Justin Germino Ramblings

My son started kindergarden this year two months ago in August, and today is my first Parent Teachers Conference.  I know my son is doing very well in school, he already has 99% letter recognition, can do basic math between 1 and 20 with ease and writes just about any word he can see with excellent accuracy.  I still mark this day as pretty historic, you only have one “First Parent Teacher” day.

Been busy at work today, meetings, requests and all sorts of things related to web identity and access management and security solutions.  I took a lunch break to catch up on my blog emails and drop some entrecards, man I am dropping like 600+ entrecards a day between my 4 blogs.  Most days I do 300 per day for dragonblogger, and at least 150-200 for my other two blogs.  I am starting to spend to much time just reciprocating drops in entrecard.

-Justin Germino

I traveled to Las Vegas NV over eleven times in the past two years as it is a quick trip from Arizona. My wife and I love to partake in a little fun in a weekend getaway. I was there for Valentines day earlier in the year. Every time we go we stay at a different Hotel to compare, we had stayed at Excalibur for our Honeymoon in 1999, Luxor, Tropicana, The Venetian, Aladdin (before it became Planet Hollywood), Bellagio and Treasure Island.

The things we love most about Las Vegas are the fine dining, we once split a 10 1/2 pound Lobster and finished it all by ourselves. We also love the Cirque Du Soleil shows, of all the ones we have seen so far O, Mystere and Ka, Ka was the most enjoyable and I highly recommend everyone to see it. Then there is gambling, we are always sure to set aside some money that we know we will lose. We only play until we lose our fun pot, this prevents people from gambling more than they can afford.

Some trips we only have a few hundred to spend, others maybe up to a thousand to spend. We are not big gamblers, but we have fun playing and sometimes the money lasts for the entire trip. I used to play slots on occasion, but now I am almost strictly playing BlackJack and Roulette, not because I am any good at it, but because Roulette is really fun. The active involvement of trying to guess what numbers the ball will land on next lends to the excitement and anticipation.

SouthWest Airlines generally has fares and you can get a round trip ticket from Phoenix, AZ to Las Vegas, NV for around $200 or less if you use a “Wanna Get Away” fare.

What are some of my readers favorite travel destinations? Not places you have only been once, but places you go every year or at least several times and plan to return?

-Justin Germino

• Update

Belinda writes that her favorite place to visit is Sydney, Australia.  I have always wanted to visit Australia, just haven’t had the money to take the trip yet.  Thank you Belinda for writing about your trips to Sydney.

Imhighblood writes that Boracay, Phillipines is his favorite destination and the pictures are just beautiful.  Thank you for sharing.

A fascinating and what appears to be an addicting website called whereistand.com captured over an hour of my attention today.  I was transfixed with answering and giving my input on every single question where I hadn’t taken a stand on yet.  The concept is simple, issues are posed with “Yes, No, No Opinion” type questions and you merely pick your side on the issues.

The votes are tallied, and you have the option to write extra comments to justify or explain your position better.  I have over 181 Opinions catalogued already on the site on issues ranging from Politics to Entertainment.

It is fun, addicting, and I noticed quite a few people hit my blog and coming from whereIstand.com so it does generate some traffic to your blog, though I am not sure how much yet.

-Justin Germino

A person who I think of as a visionary and one who I admire is Steve Jobs. This is somebody whose creative vision was far beyond his time having foreseen and created many things that were later adapted or adopted by other organizations after failing or not taking a foothold when originally created. This is somebody who not only branched out with his technological inventions and visions, but took his visions into the entertainment industry spearheading 3D Animation with the leading of PIXAR for many years. He continues to take an active role in the entertainment industry and is the largest individual shareholder of Disney at 7%, which is more than Michael Eisner and Roy Disney combined.

I think that Steve Jobs has an excellent ability at look at not only functionality but aesthetics of whatever is being marketed and sold and he is very good at reading what people want. He is somebody I admire, and I am always following to see what next he will present and further designs he has to share with the world.

-Justin Germino

So after undergoing a minor makeover, I have my new look.   Decided to post some before and after photo’s of me over the past three months.  Am I going through a midlife crisis at 31 years of age?  Nah, this is more like playing with my look to be more in tune with the rock genre which I am not partially affiliated with on my spare time and trying to find the best way to de-emphasize the fact that I am starting to thin very badly in the front, and I don’t have much time left before I will be wearing hats full time.

This was taken in June 2008:

This was taken in August 2008:

This was taken last week after my mini makeover:

-Justin Germino

We all get busy in our lives, very busy.  Sometimes we put off calling our friends and loved ones and we keep telling ourselves over and over we need to make time to visit, call or write a letter.  I am here to say don’t put off making those calls, don’t put of making those visits.  A friend of our family who was a very dear friend especially to my wife came down very sick in the past month and we didn’t know because we kept putting off one of those calls.  This person had a life threatening ailment and still continues to struggle with his health.  Now we wish we had spent more time with this person, talked more showed the person how much he meant to us before all of this.

We keep telling ourselves, we were busy, or we had a lot going on.  But the guilt is hard to admonish and forgiveness of oneself is very difficult.  Let this inspire any of you, if you keep putting off a visit or a phone call to someone you care about, avoid it no longer.  MAKE IT A PRIORITY, you may end up regretting not and living with guilt for a long time.

-Justin Germino

I finally got my feedburner URL’s working at the top right of my theme.  Readers can now subscribe via RSS or Email if they want to keep track of my personal blog posts.  This was actually fairly easy to do, for the GreenTech Theme you just edit the “Design” “Current Theme Options” and enter your Feedburner RSS URL.

Then to edit the Email Subcribe you edit the header.php and find the Email ICO line and change the <a Href=”#”> tag in there.

-Justin Germino

The answer to the question “What is a blog to you?” is forked and here are my answers on what blogging is and what it means to me as well.

A blog is a method of communicating one’s message to their audience and is a powerful tool because it establishes a relationship with an audience much like a journalist who has a syndicated column and people come just to read what that journalist has written.

I have always known about blogging for years, being a very experience and technology savvy individual, but only recently started my own blog. At first my motivation was to find a way to make a 2nd online income. But the more I blog now, the more I realize I enjoy sharing my opinions, inner workings and comments with my audience.

I am reaching a crowd with my words, I may be able to sway recommendations or I may give people perspective that in some way may benefit them. All by contributing my thoughts and opinions on my blog. I also seek input, it is fun to read reader’s comments to my post’s with their thoughts, experiences and knowledge. This builds a strange sort of anonymous connection with your audience members, whereas you are building a friendship not with just one person, but your readers.

I am still growing my blog and my blog means more to me with each passing week, I would keep doing it now even if it wasn’t for a pursuit of earning some revenue on the side.

Blogging can be therapeutic you can say all your rants, dribble and random thoughts just to get them off your chest, and this can provide ease of mind. For me, I just like writing about the things I interact with, from software, to movies, to TV Shows, to anything in life that I see, touch, feel, taste or hear. I like to share my thoughts, my opinions, because life is about experiences and the more people that share their experiences for others to read, the more people can learn about life and the massive world out there.

-Justin Germino

I can’t believe that my oldest boy turns five years old today.  I sit back in amazement as I try and think where the time went over the last five years.  It seemed just yesterday he was learning to talk, or crawl.  I try to enjoy and cherish every moment I can with my kids because they grow up fast.  I always knew even when I was a teenager that I wanted to be a father someday, my childish nature and my love of playing and fun and wanting to experience that with my own kids was something I looked forward to.

Now that I have two boys I couldn’t imagine life without them, in fact I am sure that I may want more children someday.  But how quickly we forget how hard it is at terrible two’s and infant stages, the sleepless nights.  Why would anyone want to suffer through it all again and again.

The answer is simple, there is nothing on this earth more rewarding than your children.  New life’s who you are in charge of and care for.  Who learn from you, you are responsible for helping to shape who they will become as adults.  The Quote from the movie Spiderman “With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility” I see as something each parent should keep with them.

With parenting, there are many shades of grey and some areas where any parents judgement is not necessarily right or wrong, but what that parent decides to do.  But there are also clearly right’s and wrongs with parenting as well.  There is no more difficult job on this planet than raising a child, and if you are particularly bad at your job, put zero effort in, abuse, neglect, you will have not only robbed yourself, but robbed your child of a childhood that they can never get back.

Just some of my views on being a parent.

-Justin Germino

One of my absolute favorite songs by Sting is from one of his most recent albums titled “Sacred Love”.  This song is so poetic and yet so true.

So I have posted the song for my readers to listen to, let me know what you think.
Sting – Book of My Life

Read the lyrics to the song below, and for some reason when I listen to this song I am entranced.

“The Book Of My Life”
Written and sung by “Sting”

Let me watch by the fire and remember my days
And it may be a trick of the firelight
But the flickering pages that trouble my sight
Is a book I’m afraid to write

It’s the book of my days, it’s the book of my life
And it’s cut like a fruit on the blade of a knife
And it’s all there to see as the section reveals
There’s some sorrow in every life

If it reads like a puzzle, a wandering maze
Then I won’t understand ’til the end of my days
I’m still forced to remember,
Remember the words of my life

There are promises broken and promises kept
Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept
There’s a chapter of secrets, and words to confess
If I lose everything that I possess
There’s a chapter on loss and a ghost who won’t die
There’s a chapter on love where the ink’s never dry
There are sentences served in a prison I built out of lies.

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

There’s a chapter on fathers a chapter on sons
There are pages of conflicts that nobody won
And the battles you lost and your bitter defeat,
There’s a page where we fail to meet

There are tales of good fortune that couldn’t be planned
There’s a chapter on god that I don’t understand
There’s a promise of Heaven and Hell but I’m damned if I see

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

Now the daylight’s returning
And if one sentence is true
All these pages are burning
And all that’s left is you

Though the pages are numbered
I can’t see where they lead
For the end is a mystery no-one can read
In the book of my life

-Justin Germino