Justin Germino Ramblings

With drums blearing in the distance, he had no choice but to jump and pray the vines would be there.

I envision life sometimes as an adventure through jungles and much like Tarzan when he first started jumping through the trees and had to rely on vines to swing his way through the forests, we have to swing from moment to moment taking time to not only appreciate the present but also know which direction we want to swing next.

I often tell people in my close circles that I believe we have one life and truly the purpose is to collect as many life experiences as possible before reaching the end.  These life experiences can be whatever your soul would want and for some this involves traveling, others it involves creating or collecting art.

I also realized as of late that journey’s are found in every day adventures that one could find mundane.  Just taking my kids to Peter Piper Pizza for example and engaging them while they play arcades and try to win silly tickets to get cheap plastic toys or vampire teeth is a memory that shall stay in my head for decades. 

One of my greatest adventures lies in the next few months with my wife and I finally travelling to Europe, and more specifically Italy for the first time ever.  We have both dreamed of visiting Rome and at long last after fourteen years of being together we were able to turn this dream into a reality.  I believe live experiences and visiting other countries, cities and cultures help enrich a person and give perspective on the world.  This trip which includes staying 2 days in Rome and a 7 day cruise which will take us to Greece and Turkey as well is a getaway for my wife and I only.  We are fortunate enough to have grandparents to watch our kids so their safety and care is top notch while we will be away.

I do hope in the future to be able to take my sons when they are old enough to other countries and cities so they can get a taste for adventure and life outside of America.  We have taken them on various road trips, camping, California and even a Disney cruise before and though they don’t realize how lucky they are, they do already appreciate and enjoy the experiences and talk about them fondly often.

I do also realize that traveling alone would not be in the cards for me, I really don’t like to go anywhere by myself and had it not been for my wife’s love to travel and most excellent companionship I probably would not have been on a cruise yet or even seen many of the places I have been.  Adventures are best when shared, at least in my case.

So far after this journey there are a few others I would hope to accomplish some day which include:

• Seeing the Galapagos Islands
• Visiting Australia
• Visiting London
• Taking my family on an African Safari adventure (Disney has some great African safari adventures)

Travels are difficult of course and enduring day long plane flights with kids, losing weeks away from work only to have it pile up can sometimes cause me to dread vacations and travel.  But once my adventure is underway I try to put all work related things and life stresses behind and just give in to the journey.

What are some of your journey’s and adventures you look forward to in life?

Ironically I was traveling earlier in the week and thought the time spent at night in my hotel room would inspire me to catch up and write some articles for my tech blog DragonBlogger.com but instead I found myself inspired and only interested in writing poetry. 

I literally couldn’t get myself in the mood to write for my tech blog, my artistic side wanted to shine through and I churned out about 28 haiku’s and 6 poems in two nights, most of them queued for my poetry blog but some used for random Twitter or Facebook broadcasts or submitting to other poetry sites and contests.

Here was one I decided to post right here:

Spent Creativity

Maybe fate decides my right

it’s not my choice of what to write

my own hand stills at subjects denied

from my brain itself, creation is pried

so I write with no purpose or intent

until my creativity at last is spent

-Poem by Justin Germino

Okay, make this now 7 poems and 28 haiku’s written in 2 days (most of the haiku’s were typed out on my blackberry on a plane and my thumbs were very sore by the time I was done).

Speaking of poetry, you can now follow @poemwatch on Twitter and friend my poetry specific twitter account.

-Justin Germino

So my four year old has had a particular "job" in his mind for the past few weeks where he wants to sell toys as his job.  I asked him specifically do you want to make toys?  But he insists he wants to sell them to other kids and families?

So with the mind of an affiliate blogger I was thinking if only he were a few years older, I would help him setup a site where he can hand pick the toys he likes and wants to sell and use like an Amazon affiliate to sell them.  I also considered turning this into a teaching lesson.

I would have my son pick out some toys he wanted to try selling on Amazon.com, and I would do write up and promotion for them on my personal blog.  I maybe create a "kid wish list" or recommendations from a kid type of theme and I would put earnings of sales for his items toward his college or maybe savings for when he is a teenager.

If he were eight or ten, I would have totally encouraged him to start some sort of small entrepreneurship like buying used toys at garage sales and trying to sell them on eBay or his own site.  Skills that would teach him the value of money, buying at discount and selling for profit margins, savings, marketing, sales…etc.  These are lessons that would help him undoubtedly later in life.

In the meantime, he is only 4 and my own entrepreneurial spirit as of late maybe jumping the gun on this one with all these crazy idea’s.

-Justin Germino

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I couldn’t help but laugh when this email came circulating about senior texting codes and I thought it worth sharing with some of my readers who may find it funny.

SENIORS TEXTING CODES

1. ATD….At the Doctors

2. BFF…Best friend fell

3. BTW…Bring the Wheelchair

4. BYOT…Bring Your Own Teeth

5. FWIW…Forgot Where I Was

6. GGPBL…..Gotta Go Pacemaker Battery Low

7. GHA……Got Heartburn Again

8. IMHO……Is My Hearing-aid On

9. LMDO…Laugh My Denture Out

10. OMMR……On My Message Recliner

11. OMSG…. Oh My! Sorry, Gas

12. ROFLACGU……Rolling On The Floor Laughing And Can’t Get Up

13. TTYL……Talk To You Louder

I myself may start TTYL as I get older and can’t hear as well on my conference calls.

What do you think?  Funny or poor taste?

-Justin Germino

I wrote this blog post while on my flight to Charlotte, from Phoenix and I happened to start listening to the Avatar soundtrack on my iPod and have to say that this really was one fantastic movie soundtrack.  The orchestra really takes you through a variety of emotions and captures “wonder” and “awe” so well in audible format that I couldn’t help but smile while listening through the tracks.  Perhaps, it is because I was so fond of the movie and still consider it one of my favorite of all time that the music is so enjoyable.

Anyway, while traveling I am stuck in a plane and while others are buying meal packs, I reach down and grab a little packed sack that my wife had put together for me.  It upon seeing what is inside the little snack pack that I take a moment to appreciate just how much thought and consideration my wife has for me.

The contents of my sack included a small peanut butter sandwich, but she included a plastic knife and small jelly jar on the side.  Accompanying the PB&J she packed a custom made trail mix with craisins, seeds, peanuts, raisins and more.  Finally as a desert she included a sugar free Jell-O and a 100 calorie snack mix pack.  She had told me she packed something, but I am still amazed at how much care she put in to making sure I didn’t go hungry on the plane or that I didn’t have to buy a meal.

It’s these little considerations and items that are the meaning of love that sometimes get forgotten or taken for granted.  To have somebody in my life who cares about me enough to put such details into something so small is a great feeling.  I can honestly say I spent the majority of this airline flight just appreciating my wife for the little things, the details and considerations she does not just for me, but the whole family.

This is one of those times where I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive and I don’t want to take things for granted…ever.

-Justin Germino

Earlier in the week there was a torrent of social media information about Jackie Chan dying of a heart attack.  This was picked up across Twitter and Facebook trending to the top of the the social media platforms as well as ranking high among the Google search trends.

This rumor started and spread extremely rapidly requiring Jackie Chan’s publicity team to update their Facebook account to report that he was indeed alive and well having suffered no such heart attack.

Social Media can be a powerful reporting tool for breaking news, but can also become privy to the worst form of gossip storms.  It doesn’t take much to make a rumor or fake report about a celebrity go viral and these stunts can be setup to lead traffic to a site which can try to just benefit from visibility, CPC ad sales, infecting with Trojans, or just simply to gain some publicity.

In this day and age nothing should be believed when shared on Social Media unless you manually validate the information yourself.  This is why trusted reporting and media sites are still popular turn to places and won’t be replaced by social media reporting and will only be augmented by it. 

Beware the powers of social media and what you retweet and spread across the social networks, because with broadcasting power comes responsibility.

-Justin Germino

I have scoured online looking for some quick remedy to recover from Strep and found a slew of alternative treatments on this site: http://www.health911.com/sore-throat but of course I can’t validate any of them, and so many places preach ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar) that it seems more of a scam than having any likelihood of helping.

I know white tea can help fight bacteria in the throat and often drink a green/white tea blend which sometimes helps.  I have also heard that dark natural honey can help soothe and fight bacteria in the throat as well but don’t know any places within 50 miles that sell anything but the generic clover or mesquite honey.

Once my son had strep throat that was misdiagnosed and it went on long enough that it had spread and caused his hands and feet to start peeling.  Strep is no joke and it is important to go and have a swab done to confirm if it is strep.  I have read that strep if left untreated can spread into the bloodstream and cause heart damage as well as infect other areas of the body in extreme cases.

In the meantime all four family members went to urgent care this week and we are all on rounds of antibiotics.  I need to recover from this as quickly as possible as I have a business trip in a few days and I will be contagious on a plane as well as to my fellow coworkers if I don’t recover quickly.  I may just have to wear a mask to cover my face while traveling.

If anybody knows tried and true remedy’s to cure strep in 24 hours or so, I would be more than happy to hear what has worked for you.

-Justin Germino

When I was a kid and a teenager I had many good laughs trying to pull pranks on April Fool’s Day, not all of my pranks worked but a few did but in retrospect I don’t really find any of them funny today.

With the advent of social media and the Internet, April Fools Pranks become rampant online from bloggers to online personalities who want to see how viral their stunt can go and how much attention it can grab.  This may be fun but I don’t really subscribe to the theory of spreading misinformation so I rarely participate.

In fact, last year without really remembering what day it was I myself fell victim to an April Fools Prank by another blogger.  I believed the article I read and didn’t realize it was a prank until after I had already mentioned information that indicated I thought it was true.

People have said I was too trusting and gullible, that I am more easily fooled by pranks because I tend to want to believe people tell truth more than lies or deceive so I just don’t like April Fools Day in general.

-Justin Germino