Justin Germino Ramblings

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Swiss Army Knives . All opinions are 100% mine.

I go fishing often enough that I see the value in owning a Swiss Army Knife tool, I am always needing a blade to cut fishing lines, can opener to open canned corn for bait or a phillips head screwdriver for a variety of purposes. I don’t currently own the Dual Pro X but after reading about its features and that it has a very reasonable price it is something that I will likely be putting on my next Father’s day list.

The Dual Pro X come with the following tools, and was modeled after the Victorinox Soldier Knife

• One-Hand Locking Blade
• One-Hand Serrated Locking Seat Belt Cutter
• Phillips Screwdriver
• Can Opener with
• Small Screwdriver
• Bottle Opener
• Large Locking Screwdriver
• Wire Stripper
• Reamer
• Key Ring

This is one pocket sized tool that you can put on your keychain and handle just about any basic need you could run across. Just the other day I was trying to open a box of paper with those heavy plastic straps tied tight and I had no box cutter, knife or anything. I had to serrate my way through the plastic strap with a key which took five minutes before I could get through it. If I had the Dual Pro X I would have had that thing cut in seconds.

Victorinox Swiss Army is also hosting a Share The Adventure contest on their Facebook fan page where you could enter to win a $25,000 ultimate adventure.

They offer creative and fun ways to enter the contest on a regular basis, offering new “Adventures” which get you entries every two weeks.

So if you are looking for a multipurpose tool to have around for when you go camping, fishing, hiking or any other outdoor adventure, you can’t go wrong with a Dual Pro X from Victorinox Swiss Army. Just remember not to have this thing on your keychain or in your pocket when going to an airport!

Your bath tub spout may need to be replaced if you pull up the lever and your shower doesn’t fully engage and water partially still leaks from your tub spout. This is mostly caused by mineral build up in the chrome or metal spout that will block the diverter from fully being able to close the tub spout. In most bathrooms replacing the tub spout is very simple and takes only about ten to fifteen minutes requiring nothing more than a flat screwdriver and in some cases a Phillips screw driver and channel locks. For inquiries, visit plumbergordon.com.au.

Most bath tub spouts are screwed into a metal pipe (copper) that juts out from the wall about 6″ or so. You can find a Universal Tub spout at any one of your home supply stores and they typically will cost you between $15 and $25 dollars depending on the type of metal, appearance and such. Make sure you get a universal one if you don’t know for certain the size of your pipe, if you know you have 1/2″ pipe or 3/4″ pipe then you can purchase the size that is specific to your pipe.

Once you have your tub spout purchased you will need to make sure you have the following tools handy:

• Flat or Phillips Screwdriver about 6″ long
• Channel Locks (only needed if tub spout is so tightly screwed on you can’t remove by hand)
• Waterproof/Tub Caulk (to seal the new spout to your tub)

Step 1 – Remove your old bath tub spout

Most faucet spouts screw onto the pipe jutting out from the wall and can be a bit too tight to just unscrew by hand.  You will want to leverage either a drew driver or a wooden handle (like hammer) and wedge it into the faucet mouth and use your hand to unscrew the faucet from the wall (counter clock wise).  Note:  If you jut something metal into the faucet spout mouth you will scratch/damage the chrome faucet, if you want to keep your faucet intact then wrap it in several layers of saran wrap or put a cloth between the screwdriver and the faucet to prevent the metal from scratching.

Step 2 – Examine the type of thread and pipe on your faucet

You want to look at your old faucet and see how it connected to your pipe, find out if you are using a 3/4″ or 1/2″ connection and determine which configuration to use for your new Universal Faucet. You can also triage your faucet to find out why it wasn’t working properly, in the case of this faucet you can see tons of mineral deposits were blocking the diverter from opening properly and flowing water to the shower.

Step 3 – Attach New Faucet

Attach your new faucet by screwing it onto the pipe thread that is sticking out of the wall. If you have plumbers tape then coil a little around the pipe thread to help ensure a tight fit. You will want to make sure the faucet screws tight all the way up against the wall and the mouth is facing down into the tub. (Obvious right?). You will also note that the faucet may be very hard to screw by hand toward the end so here is where you may want to leverage a hammer handle (rubber or wood) to help you turn the faucet. Remember to put some padding between the handle and the faucet mouth or you will bend/damage your brand new faucet.

After attaching your new faucet, turn the water on and test the faucet and the diverter (if you have one) to make sure water runs through the faucet and alternatively to the shower head.

Step 4 – Caulk Faucet to Wall

The final part is to caulk a medium line surrounding the faucet where it meets the bath tub wall, this will ensure no water flows inside the wall between the faucet and the wall. Make sure you use a waterproof silicone based caulk.

In Review

In summary you can save yourself at least $50 by replacing your tub faucet yourself instead of hiring a plumber, the faucet prices are about $15 – $25 dollars and you save the labor costs of hiring a plumber. Replacing a faucet may need to be done more often if you live in places with very hard water which can increase the likely hood of mineral deposits damaging your faucet. In some cases you can just use CLR or other mineral remover products to destroy the buildup and reuse the same faucet, but in other cases you may just want to replace your bath tub faucet entirely.

-Justin Germino

This was one of the few weeks where I found myself ahead of my blogging schedule instead of struggling to keep up. I had the extra four day weekend and used some of it to queue about 11 posts ahead of time on my three blogs which left me wanting to write and publish more but unsure whether I wanted to schedule a post 9 days out since what I wanted to write about was more about what happened this week and not as interesting if I wrote about it too late.

As a blogger you have to set a consistent post frequency as to give your loyal readers a set date/time they know they can come and get new content to read from your site, however sometimes you just have more that you want to say in one day or a few days than one post per day. Here are some suggestions on how to deal with “extra content” which if you have is a blessing and you should start using your extra content wisely.

Tips on ways to use extra blog content:

• Re-arrange your scheduled posts to make room for new content

Using this tip you would move around your scheduled posts and put the ones that aren’t time sensitive to dates further out in the future so as to make room for your time sensitive posts. This helps you stay ahead of your blogs and you won’t always feel pressured to write every day.

• Submit some of your extra content as guest posts on other blogs

This is highly advantageous and provided it isn’t a personal post (about you) then you can not only gain the potential for a backlink, but also increases exposure to another bloggers readership which could translate to more visitors for your own blog. Just remember if you guest post to visit regularly and respond to comments on your guest post promptly.

• Submit your articles to an online directory or magazine

AssociatedContent, Helium, or any other online content site may be a way to submit an extra article. You should have profiles on as many networks and sites as possible and having a few articles only increases your exposure to potential readers.

• Sell your content

There are many forums where you can list and sell articles that are not published on any other site, and you can get anywhere from $3 to $5 for an article depending on the quality and length of the article. Though I must admit forums like DigitalPoint you see typically people try to sell article packs (not individual articles) you might be able to sell one on oDesk or another service as well.

In Summary:

There are several things you can do if you wrote extra content and are tempted to post too many articles the same day on your own blog, in my opinion it is better to use that content wisely as ways to expand your reach and audience by following some of the above tips. Remember if you sell your article you lose all ownership of it and it won’t benefit you other than the little amount of money you may receive, but people who can generate lots of content could make a good $50 per week or more just writing and selling content to other bloggers who purchase articles to augment their websites.

-Justin Germino

I got way to excited the other day about selling my very first product as an Amazon affiliate, somebody purchased the Sherlock Holmes DVD from one of my affiliate links and I earned a whopping .48 cents commission on the $12 DVD. This speaks volumes because out of my 3500+ blog posts, I maybe have an Amazon affiliate badge posted in 20 posts, the funny thing is I don’t remember ever having a link to affiliate sell Sherlock Holmes DVD (I didn’t even see the movie yet).

I see that this particular affiliate has 45 clicks with a 2.22% CTR rate according to Amazon Affiliate. What I can’t find is which post the affiliate link or image is hosted on so that I can find out where its coming from and on which of my three blogs. I should have been smart enough to use a separate Amazon affiliate channel for each of my blogs, but forget to switch channels and have my same channel with a few ads on all three of my blogs.

Does any of my readers know how to find out what was the originating source of clicks for Amazon Affiliate sale? Amazon has some analytics, but I just can’t figure out the source and a Google query left me empty.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about trying to use Amazon Affiliate sales more cleverly in some of my more popular posts that show up on Google Searches to test and see if any CTR ratio pans out.

-Justin Germino

My sons brand new Dell Laptop came preinstalled with a trial version of McAfee Antivirus and I proceeded to uninstall it and setup Avira instead which I use because it is free, but I noticed that even after uninstalling McCafee from the Windows 7 Uninstall programs menu, it kept showing up after a reboot as a process and kept popping up a reminder that the trial license was about to expire. It was just coincidence that I found an article on Craving Tech that had a full list of all antivirus software removal tools. It was such a comprehensive list and had direct downloads for you to remove:
Alwil Avast, AVG, Kaspersky, Avira, BitDefender, F Security, Norton/Symantec, McAfee, TrendMicro (PCCillin), Windows Live OneCare, Zone Alarm, ESET (NOD32)

I didn’t want to post the links directly because I want you to visit the original source and download the software removal tools directly from Craving Tech, so if you are looking to remove avast antivirus or any other antivirus software, I encourage you to visit the above article and and download the antivirus software removal tool for your specific product.

-Justin Germino

When Daniel Snyder from Information Carnivore asked me about Twitter Etiquette for Bloggers and my opinions on the subject, I shared my own point of view and experiences in a short paragraph via email to help him include in his article. What I didn’t expect was that I was included in the same article and my own point of view put directly and sharing the same blog spaces as Chris Brogan’s point of view.

I was quite honored to be so highly regarded that another blogger would include my own opinion in the same context as someone as popular and successful as Chris Brogan. The article is to the point and does a good job of asking about Twitter Etiquette with two other bloggers point of views and I encourage my readers to visit and follow all points of view on the subject. Thanks to Daniel for featuring me so prominently in his article.

-Justin Germino

My wife and I were married on July 4th 1999 at the Phoenix Zoo and today is our 11th wedding anniversary, so not only do we celebrate the typical July 4th festivities, we try to do something special for our anniversary as well. We both realized in retrospect that we probably shouldn’t have gotten married on a Holiday as with two kids who want to see fireworks, we often always have to tie in a July 4th event into our wedding celebration.

We married on July 4th for several reasons, not only was it a long holiday weekend but her parents were married on July 4th and some others of her family were married on July 2nd. It was kind of a cool thing to do at the time to have so many family members with Anniversaries all in the same time frame. Now after eleven years of being married my wife and I were joking the other day about celebrating our anniversary in May or October instead, so we didn’t have to conflict with a holiday. “Why not just choose to celebrate whenever we want, who cares what the paper says” was kind of how she put it and I totally agree.

I don’t think people should celebrate their relationship only twice a year (V-Day and Anniversary) but instead each day should be something special to cherish, you don’t need a reason to surprise your spouse with a massage, flowers, or token of affection and you don’t have to spend money to show that you care and love someone.

Happy Anniversary to my bride, I hope we have many more to share together.

-Justin Germino

I am a huge fan of toys that help inspire a child’s imagination and one of my favorite toy’s that I have been playing with my six and three year olds lately is the TRIO Building Set. These blocks consist of cubes or rectangles with holes in the sides and bottoms that allow you to put tubes and other shapes to interlock the various pieces to create some of the most interesting things your imagination can come up with.

I think they are easier than traditional lego pieces where you have thousands of small pieces and have to build everything with rectangles, by offering out this system of shapes, tubes to link everything together you can make intersting creations with only 10-20 pieces at a time and in only a few minutes.

Here are a few of the creations I created last weekend with a combination of parts from the standard kit and the Wizards Castle:

If you have children under 10 years old in your house and have not had a chance to get them the TRIO Blocks yet, then I encourage you to pick up a building set and let their minds wander. The funny thing is I will just build 3-5 different creations for my kids and just let them battle each other with the creatures I come up with.

I don’t follow a kit, but build everything just from as I see it. If interested, they have dozens of kits, including the DC Super Friends Batcave which is awesome and costs less than forty dollars. All of the TRIO systems are compatible with each other and you can buy three, four or five kids and create some of the most amazing fortresses, towers, robots and more.

We have the TRIO Wizards Castle which took about 35 minutes to build according to the instructions, but it has 3 different configurations on how you can build the tower and each one is fun to build.

I am a big fan of the TRIO Block Building system, and think it is one of the best toys you could possible give to your kids when they are younger as it encourages them to be little engineers, architects and use their imagination to create things. My three year old can play for a long period of time just building and making his action figures fight his TRIO creations.

-Justin Germion

Was shopping at Walmart (the big W) last weekend and I always look in the cheap $5 DVD bins to see what I can get my hands on to replenish my stocks, I do own about 350 DVD’s and for some reason I have a tendency to collect films on DVD that I like even though I don’t watch some of them. I wonder if its a type of hoarding condition?

Anyway, I am always looking for cheap kids movies and found the following three which the kids would enjoy

• Sesame Street: Where’s Big Bird
• Harry and the Hendersons
• The Secret of N.I.M.H.

In addition I picked up The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd which is a classic film and I always enjoy especially to watch before I go camping myself at a log cabin.

My three favorite places to buy cheap movies are Walmart Movie Bin, Big Lots $3 movie bin and BlockBuster often has specials where they sell 5 previously viewed movies for $20 (making them $4 each).

This is how I purchase most of my DVD’s from the past.

Where do you like to shop for older DVD’s, what great deals have you found?

The Twilight craze is undeniably massive and has such far reach that my six year old son keeps prodding to see the new Twilight film even though he hasn’t seen any of the previous ones (I think he is a little too young for all the weighty relationship drama), I also think he wouldn’t like it as he has no interest in such things at his age. He just wants to see the vampires vs the werewolves aspect of the movie and all the commercials flooding the regular kids cable channels have peaked his interest.

I haven’t even seen New Moon yet myself, but I did see the original and think it wasn’t bad. Ironically I liked the Twilight film more than my wife who hates relationship and “chick flicks”. I won’t see Twilight Eclipse in theaters, but will probably rent it when it comes out on DVD after I see New Moon first of course.

How many of my regular readers will be flooding theaters for Eclipse?

-Justin Germino