Tag Archives: Ustream.tv

Swagtastic!

March 11, 2009 Drew 8 Comments

Photo-A-Day #1433

Today’s photo is of all the cool swag I have to give away to people at Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs on Friday. I hope that many people come out that night especially after the article that the Sun Chronicle did yesterday. I started getting everything ready tonight for Friday night because Friday I know I’m going to be running super late. This is because at the exact same time I am throwing this party at Speed of Thought Players I am also organizing a company wide three day presentation next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Next Thursday I can finally get a telecommute day.

I wanted to let everyone know just what sorts of things I am giving away at Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs. Something you might have noticed was the lack of Logo on my BenSpark.com hats. I made a mock up of the hats I want using the logo that was designed for me (I don’t think I can tell you who designed it for me yet, not till my blog redesign is complete, I think). This has proved rather difficult. I cannot get anyone to add the logo without resorting to paying huge fees. I bought the hats for $3.14 each and I’m not going to turn around and put $18 worth of embroidery on 16 of them, that is nuts. You gotta know when to brand ’em and know when to run. I’m not running yet, I am however going to try a few more options. I may have to forgo the actual logo and make more of a strictly text hat.

You can also see a case of BluFrog Wildly Healthy Energy Drink. I received that case from Jeremy Kendall of Gimmie BluFrog. Jeremy has been really supportive of my as I explore the possibility of becoming a BluFrog distributor. I had a great idea for a name if I ever do get into that. The address I would use would be FortunateBluFrog. And you may have noticed that I have been writing some stream of consciousness posts based around fortune cookies. I have many interesting ideas to go along with those posts.

T-Shirts are a staple give away and TenBills.com stepped up and sent me 3 great shirts to give away on Friday night including one girly T. TenBills.com has been awesome to work with they sponsored a T-Shirt contest with me and gave away 12 shirts. They even gave me two shirts and I liked another shirt so much I went and bought it. If you want inexpensive T-shirts with great designs then look no further than TenBills.com.

I am happy that I have two Xshot Camera Extenders to give away. The Xshot is one of my absolute favorite accessories for photography. I take it with me everywhere. I plan on using the Xshot to set up BenSpark’s PhotoBooth and take photos with everyone who comes to the event. Then I plan on using those pictures for something very cool to give each person who steps into BenSpark’s PhotoBooth. I can’t wait to tell you exactly what I am going to do, but you will have to wait until I do it. I can tell you that it is going to be something that people will remember.

Because I am an IZEA Insider and head of the “I’m Not a Famous Blogger” crew I have a big box of swag to give away at the event. I could have sworn that Ashley from IZEA sent me a box of bricks because there are so many great items inside. I have stickers, pins, more stickers, wristbands, bumper stickers, mints and silly putty. So much fun stuff to give away. I hope to talk to many people about IZEA and SocialSpark and maybe recruit some folks who want to make some money from an excellent company.

I’m also going to give away 3 of my 2009 Photo-A-Day Calendars. I printed up about 25 of them to sell and raise money for Race for the Cure. Well I didn’t sell any and I think I sold only one online so I’ll probably not make another one even though people have asked, the demand is not there. Or I will only make the online one and forget printing out individual ones unless I do it as gifts for family. As of now I’m sitting on 16 1/4 used ones.

And last but not least there is a Polaroid PoGo instant photo printer. That is a cool device but what is even cooler is the PoGo ZINK Paper. ZINK Imaging was generous in that they sent me 200 sheets of paper plus two PoGos of my very own. I’ll be making use of both during Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs. This is part of that secret thing I can’t talk about yet, but wait till Saturday’s post.

So it looks like I am just about ready for the event. I’ve got my swag together. Allison is cutting out all my business cards to the odd size I made (trust me it will be worth it). And now I have to make sure that I take everything I need and charge up all my digital equipment. I’m taking along the webcam and am going to broadcast the event live from The Speed of Thought Playhouse. I’ll be using Ustream.tv to do so you might want to be prepared and follow http://www.ustream.tv/BenSpark to be ready to watch the fun on Friday night. I will also be live twittering during the event and I’ll include photos and videos through Utterli.

Blogging

Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs

March 1, 2009 Drew 18 Comments

With March ~~almost upon us~~ here I wanted to let you all know about a blogging event that I have put together. It is called Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time downtown at The Speed of Thought Playhouse. I’ve been there for an improv comedy show, I’ve been there to see bands perform, I’ve been there for a Stand up comedy show and I even sat in and watched the improv class one night. Eventually I will get up the nerve to join in the class.

Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs will take place on March 13, 2009 at 6:30pm. That is when bloggers can show up. Then there is a $10 charge to stay for the Speed of Thought Players Comedy show. The comedy show is certainly worth the price of admission because it is funny and it encourages audience participation. We may even work out some way to display real time Tweets for suggestions in the improv games. Here is the information that I’ve already posted to Upcoming.com, Going.com, a couple of Rhode island message boards, Craigslist and of course facebook.

“BenSpark.com in collaboration with Speed of Thought Playhouse present Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs. This is the first meeting of bloggers in the Greater North Attleboro area and beyond.

(You don’t have to live in North Attleboro to attend, if you want to come to the event we are happy to have you no matter where you live.)

The night will begin with a meet and greet in the Speed of Thought Playhouse. There is free wi-fi so feel free to bring a laptop or other wi-fi enabled device. During the Meet and Greet you will have a chance to Enter BenSpark’s PhotoBooth for a chance at cool swag. Also I am an IZEA Insider and I’ll be able to talk to you about some great sites like IZEA and SocialSpark.

At 8:30 the Speed of Thought Players will perform their hilarious comedy improv show. The cost of the show is $10. Bloggers are encouraged to stay for the show. You can bring cameras and video cameras with you.

I will try and broadcast the event Live through USTREAM and also be live Twittering and also sending Live posts to UTTERLI.

So come on down to the Speed of Thought Playhouse for a great time, some laughs, some beers and other bloggers.

Host: BenSpark.com & Speed of Thought Players
Date: Friday, March 13, 2009
Time: 6:30pm – 11:30pm
Location: Speed of Thought Playhouse
Street: 39 North Washington Street
City/Town: North Attleboro, MA”

What I am really excited about aside from meeting some new and interesting people is BenSpark’s PhotoBooth. I have been working really hard securing sponsors for this event and I got some great ones and some great prizes. I’ll be supplying a few BenSpark.com hats, IZEA Swag, BluFrog Energy Drink, Ten Bills.com T-Shirts, an XShot or two and I also received two PoGo printers from ZINK Imaging along with over 100 sheets of PoGo ZINK Paper. But you are going to have to wait till March 13 to see what I do with that.

Here is the flyer I made for the event.

Contest, Family, Travel

Going to the House of Mouse!

February 26, 2009 Drew 14 Comments

We just found out today that we are going to be going to Walt Disney World for our Vacation of a Lifetime instead of going to Arizona. While we certainly do want to go to Arizona at some point things just didn’t work out for that location. I was upset about it for a little while but how much can you really complain when you have won a free trip.

We’ll be there from May 14 – May 18, 2009. So we will be staying at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa. This is gonna be quite the step up from the econo places we’ve stayed in the past. This is also an official Walt Disney WorldÂ® Hotel in Lake Buena Vista so there is a shuttle to the parks. We are still up int he air about maybe renting a car so we’d have more control of when we get back and forth to the hotel and so we could maybe drop in on our favorite folks in downtown Orlando, the IZEA team.

There are many people down in Orlando that I’d love to catch up with, maybe we can do a dinner one night in Downtown Disney or something like that. It will depend upon whether or not we have a car. Of course we hope very much that Grandpa Dano and Mimi can come up to Orlando to visit and also we hope that Auntie Mo can come down too.

I’m very excited to get back so I can spend some time taking some photos. There is just so much to see at Disney and the photo opportunities are amazing.

I will have to check out Flickr for some inspiration. Then I can try and plan out my shots. Of course I will be taking my Xshot with me so that we can get some great family pics.

On this trip I will be taking another new device. I’ll be taking with me my new Polaroid PoGo. With the PoGo I can make instant photos that require no ink because of the special ZINK paper. I am happy to say that ZINK has sponsored me with products for my upcoming Blogging Event, “Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs” at Speed of Thought Playhouse on the 13th of March. But back to the ZINK Paper. For our trip I will buy some ZINK paper to create a scrapbook while on the vacation. During our downtime we can pick photos, instantly print them and stick them right into the scrapbook. I said stick because you can peel off the backing on ZINK paper and it is sticky. There are so many cool applications for this and once you see the “Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs” (It will be broadcast live on USTREAM.tv) you will see another great application of the paper. I can’t wait!

Because ZINK was so generous to me I want to tell you so much about the paper. Here are some Key Features of ZINK Paperâ„¢:
* Zero ink required.
* Capable of reproducing millions of vivid colors at very high resolution.
* Earth Friendly. Less waste – No cartridges, no extra packaging to throw away.
* Protected by a polymer overcoat, providing water resistance and image durability.
* Affordable for everyday use.
* Not sensitive to light.
* Long lasting and designed to resist fading from exposure to light, heat and humidity.

Photo-A-Day

Little Nicholas, Cutie Patootie

September 26, 2007 Drew 8 Comments

Photo-A-Day #1860

Tonight Allison and I went to Derek and Michelle’s to help them do a little packing. However there wasn’t much helping going on except for building boxes and setting Derek up with Windows Live Messenger. We also had some very tasty pizza from a place called Chardonnays. We had a buffalo chicken and a Pepperoni Pizza. I had had not had Buffalo Chicken Pizza before however and it was very good. Continue reading Little Nicholas, Cutie Patootie →

Grab Bag

Web 2.0: UStream

April 25, 2007 Drew

I just checked out UStream.tv. It is a brand new site that allows you to stream video live and interact with people live. All you need to get started is a webcam. I signed on and signed up to find that Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.tv was doing a live E-mail answering stream. How cool is that? I got in on the last 2 minutes so that stunk but she will be on again. I have to get caught up enough so I am on track with everyone else when Cali posts new stuff. I’m a couple of episodes behind.

Anyway UStream.tv is a very easy site to sign up with. You can create a user profile and jump onto streams that are in progress. You can start your own streams. I can see this as a really fun thing for bloggers to do to enhance their blogs. I think that I may do one sometime from the road. I’ll let everyone know when I plan on doing it. My username is BenSpark so you can add me to your UStream.tv friends when you sign up.

I also would like to mention that Ashley from PPP writes the PPP blog on MySpace and gave me a shout out for recommending GeekBrief.tv. Also I nominated Cali for some Blogger’s Choice awards, although it doesn’t list me as the nominator but I was the first to vote in three categories.

BenSpark Family Adventures