Justin Germino Ramblings

So I received a gift card for one hundred dollars and was having a hard time deciding how best to get the most bang for my buck in entertainment. I hadn’t purchased a new Wii game since Wii Fit almost 1 year ago, and considered buying Boom Blox which I hear is very good. It was then that my lady recommended that instead of buying one game and it collecting dust after a month I should instead get a membership to something like Gamefly, where I could rent Wii games and send them back when I am done playing with them to get another one on my list.

I decided to give it a whirl, it turns out that Gamefly is a bit more than my blockbuster service, it costs $15.95 per month for only 1 at a time, whereas I get 3 DVD’s at a time for $20.99 per month at blockbuster. Granted Wii games cost quite a bit more and therefore if one were to be damaged, or not returned it would have a higher overhead, so my gift card gets me just under 6 months of Wii game rentals.

I will let everyone know if I think the service is worth it, I have a few friends who use Gamefly and they just love being able to play a game to death then return it and rent the next one. With many Wii titles being able to be beaten in 20 hours or so, it seems like a great way to play lots of games without having to spend money on a single game only to be stuck with it and not get much trade value.

My first game to rent is Boom Blox, I hope its good and can’t wait for it to arrive.

-Justin Germino

I had no idea how easy it would be to kill 4 hours at the Phoenix Zoo. Our five and two year old boys spent most of the time running from exhibit to exhibit each one more exciting than the last. Its funny how much kids love looking at wild animals, and my boys were able to see their favorites from Madagascar and The Lion King.

I spent much of my time corralling a rambunctious toddler but I did manage to snap a few pictures of the wild animals and posted some here.

One way to save money is to buy Kids drink cups which come with free refills on lemonade or soft drinks. This is a good way to make sure your kids drink plenty as it is already very hot during the day and we used plenty of sunblock.

Just remember to wear hats, use sunscreen and make sure you are well hydrated when going out for long expeditions such as this. I encourage everyone to take your kids to you local Zoo sometime and let them just run around and explore. It is a great thing to do during spring or summer break.

Here are some of the best shots from this visit to the Phoenix Zoo:

-Justin Germino

Today on the first day of spring break I have decided to take some paid time off at work and take my family to the Phoenix Zoo, my sons are very excited and have been promised a visit for weeks. The weather appears it will be a nice 81 degree’s outside which is perfect. Meanwhile I will try not to think about how many emails will be building up in my inbox at work.

One of the things I dread about taking vacations is the amount of work that piles up for me when I return, I literally have to wade through an average of 150 emails for each day I miss, taking a week of paid time off and I literally have to spend about 4 hours dedicated to reading through 600+ emails and following threads and conversations.

Fortunately it is only one day off, and I can keep up to date on my emails. I will be taking my camera so I will post some pictures from the zoo perhaps on my next post.

-Justin Germino

I think I may have pulled some of my lower back muscles this weekend while pulling weeds for more than an hour in my yard. This makes me wish I had an indoor infrared sauna with which I can just relax and calm all the muscles in my body. While I was thinking about spa’s, sauna’s and such I was actually surprised that indoor sauna unit’s are much more affordable than those giant outdoor spa’s.  I have to be out walking all day at the Zoo later, so hopefully just walking will help stimulate my back muscles.

I didn’t even know you can get a self contained sauna unit for your home or yard at such a reasonable cost. Apparently the infrared saunas operate between 60 and 150 degree’s instead of a traditional sauna’s 300+ degree’s, since the enclosure is so small you feel the same level of heat but you can stay in it longer and sweat it out more since there is much less heat.

This seems like a decent thing to have for people who often go to gym’s or spa center’s just to sit in a sauna for an hour a day or a couple of times a week, personally it requires no water pipes or maines like a hot tub, so its easier to install and probably explains why it costs a lot less.

Just something I came across, figured I would share it.

-Justin Germino

I had my first article I submitted solely to Associated Content get accepted and they paid me with an upfront payment for the article.  This is amazing and validates that my writing is worth money if a company is willing to pay me for writing an article for them.  My article is about keeping children safe around family pets and talks about recent news where toddlers and babies are injured or killed by family dogs.

I encourage my readers to check out my article and let me know what they think.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1547513/keeping_infants_safe_around_pets.html

-Justin Germino

I received in the mail this week a “check” from TruCredit in the amount of $5. This was a legitimate looking check and is cashable at any bank institution that you own apparently. There is tons of small print here that you need to watch out for, if you cash this supposedly “free check” they automatically enroll you in their credit protection program and charge you like $50 per month automatically drawn from whatever account you cash or deposit the check into.

I don’t know how they contract that information that makes you automatically accept and enroll just by cashing the check, or how they can setup a link to your bank account by cashing or depositing the check. This is something that preys upon people who are willing to cash any little check that is made out to them in the mail.

So be careful out there if you receive a small check in the mail that you can deposit, don’t get tricked into depositing it. Always read the fine print, and don’t be so desperate for a few bucks that you may end up paying ten times that for some service or product you don’t even want or need.

-Justin Germino

Today is only the 2nd Parent Teacher night I have ever attended as a parent for my kindergärtner. I don’t talk about my family or kids too much keeping this blog about myself, but I am so proud of my amazing five year old. At just five and a half he has been practicing his heart out on his Dibels testing to make sure he can read at least 40 letters in a minute and 10 three letter words in a minute and on his practicing he exceeds this with ease.

As a father I am so proud of both of my children, my two year old is very strong and physical. He has a courageous charisma that is like watching a little superhero in the making. While my five year old is a creative wonder, always having a thousand thoughts at once like his daddy. He is smart, great looking and artistically inclined. He loves rough housing but not physically aggressive like his little brother.

My wife bore me the two most beautiful and perfect children and that is just one of the million reasons why she is the most amazing person on the planet to me. I wrap this all up and hope to be a better father to my children than my own was to me. It is all anyone can ask, every time you think about your children and how you are as a parent remember to put their best interests at heart.

I couldn’t imagine my world without my wife and children in it, they complete everything I have ever wanted in life and all material things are trivial in comparison.

-Justin Germino

It is Murphy’s law that whenever someone goes on vacation something always goes wrong that you wish the person was available to resolve. So my awesome team and peers at work diligently spent many hours solving some issues with a deploy. All in all we worked until just after 11pm at night and some of us had put in 12-14 hours that day.

My eyes were dry and read from staying up so late and I drank so much hot tea for energy, that I had trouble sleeping the rest of the morning. Made me wish I had some eye cream to relieve the burning and itching of my dried out eyeballs.

But I must say, I am an Information Technology addict and I do love troubleshooting and solving technical issues. Helping customers is my specialty and nothing feels better to me then when the team works together and solves a problem making the customer happy.

-Justin Germino

So last night after taking my son to drum lessons we drove to Queen Creek and bought him a five piece Ludwig drumset (slightly used) but in very good condition with Zildjian symbols. My five year old who has been taking drum lessons for about 4 weeks now is able to read quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes with ease and is working on his speed and timing while practicing on his snare drum.

He looks like a natural on the full drumset and is even more ambitious and excited about his drumming as he practices with the various Toms, and kick drum. It is so great seeing a budding artist in the making, he has such a natural ability to learn and seems to be very creative and have raw talent. I find this a little ironic that my father was a drummer and it appears my son has some talent in this area as well.

Does music ability reside in ones genes to some extent?

-Justin Germino

BlogNetAwards interviewed me as a result of winning the February 2009 Best Blog nomination, I answered all of the blogging related questions candidly and the interview turned out to be very well. See my history and thoughts about blogging and which bloggers I respect and admire in the industry on BlogNetAward Interview With Justin Germino.

As always I am very happy to promote BlogNetAwards not only is it a great site for bloggers to get their blogs recognized, but readers can find a great variety of blog categories and see some of the best blogs in their genre. BlogNetAwards also has monthly comment and voting contests where you can win cash, ad spaces or Entrecard Credits just for commenting and voting.

Believe it or not, I have made over $300 from BlogNetAwards prizes and contest winnings since October 2008 and if I could win then you could too.

-Justin Germino