BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01525 I was in Target today and I saw that there were a couple of Hot Wheels cars that I found interesting. One was a batmobile from the movie, The Batman. The other was a concept car that hot wheels made of K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. They really slicked out the car to look modern but retained a bit of the look of the original K.I.T.T. Namely the color and the red bar on the front of the car.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01443 I love driving remote control cars and this year I’ve gotten my hands on some really fast ones. Bezgar sent me their HM163 for free this Summer and I was blown away by it. Now I have the received the Bezgar HP161S for free to review, too. The Bezgar HP161S is a 38MPH FAST BRUSHLESS RC CAR. I cannot wait to get this out on the road and off-road as well. However, the weather has not been compliant around here and I will have to wait. I went and watched some videos from other creators and this is one fast RC truck. I also became an affiliate for Bezgar and I can definitely recommend their products because they are so much fun to play with. Be on the lookout for my video as soon as I can get outside.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01354 I’ve had my car for one year now. In that time I have only gone 6,000 miles. This is great for my lease because I will have plenty of miles left over and the car will be worth more when I turn in the lease. I’ve got such low numbers due to the fact that I work from home most of the time. The only running around I usually do is to the dojo or to school. I may put on some more miles this year because I am picking up Eva from school but I don’t think that will make a huge difference in the overall mileage.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01133 On Friday we had some very icy weather. I was supposed to go back to the office on Friday night but because of the weather I stayed home and went to the office last night. I slept all day yesterday and did not clear my car until I left for work. It was a complete sheet of ice. I cleared off everything I could but there was still plenty on the hood. It was still there this morning when I got to church with the family. I was taking this photo when my neighbor came over and she gave me a thank you card and some gift cards for taking care of her when the Blizzard happened last week. She gave me gift cards to Cumberland Farms and Honey Dew. She definitely did not have to do that but ?I certainly appreciated it. Last night I got a couple more of my Funko Pops that were in boxes from my office so that I could add them to my wall of Funko Pops in my home office. The ones I added were Eeyore and Venom. Today Eva had a new friend over and they made cookies, painted a...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01043 I picked some louvers for the small half windows for my car. I’ve been looking for some additional items to dress up the car a bit more and these looked pretty cool to me. They have a carbon fiber design and they simply get stuck onto the little windows. They were made for the Kia K5 but they also fit the Kia Forte GT perfectly. I like how they add a little flair to the sides of the car.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00981 I picked up my new car today. Last week I went and set up a new lease on a Kia Forte. This is a 2021 Kia Forte GT. It was a little more than a standard Forte and has some extras that I am really enjoying. I had been following the Kia website for our local dealership for a few weeks and they finally got some new cars in stock. They had a blue one and since that is my favorite color I decided to get that one. I’ve had 3 Kia Forte’s so far and two out of the three have been blue. Prior to the Forte I had a Honda Civic that was also blue. Blue is the color for me. I like how this looks, it also has the back up camera and a big screen for the infotainment applications. I can connect android Auto to the car and will be able to listen to my podcasts and more. there is even a little shelf above the USB plug for my phone. This will keep things nice and neat in the car. We picked this up after school and karate today. Andy retested for his white stripe and he earned that a...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00941 We were backing into a space at Karate to pick up Andy from Camp and we saw this chalk drawing in the back up camera. I thought it rather funny so I had Allison pull forward and slowly back up so I could photograph it. After we picked up Andy at camp we ran over to Best Buy so that I could pick up my new computer and also get new screen protectors for my phone and for Allison’s phone. We got everything swapped out and the new computer picked up quickly. We went home and had dinner. Then I set up the new machine. I didn’t take photos of the new setup yet, though. I was tweaking it a lot first.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00876 Tonight Allison and I went to test drive some cars over at the Kia dealership. My lease is up June 1 and it was time to get a new lease. This time the new car goes to Allison. I will take her current car as my own until we pay that off and then we will look at a lease for me. I’ll probably want another Kia Forte since that was a solid reliable car that I enjoyed driving. Allison had wanted a Kia Sorento but it is outside of our price range. So, we checked out the Kia Sportage instead. The car is comparable to her current ride and she liked it. I was planning on coming back the next day to do all the paperwork and turn in my car but we were able to take the test drive and work the deal all in an hour and a half. It was the shortest time I’d ever spent there. I go back tomorrow to pick it up. We made a quick video outside the dealership before we went home.

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00760 There is just something about Hot Wheels. They are fairly inexpensive and have incredible designs. I mostly collect character cars for Marvel and Disney but occasionally I find a car or two that really speak to me. That was the Baja Bug. The color and the look stood out to me as well as the big tires. When I was taking the photo the rims of the wheels caught the light from my display case for my Skylanders.

Here is one idea for what to do with my PPP money. If I work hard enough for long enough I may raise enough for a new motorcycle. And if PPP would sponsor me I will probably get a PPP paint job for the bike. Here is the bike I want, a Hyosung GV 650. Click for a larger image. And here is what it would look like with the PPP paint job (well, it would look better, with flames like the Big Blue Monster) and not a photoshop paint job that I made. Click for a larger image. It will probably take me a year. So expect PPP messages to stay up here for a long time.

Photo-A-Day #475 07/27/06 Tonight there was a block party downtown. There was volleyball in front of the post office. There were some classic cars and the end of the street had been turned into a tiny lagoon. A great time for the downtown association. Here are some pictures from the block party. Volleyball! More Volleyball This girl could jump. Main Street Volleyball The mini train goes up an down our street. The lagoon. This kid is having a great time. A sweet ride. Another sweet ride. Great Camaro Great truck. Another Great Truck. Tonight I also went and saw Superman Returns. Yeah I’m up on all the new movies, I know it. I really liked the movie. Some great stuff that I wanted to see happen with Superman. Some really tough parts to watch and yes there was an underlying Christian tie in. Some iconic moments that paralleled Superman and Christ. Overall I liked the movie a lot. They sure tried to squeeze a lot into the 2 1/2 hours. I think it worked very well.

Well, looks like my car has to have the engine control module replaced. Luckily I bought the extended warranty at the time I got the car and this is covered. I waited for a call from the Honda Dealership and one came later in the day to say I needed new brakes (which I knew was coming, 75,000 miles and this is the first brake replacement). And they said that the car was running. Sounds good. Then I got a call later to find out that they had gotten the car to “act up” for them. And that is when they found that the engine control module needed to be replaced.  Unfortunately that can’t be done till tomorrow. Luckily the Honda Dealership got me a rental for he next four days for free. Good deal. So I am driving a Silver Jetta that has some kick to it and a funky smell. Good thing it is gonna sit in a parking garage for the next three days. Our driveway now looks like a Volkswagen dealership for real now. (With 5 of them.) Tonight Allison and I looked at another condo in the same buildi...

Photo-A-Day #199 10/24/05 This morning I broke down in front of the Hopkinton State Park in Hopkinton, MA. I have a post about it on my blog. Read it here, The BenSpark: Breakdown. And I put some pictures up from the event on my Breakdown Gallery at Buzznet. I thought this would be an appropriate Photo-A-Day. You can read my full breakdown story.

So, I broke down in my car this morning directly outside of the Hopkinton State Park. I was scheduled for the car to have service on Friday because the engine light came on back on October 13th. I had gotten back from my last trip and noticed that the light had come on when I started the car in the parking garage. I was nervous about it, but having been in cars with the engine light on before I didn’t think it was that imperative. I mean all of the cars from Masscoach always have their check engine lights on. Regardless, I called for service first thing on October 14th in the morning to make an appointment. I was told by the service department that if the light was not blinking and if I did not notice anything unusual while I drove I should be fine. Also I should unscrew the gas cap and screw it back on because that will reset the light. I guess if the gas cap is not on tight enough that can set off the check engine light. Good to know. Well, I did that and a couple of days later the l...

Photo-A-Day #120 08/06/05 Hopefully I will sell my motorcycle tomorrow. So today I shined it up and took this shot of the oil cover.

Photo-A-Day #111 07/28/05 Tonight there was a block party downtown. Allison and I headed down there to see what was going on. We caught up with my Aunt Corrine and my cousins Maddie and Haley. Then we saw Don and Alice and I even ran into a friend from high school whom I had not seen since I graduated from high school. She was there with her son. There were a couple of volleyball pits set up in front of the post office and a rock wall across from the bank. Each of the restaurants downtown were selling food outside. Allison and I got a blooming onion and brought it back to the house to share with Mom and Dad. Then we grilled a couple of pork chops and had a nice dinner. This was my favorite classic vehicle, I wonder why.

Photo-A-Day #96 07/13/05 Today I got to go to probably the best Harley shop ever. It is called Zooks and it is in Des Moines, Iowa. The place is a giant barn complete with silo.

and I’ll tell you why. The people here are so very nice. The folks I demonstrated for today were all so nice and I had a good time there. After the demonstration I stopped at the Cedar River Harley Davidson Shop. It looks like a horse ranch. The woman behind the counter was very nice to talk to, and told me about the shop and I commented that their shop was one of the most unique ones I had been in. “It looks like a ranch”, I said. She told me that they actually own a ranch down the road called the Harley Davidson ranch. I though that was pretty cool. On my drive back to Des Moines I noticed that the rest area’s had wireless internet access. That’s a good idea, especially for business people who may need to send a document back to work or something. I stopped at a McDonalds for lunch and went to use the credit card machine but the machine didn’t work. The woman asked if I had a check, I said no and that all I had were the credit cards. She said she would just promo it and gave me my l...

I am in Mason City Iowa. It is about 110 miles north of Des Moines. I have a black 2005 mustang to drive. It is awesome! The car is impossible to keep under 75 mph. And since the roads are so sparsely travelled and totally straight. So cruising along at upwards of 90mph was commonplace. Needless to say I made the trip in no time. The demo this morning in Chicago went well. I was done and out of there by 9:30am. So I was able to get an earlier flight to Des Moines, so no really late drive into Mason City for me. I got here about 3:00pm and checked in and then headed over to the Mason City Harley Davidson shop. Today’s Photo-A-Day is of a mural that was on the side of the building. They had a pretty nice dealer pin too. I’m continuing to read Beach Music and it is really a great book. I forgot that Allison has the book on tapes, not that it will do me any good having only a CD player in the car. Oh well.

Photo-A-Day #92 07/09/05 Allison has a new car. She purchased a 2002 Volkswagen Passat. She also traded here 1993 Volvo 850 in towards payment for the car. She ended up with a pretty good deal at Volkswagen of North Attleboro.