It was a wild few days in Vegas for the new year. The strip had over 100 thousand people on it, literally we were crushed shoulder to shoulder and packed like sardines. You could probably fill a small lake with the amount of booze flowing.

New Years day was spent at the casino, betting on ponies and just hanging with my wife and the two friends we stayed with who were very generous for inviting us.

I am really optimistic about the new year and am looking forward to it.

-Justin Germino

I work with my wife on her Music Production Company called Rock Along Productions.  The company is just kicking off and has its third show planned on February 7th 2009 in Mesa, Arizona.  She has decided to branch the company out to also put together events and functions for companies, private parties, school events, special interest groups…etc.  Basically her company finds the talent you are looking for and arranges sound, talent, times, and puts together the show that you want for your company or party.  It saves you time and effort from having to coordinate all of that yourself and in the end you wind up saving money because we can negotiate deals and rates with sound companies and bands we have worked with before.

Meanwhile, I am the graphic design, company blog, web site designer and help do some promotion.  I have been busy working on the poster for the new show, index card which give $1 off if you show up with them at the door, as well as advertising medium which will be sent out via mail to companies soon.

I have been drawing and designing several of these in Paint.NET and will be posting some of it soon.  If you want to take a look at my latest poster check out Rock Along Productions website, the poster is on the main page.

-Justin Germino

My Christmas Day was a great memory this year and started at 5:40 in the morning when my two year old woke up.  We had decided to wait until the grandparents came over at 7am to go downstairs and see the presents, so I kept the baby on my lap and did a little blogging work.  Then my five year old woke up at 6:20am and I knew I could keep the kids upstairs only a short time longer, we woke mom up and laid in bed with the kids drinking milk and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on TV.  I called our parents up and asked them to come over as soon as possible and they arrived just fifteen minutes later.

I had the Video camera rolling to record the kids excitement when they saw and opened their presents and I could barely hide my own inner child as I got to see and play with all the cool toys and games that my kids received this year.  My favorite memories indeed revolve around the whole family just coming together and enjoying each others company while the kids are in pure bliss.  Was a very good Christmas this year, and only the rain prevented the kids from using their Power Wheels Jeep outside.

They had plenty to keep them busy inside though as the oldest received action figures, clay, a lightsaber, 2 board games and a bunch of Planet Heroes stuff.  The baby got the #1 item this year, the Spike The Ultrasaurus which astounded the entire family.  We all had to take turns playing with it, it is the most amazing remote controlled dinosaur and full of fun and surprises.  Our two year old loves pressing the remote but is scared to get up close to it (it is bigger than him) but he loves laughing as it roars, sniffs, and chuckles.

I hope everyone made some good Christmas Memories this year and I would like to hear about them.

-Justin Germino

As I was looking forward to seeing the smiles on my children’s faces as they unwrap their presents from Santa Clause today I wanted to tell all of my readers and friends that I hope everyone has a special holiday season this year.  I have made so many friends and gotten to know so many fellow bloggers and I hope each of you has something you wanted under your tree for you this very day.  Make sure you take some time out for your family and friends if you can.  I know some of you may have to work on Christmas Day and if thats the case at least you can be happy you are still working right?

Each and everyone celebrates Christmas or the Holiday’s differently and there are so many wonderful traditions out there, one of the ones we do in my family is allow all gifts from the grandparents to be opened by the kids on Christmas Eve, as well as the adults exchanging and opening gifts.  We save Christmas Morning so we can focus solely on the kids opening their gifts from Santa Clause, I usually film the event with my JVC Everio Digital Camera and make a Holiday DVD for future years.

I have no idea what I will get this Christmas and was hoping for a Hellboy 2 or Iron Man DVD, so maybe I just might have some cool entertainment to watch tonight (not like I haven’t seen them before, but I am always willing to watch again.)

Merry Christmas to all.

-Justin Germino

My bad luck from yesterday spilled over to today a little bit as after my fridge was installed this morning the family took a trip to Chandler to pick up our Honey Baked Ham.  I had to stop at my office to get mail and send some mail and when I arrived at my desk I see that the ceiling is nearly collapsed and there is a puddle of water all over my desk equipment, floor, and wall.  The ceiling must have leaked from last nights store, so on my day off of work I had to get in touch with building maintenance and the security guard downstairs and show him the damage over my work area.

It is a good thing I telecommute as I am sure the amount of water damage is going to require the wall and ceiling to be ripped open, I think it will probably take at least two weeks to fix in my opinion.  Ah well, at least I caught it before it had worsened, nobody was in the office and this leak would probably have gone unnoticed for another few days had I not caught it.

Was nice spending the day with the family nobody has to work in my house the rest of the week and we can just enjoy the holidays, I am looking forward to Christmas Eve tomorrow with my in-laws coming over for dinner.  Wife is making Spaghetti Pie (really really good) and we have Shrimp Cocktail bought fresh from AJ’s as appetizer with a fruit covered angel food cake for dessert.

Merry Christmas Eve my friends,

Justin Germino

Today was a case of the Monday’s if you ever had one, and to happen the same week as Christmas is just bitter irony.  It all started when my refrigerator’s A/C Compressor died sometime yesterday unnoticed and all my freezer items were thawed and ruined.  I had to purchase a new fridge this morning from Lowes, which will be delivered tomorrow morning.  As if that wasn’t enough my oldest son got sick and vomited on our carpet which we had to vacuum and shampoo the carpet twice.  In addition to that on the home front, I joined a business meeting where the primary customer we were waiting for never showed up for the call.

On the positive note, we get a new refrigerator and it’s a nice Whirlpool one that has stainless steel door’s, we have had the same Amana fridge for about 8 years and never really had too much trouble with it until last night.  The other positive note is that my son does not appear to have a stomach bug, was a one time puke thing and he was acting fine the rest of the day and even held some noodles and plain pasta down later on.

Tomorrow is going to be busy.

-Justin Germino

Today was a family day no one had to work and so the entire day was spent at home as a family, with lots of rest and time spent just hanging around each other.  The Family Man with Nicholas Cage was also playing on Television and we kind of watched in the background before dinner and after.  Though the movie is not one of my favorite Nicholas Cage movies I really do like the premise of the film and like the feel good story that comes out of it.  That success, wealth and power are nothing without a family to share it with and love and family are the building blocks that make us whole, the rest is nice to have but doesn’t really nourish or sustain our spirit.

I can attest to this in my personal life, much like in the movie I can picture and visualize what my life would have been like if I would have stayed single, or even separated at some point in the past.  Would I have been financially stable, sure.  Would I have been happy?  Most definitely not!

I can honestly say that as we are in the holidays there is no where I would rather be than at home with my wife beside me and my two beautiful and wonderful children around me.  To me what I have is worth more than any amount of money I could make or would have saved being single and living as a “power” person because without someone to spend and share my life with I would in fact be hollow inside.

-Justin Germino

Today is the final weekend before Christmas and I am glad to say all of my holiday shopping is complete, I only have about 20 more presents to wrap so I don’t leave them all for Christmas Eve.  A co-worker of my wife’s may be coming over tonight to roll up a 3.5 Edition Dungeons and Dragons character, and if he comes over this will be my first official character creation in over 6 years.  I have not role played Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 in a long time, and am looking forward to starting up a campaign again if I can find the time and find some friends who have the time.

One of my favorite things about pen and paper role playing games is the in person interaction you get that you could never duplicate no matter how many fantasy RPG’s or even MMO’s you play online.  I like traditional Role Playing Games without miniatures or heavy on the props, pure imagination and role playing at its finest.  I was not overly fond of the 4th Edition Rules and details when I first read the release and for now continue to play in a 3.5 / Hybrid custom system that is all fully D20 compliant.

I had dozens of excel tables, spreadsheets, generators and charts that I created back in 2001 that I am blowing the dust off and going to tweak over the next few weeks to prepare for new gaming sessions.  My boys who are still too young for pen and paper D&D often play live action role playing equivelant with me, my oldest who is in kindergarten will actually sit down at bed time and I will read him a story and incorporate some player feedback, letting him roll some D20 for attacking, or saving throws just to get him used to the interactivity.  He loves it, and it is one of his favorite night time routines on the nights we do interactive stories (D&D Light) I call it.

-Justin Germino

I spent about seven hours yesterday alternating between testing strands of xmas lights and stringing them up all around the house and decorating the bushes.  We usually go gung ho decorating the outside of our house every year and even topped 10,000 lights last year.  This year we are doing a little lighter as we lost some strands and didn’t add as many new ones as we usually do each year.  Still I expect I will have more than 7500 lights up by the time I am finished.  I stranded about 2500 today alone which took me most of my afternoon and some of the evening.

We had put in 4 dedicated 20 amp circuits a while back into the house specifically for our xmas lights and have come pretty close to maxing it out over the years, having to do a good job load balancing the power and making sure one circuit doesn’t trip.  When I am finished I will post pictures of this year as well as previous years in how we decorate our houses. I will be doing about 5 more hours of decorating on Sunday and then some more each evening this week.  I hope to be completely finished by Friday December 5th if possible.

-Justin Germino

In just two hours I will be sitting at the dinner table with my wife, children and my in-laws who are very close to this family. We will be sharing turkey, rolls, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potato and green been casserole and a deviled egg platter.

I skipped lunch and had a breakfast at IHOP this morning since I know I will gorge more than I should tonight. I started putting up the two fake Christmas tree’s only to learn light strands were shorted on one, so a trip through the rain to Walmart and we bought a few more strands. One tree is almost done, the other is half complete.

I am trying to do some last minute blogging and EC drops, since I don’t know how much I will get to tomorrow since I have to spend 8 hours doing outdoor Christmas lights.

-Justin Germino