Tag Archives: Interview

Photo-A-Day

Welcome NY Times Readers

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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

Don’t Give Up

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Don't Give Up
Photo-A-Day #1545

I am such a candidate for What Not to Wear. Anyone want to come film me and my fashion disasters? Ah and for some reason I’m still pulling Peter Gabriel song titles as post titles.

My poor shoes. I love them, they look pretty loved don’t they. I’ve had them for close to 5 years. I only got them because my other shoes were so worn that if you laid them down they would be at nearly 45 degree angles. So I went out and found these shoes in both brown and black. You see, when I find something I like I stick with it and buy multiple copies. The black shoes are doing fine but these brown ones are so hacked up.

For a while the laces have been fraying and an utter disaster. I kept putting off new laces because, well I kept forgetting. So when I finally remembered this morning I picked up laces that looked like they would replace the existing ones. I ended up buying Boot Laces. Boot Laces are wicked long. I didn’t quite realize this until I had wrestled off the old laces. Now there was absolutely no way that they were going back on. So, the boot laces went on. They were so long that I had to wrap them under the shoe and then tie them. They did the job for the day.

So now I realize that I can’t keep wearing these shoes. It is time to replace them.

In non shoe news I am on my way to shedding the Not in the “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” moniker. I was interviewed by Forbes Magazine today and the New York Times the other day. I’ll be posting links to the articles once I see them up.