BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00253 I am doing a campaign with Chips Ahoy and Gears of War 5 but I have to be quiet about it right now so I shot this image that might be used on Twitter in the future, I cannot post it here yet so I am writing this post on the day I shot the photo but not posting until I am allowed. I started playing Gears of War 5 because of this campaign and it is really good. It is not one that I could even have on if the kids were home it is too violent but it plays like a movie. A very cool movie.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00143 I made a couple of big decisions today. One was to start a journey and the other to end one. Back around the first of the year I signed up for a few weeks of Krav Maga classes. I just wanted to see how it would go and maybe learn something. I learned that I enjoyed the classes and began to feel more confident in what I could do. I’ve had dreams/nightmares where I could not do anything with the left side of my body, specifically, punch. What I learned was that not only can I punch with my left, I can do it pretty hard. The classes are very physical and challenging. No class has ever been the same as the one before it either and that is exciting. In my very first class I smashed both of my big toenails, shattered them. They were trashed. Not only did I go back to class later in the week, I learned how to point my toes so that they aren’t doing the kicking. Today I decided that I wanted to pursue a black belt. This is a multi-year commitment. It will take seve...

This is a line my wife likes to give me each and every time the cats end up getting on her nerves. Well I get to tell her that tonight when she gets home from knitting class. Our little fuzzy angels got into our bedroom (the are not allowed int he new bedroom and usually we remember to lock them out) and knocked over the vase of flowers that I gave Allison for Valentine’s day. I was working on a post and I heard a big, loud THUMP! and I ran to the front of the house to discover the door to our bed room was open. Our cats are very adept at opening these doors in a tag team cooperative attack on the doorknob and the bottom of the door. Oliver will climb up onto the couch and start pulling at the door with both paws. Duncan will reach one paw under the door and start yanking it toward him. They can usually get the door popped in about 15 seconds. That is unless we lock the door with a sliding bolt. Then they cannot get through, but it doesn’t stop them from trying. But they are cute.

  Photo-A-Day #915 Today I fell in love with a wonderful girl. And today was the most perfect day of my life. Allison gave birth to a 8.5lb 8oz 20 1/2in beautiful baby girl named Eva Grace. Eva Grace came rocketing into the world at lightening speed. At 9:30am Allison’s water broke. We were in the car by 9:35am and at the hospital by 9:50am. After about 1 hour and 40 minutes of prep and 20 minutes of pushing Eva Grace came into the world at 12:04pm. Eva Grace is a beautiful girl, so, so beautiful and with a gorgeous full head of hair. Mother and baby are doing fantastic. And Daddy is hanging in. I took a bunch of photos and we had many visitors. I will upload them tomorrow as I am on dial up and have no way to upload them directly. It has taken me about an hour just to get the one photo up. More tomorrow though. She is beautiful.

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 ...