Justin Germino Ramblings

I guess Technorati must have changed how they do tags and categories sometime in the last eight months because when I checked my blog profiles on Technorati I saw that I had no tags or categories listed for most of my blogs. I have updated my blogs and was amazed to find that this blog has almost as high authority as my DragonBlogger.com technology blog, both are over 400 in Technorati authority. I have no idea how my personal blog has such a high Technorati authority and I know it isn’t related to backlinks since this blog has far fewer links in that my primary blog.

Meanwhile, I had pretty much ignored Technorati over the past six months having not logged in a single time. I have been so busy focusing on Alexa, BlogEngage and other social sites that I completely neglected keeping up with Technorati.

So many directories, social networks to tend to and so little time.

-Justin Germino

After months of having some sort of block that prevented my computer from accessing Helium.com I learned that I now have access again to load the website. I logged in to find all of my rating stars were drained and I had to quickly build up my rating stars again. I did have $22 pending in my account so my sixteen articles (most creative writing) or so have been earning some money while sitting for the last three to four months.

Overall I earn more per month with my sixteen articles on Helium than my nearly 200 poems and articles on AssociatedContent, this would seem to indicate Helium pays a higher pageview rate, but you can get up front payments from AssociatedContent for quality articles which you can’t get from Helium so it can be a mixed bag. There are values to writing for both and some of my articles on Helium also earn from PageViews on AssociatedContent so don’t think you can’t leverage both writing services.

If you don’t have the time and patience to run a blog, then you can make some money as a freelance writer for Helium.com or AssociatedContent and some of the top writers can earn hundreds if not thousands of dollars from those networks by getting high numbers of pageviews and lots of up front article payments. If you write 5 original and high quality articles per day, you can make up to $10-$15 per day from submitted articles to AssociatedContent (most quality ones pay out between $2 and $3).

For me, I would prefer to write those articles for my blogs and collect the AdSense from my own blogs instead of AssociatedContent making 10x from AdSense on my articles than they pay out. But I do write for them for the extra change and publicity.

-Justin Germino

We have our tickets and are going to see Fozzy and Razer play at Club Red in Tempe tonight.  Since all of the Wrestlers are here in Arizona for Wrestlemania this weekend it was only fitting that Fozzy would be playing somewhere in the valley (since Chris Jericho is in the band).  Razer is one of our favorite local rock bands and is one of the bands opening the show for Fozzy.

More than 7 bands will be playing total tonight on the two stages at Club Red and Red Owl.  I hope to see some local music fans there.

-Justin Germino

I took a few hours off of work earlier in the week to take our boat trailer to the DMV for a level 2 inspection in an attempt to get the trailer registered.  This was a beat up $200 trailer that was rusted so badly it was unrecognizable when we bought it.  We fixed it up, painted it and refurbished new carpets, rope, and a light kit making it look nearly brand new.

We took it down to DMV the first time only to learn that they said it needed a Level 2 inspection, on Tuesday a level 2 inspection required that we sand off ¼ of the paint on the top of the trailer in order for them to validate there was no serial number on any of the steel frames.  Literally I had to sand off about 5 hours of labor just to prove it wasn’t a stolen trailer that may have been previously registered.

Once this was done the inspection guy was able to give us a metal sticker that was placed on the trailer, but then our registration woes only got worse.  We tried to go inside the DMV and after an hour wait were told that the trailer needed to have a Surety Bond worth $300 (after we paid $200 for the trailer, we now needed to purchase a Surety bond for $300).  I don’t even know what a Surety bond is and called my auto insurance guy who also didn’t have a clue and will get back to me.

This and we still then have to pay another $125 dollars to register the trailer DMV for permanent tags, so this rusty 15 year old trailer which I bought for $200 will cost more than $600 to bond and register with the State of Arizona.

Something is seriously messed up with the Department of Motor Vehicles if it is this difficult to get a tiny boat trailer registered just so you can legally transport a small boat to the lake.

This is why people most hate the DMV and Government Offices, seriously.

-Justin Germino

Now that I am following nearly 5500 people on Twitter I find that the “All Friends” column is all but useless for picking out tidbits of information that may be of use to read and to retweet to my readers.  To help alleviate this problem this is where Twitter lists come in.  Both of my favorite twitter tools Tweetdeck and Hootsuite support Twitter lists and let you build custom columns from your twitter lists.  Here are my tips for creating effective and useful twitter lists.

• A list for close friends

Create one list that has your closest friends and or relatives on Twitter, these are the people you talk to most often and want to hear about what is going on in their lives.

• A list for related categories

If you are a tech blogger, then this list should be tech resources, news sites or other tech bloggers.  Twitter accounts that send information that you want to read or maybe blog about or retweet to your readers.  If you are poet, this will be other poets.

• A list for people living in your state

This is especially useful for brick and mortar businesses or people who like socializing in person with Tweetups.  You build one list for all people living in your State or City and you can quickly and easily see what people in your area are talking about and can contact them if you are looking to coordinate a meetup or get together.

• A twitter list for news feeds

Creating a completely separate list for CNN, Current events and news will help separate this from your main feed.  Again this is useful to stay on top of breaking news and other such information.

• Twitter Celebrity List

If you follow celebrities on twitter and like following their updates, having a separate list for all your celebrity follows allows you to keep all their updates in one place so you can easily see what the latest famous person is saying instead of having to digg it out of your InBox.

• Summary:

These are just some examples of useful twitter lists, but you can do the same thing with “searches” creating search columns with #Arizona to see all tweets with the Arizona tag, or search for the word “Microsoft” to see everyone who mentions Microsoft are other useful columns you can have to make sorting through your twitter feeds easier.  Twitter becomes more cumbersome the larger your social network, to use it effectively you should leverage Lists and/or Search columns to help filter the information.  Hootsuite and TweetDeck are my favorite twitter management tools (click on the links to read my reviews on them).

-Justin Germino

So you know that finished trailer I talked about a few weeks ago?  My wife and I bought this old clunky boat trailer from a guy and fixed it up nice.  We took it to DMV for a level 1 inspection and they don’t believe that it was custom built and think it may have been stolen.  They required us to now take the trailer down for a Level 2 inspection, so I had to take a few hours off of work today to take the car in this morning for the Level 2 inspection of this trailer.

This trailer had never been registered and we don’t know who owned it prior to the guy who sold it to us, but this is becoming quite a process to try and get this trailer registered through the DMV so we can have it licensed to be on the road and haul our boat when we get it.  Hopefully this level 2 inspection won’t lead to yet another inspection or some other issues that need to be resolved.

-Justin Germino

I was eating lunch at McDonalds with the kids yesterday and as my wife and I left the restaurant we noticed our son was lagging behind a bit.  He had stayed back to hold the door open for another family that was entering the restaurant and I was struck at how well mannered and thoughtful his reaction was.  I myself do my best to hold the door open for anyone behind or in front of me when exiting or entering a building and I was really glad to see he emulates that behavior himself.  At least some good habits are rubbing off on my kids and my six year old is such a kind and caring child, he is very empathic and displays altruistic tendencies.

It is true that kids emulate their parents behavior, not just in the things we say but in how we act and behave toward one another.  Adults who model disrespect, rudeness, ignorance or bigotry are very likely to pass off these tendencies to their children who will pick up those habits.  Just think on how kids emulate when they hear their parents swear or curse or behave under certain situations.  Remember we as parents are the #1 role models for our children, it is hard to preach what they should be doing and how they should behave if we ourselves contradict what we are trying to teach.

My kids are my main reasons for trying to be the best person I can be, and my weakness is swearing at home.  I am very good about not swearing when working, but off hours my NY tendencies to drop swear words for even the most minor fumbles is something I am trying to cull.  Funny how you can be conditioned to not curse while on a phone at work, yet at home it just comes off so naturally.  My three year old however continues to drop “Damnit” multiple times per day as well as a few other more minor words, but thank goodness no F-bombs or 4 letter words have erupted from his lips.

It reminds me of the Will Ferrell video where he has his daughter Pearl demand rent money, called “The Landlord” on Funnie or Die.com  he has his two year old girl spouting all sorts of curse words and it is so funny how normal he integrates that into his household.  Everytime my three year old swears it reminds me of that video a little bit.

-Justin Germino

The Battle of the Bands show last night went very well with ten bands competing for a grand prize worth over $1200.  The day of the show two bands had backed out giving very little notice which wasn’t too cool, but ten bands was still plenty of competition.

Isrobel was drawn to open the show and their rock and roll filled the Goat Head starting at 7pm.  Paul Kitch played next and just riffed on his guitar for fifteen minutes before giving the stage up to Regicide who came down from flagstaff to wake the crowd up with their Thrash Metal sound.  Losing God, Hi-Fi Beta, The Morning After, Fat Tree, Three Fold Fate and B4T8 (Before The Hate) all played in succession one after the other.  When the last band played we took a few moments to total the judges scores and Fat Tree won the competition by 7 points with B4T8 and Three Fold Fate coming in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

My wife and I got home around 2am and were just exhausted, I just got up to write this post now and will be taking the kids to McDonalds for lunch today.

-Justin Germino

Rock Along Productions which is the production company my wife owns has a grand event tonight in Mesa, AZ at the Goat Head Saloon. This Battle of the Bands pits musicians from all different genres (Rap, Rock, Thrash Metal, Reggae) in a competition where they will be rated by 5 judges. The winning band gets over $1200 in prizes and bragging rights as being able to out perform eleven other bands in one night.

I will be helping run the door and greeting all attendee’s and look forward to seeing all friends and fans of Rock Along Productions and the various bands tonight at the show.

Here are the list of bands competing tonight in Battle of the Bands:

Cigarbox

B4THEH8

Threefold Fate

isrobel

HI-FI Beta

REGICIDE

Losing God

The Morning After

Paul Kitch

Terry and diane mccabe

Fat Tree

A Careless Skyline

Come join us if you live in Arizona, tickets are only $8 at the door and event starts at 6pm and runs until 2am.

-Justin Germino

There are so few new restaurants that open in Casa Grande on a regular basis that when one finally does the whole city seems to flock to give the new joint a taste. Geno’s Pizza had opened last year and must have reached success because Geno’s Famous Philly opened just a few streets over on the same road. Now Geno’s Famous Philly is a place that stands out as unique in the Casa Grande Restaurant scene. Sure you have your sub shops like Blimpies, Subway and Quizno’s and your Italian Pizza places but they really have no restaurants specializing in Philly Cheese Steaks.

My wife and I brought the kids along last weekend and I decided to order a few different entree’s from the menu. Speaking of the menu, they don’t have a large amount of choices but what they had was enticing.

Geno’s Famous Philly with Grilled onions and Cheese Sauce, BBQ Philly, Ruben Philly, Pizza Philly just to name a few of the Cheese Steak specialties. My Kids ordered the Geno’s Italian sub which comes with Ham, Pepperoni, Salami, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onion, Provolone Cheese, Mayo and House dressing.

I ordered one of their 1/4 pound Hot Dogs and one of the Geno’s Famous Philly Cheese Steaks but added grilled mushrooms and green peppers to my sandwich. My wife ordered the same thing as I did but omitted green peppers and added extra onions.

First I though the Cheese Steaks were delicious though the sauce is a cheddar type of cheese rather than provolone which you picture when envisioning a Cheese Steak. It does however capture your taste buds and hold them for ransom for each bite. I was not however satisfied with the Hot Dog, it was very large and thick but I didn’t think the dog itself was particularly flavorful or anything to rave about. The Italian Sub was good (my kids let me try a bit) but I would have preferred they use Genoa Salami instead of hard salami for the salami portion to help even out the flavors of the Italian meats more. The hard salami overpowered the Pepperoni and ham instead of harmonizing with it.

My wife said next time she would like to try with Provolone cheese instead of the Cheddar sauce, but I actually enjoyed the Cheddar sauce and for those who aren’t in the mood for Cheese Steaks you can find Hamburgers, Fish Burgers and even good old fashioned Sloppy Joe on the menu.

All in all I think Geno’s Famous Philly will be welcome in the Casa Grande Restaurant scene and the staff was very friendly and very eager to keep their customers happy. The atmosphere was excellent and the place is off to a promising start.

-Justin Germino

Geno’s Famous Philly

1609 E Florence Blvd
Casa Grande, AZ 85122
(520) 836-9700