandemic. The movie was released on Friday and I now have a reason to build the set. I’m glad I waited until the movie came out because there were great details in the set that I learned about in the movie. One fun detail was Yelena’s vest. It is a funny part of the movie and I like that the minifig has that vest. I’m so glad that a Marvel movie is back in theaters.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00922 We had a custom pen made for Eva for being inducted to the Junior National Honor Society this school year. One of our local comic book stores, The Laughing Shield works with a local artist called Big Z Creations and they make custom wooden pens. You can give them an image of a character and they make a pen around that character. Eva loved The Legend of Korra so she found an image and we used that to make the pen. You can contact John Zirpolo at Big Z Creations at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BigZCreations and see samples of his work at http://www.instagram.com/BigZ_Creations

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00921 After a year of working from home today is the day I have to go back to the office. This means that instead of walking upstairs at 5 minutes to 7 I have to leave the house at 6pm to drive to work to remotely log into sites and provide remote customer support. But it’s better because I’m in an office. Yeah, better. My job should be completely remote, all the time. There is no reason whatsoever to have to work out of an office. So, I am not thrilled at all to go back.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00920 The Black Widow movie was released today. I took Allison and Eva to The Falmouth Cinema Pub to watch it. We did not have dinner there because they don’t have enough staff to run the kitchen. So, instead we got some Paul’s Pizza for dinner before we went to the movie. Allison and I walked great bay in the morning and then she took Andy to swimming lessons. I took the kids to Science School and then hung around Woods Hole and read The Falcon’s Feather, the second book in the Explorer Academy series. I finished the first book the day before. I have all five of the books and am supposed to review book five but needed to read the other four first. I started reading the first book to Andy, too. The rest of the day was pretty rainy so we hung out at the house. Eva enjoyed the movie and she got invited to go and see it with a friend of hers tomorrow night as well. It was a good one to see because we had just watched Captain America: Civil War which takes place righ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00919 Today was the best weather of the week. Allison and I went for a morning walk along Great Bay as we do each day at the Cape. This is a very scenic walk and a good way to start the morning. The kids had Science School today and Allison brought them while I helped dad track down a leak in the ceiling of our bedroom. Eva had been sleeping in our bed because she could sleep on one side while the drips were caught in a pan on the other side. Allison and I have been sleeping in her room. For dinner tonight we all got dressed up and went to The Flying Bridge. I think it was the first time in a long time where we had everyone, all 12 of us, together at the restaurant. It has become a yearly tradition to go there for dinner. And each year I get the amazing fisherman’s platter. After dinner we walk along Falmouth Harbor and take photos of everyone. We actually got an entire family photo taken by a friend of my sister. That’ll probably go on the Christmas card this ye...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00918 Today was the first day of Science School for the kids. The day started with a nice walk along Great Bay with Allison and then we took Andy to his first swimming lesson of the season. Eva opted out of swimming lessons this year. She’s doing more crafting and spending time with Auntie Tara this year. While the kids were in class Allison and I walked around Woods Hole and got some coffee and cookies from Coffee O. We could not stay in the building so we walked to a park and hung out there while we waited. I made a daily vlog by the beach there. The kids had great days at Science School. They each made friends and were very animated about how much fun they had. When we got home I took Andy to the beach so he could play in the waves. He got knocked around a bit but enjoyed it despite losing his new goggles.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00917 We started today off early with a drive to West Dennis to Captain Baker Donuts to check out this new donut place. They make all sorts of specialty donuts but you can also create your own donut to your liking. They make old fashioned donuts in plain or chocolate. We had a great time picking out the different flavors that we wanted. They were expensive but the experience as worth it and they tasted delicious. We chatted with the owner while we enjoyed the donuts and they showed us a few things around the place. After donuts we headed to visit my aunt and uncle at their new house. We toured the house and had some fun chatting with them about a bunch of things. The kids wandered around the yard and explored while we did. Andy found the cornhole game and challenged me to a couple matches. He’s got great aim. After visiting my my aunt and uncle we headed to see my grandmother. She made us lunch and we visited for a bit. I picked up the things necessary from her t...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00916 It was a different sort of Fourth of July this year. For the second year in a row there were no fireworks off the beach but there were plenty of illegal fireworks set up that it made up for the town not firing them off. The day started with a Classic car ride with ym dad. We toured through Falmouth and into Cotuit and Osterville. He has a corvette and we drove with the top down despite it being a pretty cloudy and cool day. There was about 4 minutes of sunshine but that was about it. It was a nice ride, though. I used my drone and my Go Pro Hero MAX on the drive and to make today’s video. When we got back from the ride there was no local parade, either. It was too chilly to go to the beach so we hung out at the house. We had a nice meal together and then watched some of the illegal fireworks all over the place. We took a nice walk on the beach that night and the sky was incredible. That was before the fireworks. Andy amused himself by waving the flag on the...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00915 Tonight we had the whole family together in one place. My sister and her husband, my other sister and her husband and kids, my parents and us. We enjoyed a nice dinner together and caught up on everyone’s missed birthdays and other milestones. My parent’s Anniversary was last month and my sister had this frame made for them. Today I focused more on everyone at the house and did not do a daily vlog. Already slipping in the vacation mode.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00914 We have finally gotten to Cape Cod. This year we took two cars because we had a lot of stuff to start but also because I’d be heading home early to sleep before going back to work and Allison will stay with the kids and their Science School classes. Along the way we made a stop at DJ’s famous wings and had our lunch. We were trying to get to The Barking Claw but it was raining out so we hit DJ’s instead. Made a little video of it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00913 We’re headed to Cape Cod for a few days and I had to get all packed up with lots and lots of stuff. Lots of gadgets that I hope to use while I am there and more. I will probably not need half of the things and I probably should pack some clothes, too. You can see in the video from today.