Today my friend Karen sent me an e-mail and told me to go log into PayPerPost. I haven’t been doing many PayPerPost posts on my blogs but I hopped over and I was pleasantly surprise. There for all the world to see was a new leader. A new top earner. There was Karen in the #1 spot. A spot that had been dominated since PayPerPost came into being. But not anymore!

Karen is a wonderful person. I had the pleasure of being on the Fab 4 panel with her, visiting her at her home and getting to know her and her family a bit better. I’m so happy there is a new number one and that it is Karen. She rocks.

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

I’ve been waiting for this….

Today I am in Indiana and I was able to go and visit with Karen from The Pond and Tina from Tina’s Treasured Thoughts. You can see them both in today’s photo, Karen on the Left and Tina on the right.

Karen had seen that I was going to be in Indiana and asked me which part and come to find out I would be driving right by where she lived so she invited me for a visit. Then her friend Tina asked to come over and meet me as well. I had a great time talking with Karen and Lynn about all sorts of things and especially blogging. It is great when you connect with people and realize that behind each blog there is a person there who has great ideas and wants to share them with other people. It was also good to talk about things and feel validated on what I was thinking on different subjects with regards to blogging.

I stayed for a couple of hours and Tina and her husband Jack came over around 5:00. We chatted for a bit more and Karen brought out my 2008 Photo-A-Day calendar, Tina liked it so much she is going to order a few. I was going to retire the calendar but I hadn’t gotten around to it.

And all too soon I had to get going, I took a photo of Karen and Tina and then Lynn took one of Tina, Me and Karen.

Karen also gave me a sweet gift bag for Eva. It included a cute hat for the Indianapolis colts and a great book I can read to Eva. I’m not sure if Eva’s uncles will let her wear the hat but since I’m not a gung ho sports fan I say go ahead and wear it, it is a very cute hat for my little girl. I had another great day with some fellow Posties who are such down to earth nice people. Thanks for the great hospitality! Looking forward to another visit or convention.

Tonight I got to Kokomo and caught up with the other demonstrators for dinner. We had a great meal at Outback and then out came the camera.

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

Blog friends in Indiana … PAD #1026

Today I traveled from Providence to Chicago by way of The Black Hole of the Eastern Seaboard. My flight from Providence to Philly was fine, after I got my bluetooth headset back. When I landed in Philly I found out that my flight was canceled so I was re-booked on another flight, so I didn’t have much to do. I did spend my time using my new phone to send Utterz to update folks with my travel hell. In the end I finally did get to Chicago.

The reason that I was so annoyed today about my travel plans was that I was supposed to meet Robyn and Lisa and their families for a meal at Sweet Baby Rays around 1:30CST. Lisa has two kids and Robyn has 4. So each time I had to call with another delay I felt worse and worse about it. I would be content to spend the day in the airport because I could find something to do. However when someone else’s day and time is affected by my travel delays I feel very guilty even if I can do nothing about it. Both Robyn and Lisa as well as their families were so great about all the changes.

Who are Robyn and Lisa? Well Lisa is there on the left and Robyn is on the right.

And here is a photo of the three of us.

They are both bloggers that I met at Blog World Expo and Postiecon. Each of us blogs as part of PayPerPost/IZEA. We even made a little video for Ted. But this was at the end of the meal and wasn’t the best time to do it, plus I didn’t mention that I was shooting video with the phone.

The photo today is of Lisa’s daughter, Madison and one of Robyn’s sons, Barrett and her daughter, Blakelynn. There were 6 kids, and two husbands at the meal. 11 people in all and I think we did very well and the place is still standing as Lisa so aptly put it on Twitter.

I said I wanted a photo of all three Posties and I think it was Robyn who said we should have a photo of the two girls and one of the boys to represent us instead. I ended up getting a couple of the three of us anyway.

If we had planned ahead we would have had the kids wear our IZEA shirts, which we all agreed were the most comfortable shirts ever. I always travel in mine now. I also wear it so that one day an IZEA employee or another Postie will see me in the airport.

Dinner was awesome at Sweet Baby Rays and I even photographed my plate of ribs like a certain “A-List” blogger.

I bet I’ve been taking photos of my food longer though.

So today was awesome once I got to Sweet Baby Rays.

It was too short though I really enjoyed spending time with both Robyn and Lisa and their families. Everyone was so nice and we had a great meal, good conversation and I got a glimpse of my life in the coming months to years. And that was pretty cool too.

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

Posties! … Uh Wait a Minute… PAD #1025

I am headed to Blog World Expo on November 7th. I’m finally going to get to meet many of you in person. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen photos and you know who I am because of my Photo-A-Day. Did you know that this blog made it into the top 5 for the Blogger’s Choice Awards. I would have loved to have won that category or even been in the top 3. I don’t know how many votes I still need to make it to the top three because the number of votes that each of the top tier people have are now replaced with “???”. I have 188 votes so far and would really like to get more. Even if I made it to the 4th spot it would be cool. I need 19 more votes to make it there. Can you help me? Look at this page,

wouldn’t The BenSpark look better in spot #4 or even #3? Sure it would. Heck I’d be happy to just break 200. If you haven’t voted yet there is still a little time. Please vote.

If you are going to Blog World Expo or Postiecon please leave me a note and let me know.

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

Going to Blog World Expo and Postiecon….

After two awesome days at CollegeFest 2007 I learned many things about the team from PayPerPost and all of them positive. I was very fortunate to have been selected for this special assignment and took to it was as much enthusiasm that I could muster, and then I heaped on more. But it was so easy to be enthusiastic with such nice people to spend time with (The PayPerPost RockStars) and such nice people to meet and greet (The Students and other Exhibitors). I’d do this sort of thing all the time, my body would hate me for it but I’d enjoy the heck out of it all none-the-less. At CollegeFest 2007 I took over 1000 photos. Only about 163 made the grade in my book. Here is my set of photos from Flickr (Photos in the set are in Chronological Order over the two days) or if you prefer, Zooomr (There only seems to be 157 there, I have to figure that out). Descriptions and captions will be forthcoming. It is Monday and I am back to my real job and have a ton to do so for now, look at the pretty photos.

I wrote the following on the T on my way home last night.

Tonight after CollegeFest I went out to dinner with the RockStars of PayPerPost (Ashley, Britt, Marty, Travis and Shaun). We went to dinner at Dick’s Last Resort in Quincy Market. The wait staff was not nearly rude enough for our liking. Nope, they were actually tame. I promised rude. Oh well.

dinner was pretty tasty too. I got a bucket of ribs and wings. The bucket was fake only the top was used for food. Not near enough ribs and wings. However tasted pretty good. I enjoyed my dinner and the company was great.

Here are some photos from dinner.

We took the T there and back. On the way back I took video. That is only for me and my new PayPerPost friends. I will not be sharing that one.

As far as the weekend goes this was fantastic. I could not have had a better time at all. The students we fun. Some of the entertainers were great, some not to my liking but that is okay.

I made contacts with a bunch of companies and hope I helped stir up some PayPerPost advertiser interest. I also got to work my photography skills. There were many great subjects to photograph.

I like to think that I made some lasting impressions on the team from PayPerPost. The certainly made good impressions on me. Meeting people in real life means a lot. It is easy to think of people online as not real because of the nature of the anonymity of the online world. It was great to spend time with real people working at a job they truly believe in. I wish PayPerPost much success in the years to come and intend to keep blogging for them as often as possible. I will value the time spent at CollegeFest 2007 as a great experience and look forward to working with PayPerPost on anything like that in the future if they will have me back.

PostieCon is coming up soon. If you aren’t going that is too bad because after meeting the Marketing team I am looking forward to meeting everyone else at PayPerPost.

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

CollegeFest 2007 – That’s a Wrap!