BenSpark Family Adventures

I found this neat little site called Bubblr that you can use to make little comic strips with Flickr images. Just click to go to Bubblr to see the full image. I was watching the classic Mr. Hankey episode of South Park. Back when South Park was novel and hilarious. Make your own comic on Bubblr. Might be a good site for pictures of Stephen and his thoughts. I grabbed one of Stephen’s Flickr pictures from and added a thought bubble for him.

The puzzle has been completed, not by me because I stopped to go to a Christmas Party and well I am not going to win this sort of thing but I love to play. Looks like Colleen may be the winner. Julie also completed the puzzle and so did Cass and Donna. Well not quite. But here are 30 of the 30 pieces. I did not win. I had to go to a holiday party. Yes I am taking advantage of the rockstartup puzzle piece frenzy. If you right click on the image it will save as the appropriate size. The images were not changed just reduced by code of width and height.

You might notice some changes coming in the next few weeks as I have switched to the new Blogger. It is now out of Beta and I took the chance and switched over my 1830 posts on The BenSpark. Yikes, the switchover was actually quicker than one of my template changes being uploaded but it did take that extra special amount of time because the blog is so big. Now I can do cool things like label my posts. It will make navigation of the site much easier. If I write a movie post I will label it movie, Photo-A-Day will be labeled as such. I am very excited to kick the tires of this new Blogger. It already seems so very cool.

Okay fellow Posties I got tagged by Lisa and Skeet. They are Posties from PayPerPost and have tagged me to state 5 things that people do not know about me. If you have ever read this blog you probably know everything about me because I tell you even the intimate details of what I have for breakfast. Okay here are 5 things. I don’t usually do this but the link exchange is nice. 1# – I used to have a polar bear teddy bear that I called Whitey and my sisters called Wipey to tease me. 2# – I am not a fan of crowds, they make me agitated 3# – I wrote a book of poetry in college and sold it in the dorms to meet girls. Yikes that was way emo. I don’t know, was that emo? (I’m not up on the hip things kids say these days 🙂 ) 4# – I signed my 8th grade yearbook Andrew “Transformer” Bennett, III. 5# – I got booed off a stage during a dance contest on the Cape when my good friend started shouting “Drew” and the rest of the crowd began to shout “Boo”, Oh and I sucked at dancing. But I won 2 T-Shir...

Photo-A-Day #619 12/18/06 There is another puzzle out there from my friends at PayPerPost. So much is happening with them right now. PayPerPost released a press release today. The terms of service have been changed to require Posties to disclose that they are writing sponsored posts. I have tried to make it very transparent that I am posting blog messages for money. I just surpassed $1,000 in blogging money too. So now in addition to the posts being in green they will also have information at the end of the post clearly stating that the post is sponsored and that I am being paid to post the blog post. There is also a link to the PayPerPost referral system. So, if you click it you can join PayPerPost and I’ll get a $15.00 referral fee. So thank you for that. Today’s photo is of my Mickey tie. I wore it today because the latest contest is a new puzzle. It gives clues as to what Episode 4 of RockStartup is all about. Tonight I went to my gym for a personal assessment. It is really sad whe...

Elf Yourself: A Gift from OfficeMax Here is a fun little holiday time waster. Grab a picture of yourself or someone you know. Upload it to this site, quickly size it, save the picture, record your voice message (I tried twice that didn’t work) then preview your elf. I made one for myself and it came out well, very funny. Another fun thing. Shake The Globe. You can shake it 5 or 6 times and it cycles through some interesting images. Remember Ralphie, well grab your red ryder and Don’t shoot Your Eye out. You have 10 shots and the object is to get as many ricochets as possible. And then there is North Pole Dancing. You can make Santa dance about 12 different moves and create a sequence, choose the music and the scene and send that to friends. Here is mine, may be disturbing to Maureen and anyone else with eyes. There is also a Save the Snowman Game which is a lot like hangman but with a snowman. You can get lost on the things to do at this site. Merry Christmas and Enjoy.

In the tradition of friends who have been reading this blog and now are writing their own blogs, I present Stephen the Dog. Stephen the Dog is a blog written from the perspective of our friends Andrew (this is a formal blog post hence the Andrew) and Rondi’s dog Stephen. Stephen has been blogging for a week now. He started by leaving a message on this blog and then he began documenting his life with his A and R. We visited A and R tonight and saw Stephen the Dog while we were there. Stephen the Dog is a sweet puppy (well he’s a dog and he is huge). We really like Stephen’s website and hopes he continues to let us know what is going on in his life. Thanks for linking to this site Stephen. Allison and I had a good time visiting your A and R this afternoon.

So I tried to make good use of my time today. Some may argue that my time was not made of good use. I spent a lot of time blogging, checking on some things online, participating in online forums and watching webisodes. That is how I spent my day. I sent some e-mails to friends, researched the Nintendo Wii, updated some of my paid PPP posts. Those would be the posts for which I have already received the money. I added a blurb of disclaimer information to each of those posts. I think at this time I can take them down but they have become part of this blog and I am not looking to sever those posts from the main body of the blog just yet. There are some opportunities that I really liked too, like the Photography Corner, the Beach Cruisers and many others. At PPP they are doing a rap smackdown between Posties. The funny thing is that many posties are mommy bloggers (Not that there's anything wrong with that, some of those blogs are great.) and people who are as geeky as me. So imagine t...

If you are not reading the comments you really should. This is a great one from my friend Andy. “PAIL a pail is a water tight cylindrical vessel, open at the top and fitted with a handle. Bucket a deep, cylindrical vessel, usually of metal, plastic, or wood, with a flat bottom and a semicircular bail, for collecting, carrying, or holding water, sand, fruit. Is would seem that both terms are interchangable. However in common usage pails tend to be smaller and the definition includes a handle. The bucket does nto require a handle. It also seems that the term pail is used more in the North East while the rest of the country tends to jsut use the term bucket Since people seem to interchange I am going to clarify with my own definitions which all should follow Pail: a small cylindrical container with a flat bottom that has or once had a handle. A pail must be able to be filled with water and carried in one hand by an 8 year old boy without too much stuggle Bucket: A cylindrical contain...

I downloaded and listened to the TechCrunch podcast titled PayPerPost Raises 3 Million: with Ted Murphy from PayPerPost. First off I had not heard of TechCrunch before learning about PayPerPost. The blogger associated with it was pretty uppity. Mike Arrington, who are you and why should I care? That is the thing I can't stand about 'A' List bloggers, who put them there and why should they be 'A' list? The guys were slamming Ted and PayPerPost because they found it unethical to have people write about something and get paid and not disclose that information. If you are getting paid to write a review then yes you should disclose it. Should PayPerPost regulate that you need to disclose that information, I’m not sure about that. I write about things for PayPerPost and I don't think anyone who reads my PayPerPost blog updates is under some illusion that I do not get paid to write about these things. I make my PayPerPost posts a different color so that my readers can ...

Last night I stayed at a Fairfield Inn. I like Fairfield Inn, Courtyards and Residence Inns because they offer free wi-fi access. What really burns me up is that full service Marriotts do not offer this free service, rather they charge up to $15.00 a day to use the Internet. Now airlines may be getting into the wi-fi business and that is fantastic, as long as it is free. The problem I have with a pay service is that every airport or carrier is going to have a different service and for someone who travels all over the country on every different airline it is totally impractical to sign up with multiple services for wi-fi. I am sure that there has to be a way to get that money for the service from the consumer without charging $15.00 a day. If airline companies are going to start offering wi-fi that should be free and added to the price of the ticket. With free wi-fi I could be very productive while I sit in the airport waiting for my next flight. I have to be at the airport anyway so wh...

PayPerPost.com has a new marketing campaign out. It is called the Blue Monster and is a gigantic blue truck with a PayPerPost paintjob. It took hours to scour the web, trade with people and refresh, refresh, refresh. But here is the almost complete puzzle of all 192 (except for 9) pieces. I found (all but 9) of the pieces today and put them together in a 600 x 800 image and the 192 (minus 9) image fit perfectly. Needless to say I did not stay up late enough to win the $500.00. I wanted to spend some time with Allison before I left at 4:00am. Oh well I’ll get to $500.00 soon at the rate I am going with these posts. It was a fun hunt but no need to wait till 11:59 to put up the remaining pieces. Thanks to tom who helped me and shared pieces of the puzzle. Update: It is Monday 7:16pm EST and 4:16pm PST. I signed on at the hotel and immediately foudn the rest of the pieces. And so did everyone else, about 12 hours ago. The finished product.

So there is a huge contest with PayPerPost to find 192 puzzle pieces for an 800 X 600 image promoting the next PayPerPost marketing campaign. It looks like they have got themselves a sweet truck to take from place to place to promote PayPerPost. Getting out on the road to search for the Posties who can promote PayPerPost and the opportunities within. I have been trying to put together this puzzle all day practically and have 20 pieces left to find. I can’t seem to find pieces 41, 42, 46, 54, 60, 61, 73, 76, 77, 78, 92, 100, 107, 128, 131, 145, 162, 168, 182, and 190. And it is driving me nuts.  Here is what I have so far.

Photo-A-Day #562 10/22/06 Today I spent most of the day searching the internet for payperpostbluemonster pieces and I still have 12 more pieces to go. I’m looking for pieces 41, 42, 46, 61, 54, 92, 100, 132, 145, 163, 168, and 171. Just 12 away from $500.00, not that I will win, but I have put in a bunch of time on this and am very close. This is Taylor. She is a very photogenic dog. We had pizza and a farewell party to Erik because he is heading to India. I’m happy we had pizza instead of Indian food as the theme.

I took a few days off from the Blog. I have much to recap… which I will do tonight. Just a few things. Good luck to my cousin Carissa and her boyfriend Chris, they start a 2 week cross country trip to move to San Diego. We went to their going away party last night. I hope they keep that photo journal we talked about. Road trip sounds like so much fun. Chris, Carissa, Allison and I. Speaking of Road trip I did manage to tape at least one episode of Feasting on Asphalt, granted Mo and her Dad didn’t like it but I’ll give it my own shot before I pass judgment. This comic was partly inspired by a conversation that was had on the YHT forums regarding displaying toys in the house. Thanks Don for capturing the fully weight of the issue. Autobots darkest hour. Life on Pause Click for Life on Pause website, blog entry and full size comic. Much more to come later tonight.

Mo of We’re in a Fight! has posted a funny blog about Peeps. Allison loves em and she is also a traditionalist in the vein of Mo’s definition. Read about it here.We’re in a fight…: For the love of ‘Peeps’

Just wanted to let everyone know that my letter to the editor appeared in today’s paper (Friday). I’ve already gotten some feedback about it. Also one of my sister’s friend’s saw the original article and told my sister about it right away. She got a weird vibe from the article too. Well, I’ve done what I can do.

If you notice the message I posted on the 13th then you know that there was an article in my hometown newspaper, The Sun Chronicle, about MySpace. My profile was shown in the article, however it had nothing to do with the article. I ranted and raved on the 13th and then decided to exercise my right to free speech in a more constructive way. So I sent an e-mail to the editor. Dear Editor, In Sunday’s Edition of The Sun Chronicle there was an article about MySpace and the potential dangers that it poses to teenagers. The overall tone of the article describing how teens can say safe on the Internet was good. The tips for teens was also very good. However there was a screenshot of a MySpace search using Attleboro as the keyword. This brought up a list of users who had Attleboro as their location in their MySpace profile. My profile was one of those that was pictured. In the overall context of the article this screenshot seemed very out of place. Had the journalist contacted the people who ...

The year 2006 is here. Where did 2005 go? Many things have happened in 2005. We lost some of our loved ones, Great-Uncle Richard and Frances Dusablon. We lost some cherished pets, Moxie, Fraiser, Lola and Daisy. Many good things happened as well. First of all we got married in late 2005. We had our first real vacation alone together in Aruba for our honeymoon. Allison’s brother got married. We spent a nice time in Disney last January. We got to spend some time at the Cape, in New Hampshire and we worked on making our home in North Attleboro better. I completed 267 photos in a row starting on my 31st birthday on April 9. We’ve met many new people online and in Real Life. We discovered web comics and now are experiencing the joys of some great artists and their work. We went to many concerts with our favorite folk singers. We saw many good movies. We planned and had the best party of our lives, our reception. 2005 was a good year. What is ahead for 2006. Well, you can look forward to Pho...

This started as a comment on Mo’s Blog but got out of control on me so I made it a full fledged post. Today on Mo’s blog “We’re In a Fight” she posed many questions. And one of the questions was “Why are there still brown M&Ms?” I however ask the question, “Why isn’t the Brown M&Ms represented as a Character like the other M&M’s?” You know Brown is gonna be a black M&Ms. It is obvious but it may not be seen as something that can be pulled off in a “politically correct” way. Black people eat M&Ms too, why aren’t they represented. Brown could be a a sexy female M&M like Green and thus give the Male M&M’s another female Character to drool over. Yes, I said that Green was sexy, I know she is candy, but she was made for her sex appeal especially because of her ties to “the bases” from that commercial back in the day when that kid was talking about hitting baseballs and what each M&Ms helped him accomplish. Don’t remember it? Then you are either too old, too y...