BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02802 Every so often I get a sensor fail for my Dexcom G7 Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM). It happens enough that I always take a photo of the box so I can get all the numbers I need when submitting a claim for a new one. This one will fail tomorrow at 4:00am. They never fail at a good time. When that happens my phone alarms. Never any issue going on with me, just the device failing. It is a pain in the neck. Quiet day around here. Even quieter at work without our student intern. But it was still hopping from time to time. From pizzas to milkshakes and everything in between. I find myself going in many directions at once. We started the night thinking that we had to put together 2 Too Good Too Go bags only to have someone buy 1 and then another person buy the last two during the time of pickup. Well, I had only made 2 bags initially, then I took everything in the case for the third bag and when I learned that we had the last two bags I had to scramble to make everything a...

Photo-A-Day #02801 My mom was up visiting from the Cape today. I went over and took a walk with her around my Aunt Donna's neighborhood. One of the houses had this little fairy house and mushrooms.  Then I had work and today was another day with our student intern. By the time I got home every part of my nerve endings was fried. The kid is autistic and very very loud. I try and be as patient as possible. Not easy. When I headed home I dropped back over to my Aunt's house to drop off pretzels for her. also some of my coffee caramel dip for the pretzels.

Photo-A-Day #02800 I'm putting the finishing touches on my cosplay for Granite State Comicon. I'm doing one day as a Dungeon Crawler Carl character, "Big Tina". Big Tina is a T-Rex. I got some fingerless gloves and also some dinosaur claws. I cut the claws so that I could glue them to the gloves so I could use my hands.

Photo-A-Day #02799 Getting ready to sleep tonight and James is on our bed. I get into the bed and try not to disturb him. Then try to pet him and he moves away and then just ignores me. He's been sleeping in our bed each night now that Eva is at school. He takes up a lot of space.

 Photo-A-Day #02798 Allison stripped the sheets and remade the bed today. As she was doing so James climbed the cat stairs on the side of the bed and plopped down in the middle of the bed. Allison kept flipping the sheets up all around him but he would not move. Torrun would have been running for the hills if it was her, but James stayed put. I came into the bedroom as Allison was depositing the sheets, cat and all, on the floor. James would not move out the way. Andy got their Steam account back today. However, later in the afternoon Andy received a message from Steam that their account was locked because of messages that were not sent by Andy violated the community guidelines. That was the scammer using Andy's account to try and scam everyone on Andy's contact list. So we opened a new support ticket and explained what happened and that Andy did not send any messages from that account because the account had been stolen from Andy. I hope we get this all cleared up soon.

 Photo-A-Day #02797 I've been transferring old VHS tapes into digital media. The last time I was on the Cape I got two big boxes of old tapes. They are very old and this one is the first that I have found that is broken. When I rewound it the tape snapped. I also know that I've already digitized two other tapes that were of Tara's graduation. I can't imagine that we had the graduation filmed from multiple angles or anything. This one also says "dads copy" so it seems like this one is a copy of what we already have.  It was an eventful day here. Andy learned a valuable lesson about online scams and we are working on fixing the damage done. I'm very proud that Andy came to us for help. He was also very responsible to get their Chase account secured. It was a learning experience and I am sure that it will stick with Andy for a while. It just sucks that such an earnest and thoughtful caring kid got taken advantage of. We had a nice dinner together. While Andy ...

Photo-A-Day #02796 I created a new dip flavor at The Pretzel Factory. This one is Caramel Coffee. I used some salted caramel topping that we use for ice cream and also some of the espresso flavoring that we purchased, plus a pump or two of the Autocrat syrup. I mixed that with our buttercream to create this new flavor. We'll see if people like it.

Photo-A-Day #02795 I was online today and saw that Target was selling an Optimus Prime popcorn bucket shaped like his head. I checked the Target app for my local store and they had two in stock so I bought one. The think has light up eyes! While I may probably never use it for popcorn, or I may use it every year when I watch Transformers The Movie, who knows.

Photo-A-Day #02794 After work I went over to The Laughing Shield Comic Book Store to get my weekly comics. That is what I end up doing with my cash tip money each week, getting my comics. Luckily I either collect very few comics or my tips have been good because I can usually cover it. I also bring the owner a few pretzels when I go there after work.  At work today we had a new guy training. He is a former funeral director who is on disability and can only work 20 hours. We are hoping that he can help do the baking on the weekends.We also had our student from the high school who is part of an outreach program. He's an interesting one. He's autistic and the program is so that the student can work someplace and get evaluated on their readiness to be working on their own. Our last kid was super quiet and took forever to do anything. This new one is not quiet and has some issues with regulating their voice and activity. It has been an adventure. The major thing in the comics today ...

Photo-A-Day #02793 We've been making pizza at The Pretzel Factory lately. My boss has been perfecting the dough and the cooking method to make some excellent pizzas to sell in the store. I am also making pizzas. We need additional people besides my boss who know how to make the pizzas. I'm there often and so I am also making pizzas.

Photo-A-Day #02792 I found an artist online who has created a bunch of Transformers designs including this one of Wheeljack. I think I'm going to wear this when I go to see Transformers The Movie in a few weeks. The movie is being rereleased in theaters and even though Optimus Prime dies in the movie and that is going to be extra sad this year because Peter Cullen passed away this year we cannot forget that many Autobots also died in this movie including Wheeljack.

Photo-A-Day #02791 James is getting older and he enjoys being up on Eva's bed and now our bed. The issue is that he's getting a bit old to hop right up there so I got him some special cat steps to get up on the beds easier. I have not seen him use them but I'm sure that eventually he will.

Photo-A-Day #02790 There is not much that I find beneficial for working in the office but I do enjoy the unlimited beverages. I occasionally get a Diet Coke from McDonalds and use the cup to refill several times through out the night. Then I have my water bottle with all my stickers on it.

Photo-A-Day #02789 My boss at the Pretzel Factory has a Nintendo Switch 2 and he picked up this special case that makes the Nintendo Switch 2 much heavier and sturdier with better grips on the side. I picked one up for my Switch 2 and I am pretty happy with it overall. Great case for carrying and it even has space for me to store games and take them with me. Now to find a game that is going to hold my attention.

Photo-A-Day #02788 I took some spare dough and rolled it flat through a pasta maker and then sliced it into triangles. They puffed up a lot when they baked and were hollow inside. They were really good with a garlic butter that we use for the pizza crust. I may try these again.

Photo-A-Day #02787 I made a new dip flavor for The Philly Pretzel Factory. I had asked my boss to pick up some Wild Strawberry and blue raspberry flavors. With that I put together a mixture of the two flavors with a themed for the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series. My sign features Princess Donut, yes that is supposed to be a cat. It look smore like a groundhog. There is a running gag where Princess donut says something to the effect of "Carl, you know how I feel about [blank]" and each time it is something she's never mentioned. I also thought that the colors represented Mongo the raptor that is her pet. So this flavor is called Mongo is Appalled (another thing she says often).

Photo-A-Day #02786 Allison has a new position at school. She has moved from the classroom to the front desk and is assisting the Principal. She is still coordinating Aftercare and the lunchroom. But now she does so much more there. I dropped over there today with her glasses and some saline solution, a contact was giving her trouble. While I was there I snapped this photo because  I had not gotten one yesterday on her official first day.

Photo-A-Day #02785 High School has arrived for Andy. Despite lounging around for most of the Summer and having pretty late nights and sleeping later, Andy was up and ready to go at 5am this morning to shower, get packed and head to their girlfriend's house to walk to school together.  When I talked with Andy after school they were very excited about the day. Andy is already making connections with their teachers. Andy is looking forward to their first rotation in CTE which is Carpentry. Their teacher doesn't call Andy by their name but rather, "My Man!" because Andy is so enthused with the program and answers most questions. I'm excited to see where Andy goes with these programs.

 Photo-A-Day #02784 Lego has made some simple little happy planters as part of their botanical line. Andy has been building a lot of the botanical line of LEGO. They no longer wanted their Minecraft and other LEGO sets but really enjoy building the botanical line. I like these little guys, they are happy and cute.

Photo-A-Day #02783 Today was a day we have been excited for/dreading ever since High School graduation. The start of college for Eva. Move in day. Excited because Eva will do great things. They have been preparing for this forever and will meet every challenge. Dreading it because our kiddo is not going to be home with us each night for dinner. The sewing machine will be silent and we will not have 9pm shower time serenades. James will be depressed all the time and will come sleep in our bed. James takes up a lot of bed space. Andy did not come with us today, they would have been incredibly bored with all the things we had to do. So Andy hung out with friends for the day. They did get up and give Eva a massive hug. But overall we are so thrilled for Eva to start their journey. We (Allison, Eva and myself) got to MassArt about a half hour before our move in time so we parked in the parking lot and waited. When it was time to go we pulled up to the front of Eva's dorm and they had so...