Justin Germino Ramblings

Back in early July I had decided to try and step up my Amazon affiliate program to see if I could make earning from Amazon an added source of income for my blogs.  I primarily decided to test with my personal blog (this blog) experimenting with reviewing and talking about various Amazon.com products and listing a banner in the right hand bar.

Amazon Affiliate starts out by giving affiliates a 4% commission rate, which you would think is low compared to some individual affiliate programs that offer 20 – 50% on individual products, but this is actually high compared to some other online retailer commissions like NewEgg with a default 2% commission rate.

One thing I did like about Amazon.com affiliate is that you can increase your commission % based on the number of sales you make.  In less than 2 months of experimenting, I managed to make a total of 10 sales and boost my commission up to 6%.  Another 23 sales and it will go up to 6.5% (I don’t know how high it can go, I haven’t researched it).

One thing about using Amazon Affiliate is that there are so many products to choose from, plus you can just install best deal widgets and set them like banner ads and earn from affiliate commissions.

What makes Amazon.com Affiliate program interesting is that I haven’t sold a single affiliate product I specifically endorsed or promoted.  All of my commissions were from products I didn’t even know about or talk about.  Amazon.com sets a cookie on anyone who clicks the banner or link from your site, and if they order anything on Amazon.com while that cookie sits in their browser you get the commission from the sale. 

While $9.14 may not seem like much bragging, it is more than I earn from SponsoredTweets and MyLikes combined in a month lately and it is only from hosting a single Banner ad for Amazon.com on my sidebar and doing the occasional post with an Amazon link or ad at the bottom of it.

-Justin Germino

I don’t really claim to be a WordPress expert, at least certainly not in theme design.  I do know enough to install, setup, configure not only a WordPress blog and SQL manually if necessary but also to setup a theme and tweak it enough to make it look like something else or fit someone’s needs.

It is amazing the amount of requests I get to help others with WordPress installations lately, and I probably could make more money contracting myself out as a WordPress for hire guy than as a blogger if I were to use Odesk or eLance or some other self contracting site where you can bid on projects and hire yourself out.

My problem is time, most people who come to me need something fixed because its broken and can’t wait until my normal availability hours like Saturday/Sunday.  This prohibits me from doing WordPress support on the side for clients, though sometimes clients still hire me to help modify, fix or design a WordPress site for them.

All in all, I have personally installed, administrated and configured 15 WordPress installations on 15 separate Domain names so far in the past two years.  This includes 5 which were my own blogs, (but I retired 2 and am now down to 3).

I have done everything from recover a WordPress site from being hacked with malware code injected in every PHP file to switching a theme for a customer and designing a new header.  I have even helped a client move an entire blog site from one domain to another including backing up and transporting SQL Database, all Upload files, Plugins and switch themes.

I just learned WordPress by installing and doing, everything I have figured out as I go along and I enjoy helping others.  It is in my nature to help others who are having trouble, it comes from 11 years in the IT Customer support business. 

I don’t consider myself a WordPress expert, in order to be a WordPress expert you need to know your way around PHP coding and CSS a lot better than I do.  You need to be able to code for clients needs which I cannot do.  I am learning that I am however a pretty good WordPress support person, and can do more than I realized when it comes to supporting people with WordPress issues.

-Justin Germino

Just finished beating The Mobius Factor in Starcraft II Wings of Liberty where you have to destroy 3 secret facilities before the Queen of Blades (Kerrigan) can learn information from them about the Protoss Artifacts.

The mission is fast paced, intense and the animated cut scene after where you get to see Kerrigan abandoned and left to be attacked by the Zerg is as high quality as any CGI movie I have seen.

Meanwhile my six year old already beat Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty on easy mode.  I was playing the game on normal mode but realize I am not a very good player to be able to battle others online in multiplayer.  My record is 0 for 14, even my son won 2 games with my account so it makes my record look like I have 2 wins, but I didn’t win those matches.

The cool thing about the game is there are different units in the single player campaign than in the multiplayer campaign, and the style of play is slightly different as a result.  You get to have more fun building at your own pace and experimenting on the single player campaign that most people don’t accommodate in multiplayer.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is one of the best Real Time Strategy games I have ever played and well worth the money if you like the genre or are a Blizzard or Starcraft fan.  The single player campaign is worth every penny, you get your money’s worth by far.  This game has more life than any console game you could purchase and is a bit cheaper as well.

-Justin Germino

I was inspired by an article by Rey titled Ask Me Anything which was a very clever post that really got readers interactive by having them question their blogger to know more about him.

So I have decided to make this my "Ask Me Anything" post on JustinGermino.com and see what questions come up.  I have done several interviews on other sites, but haven’t done any in about a year so I don’t know what people would want to ask except for blogging related questions.

Go ahead and ask me anything

Doesn’t have to be about blogging, internet.

Ask me anything you want and I will answer honestly, get to know your blogger, the man behind the blog so to speak.  There are some rules to asking questions and certain questions may not be acceptable or appropriate for a public medium.

What do you want to know about me?

I will post some of the Questions and Answers here in the blog area as they come in and are processed.

-Justin Germino

Decided to showcase some great articles I have read in the past several weeks on other sites that are worthy of a mention.  I didn’t have time to write a separate blog post for each one, so including them in what I call a Hump Day Roundup.

These would be some of my favorite blogging related articles in the past two weeks on some other sites and I highly recommend them if you hadn’t had a chance to visit and read these articles.

7 Characteristics of Highly Successful Bloggers – written by Onibalusi Bamidele

The Case For and Against Popup Opt-in Forms – written by Kristi Hines

How to Install CommentLuv on Blogger – written by Ms. Ileane

The Downside of List Posts – written by Sebastian Schmitt

Crazy Stuff I’ve Done as a Blogger, and What I’ve Learned From It All – written by Larry Brooks

I now am using Thunderbird to subscribe to about 10-20 other blog feeds, but try to catch up and skim as I find time.  Between Ingboo Feeds and Thunderbird feeds I have to be careful not to spend too much time reading other articles and focus on creating content.  I am a reader and all too often an hour can pass at night and I read about 10 great blog posts instead of writing my own.

-Justin Germino

Today my son started his first day of second grade at Legacy Traditional Charter School and the school spent all summer building up a new campus that is very close the the house and quite amazing.  The school expanded to include now K-8 and has three separate buildings and the elementary kids are in their own building.

My son has done very well at this new Charter school and the curriculum is much more demanding than the public school he was in for the first two weeks of first grade.  My wife and I are very pleased with the quality of education he is getting from Legacy Traditional Charter Schools here in Casa Grande and it really is like getting a private school education without any cost except having to volunteer a minimum of 12 hours per school year.

My son faces new challenges and actually was put in the class with the teacher he was hoping for when 1st grade ended.  So I am hoping he is off to a good start this year and continues meeting is straight A’s in all subjects which he was able to finish off first grade with.

The school uses the following teaching principles / programs:

• Saxon Math
• Spalding Reading/Writing
• Harcourt Social Studies program
• McGraw-Hill Science Series for grades K-5

I for one think it is an excellent system and in this society a child needs to be challenged and kept thinking to keep up.  Too many schools have gone lax and Arizona in particular is known for some of the worst public schools in the nation so it is good to find a Charter school that meets the high standards that my wife and I both have.

-Justin Germino

Decided to change up my Taco Bell order recently and try the new Cantina Taco’s that they were advertising.  This was the first time Taco Bell actually offered a Carnitas taco that I was aware of, and the double corn tortilla with marinated meats, onion, cilantro and a lime wedge seemed to be a nice throwback to a simpler yet tasty meal.

I ordered the combo meal which comes with three street tacos and you can mix and match the flavors, plus a drink.  I decided to try one of each flavor (steak, chicken and pork (carnitas).

I did find them to be quite tasty and enjoyed all 3, particularly the carnitas which was saucier and juicier than the chicken and steak.  I would rank the steak ones second and chicken third.  The chicken had a decent marinated flavor, but was a little dry.

Overall, I found the cantina tacos from Taco bell to be on par and very similar in quality to Rubio’s Baja Fresh and other street tacos.  The flavor and style of the tacos was above what you would expect from typical fast food and I really enjoyed them.  They are pretty small though, and 3 street tacos is barely enough to fill a guy with a big appetite like me.

-Justin Germino

I was assisting my wife with her work last weekend, she runs a music production company and recently signed on to become a band manager to local Arizona rock band Tridon and I took my laptop and attended one of their band rehearsals working on various work related activities with rifle plugs in my ear while the band rehearsed their set with a new prospective bass player.

My wife has always been very artistic and her love of art in all its forms really broadens my horizons as a person.  I realize that between my day job, my blogging hobby, my gaming and my love of watching movies that 99% of my activities would involve staying at home being in front of one type of screen or another.

By contrast my wife does lots of blogging, social media and other work from home during the day but on several nights and weekends she either puts on music productions, assists with Tridon’s shows, rehearsals or attends other local music venues and concerts in order to network and keep up with the business.

So really I owe getting out of the house at all to my wife who keeps me busy running around to one venue or another on Friday nights or Saturday nights and without her I would probably be a class 5 hermit.  Meanwhile, being at a band rehearsal is something the average person does not see unless they are in the music business.  It is something very different watching bands rehearse parts of the same song over and over again, jam and sort of mesh their musical styles and artistic abilities to form something cohesive and borderline magical.

So I get to work within 3 foot proximity to a full rock band rehearsing and I must say that the 100 pack of rifle plugs that my wife bought were among the best investments as I would have blown out my ear drums for sure had I not had something to dampen the sound.  But it was kind of soothing listening to the background music while I was working, I didn’t find it a distraction at all actually, more like listen to an audio cd except it being live.

I would never have thought five years ago that I would be somehow involved in the local Arizona music scene and be involved with concerts, bands and it has definitely added to my life experience and is something very different from my regular day.  Sometimes it is good to have activities that are completely abstract or way outside your comfort zone, these things can help round you out as a person and keep you from becoming too isolated in only a handful of activities.

-Justin Germino

Can you actually run and walk better with a contoured footwear that has separate toe sleeves?

The Five Fingers footwear from Vibram USA is only one type of shoe in a list of shoes now that allow you to walk in a traditional barefoot style.  These shoes claim to reduce impact on the knees, ankles and ball of your foot as they allow you to walk the way nature intended.  When people walk barefoot they walk with the pads of their feet striking the ground first, but shoes have trained humans to walk with the ball of your foot striking the ground first.  This causes more impact to your joints and is not optimum for natural walking patterns.

The new Five Fingers shoes allow you to walk in natural rhythm while still offering support and protection for your feet from the ground.  They are for hiking, walking, running and just about any other outdoor activity where you need a more natural step with less impact.

I haven’t actually worn these shoes myself but the thought of them really intrigues me, I find myself wondering when I am running how much differently it would feel with one of these shoes.  I myself don’t like striking the heel of my foot to the ground first and I am curious to test this pair of shoes out someday.

Have you ever tried a pair of Vibram Five Fingers KSO shoes?  Do you know anybody who has?

I have read dozens of positive reviews on the shoes with there being only two more or less negative ones.  One being that they are uncomfortable to wear in the summer and can cause your feet to get hot, sweaty and stinky more than a normal shoe due to wrapping each toe.  The other is that some of the soles can be slippery on wet surfaces, but they have good traction for just about all other dry surfaces.

The hot and sweaty foot thing is something to consider when you live in the Arizona desert.

-Justin Germino

This gives new meaning to the joke parents tell kids like "don’t swallow watermelon seeds or you will grow a watermelon in your stomach".

A man named Ron Sveden had been coughing for months with lung problems and doctors were unable to find the issue.  Being elderly the man assumed he was developing lung cancer, and it was when one of his lungs collapsed that doctors made an unusual discovery.

A pea plant had started growing inside the mans lung and actually grew to be 1 1/2 inches long causing the lung to collapse.  The man who eats peas on a regular basis recalled possibly inhaling a pea down the wrong pipe in previous months while eating dinner.

The pea travelled down his windpipe and settled into his lung where it started growing roots and establishing itself.  Apparently a live human lung provides enough moisture and oxygen for a plant to get established.

This article was picked up by every major news outlet including the NY Post.

So watch out when eating your food, and when you choke and food goes down the wrong pipe, there is a slim chance it could just take root in your lung!

-Justin Germino