Justin Germino Ramblings

On my Royal Caribbean cruise vacation from which I returned last weekend, Labadee, Haiti was the first port destination.  The first thing to note is that this isn’t the actual town of Labadee, but a mock town specific for tourists who aren’t allowed into Labadee itself from the cruise ships.

The port is more like a private island area for the cruise ships and contains beaches, dining area’s and comes complete with dozens of locals peddling various crafts and products.

The excursion we purchased included a tour and a visit to paradise cove which is a remote beach where there are no visitors.  The sand is fine as silk, and the water cool and clear.  I had the most delicious rum punch I had ever imbibed upon arrival.

Though the tour was cut short as a result of a rainstorm moving in, we were refunding the entire excursion costs so we kind of received a 1/2 tour for free. 

Here are my pictures from Labadee, Haiti excursion:

-Justin Germino

Funny how I just got back from my Caribbean Cruise on Sunday evening only to have to fly out to North Carolina for my job on Tuesday morning.  I had Labor Day to hang out with the kids and alternate between house chores, playing Lego Indiana Jones 2 and Rome: Total War with my kids.

Packed my bags and out the door the next day where I will be in Charlotte until Friday while my wife holds down the fort.  I haven’t taken this many flights in such a short proximity in almost 9 years if you can believe that!

Gede with my wife and I on the Liberty of the Seas cruise ship.

Meanwhile, while on my cruise ship my wife and I were waited on by a friendly waiter named Gede from Indonesia, the man was such a great waiter showing interest and true dedication to his work.  We took the time to get to know him and found out he worked 6 months straight 7 days a week without a break while his wife and three kids back in Indonesia got to speak to him on phone calls every few nights.  Six months of work for three months off to spend with his family and I can say this is one truly dedicated and hard working individual who has a smile on his face every day and greets each cruise guest like they were his best friend.

My working/family life is a picnic compared to some dedicated and hardworking folks out there who do whatever it takes to put bread on the table and provide for the family.  I applaud all the men and women who put in the hard time and sacrifice to make sure their families are taken care of.  I have no business complaining about spending 10 days this month away from my kids when others don’t see their kids for several months at a time.

(Yet I still complain, because it is just something I am not used to)

-Justin Germino

It is good to be back home as I had spent the last week embarking on a cruise of the Caribbean courtesy of Royal Caribbean cruise lines.  My wife and I had planned this cruise since February 2009 and it was our 4th cruise together.  We had been on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, a Carnival Cruise and a Disney cruise previously. 

The cruise left Miami, Florida on August 29th and spent the first day at sea, we pulled into Labadee, Haiti on August 31st and into Ocho Rios, Jamaica on September 1st. 

On September 2nd we docked at George Town, Grand Cayman and from there set off to Cozumel, Mexico where we spent September 3rd.  We spent September 4th at sea and arrived back in Miami on the 5th to fly home to Arizona.

I need some time to digest from the vacation of fine dining and get my pictures in order.  I will do a series of posts with photos from my various excursions and look forward to sharing the beautiful sights of the Caribbean with my readers.

PS.  If you haven’t been on a cruise it is one of the best ways to take a vacation, there is something said for a package deal where all your meals are included, activities preset and you don’t have to find something to do all the time.  You just sit back and check your daily planner and choose what you want to do when you get there.

I hear there are two types of people, those who LOVE cruises and those who hate them compared to traditional vacations.  You can consider my wife and I in the "love cruises" category as we love that you get to sample a little bit of each port without making a commitment to staying long term in one port.  Then after we find a place we like, we usually book a weeklong stay at a later date like we did with our Cabo San Lucas vacation in Mexico.

-Justin Germino

I hadn’t taken a typing speed test in a while and was looking to see if my typing speed was still as sharp and fast as it used to be.  Now I can do anywhere from 90 – 105 WPM depending on the type of test, the more numbers, special characters and such thrown into the test can seriously reduce my typing speed as I use a Logitech DiNovo Laptop keyboard (which is a fantastic scissor keys keyboard) but is slightly smaller and has key placement that occasionally throws me off.

One site that I like is TypingTest.com and my latest test which was done about 11:00pm put me at 80WPM which is a bit slower than I was when I last tested a year ago.  I find as I near thirty three years of age that my fingers just don’t seem to be as fast as they were five to ten years ago, but this could be my imagination as well.

Still, with all the typing I do for blogging (I figure I write about  15,000 words per month minimum for my three blogs) this doesn’t count the dozens of emails I write per day and typing I do for my day job I would have been at the same typing speed.

I will retest during the day and see if I can improve my speed again.  I do the same type of testing with speed reading to make sure I can still read and comprehend quickly.

-Justin Germino

For those who are looking for a new keyboard, I received one of these as a gift over a year ago and it is the best keyboard I have ever typed on in the past twenty years of using a computer.  The tactile keys of the keyboard are superb and they keyboard is small, wireless and completely portable.  I couldn’t recommend a keyboard more than the Logitech DiNovo Notebook Keyboard.

With a TBA release date of the next Starcraft 2:  Heart of the Swarm game, players who beat Wings of Liberty have to enjoy multiplayer and try to complete the extra victory modes in all of the Normal and Hard campaign missions until the new game is released.

The question is, with the ending of the first game in the Starcraft 2 series, how will the 2nd game come out?  Will the Queen of Blades still exist, or will the Overmind come back?  Who will lead the Zerg and will there be new units and buildings in the sequel to Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty?

My prediction is that there will be a tech like tree where you can integrate Protoss and Terran DNA to create hybrid units or structures much like the Protoss / Zerg DNA allowed customized buildings and options in Wings of Liberty. 

I can’t wait for the sequel for Starcraft 2, it isn’t even available for preorder from Amazon.com yet.

Each game has sufficient material, cinematics, story that they are worth being separate stand alone games.  I actually am not displeased with Blizzards decision to do this.  Games cost millions of dollars to create, and when you put so much into a single game and design each game in sequence it really is like separate games.  No different than Halo series, Call of Duty series, each game is a succession to the previous.

-Justin Germino

I wrote a detailed article on the YouSayToo AdSense revenue sharing network that I joined a few weeks ago and have to say that the site is very easy to use and also includes the ability to bookmark and import your favorite flash games.

Hundreds of online flash games can be found in a variety of categories on YouSayToo.  The site also has really nice page load times as well as clever integration of ads.  There are lots of ads on the articles, but it all seems to fit together like a well designed puzzle.  The ads are not overly intrusive and no annoying popups or ads that block parts of the readable content.  Overall I think the site design of YouSayToo is pretty good.

YouSayToo is an online social network for bloggers that lets you find posts to read based on interests, but also lets you list your blogs, create new blog posts, import your blog feeds or even import other peoples blog feeds so you can keep track of them on YouSayToo.com

YouSayToo does do AdSense Revenue Sharing as well as Amazon Affiliate Revenue sharing.  The site also lets you choose to donate your revenue to charity if you want.

Connect with me, Justin Germino on YouSayToo and if you haven’t started using this online networking site to promote your blogs yet, then now is the time to start.

-Justin Germino

Life is about decisions and choices and realistically I am one of those people who doesn’t think you should have suffer day by day doing something that doesn’t make you happy.  If you find yourself in a routine or situation where your enjoyment of life is just not there you need to first examine if your feelings are justified and not a symptom of true depression (make sure the grass is really greener on the other side and look at your issue with perspective).

This can be applied to virtually every facet of what you do and includes:

• Job
• Relationship
• Hobbies
• Behaviors
• Personal

Life is far too short and I believe that we are a collection of our experiences in life, you have to exit the world having tried everything as possible and really "lived" your life.  Other than the occasional bad day or week, look at your year and define whether or not 80% of your days were "happy" or good days, if they aren’t then look at what you can change or tweak to increase the number of days you are happy.  Don’t do anything rash without seriously considering the outcome of any such decisions, and don’t do anything irresponsible just because you are unhappy.  Sometimes responsibility overrides happiness until you can find a compromise.

I myself try to constantly improve, tweak and adjust what I see as my own shortcomings, limitations or behaviors I would rather not have or repeat.  I use my own analytical way of thinking to critique and brainstorm ways to remove my unwanted traits (though some take much longer to resolve than others).

Don’t be content to suffer or be unhappy if you can make some simple adjustments to help you enjoy your days more.  If you feel consistently unhappy all the time, make sure you look into whether it is environmental or psychological as in some cases it can be a sign of real depression or chemical imbalance in your brain chemistry. 

-Justin Germino

My six year old who will be seven next month was begging to rent Diary of a Wimpy Kid for a few weeks, so we rented the movie and my two boys and I watched it while my wife was doing some work and out of the house.

It was funny, clever and in every way entertaining appealing to boys of every age in my opinion.  Though it was definitely focused on "Middle School" age kids, I was reminded of my own childhood friendships and mishaps a few times during the movie.  I akin the movie to being similar to How to Eat Fried Worms which is another movie covering the same age range of kids trying to fit in a social setting.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid did make for a good film and my six and three year olds were laughing up most of the film and my son told me the film was not only about middle school but about friendships and being true to yourself. 

Good moral, and good clean movies that are enjoyable for the whole family are few and far between these days.  This is definitely a boys movie though, too many gross body habits and behaviors to appeal to women much I think.  Meanwhile, my son read some of the first book but wants them all and this is one reading habit I intend to help him develop.

So perhaps he will get the series for his birthday next month?

-Justin Germino