Justin Germino Ramblings

I spent much of Friday and this weekend frustrated by an issue at work trying to work on a customers Windows 2008 Server with their IIS 7 install, it would seem that the IIS 7 was corrupted in some way, and I spent several hours at night and this weekend trying to research and figure out the issue so I would have something to go back to work with on Monday morning.  Alas, I just have to keep poking at the issue, I found numerous issues with similar problems on the web, but all responses involve re-installing the IIS 7 server.

So far I am not liking Windows Server 2008 at all, its lousy Vista like interface and constant popups for Administrator access (even though your account is listed as an Administrator) cause nothing but problems.

-Justin Germino

Ask yourself one simple question:

Did you WOW your partner today?

If you cannot say that you have, then think back and remember when the last time you completely surprised or amazed your spouse or loved one with a special gift, note, thought or action that took him or her by surprise.  If you have to spend more than a minute to think about when the last time was, then you obviously need to take action immediately.  Don’t fret, you don’t need to spend money if you are financially strapped, or do anything that takes a huge amount of time.

Some things you can do are the following and your spouse or loved one would be truly and pleasantly surprised.

• Leave a love letter in a place they will find it sometime during the day (on their computer keyboard, attached to the fridge) preferably somewhere they won’t run into it first thing in the morning, but sometime in the middle of the day.

• Get up a 1/2 hour before your partner and do last nights dishes or make sure the trash is taken out before they wake up.  (These simple chores do wonders and if you actually take some of your partners daily activities and complete them, they will very much notice and appreciate it)

• If your up early anyway, run out and pick up your partner’s favorite Starbucks and perhaps a small bouquet of flowers (roses, or carnations) whatever your budget allows and flower type your partner likes best.

• Draw your partner a picture (even if you can’t draw), if you draw a simple childlike doodle and have his or her as the focus of your drawing the will appreciate it and be surprised.

• Write your partner a quick poem, say anything and say it abstractly.  You don’ t need to be a writer, you don’t need to be a poem, just jot things down from the heart, nothing needs to rhyme or have form.

Bottom line is that you should make sure you take some time out of your busy schedule to take your loved one completely by surprise with a random act of love and kindness, these types of unpredictable acts keep life interesting and help make for a wonderful memory that they will likely never forget.

-Justin Germino

The combination of technological advances and globalization of the workforce has led to rapidly decreasing nine to five job.  I especially find this to be true in IT Technology where you have to support systems and staff who are on timezones from all over the country and the world.  I myself work with people from coast to coast as coworkers, customers and although I try to work between the hours of eight to five am often called in much earlier sometimes as early as six thirty because it is already past nine on the East coast.

This blur in working hours is primarily a benefit (though I do work more hours) it shows just how much the world has changed and is changing in terms of support and working across the globe.  It means that companies need to have staff operating in various countries or people working various shifts to cover the entire array of business operating hours globally.  This also further causes more and more corporations in more countries to be reliant on each other for staffing and other reasons which only futher intertwines the various countries and organizations working together.

It should be interesting to see in the future where when you want to apply for a job, you just merely contact a company in one of any number of countries and apply online, and work via Internet channels or VPN lines for most fields and functions.  You could find just as many Americans employed by companies in other countries as the reverse, and in a truly global economy the best are found and employed no matter what country they live in.

At least in theory this is how it should all work, and will eventually I am quite sure.

-Justin Germino

Few things in life are more rewarding or more challenging than being in a committed relationship. You are no longer just in it for yourself, (at least hopefully) and you now have to think about and consider your partner in all your choices and actions.

This can lead for some sticky situations in relationships where one person really does not want to partake in the same activity as the other or just does not want to. Don’t fret however, relationships are about compromise and you choose to do some things that you don’t feel like in exchange for the reverse.

In most activities you can find some common ground that both of you can enjoy, and I encourage people to spend some time engaged in activities their partner wants to do, or you could be insensitive at best or an insensitive jerk at worst.

Likewise there should be no problem at all if you both have a few separate activities and some alone time which is also healthy for the relationship. Remember, relationships are about compromise, give and take, you should give as much as you would expect for the relationship to be equal and not one sided.

-Justin Germino

This past weekend my wife and I spent the weekend in Vegas with some family friends. We attended Crue Fest 2 on Saturday night which was our main reason for the trip.

Crue Fest was an incredible show and it opened with Charm City Devils followed by Drowning Pool. Theory of a Deadman played just after drowning poor but sounded terrible due to the lead singers voice being almost completely hoarse.

By far the star of the show was Godsmack who I had never seen live before. They have tremendous energy and do the best dual drum kit drum solo I have ever seen. The lead singer is so incredibly talented, not only being proficient at guitar while he sings but he also goes toe to toe in the drum solo.

Motley Crue closed the show with a tribute to their Doctor Feel Good album plus a few tracks from other albums, the stage props were so 80’s dressed up it made you really miss how much flare bands used to put into stage sets.

The show was great and the Hard Rock Cafe in Vegas has a nice theater in The Joint which holds a massive amount of people on the floor.

Meanwhile, after two nights of being up until 1am and getting five hours of sleep, I come home and am right back to work for the week. You know what they say, “No rest for the weary”.

-Justin Germino

Went up to Las Vegas this weekend to see CruFest and spend some time with family friends who have a condo there. Had a good time playing some roulette and kicking back with my wife without the kids. We try to have a little kid free weekend getaway a few times a year to keep things shaking a little bit. Next and last planned family vacation is our Disney Cruise with the kids at the end of August which we are looking forward to as it will be our first Disney cruise.

-Justin Germino

Life is too short to spend it being unhappy and I want to give some good advice to people who are young enough in their lives that they have not yet been tied down with commitments such as families to feed, children to support, and things that would make the advice I am about to give more difficult to follow.

LOVE WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING

Plain and simple, don’t  spend your time pursing something that your parents wanted you to become or go into a career or profession solely for money or because you think that there is job security or more jobs available.  The key is to do what you love doing and you will find that you will stand out from the others who don’t love doing it.  Dreams can only become reality if you go full throttle and pursue them right from the start.  It only becomes harder to pursue those dreams if you put them off and then get tied down with other responsibilities that may make it harder to pursue them.

I happen to be blessed not only with a great day job, but I really enjoy working with technology and applications.  I am a techie by nature, and I also happen to really enjoy blogging on nights and weekends on the side.  I spend far more days engaged in the work I do and feeling good when I solve customer problems, help design new technical solutions and implement them.

I know many people who are trapped in jobs for years or decades and they have been doing something that they just aren’t happy doing, life wasted just working for the sake of providing for the family, only to get older and realize that they missed out on truly enjoying life and all those years spent droning away at some career or job just to make ends meet, they could instead had rearranged and adjusted their life from the start to adapt to doing what they loved to do.

If your dream job happens to be a low paying field, then adjust your lifestyle so it doesn’t encroach as much, find places where that job has more advantages and continue to pursue it.  This is especially true for artists and entertainers who have the most varied spectrum of income, some artists and entertainers are breakout successes and make fortunes.   But the vast majority live in borderline poverty playing music and barely making rent at the end of the month, yet they love doing it and do it for the love of doing it.

At the end of your life you want to say that you lived your dreams and shot for the stars, for if at the end of your life you are on your last few breaths and you say “I wish I would have done this, that and the other thing”, then you have squandered your one life and missed the whole point of the journey.

-Justin Germino