The past two days I mentioned that we’ve taken Eva to the beach and into the water to swim. However, I did not provide any photographic evidence of this. Luckily I have the Sanyo Xacti EC1 and it is waterproof. So we were able to get some shots while in the water.

Eva just loves the water, we just take her right in, dip her toes a little and then up to her knees and we progressively get her into the water and hold her close to us so she stays warm. She ends up enjoying getting right in.

Spinning her in circles is one of her favorite things. She also likes being lifted so high quickly and splashing back to the water.

We worked on Eva’s dexterity and ability to pick things up by passing her rocks and shells that she could hold and pinch. Luckily she didn’t try to put too many in her mouth. She enjoyed her purple pail and shovel as well.

With all this beach time this beach time Eva gets some sun. We make sure that she does not get too much and make sure to slather on sunscreen, make her wear a cover up and hats as well. We also got her a pop up sunscreen/tent. We used it for the first time yesterday. I threw out the directions to put it back into the carry case. Who needs ‘em!

I was wrong…

I went back to the house to shower and do a little on the computer. Next thing I know, Allison is at the door and tells me that everyone at the beach has tried to get the thing back in the bag with no luck. So I went over to get this taken care of. It should have been simple but I had a huge audience full of only the peanut gallery. Everyone being “helpful” You know what is the most helpful to me, shutting the heck up. Overall it was funny because it was that sort of frustration that isn’t life threatening but rather a bit annoying. I finally did wrestle the thing into some semblance of a circle and shoved it back into the bag. Was it done right? Probably not. Was it done? Yep!

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

At the Beach…

Today I went to our house on Cape Cod to give my Dad a hand getting things ready for next weekend. We’ll all be down for the Memorial Day weekend and some cleaning and whatnot needs to get done before that can happen. Dad’s been working like crazy getting some improvements made to the house and this summer things might be in flux for a while but when everything is buttoned up it will be really very nice.

It was nice to take a quick little walk today to take a few photos by the water. Since no one is at any of the houses on the ‘private’ beach I was able to get some photos of the pilings and the birds on them.

Today I also set up a wireless router for the house. I am so ready to telecommute from the Cape from the front porch. That would be awesome. I haven’t yet tested the signal strength of the router but it is Wireless N so that is pretty decent (I guess). It works and that is good enough for me at the moment.

Tonight Dad and I went to see Iron Man at the Falmouth Cinema Pub. This is just like the Route One Cinema Pub that Allison and I go to on occasion. It is just like that place because the guy who runs the Falmouth one also runs the North Attleboro one. The Falmouth one was built into the old Falmouth movie theater. I am so glad that a movie theater is here in Falmouth again and I don’t have to head off to Mashpee to see a movie. I hope that next weekend I’ll be able to see Indiana Jones at the Falmouth Cinema Pub.

Seeing Iron Man 3 times in three weeks was still work the price of admission. This time I kept my eyes open for the Captain America Shield. I saw it. It comes up during the scene where Tony is having his armor removed after the dogfight and is caught by Pepper. It is over his right shoulder on a desk in the background. You only see it for a second or so but it is there. In the comics Tony Stark adds some improvements to the Captain America Shield at some point in the timeline. I wonder if Tony will create the Shield for ‘Cap’ in the Captain America movie or if it will be created by someone else? Seeing the movie again for the 3rd time there were some things that I picked up that seemed to be plot holes or flubs. For one thing when Pepper goes to the office to hack the system she leaves and is driving Tony’s Audi. Later when Rhody comes to the aid of Tony at the Mansion he leaves in that same Audi. Are we to believe that Pepper has the same Audi as Tony? Also Obie has scientists set up Sector 16 ‘under’ the Arc Reactor but when he goes to them they are standing in front of it. So are there two arc reactors? It seems like this was some sort of mistake.

As I was writing this my computer totally blue screened me and automatically reboot. So I was luckily able to get on my Dad’s computer and finish up the post and upload the photo. Glad I installed the wireless network today.

Mobile post sent by BenSpark using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Waves crash… PAD #1135

Today was a beautiful day on the Cape. We ended up having a nice late sleep and some delicious breakfast sandwiches courtesy of Alice. She and Don stayed the weekend and we had a great time with them.

After Breakfast I loaded up my backpack with my Nikon D80 DSLR, Canon SD800is, Sanyo Xacti C4, XShot, and my GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr for automatic geotagging of photos. Had a great time rollerblading on the Shining Sea BikeWay. There were quite a few people out and about up and down the Shining Sea BikeWay. I would stop from time to time to make sure I took plenty of pictures as I Photo-Bladed. Just a slight variation on the PhotoWalking craze that is all over the West Coast.

I used my XShot with the Xacti and found out that it is finally on its last legs. The video now has lines all over the place on it. Just absolutely terrible. There won’t be any more Wired Kayaker episodes the rest of the year. Or until I get a new video camera.

I then went over to the beach with everyone and took a bunch of photos including the Photo-A-Day. I took a ton of photos of the seagulls. Here are some more.

Tonight we had a delicious dinner and some awesome dessert and celebrated Don and Alice’s 44th wedding anniversary. Then we watched Wild Hogs. A very nice night.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Photo-A-Day #877 09/02/07

Today is my Dad’s birthday. He went to breakfast with Mom at CrabApples and I went off for a paddle on Long Pond. I finally got out onto the water after almost a full week. I was able to do some filming for a future Wired Kayaker Podcast too.

The trip around long pond was a great paddle. There was an overcast sky with a chance of rain but I was determined to get on the water. I swear that the overcast days are some of the best ones around. You can get some really great shots on an overcast day. I paddled around and met a gentleman who had a rig on his boat for fishing while kayaking. I should have gotten an interview but my batteries were dying on me.

After the paddle I picked up Allison and we went for a delicious breakfast at Betsy’s Diner in Falmouth, MA. This place make the best breakfast around. We split scrambled eggs, perfect home fried potatoes, bacon and sweet and sour pancakes. What are sweet and sour pancakes? They are pancakes with blueberries and cranberries. They are now my most favorite pancakes ever.

After breakfast we went to Spohr Gardens in Falmouth. This is a 6 acre garden that is open to the public for free but accepts donations. The grounds are beautiful and have many different types of flowers. I used my telephoto lens with a macro setting on it. Now that I have played with it for a bit I really like it and look forward to using it much more. I need to get a tripod though. Then many more of my photos would come out much more clear and sharp.

After the gardens we went to Ocean State Job lot, I needed an S-Video cable for my computer and figured that I would have luck finding a cheap one there. I did. I also found a shorty wetsuit for $25.00. Now I haven’t lost enough weight to go modeling that thing on this blog but I will be putting that to good use to extend my paddling season. Allison found some inexpensive balls of yarn to feed her yarn activities for a while.

After that we went over and visited my grandparents and showed them about 500 photos that are on my memory card. I also showed them some of the raw footage from my kayaking on the water adventures. My podcasts are not on the laptop. I think those would have been better to show them.

Getting home I started working on fixing a problem with my neighbor’s computer. It seems to have an uncorrectable data error. I ran all sorts of tests and other things to try and get into the computer. I could just format the drive but they have photos on the computer that they want. And I do not blame them for wanting those photos. I am all digital and losing my photos would be devastating. I am glad I got an external hard drive to back them up. I went out and got a Belkin easy transfer cable but I need the other computer to actually boot up to get to the hard drive. This one went beyond my scope of knowledge. Anyway now I have this cable I may try to sell it on the company intranet or maybe offer it as a prize in another contest. Speaking of contests, I’m looking for more entries in the BenSpark’s Refreshing Soda-Club Contest. There are 4 entrants so far.

We had a delicious dinner with Dad and Mom and my sister Tara then we all went over to see my sister Shelby at The Boat House. We’ll be celebrating Dad’s birthday at breakfast at the house tomorrow. I can’t wait to give him his gift.

Today is also the 6th anniversary of when Allison and I started to date. If you know us, you know that we ‘dated’ (but didn’t realize it) for a while before we got together. We were always that couple that wasn’t officially a couple but whenever we went out with my friends there would be with all of my couple friends and Allison and I. Eventually someday we would become a couple and everyone knew it. That happened 6 years ago. And now this beautiful woman is going to be the mother of my kids. I look forward to our long life together and I know that she is going to be a wonderful Mom.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Photo-A-Day #792 06/09/07

Today I flew home from Indianapolis. My flight was at 6:10am. I had a thirty minute drive from the hotel to the airport and I hadn’t been to this airport before so I got there my usual two hours ahead. So I ended up staying up all night rather than risking oversleeping.

With the new bed that we have at home I am sleeping so well and sleeping so long. I didn’t want to end up oversleeping. I figured that since I stayed up I would have packed up everything and not missed a thing. Nope, I ended up leaving my copy of Carl Hiaasen’s book Skin Tight. So I was last on chapter 19 of the book and would like to finish it. And I wanted to hang on to this book for my Beach Book Collection at the Cape House. I never leave things like that on a trip and was very annoyed with myself.

So I ended up picking up a copy of Entertainment Weekly to read on the take offs and the landings. In the time in between I was able use my iPod and listen to some podcasts and watch some my episodes of Talking Tech with Jeff and Ed. I am almost caught up.

The photo is of a Flying Pig sculpture in the CVG airport that I saw as I was making my way from one terminal to another. I had enough time to stop and snap this picture. Glad I did because when I got home I ended up passing out from 12:00-5:00pm. I really needed the sleep.

I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon.com. If you do please buy through our links and help support BenSpark.com. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2010 Blog Consultant, Photo-A-Day Photographer & Daddy Blogger - BenSpark.com - Everyday Pictures... Every... Day

Photo-A-Day #713 03/22/07