BenSpark Family Adventures

Mo Tagged both Allison and I for the latest meme. Here it is. Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to list 10 movies: your 5 Favorites & your 5 Guilty Pleasures. Then, pick 5 of your friends and tag them. No tag backs. This explanation should be included. Here is Allison’s List: 5 Favorites: 1. Pete’s Dragon 2. Serenity 3. Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Dead Man’s Chest 5. Walk the Line 5 Guilty Pleasures: 1. Save the Last Dance 2. Bring It On 3. 10 Things I Hate About You 4. The Sound of Music 5. A Christmas Story Here is My List: 5 Favorites: 1. Transformer’s the Movie 2. Serenity 3. Pump up the Volume 4. Shawshank Redemption 5. Back to the Future 5 Guilty Pleasures : 1. A Christmas Story 2. Ready to Rumble 3. Rumble in the Bronx 4. Harold and Kumar go to White Castle 5. Night at the Roxbury I tag, Autumn, Stephen the Dog, Skeet, Laurie, and Cass

Once the new wall is finished in the house we will be hanging up some pictures including the 5 Photo-a-Day Collages that I created for the Staff Art Show. Traditional wall hanging options have always been a pain in the neck for me. When we do the living room over and make it the dining room we will find evidence of those difficulties. There are going to be holes all over the place. I think I am going to buy us a set of Hercules Hooks to use to hang many of the pictures, they look easy to use and seem to be pretty strong. I have heard good things about them and I think I will buy us a set of them. Check back in a month or so and I’ll let you know how they worked out for us.

Photo-A-Day #640 This is my new traveling companion. And I must tell you that I am in no way ungrateful that my parents' gave me this to take with me on my trips. You see they saw this story on the news and I got a Carbon Monoxide Detector to take with me on my trips. It is important to have carbon monoxide detectors in your home. The issue I have with this thing is that it is huge, I have to remember to take the batteries out when I leave my hotel room and before I go to the airport. This thing makes the most ungodly loud noise, which of course is what it is supposed to do. I would hate to be going through security with my suitcase and have this thing go off. I’d get the full body search for sure. But I appreciate that they gave this to me. I may need to check on something more travel friendly. And now my airport rant. You know how those things end up happening. Why don't airports have FREE Internet access? I am so frustrated today. I have been participating in a contest spons...

And some days you are the bug. Today Allison flew to BWI to attend a baby shower for her friend Elise. The day started with a quick trip back to the house to pick up a forgotten phone (to her credit she is not a morning person and I have done that many times myself.) Then the airline loses her bag, the one with the shower gifts in it. They were nice enough to give her a voucher for future travel and will Fed Ex the bag to her destination IF it arrives tonight. Otherwise they are going to send it back home. Fun stuff. Then I had rented Allison a car with my Hertz miles/points/scam of a crappy program. I made the reservation on the phone and talked to a live person and explained that I was renting the car for my wife. The confirmation says. Comments: ADV NO GOLD SERVICE SPOUSE PICKUP ALLISON ******* So me being a dope figures that everything is fine and dandy for Allison to pick up the rental car. Nope. When she gets to the counter the person behind the counter tells her that I cannot ...

So about 20 minutes ago I went out and filled up Allison’s car. Here in Manchester there is competition at the supermarkets and Stop and Shop gives out $0.45 off per gallon coupons after you spend $100.00 in the store, and you also get a $10.00 gift card. Back home, we get squat! Dan had an extra coupon because he never uses them fast enough. We could use 3 a week. So I drove over and got gas at Stop and Shop. With my Stop & Shop card I got $0.05 off per gallon, and then with the $0.45 off per gallon that made the savings $0.50 a gallon. It made my $2.43 & 9/10 a gallon only $1.97 & 9/10 a gallon. I hate that dang extra 9/10 is it a scam. But I was happy to pay under two dollars a gallon. I decided to go into the supermarket and buy some scallops wrapped in bacon because we are having appetizers at the house prior to the meal at Piccola. Now here is where I spread my Christmas Cheer. As I was walking into the supermarket some random guy says to me. “Look at you with no jack...

This is a photo from one of my Buzznet friends Azannie. AZ means Arizona and that is where Annie is. She has been the most consistent commenter and “buzz-rater” of my pictures on Buzznet. Annie usually has some fantastic photos and I found that this one of her Yorkshire Terrier Scooter. Scooter is a cutie and he just got a trim and then a holiday picture. So to put you in the Christmas Spirit I decided to post the image. You can help Annie out with her Buzznet Buzz by click in the image and clicking the buzz button. By increasing the buzz on images that helps people get their photos featured. In case you didn’t know I post my images to Buzznet first. The post there has a link to the write up of the Photo-A-Day that I put on this blog that is hosted by Blogger. I also post the message to Myspace for my Myspace peeps. And if you want daily content for your site you can add my Photo-A-Day to your blog. I’m going to ask for more help getting the photos out there in the new year, but if you...

There are people pimping everything out. My Ride, My Truck, My Nutcracker? Yeah you can pimp out your nutcracker. Here is mine. Last night while we watched Transformers we saw the trailer for the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. I just read a story that Sarah Michelle Gellar has joined the cast as the voice of April O’Neil. Kevin Smith is also making a cameo voice too. Zach Braff is in a new movie with Jason Bateman and Amanda Peet. It is called Fast Track. I must see it. I found the Trailer for Shrek the 3rd online as well. I thought this was supposed to have something to do with King Arthur and the Knights of the round table. But it looks good none-the-less. And Mo, this one has Justin Timberlake in it. There is also this wacky game. Allison will love it. Sprouts. I found two scenes that have been edited by fans for the Transformers movie. See if you can figure out what was added. Prime Transforming. The Pentagon.

The other day I ranted and raved about men’s room etiquette. I have since found a video that illustrates the points I was trying to make. It is done by using the SIMS. The video is hilarious and of course very informative and important. The rule of never ever talking is very important, it can certainly cause the wanton destruction that is described in this dramatization. It also explains all of the Rules of the men’s room.

My cousin Carissa and her boyfriend Chris are running a great jewelry site called islandjewelers.com. A few years back I worked with my Uncle Richard to set this site up for him. Well things have changed since that time. Now the site is really polished and easy to navigate. The jewelry itself has always been some fantastic stuff. I have bought a few pieces for Allison over the years and now you can get some for yourself and your loved ones. Carissa also sent me a discount code that she said I could post so you can get $5.00 off orders of $50.00 or more.  We’re pleased to offer you a Store Coupon for www.islandjewelers.com. Take an additional $5 off orders over $50 from now until December 22nd. You can redeem this coupon during checkout. Just enter the code in the box provided, and click on the redeem button. The coupon code is 5b8902ca1f In addition, we’re offering free shipping for all orders over $100 – no coupon required. You will find fantastically designed and handcrafted jewe...

I took this quiz and it looks like my accent is the Inland North. When I go all over the country and give demonstrations I am always asked, “Where is your Boston Accent?” I tell them I do not live in Boston and therefore can say my R’s. Sometimes it is just easier to tell someone you are from Boston because all over the country people identify with Boston instead of saying that you are from Massachusetts. I tend to say I am from Massachusetts right outside of Rhode Island and that is why I do not have a Boston accent. Take the quiz and let me know what accent you were.   What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.” Allison just took the quiz and has a Midland Accent What American accent do you have? Your Result: ...

Andy & Rondi’s wedding reception Andy & Rondi at the West Dennis Yacht Club at Sunset is my very first photo post! I did this all by myself!

Carissa’s and Chris’s Cross Country Movie. My cousin Carissa and her boyfriend Chris just moved to San Diego. They took a cross country road trip to get there. Then they sent us a link to their video of the trip. It was really well done. So if you want to check out a great road trip movie with a good soundtrack click the link.

Allison and I are back from our long weekend. I have tons of pictures from the wedding and it will take a long time to go through, crop and edit out random passersby but I will get some galleries of images up as soon as possible. Let me put it this way, I took 1 GB worth of images on the day of the wedding alone. Read the recaps below.

Goodbye Crocodile Hunter. Stingray kills ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin – Yahoo! News Watching this guy you wondered how he kept alive this long but today Steve Irwin was killed by a Stingray off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Love him or hate him he did a lot for conservation and education. He was entertaining to watch and he left a lovely wife and two small kids. He will be missed.

I have found a program called Andrea Mosaic. It is pretty interesting. You can take a regular image and recreate it with a ton of small images. The program does this for you automatically and the program is free. I used it to make the image above and then used photoshop to animate it. So it goes from the multiimage to the original.

If I had known I would have woken up earlier. I actually slept late and didn’t do the 2 hour ahead at this airport. For one thing no one would have been here and for another I needed some sleep. Maybe when I get home I’ll take a nap. Michigan has been nice, I didn’t do too much here but it wasn’t a bad trip either. Last night Allison and I watched the replay of the Bones season finale from last season because we missed the very end of the show the last time we watched it. We missed a lot in those last 2 minutes. But now we don’t have long to wait to see the next episode because it airs next week. I’ve been enjoying the Kathy Reichs series of books about forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan. She is not the same as the character on the TV show, the setting is different, she is younger on the show and she is physically different than the book version and she is younger. Allison and I both agreed that it is good to see David Boreanaz on tv, his character is great. Looks like this...

Today Allison and I were on the Cape to attend the memorial service for our longtime friend and neighbor Mel Smith. Mel passed away last Friday. He had been our neighbor since we moved in to the Cape house. We spent many times his house visiting with Mel and his wife Shirley. We got to know the family very well over the years and my parent's even vacationed with the Smiths back in 1983. We got to see some of those pictures this morning at the house and one at the memorial service. Mel was an outstanding individual. He will be missed very much. His family gave many good testimonials about Mel and his life. The true testament was the number of people there to pay honor to this man. Our neighborhood lost a good man but his memory lives on. It felt very strange to come out of the house and not see Mel on his porch entertaining friends, laughing and smiling or working around his house. Mel and Shirley at our wedding.

Last night I typed out recaps of the weekend and formatted all the pictures. They have all been uploaded to a gallery on Buzznet and I added thumbnails of each picture to the write ups below. Just scroll down to the Photo-A-Day blog entries that mysteriously appeared on their appropriate days. Or you can go right to the first picture in the 100+ set by clicking on this picture.

I took a few days off from the Blog. I have much to recap… which I will do tonight. Just a few things. Good luck to my cousin Carissa and her boyfriend Chris, they start a 2 week cross country trip to move to San Diego. We went to their going away party last night. I hope they keep that photo journal we talked about. Road trip sounds like so much fun. Chris, Carissa, Allison and I. Speaking of Road trip I did manage to tape at least one episode of Feasting on Asphalt, granted Mo and her Dad didn’t like it but I’ll give it my own shot before I pass judgment. This comic was partly inspired by a conversation that was had on the YHT forums regarding displaying toys in the house. Thanks Don for capturing the fully weight of the issue. Autobots darkest hour. Life on Pause Click for Life on Pause website, blog entry and full size comic. Much more to come later tonight.

We are back from Sturdy. The surgery went well and the patient is doing well. There was a minor difficulty getting the lens to sit correctly in the eye, but the surgery was quick and Drew is sleeping off the anesthesia. He’ll post pictures later of his cool looking eye patch. I convinced him that his adoring public could wait a few hours for today’s photo of him looking stoned. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. We appreciate it.