BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01911 This year we had Easter at home. Mom and Dad came down from the Cape and went to church with us and then came over for Easter brunch. We did not do an easter egg hunt this year. I don’t think either of the kids minded that much. I did make each of them special Rainbow Eggs that I 3D printed. We had a nice meal with roast, ham, a breakfast casserole that Allison made and more. Allison took care of getting everything ready around the house because I worked all weekend except for Sunday. We had a nice relaxed day at the house enjoying the company of family. The weather even held out and was fairly decent.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01910 My Transformers Collection is now in residence in my office. Well, not the whole collection as there are so many more in the attic that are in boxes. I think I may have two or three more that are in boxes. There are also two more that I have not yet gotten in the mail. One of them is sold out but I hope to find it. I also dug out a huge box of my original Transformers toys and I set them up in my display case. The top of the case are some specialty figures that I ordered. The next shelf down are my Autobots. Then the Decepticons. Under that are a mixture of figures from the 1986 movie and the bottom is full of random ones that I opened and like. Many are homage characters to their G1 counterparts. I realized that I had 5 out of the six original seekers (Decepticon jets) and maybe I might have another one up in the attic. I’ll have to look later this week. My Optimus and Wheeljack figures. These were my first two figures. The bottom row with random Transform...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01909 Earlier in the week I packed up my Skylanders and Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions figures. Today I started going through the boxes in the attic to find the box of all my original Transformers figures. It took some digging but I found it. Now I’ll have to go through it and set them up in the display cases. I figured that I would do this because it is the 40th Anniversary of the Transformers and I turn 50 in less than two weeks. I’ve been a fan of Transformers for the past 40 years, too. So this will be a great display to enjoy. I’ll also start re-reading all of my Transformers comic books this year.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01908 Tonight Andy had a band concert over at the High School. It was a much better venue because the first concert was at the school’s cafeteria and it was so packed that we had to stand outside. This time we had fairly decent seats and enjoyed the concert. The concert was also livestreamed and recorded. We were able to share the link with my parents and sisters as well as Allison’s parents. My sister told me that there were some close ups of Andy so that is cerynice. I’ll have to check it out when it comes to Youtube. I was able to zoom in a bit with my phone to capture a few photos of Andy. After the concert there was a Krav Maga social over at Angle Tree Brewery. I went over for a few hours. It was nice to catch up with my friends from Krav.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01907 I’ve been talking about it for a while but I finally boxed up my Skylanders, Disney Infinity and LEGO Dimensions figures. Those have been moved to the attic and I started bringing down some of my Transformers figures. I started with the crossover figures like the Megatron/ H.I.S.S. Tank, Bumblebee/A.W.E. Striker and Soundwave/Thunder Machine. I also have a crossover figure that was Transformers and X-Men and also Back to the Future. At this point those are the only figures I still purchase. I also purchase any version of Wheeljack that I can find. There are two new ones coming out that I am excited to get when they are released. One of them is hard to find and I am hoping I can pick one up on Sunday. This is a figure that has Wheeljack in his original Cybertronian form. And there is also a Transformers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figure coming in October. I’ll have more updates when I put more figures in the case.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01906 We had stripe tests at Krav today. Mine was in the morning and Eva had hers in the afternoon. Eva is still doing very well in class and she continues to improve over and over. I’m hoping that because this was the end of the session and that many students graduated to new belts that Eva will have more of a pool of people to train with. She hasn’t had the best partners for a while. Not ones that challenge her likes she needs and wants to be challenged. My test was quite challenging. Lots of groundwork and that is always a challenge. But, I made it through.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01905 Tonight we went to a new place for dinner. We went to Halligan’s. This is a firefighter themed restaurant in North Attleboro that is run by North Firefighters or a retired North Firefighter. It has great bar fare and their burgers were excellent. The place had a bunch of photos from the North Attleboro Fire House. I liked the lighting fixtures and also the sculpture that they had at the bar. That was really cool looking.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01904 General Mills sent me a special Spring is Here box filled with new Spring products. There were a whole bunch of great things inside like Oreo Brownie mix, Some mac and cheese plus Spring themed cereals. There were also some bunny shaped graham crackers. I think that they would fit well into the 3D Printed Easter eggs that I made, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01903 Funko has gotten into the wireless headphone space. I found these Iron Man ones at Five Below. I got them because they looked really fun. The holder is very much like the Funko POP Pez Dispensers that I have collected. This is the only figure that I found that was a Marvel superhero. The headphones are comfortable but do not work for very long. I have to take them with me each Saturday to work because I definitely need headphones at work. Blocks out the noise of people around me.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01902 I’ve moved on to printing the rainbow eggs for the kids. What I noticed is that because I print the egg the way I do the tops and bottoms do not match properly. However, I’m printing multiple eggs so what I plan to do is take the top of the second egg and put it with the bottom of the egg I printed first. This way the egg will have the proper colors all the way up. It should have a full rainbow. I hope that the other two pieces match up as well.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01901 We have this family in joke where whenever someone sees geese in a filed they yell, “Two Geese in a field, I win”. Today when we went to krav Eva got out of the car and saw these two geese in a field and had to take a photo of them to send to Allison to declare that there were two geese in a field and the she won.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01900 I found a few dragons to print and printed them using a purple and yellow filament that gave it a great fire look. I made it small enough so that it would fit into the printed egg. Now I have a bunch of great new filaments and some dragons to print as well as the eggs. I should have everything printed this week and the kids will be pretty excited for them.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01899 A while back, maybe a year or so I decided to pick up some Just for Men for beards and I dyed my beard. It was super dark and didn’t look quite natural. I found light brown works best for me and today I dyed it again. Then I realized that I had bought medium brown and this is darker than I wanted. I kinda like it but it is a bit dark. I’m going to go and get it styled like I used to get my goatee done. So, I’m growing older but I’m not sure I want to look older quite yet. When the dye starts to fade the white comes back and there is much more white than there had been.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01898 I’ve been thinking of what to do for the kids for Easter. Not just for my own kids but also for my niece and nephew. I ordered some multi-color filament and will print out some neat things to put inside these printed dragon eggs. I specifically got some rainbow filament so that I could make fun rainbow eggs. This white egg is proof of concept. I printed it out to make sure it would fit the printed dragons.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01897 This morning I came home from work. First one out the door because we now have to work the entire night and can’t slip out during our break. That is, until this no longer becomes a point of interest for the upper management. Had things just been done quietly it would still be going smoothly. I took a quick little nap and then we caught up with my parents and they took us to lunch at Box Seats. We had a very nice lunch together and then they went home after their month or so in Florida. They brought the nice warm weather with them, too. I went home and got some more sleep before work tonight. Allison made a great boiled dinner for us and also some Irish Soda bread. Everything came out terrific. I even had my yearly pint of Guinness.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01896 This is my uniform for working in the office. I’d really like to have a shirt that says, “I don’t want to be here.” My job can be done 100% remotely and yet in the infinite wisdom of the muckety mucks in charge they want people in the office 40% of their work time each month. The reason that they give is for fostering our corporate culture and productivity. That may work for the weekday folks who are working directly with customers and need to work together in group trainings. But with working overnights and having 5 people in a group it makes very little sense to come to the office. Even when we are in the office we still collaborate using Google Meet. So it is ridiculous to be sitting in the same room when we can do 100% of this from home. Then you get to all the exceptions. There are people who never come to the office and there are no consequences for them. And now my whole group does not come in together to the same building. People can go to any of th...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01895 The crocuses popped up about two gays ago but today was the first day I got a chance to photograph them. Spring is on the way. I think we’re finally getting over that time change last weekend and we’re enjoying the lighter days.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01894 Tonight we had the privilege of watching Eva be inducted into the Art and Science National Honor Societies at a special ceremony at Feehan. The ceremony was very nice with many, many kids being inducted into several focused National Honor Societies. We already knew that Eva was working very hard in high school but it is nice to see her earning recognition for that hard work. We celebrated by a dinner at House of Fortune. Always our go to for special occasions for the kids.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01893 I realized that it has been nearly a year since I’ve posted anything to YouTube. March 31 of last year was the last time I had posted anything. A bunch of things happened around that time that made keeping a filming schedule going nearly impossible. I had started training for my black belt in Krav Maga. We started tearing apart the bathroom on the first floor to remodel it and Fortnite made it more difficult for creators to create videos. So, I took a step back and never really went back to making videos. That is, until today. I was sent a very fun box of toys from PMI Kids World for the video game Stumble Guys. The package contained a bunch of fun things inside and I did an unboxing of those toys. So, I’ll attach my video below.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01892 I have this lenticular piece of art in my office. It is of Wolverine, Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and Spider-Man. I found it at Wild Time Comics years ago and I’ve had it up in the office since I switched rooms with Andy. It is one of my favorite things in the office. I do enjoy that team of superheroes together. Although they hardly ever work all together as a team. We’ll be getting more Wolverine in the movies oon with Wolverine and Deadpool coming to theaters this Summer. I cannot wait to see these two team up for an amazing movie.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01891 If you have something that you enjoy you should use it or display it so that you can see it all the time. I really enjoy these Hot Wheels character cars and have been collecting them for a while now. I also collected a ton of Marvel ones but I opened them. Looking back I wish I had kept them on the backing so that I could display those as well. I’ve still been putting off getting down my boxes of Transformers to make the display switchover in the office from Skylanders to Transformers. It seems very daunting to do and I know I’ll like it when it is done but getting started is my problem now.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01890 March 10 is Mario day, aka Mar10 Day. So to celebrate Super Mario I give you one of my favorite LEGO sets. Andy and I built this together last year and it now is displayed in my office. I do need to dust the place but I am considering rearranging the display case to put my Transformers there instead of all the Skylanders. I thought I’d be playing more of the game but I haven’t played since I set them all up. I have a ton of Transformers and I have not displayed them in so long so I think it is about time since it is the 40th anniversary year of the Transformers. I figure I should get that done before my birthday less than a month away.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01889 When I headed out to work tonight I dropped in on Eva to see what she was working on. She got a new bag and she has been making it her own. She embroidered the strap with something from a streamer that she has been watching. Apparently it is in a made up language from the stream. I have forgotten what it meant but it is cool. Every time she makes something new it is more ingressive than the next thing.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01888 Allison found some new spices from a creator on Tik Tok. They are called Pat-in-da-Pot spices and Allison picked up 3 different ones. Cajun, Bold Cajun and Garlic Cajun. I used the bold cajun with the crackers that I make occasionally. I melt butter and add spices to it and then pour the butter into the bag of crackers and then bake them for 20 minutes at 250 degrees. This makes some very tasty crackers. These new spices are really good, I look forward to using them on other foods.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01887 Today is National Cereal Day and with it came the last item in the countdown box that General Mills sent me. The item is a crunch cup. This is a combination cup that allows you to take your cereal on the road. As you sip you can also eat cereal with milk. I think cereals like Cheerios and Lucky charms would work well in this because they are small. I tried it with corn chex and that seemed to not slide out as smoothly as other cereals would. I’ll have to try this with some other ones to see which would be best.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01886 Today was book fair at Andy’s school. Andy picked up three books including a cookie cookbook. On the same day Eva had her friend Steven over and they made chocolate chip cookies together. Eva had mentioned that she wanted to make cookies today and I requested chocolate chip ones because all through the winter I’ve wanted chocolate chip cookies and kept waking up to Swiss chocolate squares, which are not my favorite. So, got my chocolate chip cookies and they were great. I took Andy to rock climbing and it was the second to last session and the instructor would not be there next week so she gave the kids their certificates this week. Andy earned the Best Dynamic Climber superlative. that makes sense. Rock Climbing is something that Andy loves so much and each time they go to class they push themselves harder and harder. Andy is always up for a rock climbing challenge.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01885 Today was the primary in Massachusetts. After my Krav class I went and did my civic duty and voted. It was a pretty regular day overall. I picked up Eva from school and took her to her Krav class. She did a great job as she always does. When I was there I talked to my friend, Emily and she complimented Eva’s ability in sparring. That was from last week when we had school vacation and she came with me to morning class on Thursday when we did sparring. Eva sparred Emily and she did a great job at it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01884 General Mills sent me a very fun National Cereal Day countdown box. Today is Day four because Thursday is National Cereal Day. Yesterday the box gave me two bags of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Today was a new bowl and spoon. The spoon has #NationalCerealDay on the stem of the handle. I can put this with my BenSpark spoon and the new bowl with my Dad bowl that I received a few years ago. General Mills has been very kind to me over the years. They have also been creative in the items sent to me.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01883 Tonight when I went to say goodnight to Eva she was working at her desk doing some crafting. She’s been creating some new cosplay items and was working on some of the 3D printed items that I made for her. She has some great skills at painting items and I think I’m going to ask her to paint the things I have been printing for myself.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01882 This weekend I had to go in to the office twice. This is the new normal for us in that one weekend a month we have two nights in the office. There is really no good reason for this and is more for the day staff who actually work with customers but for us overnight folks that doesn’t make that much sense. Saw this magnet at Five Below and that is definitely my mood regarding being in the office. This is a character from a show that Allison and I watch when we head to bed. It is called Schitt’s Creek and that is Eugene Levy’s son Daniel Levy. He plays David Rose and has such a acerbic, sarcastic personality. He cracks me up.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01881 My friends at General Mills have decided to include me in their countdown to National Cereal Day. They sent me a really fun box of 7 mystery items. One for each day as we count down to National Cereal Day. General Mills has been so good to me over the years by sending me some fun things and I’ve enjoyed it and definitely enjoying their cereals. Many times I’ve done a national cereal day for the folks in my office. Whoever is in charge of creating these engagement shipments really has some great ideas. I love the idea of a countdown to National Cereal Day. Today I opened op the first box and inside were two packages of single servings of Cheerios. that makes sense because Cheerios is probably one of the most well known cereals out there from General Mills. I’m excited to see what is behind the door of Day 2 tomorrow.