BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02290 Today after work I took a quick nap and then we headed to Cape Cod for the Easter weekend. Allison drove and I stayed awake. When we got there we had some lunch and took a quick walk around the neighborhood. I took another nap before work and then we enjoyed some Paul’s pizza for dinner. After dinner I got set up for work on the sunporch for the night ahead. Andy was excited to play our new game One Hit Heroes. So Andy, Allison and Eva gave the game a shot. I have not looked at anything with the game yet so I am not sure what was happening but I’ll give the instructions a look over tonight so that we can play tomorrow.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02213 Not. There is no reason to be in this almost entirely empty building. I was here early, too because I needed to get a walk in. I’ve been real good about getting 10,000 steps a day and with the way the weather has been and how cold it has been I’ve walked inside. Mostly I walk at the mall but on the weekends I get out and walk around a 98% empty building. Another reason that we should not be here. It makes no sense to keep the building open for less than 10 people.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02062 So, I now have a Titan key. This allows m to do more at work, more work. Also, with my group we are down another person and that means, more work for me. So, for the time being I’ll be very busy at work. And then tonight it was me and one other person until they told me they were leaving at 11pm. So then it was just me all the rest of the night. More Work. Which is great because I just got a salary increase worth pennies. Woo Hoo!

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02047 But forced to Work. I got a new shirt a few weeks ago and it has become my work at the office shirt. It is no secret that I dislike having to go to the office to do something that I can 100% do at home. I had been wearing another shirt every time I came to the office and even wore it two days in a row simply to see if anyone would noticed. But when you are in the office with maybe 4 other people not much gets said. The building is completely empty except for my group of 4 people on the second floor and about 6 people on the 4th floor with my cousin Shaun. We’re losing one of the people in our group and I have been trying to convince Shaun to come to my group. But he is not. He should, but is not. You might notice that I haven’t shaved in a while. I’m trying to grow out the beard and hair a bit for the Granite State Comicon. I’m doing two costumes this time, one with Eva and one on my own. The one on my own is a guy from the TV show Supernatural. He wears a hat, h...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01648 We’ve been down the Cape for the past week. I decided that I would work from here this weekend to see how it would be. I’ve been working from home for a few years now and haven’t done work from the Cape before because I had to be on the phone with people and I did not want to disturb anyone in the house. Now that I don’t take phone calls I don’t have to worry about my voice carrying and keeping anyone up. So, I am working here on the sunporch at The Cape. The sunporch is also a big gathering spot for the whole family. So, after dinner while I set up for work Dad and Andy and Tara and Erik and Mom hung out here. They were playing Rummy while I was working. Later on we were joined by cousin Dylan and Auntie Shelby. I had to explain what I do for work. Of course, I don’t have to do a ton of work overnight so I have a few things to keep me awake and entertained. I do love that whenever I am actually typing I’m asked if I am working.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01417 This wall art is a bit different than what I have on my walls but I am not in my own office. I’m in the office at work tonight. I am lucky that I only have to do this once a month. It makes me realize how much I miss my home setup for working. Having everything right where I need it is very important. When I go to the office I have to move a bunch of stuff around to get a working area for myself. I no longer have a desk to go to and as a group I go to a different building from where I used to have a desk. So, I sit at someone else’s desk and use my laptop and their monitor. I think the only useful thing is the second monitor but that’s about it.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01369 I was working with my boss tonight when my computer suddenly crashed out completely. I thought that I was going to have to go to the office this week and get a new one. But, luckily it came back up to work once again. I have no idea how or why but it did. No early night for me. I’ve been getting better and better all week but still having some difficulty with any exertion. Still having coughing fits after things like laughing or exertion. Just hoping that everyone feels better soon. Andy has been coughing and sick for the better part of two weeks. He’s been negative for COVID with every test, too. But, today he was sluggish and had a low grade fever tonight. He’s going to stay out of school tomorrow. Let’s hope that he feels better in the morning.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01272 Every couple of weeks I need to head to the office to work there instead of being home. I wasn’t a fan of this at first, but I’ve only had to go in twice in June so that has been nice. Now with the weather outside being nicer I look forward to the view I get from the windows of the office building. I don’t get a chance to go for a walk but at least I can enjoy the view. Had my annual review tonight. First one in a very long time that has me excited for work. I have been enjoying the new position and who knows, I may even get a raise this year. We’ll see.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01244 I am in the office tonight. I’m at our Fall River Facility because that is where my new group goes. I like the building very much because it has a fantastic view and is much nice than our Lowderbrook facility. However, there is no real great way to get here. Luckily, I have to only go in a couple of times a month. So it isn’t a huge sacrifice. I’m also working an modified time tonight so that I an cover for an hour tomorrow morning because of the holiday.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01181 I’m back in the office this Sunday. I was supposed to be in the office last night but because Andy was sick I stayed home. I didn’t have much going on today so when I got in to work I had not yet taken my daily photo. I took a walk around the building and found the desk that has more toys and I’ve had on mine. This guy has a giant Unicron figure on it and it made me think of one of the characters in the audio book series that I’ve been listening to. The character is a dwarf that wears a horn helmet but his helmet has one broken horn. Just made me think of him is all. I have this figure, too but it is boxed up in the attic.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01158 For the past few weeks work has been providing us with sandwiches and salads. That has been nice. It would have been nicer to have them provide us with some decent headphones. I picked up a new set so that I could use them with the laptop and with my cell phone. These are wireless and they even work wirelessly with the Nintendo Switch. I should be able to have some decent headphones on while I run the switchboard in the office. I have yet to find the “perfect” solution for all the communication needs, though. Still trying to figure that out.

  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 #685 Today I flew down to Pittsburgh for a demo tomorrow. My flight was very easy and uneventful. I listened to the official Lost podcasts that I had on my iPod and read more of Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen. The demo tomorrow will be all day and there are about 13 of us here. Some folks are having very bad travel today. One had to take a bus from Indianapolis to Chicago O’Hare and she ended up missing her connection flight and is still at O’Hare. But I don’t think anyone had a worse day than these Costa Rican Thugs. This story from Gadling is about a really bad day for Costa Rican Thugs. Tonight as a group we went to a place called Linguini’s for dinner. It was a pretty decent place. I had a swordfish steak, it was okay, nothing too special. The ambiance of the restaurant was very nice. They had the brick oven for the pizza and in the middle of the floor was a fountain. Drew and Ryan volunteered to by photo of the day. Can you say Abercrombie and Fitch? These guys were good s...

Photo-A-Day #678 Today I worked from home and I was using my laptop on the old desk for part of the day. It was very cold yesterday and our front room gets plenty of sun so it is very warm. I moved there for the afternoon. Oliver decided that he wanted to be some place near me so he hung out in one of the cubbies and watched me as I worked. I sometimes wonder what these cats think about the things that Allison and I do each day. Anyway, I know I have had a lot of Cat pictures lately but with cats as cute as ours it is hard to resist. Yesterday I also completed capturing the video from our wedding. I used Microsoft Movie maker to take the video off the camera and then save it into 10, 15 minute files. I will then take the files, and work my magic with Adobe Premiere, adding sound, removing sound, adding images, removing some of the images and then burning it all to DVD. We are hoping I finish this sometime before the second anniversary. My grandmother taped the wedding from the altar an...

Photo-A-Day #672 I arrived home from St. Louis today. I have to say that the beds at the Marriott by the airport are so comfortable. There are a bunch of fluffy pillows that I basically place all around myself to lock myself into the bed. The bed itself is very comfortable too. This room has some very nice features. The alarm clock could wake you up with ocean sounds or put you to sleep with ocean sounds. I wasn’t too sure about waking up to the ocean. I didn’t think that it would do the trick for me. I got my customary wake up call, set the alarm and now I set the iPod alarm as well. So there was no way I was going to oversleep and miss a flight. You just don’t want to start your day in that fashion. The flights were very uneventful. I shouldn’t do first class that often because I have come to really enjoy the room. It was a sad reality sitting in the back of the plane getting my knees jammed and having the person in front of me reclining their seat practically in my lap. Yep that was...

Photo-A-Day #671 Today I was in Springfield, IL in the morning and then we drove to Clinton, IL in the afternoon. I demonstrated for less than an hour and then we began our 3 hour journey back to St. Louis, MO. On the drive back we stopped at this Route 66 roadside antique store that had some giant statues. One is of a pink elephant and the other is of a giant boy who looks like he should be holding a bottle or something. I like getting a chance to see different interesting things on the road and the giant statues were pretty interesting. We made it back to the hotel by the airport and checked in. I then went and dropped off the car at the rental return and caught up with Mike at the concierge lounge. We went to the hotel Restaurant for dinner and had a delicious Lobster Macaroni and Cheese and some Gooey Butter Shortcake for dessert. Very tasty. It’ll be an early night tonight as I have a 6:10am flight. I have the best room tonight. There is a 37″ flat screen TV and I can connect my...

Photo-A-Day #670 I was searching through some Posties websites and I came across a project called the toss a camera. What you do is set your camera's timer and toss it in the air and let it go off. All I seemed to do was toss the camera across the room after setting the 2 second timer and have it go off as it hit the bed, across the room, then it went off. On this one the camera bounced off the bed and then went off capturing my suitcase and a tie, I have no idea where the lights came from in the picture. The one thing that seemed to help when I tossed the camera was that it now focuses a lot faster than it had been lately. That is weird. The poor thing is on its last legs. Today I crossed the mighty Mississippi River on my way from Missouri to Illinois. It was the first time I had even gotten close to the river. Unfortunately I was on a bridge and could not stop to take any pictures. I was only in Lubbock Texas for less than 24 hours so I could not get to the Buddy Holly Museum. T...

12:38am. Yep, The travel saga continued well into the wee hours of Tuesday morning. I’ve added an update below. I’m going to bed. I have to get up tomorrow for my flight in the AM. Travel Saga 2/5-2/6 9:30am CST – I am now in Lubbock Texas. After getting 3 1/2 hours of sleep I got up and went to the airport. I hung around and waited for my flight. I charged up my cell phone as I had made many calls in the past day and I listened to the 60 Second Science Podcasts. The flight was uneventful. I landed safely.  I had to go to Hertz to get a car. I double checked the credit card that was used to reserve the rental and Found out that it was not the one I usually use so I asked the guy if he would change it. He said I could change it when I returned the car. I said, “And you can do it right now, thanks.” I’m returning my car tomorrow morning around 5:00am. No one will be at the counter to get that returned key let alone be there to change my credit card information. I am getting sick and ...

  Photo-A-Day #669 I arrived in Lubbock, TX today. I’ll be back on a plane in less then 12 hours too. My demonstration went well and after the demo I came back to the hotel and did a few posts on the blog. I also read some more of Final Target. Tonight we went as a group to Orlando’s. Orlando’s is an Italian restaurant with Tex Mex flair. We had Mafia Queso, which was awesome. I also ordered wings but got the wrong ones because they were not that good. The pizza I ordered was doughy and I only ate two pieces because of the Mafia Queso. All around the top of the wall of the building there are empty wine bottles. It is a really interesting display. They also had some great wine quotes like “Wine is the thinker’s health drink” and some other ones I cannot remember. The place was pretty cool. Here is a photo from yesterday. A water pipe burst in the airport and the weather was so cold that it turned to a thick freezing fog. I have video from my camera phone and my Sanyo Xacti C4. I rea...

Photo-A-Day #668 I am stuck in the Chicago O’Hare Airport. The flights to Dallas either have planes with mechanical problems or they are totally full. I have a seat on the 5:40 flight and am expected to get in at 10:00pm. That is a pretty long day. It has probably been the worst travel day so far in my five years of traveling. You can read the whole sorted saga on an earlier post. I will not be able to take any cool photos from Texas today because it will be dark when I arrive. So I took this picture of me in my most pleasant mood I could muster. I’ve got my internet connection and I’ve got some blogging to do so things aren’t all bad. I even made $15 through PPP today too.