BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #02644 It was beyond time for a new chair in the office. I had so many extra attachments and lumbar things added to my old chair that it was barely the chair that I had pre-pandemic. So I ordered a new one and this one has a footrest for when I really want to lay back and relax when I'm working late at night and the sleepiness strikes. I'll try and fight it but can't always. So at least I can be in comfort. I did keep a few of the extras that I had bought like the lumbar pillow and the special cushion for the seat. It is a good thing, too, this new seat is like sitting on a concrete bench. 

Photo-A-Day #02643 At work tonight I decided to do osme movie watching and started with the 2025 movie The Running Man with Glen Powell and then once that was over I went for the 1987 one with Arnold Schwarzenegger. We can now make popcorn at work again. So I had some as I watched the first movie. Of course, 1987 was peak Arnold movie time. He was in many movies over the 80's including doing both Predator and The Running Man in 1987. Interestingly enough Jesse Ventura was in both movies with him. I really enjoyed the original movie but the remake was very entertaining as well.

Photo-A-Day #02642 My sister, Tara sent me a gift card for Amazon and I used it to buy myself a fun LEGO set. I picked up the Toothless figure from How To Train Your Dragon. It was a great build. I made it while I watched the crew of the Artemis II return to Earth. It was amazing to watch. Really was something to see. I watched until the very end when the crew made it to the med bay of the naval ship.

Photo-A-Day #02641 I turned 52 today. When I came downstairs Allison showed me the fridge. Overnight one of the bottles of milk froze and exploded. I'm glad that I did not have work today because the whole morning was taken up with taking everything out of the fridge and cleaning up the spilled milk. Quite the metaphor for growing up Gen X. Not to cry over spilled milk because it can always be worse. Once the fridge was fully cleaned and everything was put back in I was able to get a little time to myself to relax. Played some Styx and some Fortnite and got to enjoy my new office chair. It had been far too long in replacing that one.  I headed over to have lunch with Mom and Dad. We ate at The Tavern. I had short ribs and mashed potatoes. They were excellent. Then I hung out in the Shaw's parking lot until it was time to pick up Eva. Running home would not have made much sense. So I picked up Eva and we headed home. Mom and Dad finished all their errands and then met us at the ...

Photo-A-Day #02640 Today after work at The Pretzel Factory I took a box of 50 pretzels over to Saint Mary-Sacred Heart School for the teachers. Today at work I made the pretzel cheese dogs. When I arrived the owners were in the middle of making 300+ pretzels because they had a big order for one of the local school districts. We ended up making 4 batches of dough through the morning. Michelle was still twisting pretzels when I left for the day. 

Photo-A-Day #02639 Today after work I made some Birria meat in the Instant Pot. I had ordered a couple of Birria Bombs to add to a roast and some short ribs. Then into the pot at high pressure for a few hours. When it was done we had a delicious dinner. It was so good that I ate it and forgot to get any photos whatsoever. I didn't get the preparation quite right but it ended up tasting great. Today was my second day at the Pretzel Factory. I wasn't there as long as the first day but did plenty of work. When I got in it was oven stone cleaning day. Each week the stones are taken out of the oven and scraped clean of excess salt and char. It was actually pretty satisfying to scrap away the layers with a putty knife. Each stone is $600. That blew my mind. Also, I wish my boss had not told me as I was holding one.

  Photo-A-Day #02638 Today I started a part time job at the Philly Pretzel Factory. They just opened up a week ago and I went in then and talked with the owner and asked about them needing help. He did and I waited a while and didn't hear so I went back and talked with his wife and filled out an application. I got a call to come in the next day and I did and the owner gave me my hat and shirt and said I could come in the next day, Friday which was their grand opening. I did say, are you sure you want to be training me during a grand opening? So he rethought that and had me come in today. I worked from 7am to 3pm. I learned how to prep the place, twist up pretzels the factory way, baked many pretzels, got trained a bit on the register and even helped the owner change out the wax seal on the bathroom toilet. He needed someone to help lift it. It was a good day and I am back tomorrow and Wednesday. Next week I'll be working afternoons into closing.

Photo-A-Day #02637 We spent our Easter on Cape Cod with Mem and Grandfather. I finished work today at 7am and went right to bed thinking that I would wake up around 11 like I normally do but I slept until everyone got back from church. I heard the alarm on the door go off and that woke me. I was so zonked out that once my head hit the pillow I was out plus it is The Cape so the air makes me sleep all the longer. When I woke up we hung out a bit and then had a very tasty Easter lunch with the ham that I got from work. That is our Christmas gift from the company. I've gotten many things like that over the years for Christmas and this year decided on ham because we never need the turkey after Christmas and I'd rather not have it take up space in the freezer for a long time. This way we get a really good ham for our Easter and the freezer gets some space. Later in the afternoon my Aunt Cindy and Uncle Wayne came by to visit. We enjoyed visiting with them and then we headed home in ...

Photo-A-Day #02636 We are on the Cape for the Easter holiday. We got down and had lunch then I took a nap before work. Got up and we had pizza from Paul's for dinner. Andy had everyone watching Atlantis: The Lost Empire after dinner. Andy has been watching lots of old Disney animated movies. I like that Andy has been exploring these old movies. After dinner I set up for work. When I am anywhere but home I have to set up a ton of stuff including an additional screen. I completely overtook the sun porch table. I have it all down to a science. My parent's got a new router and that has caused a few things to stop working. Mainly the Sonos speaker. I figured that out and got that working again so now they can play whatever music they like from Spotify. Then there was the general updates for my dad's computer and also trying to figure out why Quicken accounts were looking all sorts of strange with charges showing as credits and vice versa. I think I got that figured as well.

Photo-A-Day #02635 I've had this LEGO set with me at work for a few months and tonight I built it. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in a LEGO set before. You can see in the photo that the roof of the car does not line up well. I tried for a very long time to get everything in place but it just is a wonky build. I've done so many other LEGO car builds and this is by far the worst one. I really thought i was going to be good but in the end the very last bits did not fit together well or even securely. It was very frustrating.

Photo-A-Day #02634 Yesterday I went by the Philly Pretzel Factory and filled out an application. I had been in there a week ago and gave the owner my name and number but wanted to follow up. He called me and asked me to come in this morning to chat and he hired me to work part time. I'm going to have to use a lot of self control not to eat pretzels on every shift. I start training on Monday.

Photo-A-Day #02633 We got a message from Feehan the other day that they had commissioned lawn signs through Signs by Tomorrow. I ran over there today and picked one up.I made sure to drive Eva by the front yard even though we came in the wrong street to pass by the front yard cleanly. I went very convoluted to get there but wanted her to see it. She did and was happy that I had picked one up.

Photo-A-Day #02632 Allison and I took a walk around the neighborhood after dinner tonight. I snapped this photo of the stump from the tree that we had taken down this Fall. Not sure what I'm going to do in that space but we shall see.

Photo-A-Day #02631 The Spring is coming and the first flowers have arrived. I always enjoy seeing these little guys pop up each season. I can't help but photograph them too. I think I have crocus photos from every year and they pretty much are all the same as these guys pop up in the same place each year.

Photo-A-Day #02630 This afternoon we had lunch with Tar and Erik at Morins. We went for the meal and the advice on college funding. We're working on how to fund Eva's first year of college. We're in that "No need" level of college funding and that means taking out plenty of loans. So we are working on how to best do that. So I've got a lot of research to do to get the best rates I can for loans and we are also looking at scholarships. while we were there Erik told us about how much he has fond memories of the Charlie Burger and how he and his grandparents used to split them whenever they went there. They liked the renovations that were made to the place. I told them that they had to see the sign on the side of the building, it really gives the place a great look. Before we went to lunch Mem and Grandfather stopped over to congratulate Eva on her award at the METG Festival.

Photo-A-Day #02629 Tonight we celebrated my sister Tara for her 50th birthday. Erik hosted the event at The Blackinton Inn's carriage house. We had an excellent meal, appetizers and good conversations. Many of Tara's friends came for the party. A few I have not seen in years and it was so nice to see them.  We sat with Mem and Grandfather as well as their friends Heather and Brian Johnson. I spent time chatting with my cousin Matt, Brian, Tim and a few other people. It was full of Tara's good friends that have been friends of hers for so many years. Great to see most of them had come to see and celebrate her. And speaking of Celebrating, we are celebrating a big win for Eva. She won an award for Technical Excellence in Costume Design from the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild tonight. We were watching along with the livestream but couldn't really see much of anything. We did see Eva go up to present an award for Weymouth High School. Later in the video she receive...

Photo-A-Day #02628 Of course, these projects are not actually work related but I am doing them at work. Building a few little LEGO sets, trying to fix the stick drift on a couple of my backup controllers and catching up on my solo D&D game. Between these little projects and watching old episodes of The Greatest American Hero I have things to occupy my time until the Downtime project tonight, you know, actual work.

Photo-A-Day #02627 Eva was up bright and early today for the METG High School Drama Festival. Her theater group from Feehan performed their one act play, "Around the World in 80 Days" tonight. Allison went in to Boston to see the play. She caught up with Tara and Erik as well because they flew in for the weekend. This was the first time that Erik was able to see one of the performances that Eva was involved in. The festival is 3 days in Boston and the kids go back and forth on a bus over the days. Eva is very excited for this experience and we are hoping to hear good things from the group when awards are presented. They have a fantastic show. Tonight I went to see Andy's last band concert for Brennan. Mem and Grandfather came up from the Cape and went with us. They also took us to dinner at House of Fortune where they could congratulate Jason and Stephanie on their upcoming retirement. The meal, as always was delicious. Andy and I had plenty to take home and enjoy tomorro...

Photo-A-Day #02626 I have been enjoying the warmer weather lately. Today I went and picked up my comic books from The Laughing Shield Comic Book Store. Today I picked up the latest Thundercats book and also Void Rivals. Thundercats has been really fun to read and the next couple months will be even better since they will be crossing over with the Silverhawks, another 80's cartoon. It makes a lot of sense because these two cartoon series featured many of the same voice actors. Void Rivals is part of the Energon universe and so there is crossover between the characters in this and those in Transformers and G.I. JOE. Soon we will be getting M.A.S.K. added to the mix so that is exciting for me. Another cartoon and toy brand that I really enjoyed as a kid.

Photo-A-Day #02625 One of the best things about Paramount + is that they have several great Star Trek shows ont he platform. I love Star Trek Discover, Strange New Worlds and now Starfleet Academy. Through Tik Tok I discovered a cosplayer named Seraphima and her service dog, Riker (Named for Johnathan Frake's character Commander Riker from Star Trek The Next Generation). Around Christmas Seraphima ran a campaign to get Riker (her dog) to meet Riker (Johnathan Frakes) at Wondercon. Meeting a celeb at these events can be costly so Seraphima sold photos of Riker that were "signed" by Riker. She put paw print signatures on the photos. When I got mine I also got this sweet christmas card of Seraphima and Riker along with some Star Trek themed stickers and the signed photo of Riker. It was a very nice package and she was able to raise enough to meet Johnathan Frakes recently. And some additional money to help pay for Riker's extensive vet bills. I think about that today not...