BenSpark Family Adventures

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 #684 I realized today that I didn’t show you my haul from yesterday’s outing at the Hasbro Toy company. I picked up 4 transformers that I had been waiting to get. And the funny thing is that today Hasbro sent me an e-mail (I’m subscribed to their online toy store) with a message that Transformers are on sale for up to 50% off until March 11, 2007. The prices still don’t beat the ones I got at the actual company. I’m very excited about the figures. I love the whole Classics’ line and wish that there were more of them. I hear that at this year’s convention the molds that are being used are the ones for the Classics. So I am venturing into new waters. I have started another blog. This one is called The Wired Kayaker and I will be creating an outdoors and technology blog. One of the reasons I am doing this is because I would like to get into podcasting and video podcasting and this blog really isn’t the forum for that. I also wanted to blog about the things I love in a more spe...

Photo-A-Day #683 Today I went to the Hasbro Company corporate offices in Pawtucket, RI. It is a 15 minute drive from my house. My cousin’s wife works there and she invited me over to go to the Hasbro Employee Toy Store. I was all excited on Friday night because I thought I could take a picture of me with the Giant Hand from the movie that is holding the timer, however come to find out we would have needed special permission from Senior Management to take photos inside the building. So today’s photo is from outside the building in the visitor parking lot. The waiting area was so cool. There were toys all over the reception desk and to read there were G.I. and Transformer’s comic books. I poked through them for a bit as I waited for Annie to come get me. When Annie got me we went down this hall of history that had tons of classic games and toys. There was also a display of upcoming toys and games. I saw a couple of things for Transformers but they were mostly puzzles and board games, no ...

My kayak is a Perception Acadia. It is from 1997 and is still in great shape. It is made of roto-molded plastic so it weighs a bit more than all the new stuff that is out today. It is blue and has webbing on the front and back, no hatches and a wide cockpit. It is a decent recreational boat. I like paddling in it even though it isn’t as high tech as the newer sleeker and lighter boats. But the boat is mine and I love it. I haven’t tested enough new boats yet to think about buying a new one. And since I didn’t paddle at all last summer I cannot justify buying a new boat. So this season I will try and get out to some demo days (on water) that manufacturers have so that people can test out their boats. I’d like to find a longer, and lighter boat without a rudder. I am not a fan of the rudder but maybe that is because I haven’t spent enough time on a boat that had a rudder. Perception is a decent brand and they make quality boats. The Acadia is now called the Acadia Expedition and includes...

I read on Pop Candy that both Vince Neil and Brett Michaels have reality shows coming out. The reason I mention this is that I am a product of the 80’s and I loved Motley Crue and Poison. I still enjoy many of their songs. The Vince Neil show is going to follow around Vince and his family. This will be on A&E. The Brett Michaels one will be called Rock of Love and will be on VH1. It will be a similar vein of the Flava Flav, Flavor of Love. I won’t be watching either one of these because I’m not exactly excited about these guys doing these shows. But who am I to talk, I record my life and put it on the Internet, at least they are getting paid for it.

When I hooked up the Wii the other day I also set it up to connect to the Internet so that I could download some classic games for Allison. This past Christmas I gave her a Wii points card so she could get her favorite game: Super Mario Brothers. Well I finally got to use the Wii points card and we downloaded Super Mario Brothers as well as Sonic the Hedgehog. So we have some old school fun games to play along with the new games like Monster 4X4 World Circuit, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wario Smooth Moves, and Wii Play. Connecting with the Wii was a very simple procedure and so was loading the points card onto the shopping channel. I also signed up online with Nintendo and was able to link that account to my Wii account and got 3 issues of Nintendo Power magazine coming my way. I still have all my classic Nintendo Power magazines too.

During my mega purchase of Nintendo Wii items I picked up The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I finally got a chance to play with it today as I had the day off. I actually set the Wii up on our TV at home today and it is ready to go. I played Zelda about 4 hours today and I am pretty comfortable with the game controls. I just love the wireless wiimote and nunchuck, this combination is fantastic. In Zelda you control the movement of Link (or whatever you name your character) and his horse. With the wiimote you slash like you are using a sword and your sword on screen slashes as well. Different movements will bring about different actions and they work very well. The opening stages are very good to help you learn the ins and outs of what Link can do. Just learning the techniques for running and jumping and picking things up. My tip to you, smash everything you can find, slash at the grass and find rupees galore. I’m not sure how high up you have to be to hurt link but you should be a...