Monthly Archives: July 2009

Photo-A-Day

Welcome NY Times Readers

15 Comments
TMRWC_RWP_09_027

Hi there! I’m really grateful that you chose to pop through and see what BenSpark.com is all about. I’m also grateful to Ted Murphy and the folks at IZEA for believing in me and my blog. If you are a regular reader and you have not yet read the article please go and read the full New York Times Article.

The article states that I get compensation to recruit bloggers and teach them how to improve their blogs. That is not entirely the way it is. I am an IZEA Insider, as such I am compensated $1500 a year to go to blogger conferences and be an ambassador of IZEA. I do try to recruit bloggers to the IZEA properties because I believe very much in what they are doing, they empower small time bloggers like me to make a little extra with their blogs.

As for the teaching bloggers to improve their blogs, that is a little something extra that I try and do for my IZEA Insiders Crew so that they learn how to use SocialSpark more effectively. I am not compensated for that I do it because the better the network of bloggers are the better advertisers we can attract.

I call those posts SocialSpark Saturdays. I also received $1500 for having the largest crew of bloggers in my IZEA Insider crew. I actively recruit bloggers to my crew and welcome each and every one of them. I’ve created a blog specifically for that crew where I try and spotlight different bloggers on the crew. My goal is to interview each and every one of my 1000+ members. I love finding out about other bloggers and what makes them tick.

You might want to check through my Photo-A-Day images. I’ve been doing this for over 4 years and each photo tells a story. I can go back to April 9, 2005 and visually appreciate every day since. At my 1000th photo-a-day I explained how I was able to do so many photos with… a photo.

Read More About Photo-A-Day.

Here are my sets
2005, 2006, 2007 (pre-flickr) 2007, 2008, 2009. I have taken my best photos and made calendars the past two years. My 2008 and 2009 calendars were also fundraisers for charities.

I love kayaking and had a kayaking blog for a while but found ti to be more of a seasonal thing, I do have 5 videos that I made while kayaking and one more on the way from my latest trip this past Saturday. The Roger Williams Paddle Trail trip.

I also love food and making crazy things so occasionally I post some fun things I’ve made like – Fry Sauce, ‘Grilled’ Peanut Butter & Pickle Sandwiches and Average Betty’s Hoffapenos.

And I love my Family. I write most often about my family. My wife Allison and my daughter Eva.

Photo-A-Day

Logan Turns 1

2 Comments
Logan Turns 1
Photo-A-Day #1556

Today we celebrated my cousin Shaun’s son’s 1st birthday. Logan turned one and there was a big celebration complete with a beautiful cake, some time in the pool as well as plenty of food, family and fun.

We started off the morning early as Eva has no concept that Saturday and Sunday are the only possible days that daddy has to sleep in if he’s ever going to lose his fat and get his diabetes under control. So we were up early. We went to church and Eva was very good and she even walked down the aisle instead of being carried. Very cute.

We went to my Aunt’s house and the house was full of people, there were other ids around Eva’s age so she really enjoyed playing. There was a pool also I took Eva into it at first. I hopped in and then so did she and she immediately swam across the pool to grab on of the noodles. She’s a swimming machine.

The party was very fun and I took a ton of great shots. When we got home I went through them and edited a bunch of them and moved them to the external hard drive. Our computer then crashed, and I mean completely crashed. I tried over and over to get it started again but nothing is happening with it other than the dell opening screen, I can get into the setup but beyond that nothing else. So I’ll end up getting the photos off the external drive tomorrow. I’m going to bed completely frustrated.