Benspark Benspark's profile Drew / 35, Male / Member since April 2007 / Last seen 2 months ago

In the Spring of 1996 my roommate was a computer science major. I should have been one all along but for some reason didn’t go into that field. All that programming for such a little return on the screen. (Boy was I wrong back then). Anyway, my roommate brought two sheets of photocopied paper with HTML code on it. He let me look at it and said that anyone could get 500KB of space from the college to make their own website. Great! We had a computer and a scanner so I got to work. I used to have my own website back in 1996. I would post up scans of comic books and talk about the comic books I read. Then I began to get more elaborate, (I went through the crazy obnoxious background phase and multiple animated .gif phase, we all did it, fess up.) After college I hooked up with Geocities and made a website there. I used it to talk about a collectible card game for the WildStorm Comic books, WildC.A.T.S., Gen13, Stormwatch, etc. Somewhere along the way I lost my website and stopped maintaining a personal site.

I was hired on at my college the year after graduation as a Residence Hall director and I got a part time thing working on the college website. At that time I knew HTML but thought that Frontpage was the best. (Boy was I wrong). I worked at that job for 2 1/2 years doing 40+ hours a week but still seen as part time. I did all aspects of the website from site design to photography and copy. I got fed up with being treated as a second class citizen by the administration so I left and went to a Web Design Company.

At the web design company I learned more skills at writing HTML. I also learned a little ASP. (Enough to be dangerous) At that time I would take the designs that the designer made,cut them up and make them work online. We hand coded everything. I enjoyed it but when I got home I didn’t want to do any web work so I didn’t. My personal website dried up.
In 2003 I discovered blogging. I was looking for an outlet for my creativity and I wanted to keep up on what was happening with web design. I found out about Blogger and dove right in. I joined up for BlogSpot*Plus. I started that blog because I traveled and wanted my girlfriend and my friends and family to be able to keep in touch. The blog was started for the two of us. The name is an amalgam of out two last names. (And apparently some people here think it is ‘my secret identity’, which by the way was one of my favorite shows starring Jerry O’Connell, predated Sliders)

So the blog became a way in which I could discuss things that my girlfriend and I had done. Places we went and things we saw. It wasn’t until April 9, 2005 that I decided to give the Photo-A-Day challenge a try. We are friends with singer/songwriter Christopher Williams and he did a Photo-A-Day for 2002 and I thought the idea was fantastic so I borrowed the idea from him and started on my 31st birthday. I am now in year 4 of the project.

Through Blogging I have met some fantastic people and have been introduced to many great things. I started making money with my blog in October of 2006. So much has come from this tiny blog. I look back now and wish that I had been blogging since 1996 when I first learned HTML. Live and learn.

My Blogs

BenSpark.com

BenSpark.com

http://www.benspark.com

A collection of photos every single day along with general life information and the always entertaining travel rants.

Latest Post: Macro Perceptor Autobot Scientist

Read To Me, Dad

Read To Me, Dad

http://www.readtomedad.com

A blog where I review children's books that I enjoy with my daughter.

Latest Post: Cloth Couture Diaper Giveaway

The Wired Kayaker

The Wired Kayaker

http://www.wiredkayaker.com

This blog focuses on recreational Kayaking as well as other outdoor sports that the average person can enjoy. Nothing Extreme or incredibly advanced, just fun stuff for t…

Latest Post: Closing up Shop…

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