Justin Germino Ramblings

Despite the economy being what it is, there are still quality jobs to be found out there if you have the skill set and are qualified. Information Technology continues to increase in demand as web sites and internet technologies continue to grow, there are still plenty of programming jobs to find for people who have the appropriate skill sets. You can find specific jobs for Java, C, Python, Ruby, Perl, PHP and other programmers out there.

This is a good time to start teaching yourself programming, this is one career field that is almost completely hands on and can be self taught. You can read books, take tutorials and practice writing programs within a few days and weeks you will be ready to start writing some basic programs. If you work at it, you probably can work toward entry level programming within 6 months depending on how fast you learn and how much time you can devote.

When applying for programming jobs remember one thing, make sure that you have samples of your own work, and that you are experienced enough to be shown lines of code and functions and know exactly what they do as well as be able to explain various ways to accomplish something if asked “how would you do this?”.

There are lots of people vying for the same positions out there so you have to be diverse, competent and really know your stuff to stand out from other people trying for the same positions.

-Justin Germino

As a parent of two boys I really enjoy spending time with them doing various activities which include, lizard and bug hunting, wrestling and play fighting, role playing, and drawing. My kids both love to draw with colored pencils and often the three of us will just sit at a table and draw things for each other. We draw each other monsters, robots, aliens, creatures or whatever else our imagination can come up with.

One thing I do to conserve paper is take standard paper and cut it into quarters, this way I call them paper cards. I do this primarily so my kids don’t waste so much paper, they often draw several small shapes on a large paper, call it done and the paper is wasted. By making smaller sheets, they can draw the same amount and use up 1/4 of the amount of paper.

So today after doing my housework I spent a good 1/2 hour with the boys drawing, I drew a squid in the ocean, and a robot head and torso, while my oldest son draw a few dozen monster parts (he draws arms, legs, heads) and then asks you to pick which ones and he draws a final monster combining the parts.

My two year old will just scribble anything and enjoys just holding the cards I draw him and keeping them like prizes.

-Justin Germino

There are some diet pills that do help you lose weight and fairly quickly, but if you rely solely on diet pills to lose weight, you will not treat the source of the problem and when you stop taking the diet pills, you will inevitably end up back with the same problem in the future.

Diet pills are only really meant to be an augmented supplement to a bigger solution, and that involves cutting down on calorie intake and exercising regularly. Ultimately you need to trim your calories back to only what your body uses which will keep you at consistent weight levels, to lose weight you need to cut back slightly under what your body needs to break even, so that your body will start using the fat reserves in your body for the extra energy.

This means simply put that you will feel hunger as your body adjusts to eating less, this means as uncomfortable as it is, you will have to learn and acquire the mental ability to not eat everything on your plate when eating at a restaurant, or if you do happen to go to a buffet, not load your plate until it looks like a heaping volcano.

You will also have to start out with exercise, this can involve brisk walking, if you have a two story home, you have the advantage of just being able to walk up and down stairs several times over and over, which will provide better exercise than if you walk three times that long around a block since you are actually building your thigh muscles and torso as well.

Akin your weight to an addiction, like someone trying to quit smoking, or pain pills, you will undergo many of the same emotional, physical and mental discomforts and difficulties as someone trying to quit those afflictions. It isn’t going to be easy, but if you have someone who is on-board with you and can work along with you, you increase your odds of success when you are not doing it alone.

-Justin Germino

For some reason for the past two years I get plagued with periodic stomach problems, sometimes this is caused by stress, and sometimes food is a factor. I get these upper stomach pains which almost always lead to vomiting and weakness for the rest of the day. It seems related to my highly acidic stomach and my stomach cannot handle spicy foods anymore. Stress definitely makes me much worse, well as a result of these symptoms I was sick on Friday.

I had to miss one of my work meetings to spend fifteen minutes puking in my bathroom, afterward I was still able to finish out my day working but had to rest most of the night. I drank nothing but fresh bottled water the rest of the day and had a little bit of scrambled eggs that night since I felt some hunger.

I did however wake up with the worst migraine this morning at 3am, and had to take some ibuprofen. I realized that I had not drank any tea in about 16 hours and my body had zero caffeine in my system for almost 3/4 of a day. I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink about 3/4 of a gallon of fresh brewed tea per day, and that has enough caffeine that my body is dependent on caffeine. The migraines I get when I don’t have caffeine are extremely severe and don’t go away until I intake some sort of caffeine.

Ibuprofen does nothing, Excedrin Migraine does but that is because it has caffeine in each pill. Whats worse is that I don’t like that my body has such severe side effects just from not drinking some caffeine. There are other reasons you can get migraines too, I can get them from lack of calories as well which is why mine was a double whammy. Sometimes as a result of not eating (due to stomach bugs mostly) I can get migraines from lack of calories in my system, but usually if I am not eating, it means I am not drinking tea so more likely to be the caffeine omission.

Just another day of physical ailments like many people out there, but I don’t like being a slave to caffeine, and who would have thought that a non-coffee drinker is still addicted to caffeine?

-Justin Germino

With the news reporting the U/V Index rising to 10 tomorrow and temperatures reaching and breaching 110 degree’s in Phoenix starting on Sunday, you have to make sure you are well hydrated. They say that if you drink coffee, soda or other drinks only about 50% of the liquid intake is valuable to the body, whereas if you drink pure water, 100% of the liquid goes toward hydrating your system.

You should always carry around a water bottle with you at all times, and if you are a company a good thing to do is to hand out promotional water bottles to customers and clients as a way to help people remember to stay hydrated and promote your company at the same time.

Its hot out there folks, remember to drink plenty of liquids and stay out of the sun for peak hours between 11am and 2pm, between those times the UV Index is highest and your risk of sunburn, dehydration is also the highest.

-Justin Germino

I usually don’t blog about politics too often, I do think that there are two sides to every story and nobody can really be 100% liberal or 100% republican, that most human beings have some opinions in each camp, and when voting are forced to side with one majority or the other. In fact, I don’t think there should be political parties at all and every politician should be independent and list their own core values without having to subject themselves to a full set within their party.

That being said there is a change in the world of culture and the internet has brought out a kind of ONE society that the youngest generations of the world are sharing, this hybrid culture is based on freedoms of speech and expression is one that several governments are doing the best they can to control and contain with limited success.

What is happening now in Iran is the precursor to a revolution, the people are rightfully tired of their voice not being heard and oppressed by the Government and the more this becomes a majority the likely it is that Iran will have an overhaul of their entire government infrastructure. It is all about numbers and pressure, the people making their peaceful demonstrations and political statements are only further opening the government up to negative exposure the more they try and control and squash the situation.

In the future, and I can’t say whether it will be near or far, enough people will have their voice heard that the existing leadership will have no choice but to either make changes and adopt more freedoms, or a single leader in the opposition will rise to prominence and be installed with the government being overhauled.

Obviously the rest of the democratic world is hoping this turns into a true revolution, one that US and other countries can financially back and lend support to ensure it can win and Iran can convert to a democratic nation. I don’t think it will happen in the next five to ten years, in my opinion I think this demonstration will cause an uproar but not enough to upset and cause major changes in the existing political infrastructure at this time.

Meanwhile, my thoughts, sympathies and support in spirit go out to our fellow Iranians and all others in regions oppressed who try to get their voice heard, continue to break new boundaries and find new ways to get around government restrictions. Leveraging social sites like Twitter and Youtube are brilliant idea’s and show that no matter how hard governments try, voices can find a way to be heard.

-Justin Germino

If you watch the Stemulite news articles on the TrueHealthyProducts.com website they claim that Stemulite which is taken as a supplement to increase muscle mass and lose weight (it is a protein supplement) has the benefit of providing better sleep as well.  If you look at the studies, though only 3% of the people surveyed reported increase muscle mass or decreased weight, nearly all of the people acknowledged that they slept much better since taking the stemulite product.

It is a proven fact that when you add exercise into your daily life your body tends to get better sleep at night, but also studies appear to show that increase protein intake also can lead to better sleep. This might be a healthier thing to try instead of prescription sleep aids like Ambien other chemicals for those who are having a hard time sleeping at night.

-Justin Germino

So last night we took the family to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey: Zing Zang Zoom Circus which came to Phoenix, Arizona for a few days. I hadn’t been to a big circus since I was a young kid in New York, and my wife had never been to a large circus either. We were used to small time town and fair circuses where they have maybe 1 elephant or a single tiger.

My kids really enjoyed the show, the clown acts and dog acts were my kids favorites, I thought the circus was fun for the most part, though Cirque Du Soleil is much more entertaining in my opinion for adults. The human entertainment acts were enjoyable as were the various dogs and their tricks.

What I found difficult was the fact that there are multiple rings and you can’t focus on all three at the same time, so you are left really only watching 1 act while three are going on at the same time in some cases. The animal acts were also entertaining with the exception of the Tigers act.

My wife and I were mortified when we saw the Tiger act on stage, they bring out about a dozen tigers into a caged ring and a trainer with whips convinces the tigers to perform commands like sit, lay down, roll over…etc. The thing that is most disturbing is how clearly the Tigers are afraid and dislike the trainer and the whips, so much so they have to have people throw sand on the tigers from outside the catch to cover the fact that the tigers are spraying and urinating in fear and anger.

The tiger’s cringe and flinch whenever the trainer pokes at them, and when the Tiger does not want to participate they have someone poke the tiger with a metal pole from outside the cage. This was astonishing at what clearly appears to be abuse to make the tigers perform their “tricks”. We were witnessing what appeared to be animal cruelty and abuse, while the audience cheered the trainer on.

As the show ended my family was left with a bad taste in our mouths and we decided that we probably would not attend another Ringling Bros. circus again as we don’t want to support what goes on to condition these Tigers, which clearly are not treated very well, but the rest of the circus was entertaining.

Here is the slideshow from the Circus:

-Justin Germino

After hearing on CNN about Michael Jacksons death and reading that the cause most likely is related to prescription meds in a similar style of death as Anna Nicole Smith, all I can do now is reflect on what I remember of Michael Jackson from my child hood.

Though his personal life was constantly in scrutany, and he may have had questionable contact with children, I am not saying he did or did not do anything inappropriate, just that because of his association with kids he had his reputation all but tarnished (if they were true, then its justified of course).

I remember when I was six years old when Thriller was released and I saw the video for the first time, I was already obsessed with horror films and zombie flicks and seeing this music video that has so much flare and style and is still to this day one of the best music video’s ever made.  I can’t help but feel sad that the world has lost another talented musican and somebody who has contributed to the music art form since he was a small child.  Michael Jackson was an innovator and an artist and will always be remembered as the iconic Pop King he was from the early to mid eighties.

Good Luck Michael, and if there is an afterlife (who knows) and you truly are a decent person (who knows), I hope you are moonwalking on the clouds right now.

-Justin Germino

Exactly 8 days after I shipped my Wii to Nintendo for repair it arrived back in my house with the statement claiming that the broken components have been replaced. I also realized I had left my Wii Fit game inside the Wii, and the company returned my game back to me which I am very thankful for.

So the first thing I did was plug it in and test some games that were failing before and sure enough, my Wii is back to full working order. Thanks to Nintendo for the speedy repair, but I still wish I didn’t have to pay $85 for a repair when my Wii was just barely over a year old and outside the warranty. They should have 3 year warranties on these components, I mean my PlayStation 2 lasted 9 years before finally dying and it never had problems after playing hundreds of games and thousands of hours of being on.

-Justin Germino