BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02576 I took Allison's car in to the dealership today to get an oil change This meant that she had my car to drive to school. She called me and told me that when she got to school my rear passenger side tire was flat. She could hear air hissing out of it. So, I grabbed my documentation on the tire protection plan that I had through Kia because of the lease. I brought that with me to the dealership to find out what I had to do about the tire. They had that information on file so I just had to bring the car in. So, I hung out at the dealership as I planned to do to wait for Allison's car to be finished. I think they finished up around noon. I spent the time trying to work on my lines for the play. I got Allison's car and swapped it for mine. I filled the tire as best I could and drove it to the dealership. Waiting for Triple AA was going to make things even longer. I was sort of white knuckling it tot he dealership and for some reason leaning to my left as if I c...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02428 On a rainy day like today this new decoration on the hood of my car looks seamless in color. But when it is a regular day the decoration is glossy black but my car is glossy black but with a bit of a shine. I'm expecting an Autobot symbol sticker soon and It will go right at the top of the decoration there. I just keep adding little things to the car to make it look a little different than every other one on the road. This decoration looks really good and it is secured except for the back. I am thinking I'll replace the secure tape and try it one more time but this time I'll put something heavy on it to really keep it in place. Little things that are out of place bug me.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02259 I was driving Andy to school this morning. We were stopped at the light on the corner of County and Thatcher waiting for the green light. Suddenly we were bumped from behind. The kid behind me had accidentally gunned his gas and tapped us significantly. I got out to look at the bumper and we pulled into 123 Gas on the corner. I was a bit shaken and I had Andy walk to school the rest of the way so that they would not be late. Then I dealt with the issue. I was a bit out of sorts from the adrenaline spike of getting hit. I started to shake a little and feel dizzy. So when I called 911 I asked for an ambulance as well. They came and checked my vitals and I was fine. I think I just needed a moment to calm down. The police came and we got a police report. The rest of the day I was on the line with my insurance, his insurance and an auto body shop. Granted, the bumper only has a rather small crack in it, fixing it is going to cost a pretty penny. There are more c...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02204 This morning when I went out to start the cars the sky was beautiful. I liked how it reflected on my windows. It is still very cold here, though.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02195 With one of the most pitiful raises ever this year I have to get creative in making money. So, I saw this ad for something a bit creative. There is a company called Sticker.co that will pay me in restaurant.com gift cards for advertising on my car. Does it sound like a scam, yes. Am I going to give it a shot? Yes. The good thing is that the sticker for my car finally arrived. I had been getting a bit worried that it had not arrived but it finally did today so I put it on my car. Each month I take a photo of the sticker with a printout of a keyword so that the company can track that I still have the sticker on the car. Then they will pay out a portion of advertising dollars into my restaurant .com account for gift cards that I can use to go out to eat. While it is not bringing in actual money it can help defray the cost of eating out which in itself is so expensive now. We’ll see how this works out in the next couple of months.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02127 I’m still a bit dazed from the results of the presidential election. I was at Xfinity to get a new phone because it was time for mine to be replaced. I was trying to wait longer but the volume buttons are so messed up that I kept it as long as I could. So, I went and got a new phone and when I left the building I walked out to my car, hit the button to unlock it and got it. Immediately got in and realized that something was off. The seats were not in the right spot. Then I noticed that the car had leather and mine does not. I had gotten into the wrong car.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02101 I’ve been adding little details to my car since I bought it. Amazon has been the source for many of the items that I’ve found and recently one item went on sale so I purchased it. It was some wine red colored covers to parts of the interior of the car. This set included covers for the vents on the dash and also a strip along the bottom of the entertainment center of the vehicle. So, more red accents of the car making it look even sharper.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02090 A few weeks back I was looking on amazon for a car emblem that said Cyberton edition. I doubted that there would be one but you never know because people make so many different things now. Well, I discovered a seller that made custom emblems for cars and I had them make the custom “Cybertron” edition emblem for my car. this is shiny chrome and it is metal. They even laser cut the sticker that goes on the back of it. And on top of that they provided a second sticker so that I could transfer this to a future car, too. I had already purchased the Autobot symbol to pair with this purchase, it is taller than the custom emblem but I think it still looks good with it. the same company also makes other custom emblems so I got my self one that says “@BenSpark” which is, of course the name of this blog and my social media handle all over. I had tried using some other car stickers to do this but they were huge and over the top. I wanted something subtle that went with the ...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02069 When I had my previous car I purchased some aftermarket side louvers for the small windows behind the back windows of the car. I wanted to dress the car up a bit and make it more my own. When I was getting that car ready to turn in so that I could get the new lease I took those off the car. I ended up getting a black car this time and while the louvers would have worked perfectly on that new car they had been on the old car for 3 years so they were weatherbeaten. I decided that I would give them new life by spray painting them. I’ve been working on them for weeks because I overdid it on the paint a few times and it bubbled up, so I sanded it down and started again, then I decided that I didn’t like how the color was coming out so I have been retaping it so that it comes out how I want it. I hope to get this finished and installed this week. That way you can certainly tell which car is mine, it helps Andy in the pickup line.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02063 I’ve been adding a few things to my car to make it more my own. I was in autozone today looking for some metallic black spray paint. I ended up finding a little deadpool symbol that I thought would work well right above my license plate on the front of the car. I also ordered the item above from Amazon. I was very happy with these when they arrived. Very sharp and shiny. The fit here perfectly. I am getting some additional ones for the back half of the car. I’ll test to see how they look before I put those on. The one thing that has taken me a long time to add is the small side window louvers. I have spray painted them several times but am still not happy with the final result. I am trying again before I put them on. I think that my color choice will be a good compliment to the overall color of the car.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02060 Now that I have the new car I am making it my own. That begins with accessories. There were some pieces that I had on the old car that I am repurposing. While I no longer have a push to start button in the car I do still have the Transformers start button cover and I have it covering the volume button on the radio. I think I’m going to spray paint that a new color soon, maybe all red or maybe a metallic color. Not sure. I picked up the visor and you can tell by the photo that it looks a little wonky. It is just a tiny bit too big for my car so it looks a bit squished when it is fully opened. I also got some new silicone license plate holders in red. The car is going to have a black and red theme to it. I’m adding a few red elements to the car. I started with the vent blades on the air conditioner, they are metallic red. I also got a steering wheel cover and that has a red line to it. The windshield screen has red on it so there is that. As More things come I’ll m...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02057 I spent the morning and early afternoon at the Kia dealership today. I test drove two 2024 Kia Fortes. I knew that was the car that I wanted. This will be my fourth one in 12 years. Kia Fortes are really reliable cars and I have enjoyed driving all of mine. This time around, however I opted not to go for the GT model because it would have made the payment about $40 more a month. So I went with the LXS model. It is not a sporty looking as the GT and definitely does not have all the bells and whistles of that model, but is was very comparable to my current car, which was a GT version. This new car does not have a push to start but rather an old school key is used. It does have something that my other car did not have and that is wireless connection to Android Auto. This is a cool feature because my phone uses Android Auto and that allows me to listen to my Audible audio books or to my Spotify account through the car speakers. With my previous car I had to plug it i...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #02056 Today my aunt and Uncle called us and asked if we were around to meet up for lunch at Bliss. They were up this way with their grandkids and the kids wanted to see my kids. Specifically their grandson wanted to see Andy. The kids have played with Andy a couple of times now and they really enjoy spending time with Andy. They had a fun time at lunch today, too. After lunch my Aunt and Uncle took their grandkids over to the zoo. My aunt messaged me later to tell me that almost all the animals were out and active. She’d never had that kind of luck before. I spent the afternoon taking the stickers off of my car because tomorrow I’m heading to the Kia dealership to lease a new car. Lots of scraping had to be done. Luckily Allison had a special tool for her Cricut that worked great on getting the claw mark stickers off. They were the hardest ones to do.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01980 This morning I finished work and drove to Cape Cod to my parent’s house to visit with them for my Dad’s birthday. He had a classic car show that afternoon so I took a short nap and then headed over to the Falmouth Harbor bandshell to see the show. The weather turned fairly quickly after I had arrived so I got one pass around the show to see all the cars and then I ran home to get my Dad’s van so that I could bring it back and help pack up all the stuff to bring to the storage locker that the car club has. One of the more interesting cars was this one. I guess it does drag races or something, looks fast. I’m not sure what the whole powered by water thing means but that is interesting. We cleaned up from the show and then went home and Dad opened some of his birthday gifts. We got him the shirt in the photo above. I thought it was appropriate. I do love an interesting shirt. You’ll see later this week. Tonight we went over to the Coonamessett for dinner. I go...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01964 I picked up Allison’s new car this afternoon. IT is a new Kia Sportage. They redesigned the car shortly after we leased the grey one. This one has pretty much everything we’ve wanted in a car and I am a bit jealous of all the cool features. There is wireless charging, charging ports on both front seats so the kids in the back seats can have power to their devices on car trips to the Cape. The car seems both bigger and smaller at the same time. It feels longer and also there is more room between driver and passenger in the front seat. However, parking it in the yard it feels smaller and seems to take up less room. The car also has our first ever remote starter. That will come in handy in the Winter. The car also has roof racks so I am excited about that and maybe taking my kayak out more.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01963 Yesterday I got a new lease for Allison. Tonight we took the last ride together in that car. We went over to Halligan’s for dinner. I learned that one of the guys I train with each Tuesday and Thursday is the son of the owner of the restaurant. He was very excited to learn that I had been there and that I enjoyed the place. The food is good and prices reasonable. We had the rest of Allison’s generous gift card to cover most of the meal, too.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01951 A while back I picked up this Fast & Furious LEGO Dodge Charger. The set comes with Dominic Toretto. It was a fun build and the car looks amazing.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01806 Today’s photo was from the parking lot at Brennan. I spend a lot of time there picking Andy up from school. I dislike the whole pickup line thing mostly because of the other drivers not doing things the right way. However, being in the line gives me plenty of time to listen to audio books. Tonight was Andy’s parent teacher conferences. We got there and Andy’s teachers were sort of surprised that we had come in because Andy is doing so well this year. They each had very nice things to say about Andy and how they enjoy having andy in their classrooms. We’re new to the school and so wanted to make sure that we came in to see what the conferences were all about and to check in with Andy’s teachers to let them know how much andy is enjoying being in their classes. So, all good news to report.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01773 I haven’t picked up a LEGO set in a while but tonight I saw this Fast and Furious Speed Champions LEGO set. This Dodge Charger R/T is Dom’s and it even comes with a Dom minifig. This car has been in so many of the Fast and Furious movies and has undergone a ton of modifications through the course of the movies. I can’t wait to build this one.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01753 I was at Walmart yesterday and I found these new X-Men themed Hot Wheels cars. I’ve been really good lately about buying extras and it has been a while since I’ve even found some new Hot Wheels. These are themed ones and not character cars. I’ll find a spot in the office to put them. Although the walls are getting almost totally filled up?