Justin Germino Ramblings

I learned that the meaning of “Nauseous” does not mean what I thought it did. I thought one would say “I feel nauseous” meaning that you feel like you have to puke or vomit, however by definition the word “Nauseous” means “to cause nausea or sickening” so to say “I feel nauseous” would mean I feel I am making other people sick. When you want to say I feel like puking, the appropriate term is “I feel nauseated” which is to have the feeling of nausea.

Ironically, being queasy in my stomach and about to declare how I was feeling made me research nausea and discover the terms surrounding it. So my English skills have improved as a result of my researching my nauseated feeling, even when sick I am constantly learning something new.

-Justin Germino

With all of the hundreds of social media networking sites out there including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plurk, Digg, StumbleUpon, Blog Catalog, Zimbio, Mixx and about a zillion others it is no wonder why bloggers are suffering burnout. True fact that according to Technorati the number of bloggers and blogs has decreased by about 40% over the last few years and it is no surprise why.

But there are some social networks that I really enjoy using and carve out time for and these are worth promoting here on my blog. These are social networks specifically for bloggers and help get your blog noticed, recognized and increase your popularity a little bit. Entrecard is rapidly becoming one of the biggest and best ways to get massive traffic to view your blog and get your blog listed in a listing of over ten thousand other blogs, where you can easily sort them and browse by category, random. The simplicity of the entrecredit and drop system is well thought out and allows you to advertise your blog on other sites merely by devoting some time visiting other bloggers, instead of having to pay money to advertise.

Twitter, Plurk, and of course Facebook are other valuable social networks are used not only by bloggers but people wanting to promote any service including if it is just themselves they are promoting and getting out there. I find twitter to be the most useful in its real time communication with people you don’t have “in your network” people can find you, and communicate even without being part of your “friends” list.

All of these social media sites and networking must make you want to fly to the nearest Westgate hotel so you can get away from it all and relax.  So remember before you delve into the thousands of social networks, play with a few of them and find which ones you like the best.  Strive for a small presence on as many as possible, but focus time on the few that give you the best results and that you like working with the most.

-Justin Germino

I can tell my readers out there that physically challenging your body and muscles at first may be a little difficult and a chore, but as you work out you will find your body becomes more and more “Dependant” on it. I literally feel better after an intense workout, and I do workout about 45 minutes pretty hard, lifting weights, pushups, crunches, running, and leveraging my Total Gym, Torso Tiger and Fitness Band all into my workout.

At the end of a workout I enjoy feeling the swollen strained pain in my muscles and my mood improves as well, working out is great if you are feeling blue or depressed as it releases hormones to elevate your mood. My kids watch my workout and sometimes they do pushups and situps along side me which models excellent behaviors for them to emulate growing up.

I encourage everyone to try and spend 30-45 minutes three or more times per week to workout, and if you have children include them in your workout. Take turns doing pushups, situps, or have them participate in choosing your workout music. This helps them get involved and feel glad to be a part of your workout routine.

I typically listen to Joe Satriani, Vayden, Protest the Hero, Blue Man Group, White Zombie, Smashing Pumpkins and just about anything else that has good solid drum and guitar work. Intense music helps you keep pace and push yourself a little bit more.

-Justin Germino

Its that time again to thank my top droppers for the month of February, my top droppers all will get added automatically to my EC Generator on DragonBlogger.com as a thank you for being part of my top drop list.

-Justin Germino

So my wife had shopped around for airline prices for days and we found some great prices where the whole family of four can fly to Orlando for just over $900 round trip. We have decided to treat the family to a Disney Cruise this August, and through budgeting and trimming some costs here and there we managed to fit the whole package within our budget.

Now to save some money we did not choose the optional travel insurance and I hope this doesn’t turn out to be a mistake in the end, but we did select the round trip transportation from the airport on arrival and back on departure just to save time, and the fact that your luggage is picked up at the airport and delivered to your stateroom is pretty nice.

All in all it is our first major vacation and the first time both children will be flying to a vacation destination at the same time, we hope to have a blast and are all excited now for this summer to come around.

-Justin Germino

Seriously,I am a grown man and at thirty one years of age I cannot tell you how much I occasionally enjoy the taste and flavor of a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. But my love of this kids lunch has taken new twists and turns over the years. I actually wound up not eating PB&J for whatever reason for about 2 years and recently started enjoying them again.

Peanut Butter is not as bad for you as you would think, though it has a lot of calories, many peanut butters have healthier oils mixed in them and the plant fats, fiber, protein and carbohydrates you get from the peanut butter is metabolized fairly well. Jelly by contrast though sugary, very little is typically used and jelly though it has sugars is much better for you than if you put Mayonnaise on a normal sandwich.

I love Jiffy Peanut Butter best, but I have tried all brands, the Kroger brand isn’t that bad and is 1/2 the cost of normal name brands. The beauty of Peanut Butter is you can pair it so well.

Some days I just have an Elvis special: Peanut Butter with sliced banana’s on bread, this is a fantastic lunch treat and healthier than you might expect.

I enjoy Apple Butter with Peanut Butter, it gives it a cinnamon apple flavor that really tantalizes your taste buds, but sometimes plain old Strawberry, Blackberry or Grape jelly is in order as well.

Peanut Butter and Guava Jelly, Fig Jam, Apple Slices, Orange Marmalade, it all tastes wonderful, and each flavor makes it like you are eating a new and different type of food each time you have it.

Then don’t even get me started on breads, I recently fell in love with Peanut Butter and Jelly on Orowheat Jewish Rye Bread, but pumpernickel, sourdough, 7 grain whole wheat, the breads just add more flavor and texture to the sandwich as a whole.

So imagine this, for literally .50 cents to $1.00 per day you can have a peanut butter and whatever sandwich for a fraction of the cost of a microwavable sandwich and so much less than going to a fast food place for lunch.

I encourage more people to have Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches or fruit sandwiches.

-Justin Germino

My toddler has recently been obsessed with robot movies, robots of all sorts it would seem. This started somehow when Buzz Lightyear became his favorite character, then WALL-E was one of his favorite movies. Now his favorite movie is “The Iron Giant” which is a great film, and he wants to watch it all the time, but it goes further.

He likes robots so much, that he watches “ROBOTS”, “Zathura” for the robot scenes, “Short Circuit” among just about anything else that might have cartoon or real metallic robots. He actually will repeat over and over “Robot Broke” after a robot gets damaged in one of the movies, it is the cutest thing.

This could be a sign, I wonder if he will be into robotics and circuitry when he grows up?

So one thing we do for fun is make our own robot like things out of cardboard displays, just take some old pieces of cardboard and wrap in tin foil, you can use string, clay, or wooden blocks glued to make all sorts of fake transistors, wires and other cool stuff.

But remember toddlers can put stuff in their mouths don’t let them play with anything like tin foil unsupervised, this really is ideal project for kids four and up.

Also, does anyone remember any other cool robot movies out there for kids?

-Justin Germino

Several of my fellow residents in Casa Grande have found my blog posts and want to see more posts about the general area, so I have decided to post and list my top 5 favorite breakfast restaurants in Casa Grande, Arizona.  Unfortunately most of these are chain restaurants, there aren’t as many “unique” mom and pop diners, though I have eaten at a few, they really aren’t worth mentioning.

Top 5 Breakfast Places

Mimi’s Cafe – They have a new Ham and Cheese Croissant that has an Orange Remoulade sauce that beats any other restaurant, they also have better sausage links with natural casing than any other restaurant in my opinion.

IHOP – consistantly serving some of the best tasting pancakes and omelets, IHOP is the most frequent breakfast diner that I visit.

Cookie Jar – This is a non-chain restaurant in downtown Casa Grande, AZ.  It serves very fresh home cooked meals and has breakfast quesadillas that are ENORMOUS, bigger than most dinner plates.

Cracker Barrel – Good home cooked food, Cracker Barrel is most famous and probably best known for its country gravy which is better than any other restaurant.

Denny’s – Overall the cheapest breakfast with decent pancakes and portions, definately worth going to to save about 10% overall when feeding a family of 4 if you get the Grand Slam breakfasts.

-Justin Germino

As it turns out the family has been pondering what vacation we could do with the kids this year as a family vacation, we have been mulling over camping, going to California, or even some type of Orlando vacations. We really wish we could take the children on a Disney Cruise, they would love dining with the Disney characters and I have heard great things about family Disney cruises.

It turns out the cruise is reasonably priced, it is the airfare from Phoenix to Florida that actually costs almost twice as much as the cruise, so alas this vacation will probably not happen this year. We might bank some of the money this year so that we can have a Disney Cruise with the family next summer, that might be the best thing to do.

We were in Orlando and DisneyWorld last year and visited Universal Studio’s, Disney World and the NASA Space Center, it was a blast and we had a great time. There are some of the best theme parks and adventures to be had in Orlando, and the fact that there are only Disney cruises out of Orlando (none from California ports) it makes it a destination we will be attending again eventually.

-Justin Germino

I have become a regular contributor for Ya’Sou Ezine and they gave me the editorial position of “Resident Blogger”. This magazine puts out a fine collection of artistic works by people in the community and accepts submissions from poets, writers and artists from all over. In this issue I wrote an article called “Challenge Yourself Creatively” which encourages other literary artists to keep challenging themselves to hone their literary skills.

I encourage everyone who is a fan of literature, poetry and art to check out Ya’Sou Ezine and read my article and let me know what you think.

-Justin Germino