Justin Germino Ramblings

I have worked for a variety of companies over the years that have offered health plans, though I have never had to look for a private Health Insurance plan I still take the care and carefully review all the HealthCare options my companies have provided. I work for big companies so often there are 4 or more HealthPlan options as choices.

I have used or looked into a variety of Health Care providers including: United Healthcare, bcbsnc, Healthnet, Aetna and several other health plans for a period of time. The most important thing to consider when choosing a health plan is to find one that fits your budget (how much out of your paycheck) and keep in mind the copayment costs of medical services. HMO’s used to cover 100% cost except for a copay, but many of them now have the copays plus you will owe 10% – 20% out of pocket for hospital stays, surgeries and more.

So no matter what state you live in and which company you look for you should compare your health insurance costs, copays, rates and what services are covered.

-Justin Germino

I was actually shocked when reading the paper last week to find out that the Mafia is running so many scam rackets against Medicare that involve stealing Social Security numbers from the elderly and the homeless and using them to purchase medical equipment and bill Medicare. There have been a reported 50 fraudulent Medicare storefronts in Miami alone and 50 suspects in California have been arrested in the last three years alone. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, billions perhaps over a decade that is robbed out of our infrastructure which only hurts the health care system overall for everyone.

Part of the problem is that there is more profit, less risk and lower prison sentences for medicare fraud than for Drug Trafficking so the organized crime syndicates are willing to take the risk and adapt into this system of white collar crime and fraud. The stakes however are getting higher now as people are being murdered and threatened over these frauds and schemes with the elderly being threatened to comply or risk physical injury.

The laws and law enforcement agencies need to be adapted to handle these criminal activities as quickly as the criminals themselves can adapt and find new ways to exploit the systems.

-Dragon Blogger

I will be taking the family to the AZ State Fair next week as it is a great way to just get out and have a good time with the kids and family. Though I am terrified of heights and fast moving objects, this is one of the rare occasions I grit my teeth, close my eyes and get on the rides with my kids just so they can have fun.

The Arizona State Fair thought it can be costly is worth it if you have the money, there are dozens of rides, carnival games and foods to sample and regret later. It is simply carnival fun and I have attended nearly every year of the last 14 years I have lived in Arizona. It is even more fun when you have children, but I remember when my wife and I were dating and we were teenagers and I had won one of those prize gifts for her, it was a wizard from one of the fair carnival games. She still has that little stuffed animal wizard to this day fourteen years later. This is one of the memories that makes the fair so fond for me.

-Justin Germino

Okay there was a debacle with Cox it would seem, they told me all I needed was the Docsis 3.0 modem and they can flip on the super high speed, but it turns out they mislead me. They have to send a technician to “configure” my cable modem professionally. There is a 99% chance I could do it over the phone, but they won’t help me configure it myself. My guess is that there is a way to configure the modem to channel bond and use too much bandwidth so they need to send a professional to configure it so you can’t get more than your paying for. Either way my broadband should increase from 15mbps / 1 mbps to 25mpbs / 1.5 mbps sometime this morning after the installation technician comes out.

In my residential area we can’t yet get the D3 speeds that you can see in some cities with download speeds 50mbps and above, some cities boasting 100+ mbps now with certain D3 services. I would like to see uploads higher than 1.5 mbps, preferably the 50/5mbps service would be ideal if it were offered here.

-Justin Germino

I learned yesterday that Today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers register and blog about causes around the word. This years cause is Climate Change and is meant to bring awareness to the ever growing problem of the shifting climate. We know that industrialized Nations are pumping CFC’s and Ozone damaging wastes into the atmosphere at alarming rates, and we know that mean temperatures around the world have been increasing steadily over the last fifty years.

Like it or not the climate is changing and human society is a factor in that change, it is a good opportunity for everyone to take their part by trying to reduce their energy usage and be a little more green. Less waste and energy usage means less pollution to create and generate that energy and products. Though I don’t forsee any end of the world disasters as a result of the climate change, there will definitely be extinction of many animal and plant species as a result.

-Justin Germino

Having some Internet troubles the last few weeks and Cox suggesting that my nearly three year old modem might be becoming crusty, I have decided to upgrade to a Motorola Surfboard 6120 Docsys 3.0 modem that is required to upgrade my Cox to the Premier Plus which has 25mbps download and 1.5 mbps upload speeds.  My current premiere service has 15mbps downstream and 1mbps upstream.  If you have many computers in your household connecting to the Internet at the same time like I do, then you are better off increasing your bandwidth to accommodate.

mb, I am hoping to see another major boost in performance.

-Justin Germino

One of the reasons why I do blog posts about weight loss is that I used to be a lot heavier than I am now, we are talking 50+ pounds overweight, I had clocked in at about 207 pounds and only stand 5 feet 10 inches tall. I saw myself in photos and knew there was something I had to do, I had developed a bad pattern of eating too much and working out too little. It’s easy for somebody working at a desk all day sitting for 8 hours to just go home and repeat the same process of sitting and watching TV.

Just over two years ago I made a commitment to losing weight and have stuck by it, I did lose 50 pounds in about two years and at my trimmest was just over one hundred and fifty pounds. I have since added a little more muscle, and unfortunately some of my eating habits resurfaced but weight now a slightly overweight one hundred and seventy one pounds. I am a size 34, when I used to be a size 40 waist.

Instead of constantly looking for fast weight loss it is better to find and stick with a long term goal that is more easily attainable and less likely to leave you stressed out and rebound as a result of trying to overtax yourself.

Such simple steps you can put into place work well, such as the following:

Eat the same amount of food to feel full, just eat lower calorie food such as strawberries, watermelon, whole grains and oats…etc

Workout just fifteen to twenty minutes a day, it is better to get your heart beating and sweating 3 times per day at 5 minutes than once a day at fifteen minutes. This is because your heart will stay at an elevated rate for several minutes after each session and you will burn calories for an extended time.

Do not eat within three hours of going to bed.

Drink more water, helps flush and clean your bloodstream. Make sure you drink a healthy amount of water, not sugary or even diet soda’s.

Those simple tactics should lead to 1-2 pounds of weight loss per week, the more overweight you are when you start, the more weight loss you will see. It is when your body has lost weight that it starts becoming harder to lose the last 15-25 pounds. This is because you have to cut back a little more, and work out a little more to burn the extra calories needed to take off the final weight.

-Justin Germino

It is no surprise that when you have a full time job that consumes 45+ hours per week and you have a wife and two kids that you have little time for any hobbies or side activities. It is why I have a hard time keeping up with my 3 primary blogs and I have to carve out a few hours here and there to keep new articles current, research new information and provide interesting content to my readers.

My work life balance sometimes tips the wrong way (too much work) not enough personal life activities, and I regret each time I spend an hour on my PC writing a few blog posts instead of playing with my kids the extra hour. I try to keep my blogging activity to nights and some hours on the weekends, but this isn’t always feasible either.

Many bloggers have quit being unable to find a balance that works for them and ultimately having to give up the hobby to satisfy other more important needs in their lives. My wife often reminds me that I used to game all the time, Guild Wars, Starcraft, Playstation 2 games…etc and since I started blogging I have had little to no interest in gaming like I used to.

Blogging has become my hobby, it has taken over that desire to game, now I feel like writing content and articles instead of playing games as much as I do. I still play Wii games with the kids, and test out a game here and there, but primarily it is for my blogging and so I can review and report on it.

I believe it is important to have some hobbies and “personal time” to yourself, at least 10 hours per week that you can spend on your own pursuits and interests without feeling guilty. I probably carve out somewhere between 15-20 hours per week for blogging but most of it is at night when the family is sleeping, so I don’t consider that taking hours away from spending time with my family.

-Justin Germino

I knew I had a problem when last week my wife said “Your using again” referring to the fact that I had been energy drink sober for six months and had lapsed into an Energy Drink addiction all over again.   It started by being at the Shinedown concert last Monday night and socializing with a coworker at a bar until 3am.  I was just so tired I could not help but consume 5 red bulls (2 regular and 3 diet) to keep my fatigue at bay.  Monday having just two hours of sleep I barely could function so I bought a four pack of Diet Rockstar to get me through the work day and through Wednesday as well.  By Thursday I was having severe stomach pains on and off for two days and having jitters and trouble sleeping.

The withdrawals from the caffeine include migraines, stomach pains, shakes, sweats, sleeplessness and worse.  So Friday and Saturday I haven’t had any energy drinks and have gone cold turkey, this time I intend to banish them from my life as no good comes from consuming these chemical and caffeine cocktails.  Overall I am still fighting constant chronic fatigue but its better than it was yesterday.  This stuff is brutal, don’t get addicted to energy drinks because it is hard to stop and the lack of energy you have while trying to give them up really makes you want to start drinking them again.

-Justin Germino

Pardon the metaphor, but a relationship is really like a garden. It starts off being planted with the connection between couples growing like saplings, if the relationship is not cared for then it will wither and wilt rather than bear fruit. If you are at a rut in your relationship and you feel it could use some pruning and some fertilizing, then think back to the early days of your relationship during the “Wooing” phase. Find and remember the reasons why your partner fell in love with you in the first place, what were the actions, behaviors and personality traits that swept them off their feet.

It is all to often that people change over the years, and relationships change but most people simply stop trying or forget what they had that made their relationship so special in the first place. Look within to find what cultivated your relationship and plant some more seeds, we all could spend some time trying to make our partner fall in love with us over and over again.

In a quote by Mignon McLaughlin “Marriage is about falling in love again and again, with the same person”

-Justin Germino