Justin Germino Ramblings

I had a plethora of hobbies when I was a child and though many have faded into obscurity as I grew into an adult some still remain and are with me to this very day. I collected GI-JOE action figures, Comic Books (I had Spawn #1 and Xmen #50 at one point), Computers, Nintendo, Role Playing (Dungeons and Dragons) and I even had a period where I did rock tumbling.

Rock tumbling was interesting I used to find rocks in my back yard and put them in one of my rock tumblers for a few days, they would come out all polished and cool looking and I would use the polished stones as treasure that my action figures had to find or protect.

Or I would use the polished stones to represent gems that my D&D players would find when pillaging dragon hoards or dungeons. They added a nice physical element to a cerebral and virtual game and players enjoyed having the tangible item to hold as a reward.

The rock tumblers I used as a kid used to take day’s to polish stones, I think they have gotten faster and more efficient lately, but often when I pass one in a craft store or something I consider purchasing one to see if my son would find it interesting.

Bottom line though is hobbies are very important for kids who need to be kept busy and active, it doesn’t matter what hobby and you shouldn’t judge if a girl likes boy hobbies and a boy likes girl hobbies. So what if your six year old son likes playing with Barbie’s, or your little girl is making dinosaurs eat soldiers. Let them play and role play whatever they want, and as long as their hobbies aren’t dangerous they should be encouraged and supported.

You will be remembered as a parent who encouraged them to try anything new and enjoy hobbies, rather than one that criticized them for what they chose to do and play with.

-Justin Germino

I am all for freedom of speech and how people have a right to be however they want so long as they don’t break laws or force their ways on other people.  However, while dining out at IHOP restaurant here in Casa Grande this morning for breakfast my wife and I and our two year old son sat in a booth next to some of the rudest people we had ever witnessed in a public place.  A mother, husband (or boyfriend) and little daughter probably around three years old were sitting in the next booth to us.

The mom was extremely rude to her little daughter constantly insulting her, spewing curse words including S word, F word and others while talking with her family and on a cell phone call at the breakfast table.  This is all at just before eight in the morning.  I am not typically a judgmental person, I do believe you can’t judge a book by its cover and am full of my own issues and faults so who am I to criticize or critique other people.

However, I just could not help but feel bad for that little girl being talked to so rudely and improperly, in my house that would be considered emotional abuse and I am appalled that people would use such foul behavior and language at a casual restaurant.  It really gave my wife and I a sick feeling in our stomach afterward.

Word of advice, try to reduce your swearing in public places such as dining establishments, businesses…etc.  I grew up in New York where cursing is part of everyday speech, but I don’t spout at certain places and scenario’s, use your judgement where appropriate.  Secondly in raising your kids try to realize that they are people and everything you say and instill with them they will internalize and carry with them for the rest of their lives, you could inadvertantly damage their personalities or instill feelings of worthlessness just by talking and treating them a certain way.  This is true especially when they are little, physical abuse isn’t the only form of child abuse and you should not talk to your children disrespectfully.

-Justin Germino

I will be digging more stuff out of the attic this evening for the Garage sale we will be having on Friday and Saturday morning. It is surprising and amazing just how much stuff one accumulates over the years.

We have only been in this house for almost 4 years and we probably had over a hundred items at the first garage sale two weeks ago and probably will have another seventy or so items at this second garage sale. Everything that doesn’t sell we donate to our local charity who comes and picks it up via truck. We have given probably four hundred items to St. Vincent de Paul over the past two years as a result.

-Justin Germino

Arizona Game and Fish have reported someone has been shooting and slaying Mexican Free-tail bats in an abandoned mine east of Apache Junction. The bats were shot and either killed or left crippled and dying on the ground at the Peralta Trailhead in the Superstition Mountains between April 1st and April 10th.

Over 90 bats have been killed in the shooting incidents and the department is looking for help in identifying the people responsible. Callers may be eligible to receive up to $2,500 for the tip leading to the arrest of the suspects responsible.

Some information on the Mexican Free-tailed bat from Wikipedia:

The Mexican Free-tailed bat is known as one of the most abundant mammals in the US but because they cluster together in huge roosts they are prone to human disturbance from habitat destruction or other environmental disruptions. The largest colony known is in San Antonio, Texas and has an estimated 20 million bats in a single colony.

-Justin Germino

One thing I have found while on this blogging journey I have undertaken seven months ago is that you quickly find out who are very friendly and outgoing people and who really think they are above the rest and don’t really socialize very well. I have found some really amazing bloggers and writers online who have been so helpful in sharing information and engaging in open communication seeing the benefit of teaching and learning from someone joining the party so to speak.

Then there have been some who consider themselves above giving advice or even communicating with someone who is still a little low on the totem pole. You find people like this every day in day to day life, you can tell by the unfriendly glares, the disgusted looks and general unpleasant vibe you get from being around such people.

I just have little tolerance as I get older for the snobby, stuck up and generally unpleasant and angry people who have lost the ability to show compassion and empathy for fellow human beings. They should spend all their time writing Colonix reviews as punishment for being so unsocial and unwilling to be friendly.

Moral of this little post is this, being friendly to others begets friendly responses back in most cases. You never know who you might connect with and you really should be respectful of anyone and everyone that crosses your path.

-Justin Germino

I cannot find the microphone part of my TurtleBeach Ear Force HPA headphones, I unplug the small microphone attachment periodically as sometimes it creates feedback when playing audio in winamp. I have scoured everywhere for it and just cannot find it, this was my best microphone and I just bought it as a replacement for the one my two year old dipped in iced tea back in January.

This little microphone attachment will set me back about $30 if I have to rebuy it, in the meantime I am hard pressed to create any more audio poetry or screen capture demonstrations with only my backup USB microphone which doesn’t have nearly as good recording quality.

It is amazing how when you have little kids stuff just disappears, DVD’s, CD’s, library books, kitchen silverware and gadgets make their way to limbo as a two year old finds and teleports these objects into a random dimension from which they are never to be recovered. It must be the same place that all the missing left socks in the world go to, some sort of black hole.

I will just have to save up some more blog money to buy a new one if I don’t find it by the end of the week.

-Justin Germino

We had a massive yard sale a few weeks ago and much of the leftovers were turned over to charity and whatever they wouldn’t accept we decided to haul to the city dump. There was a surprising amount of left over garbage that was unusable and in poor condition that had been collected by the family for over thirty years. Most of the stuff added to our yard sale came from my wife’s parents and had stuff that was from the fifties and sixties.

If it had not been for my father in law owning his own Nissan truck I would have had to pay for a truck rental to get all the stuff loaded and hauled to the city dump. Fortunately Casa Grande allows residents to dump up to a half ton of garbage for free at the city dump and I was able to get the stuff offloaded.

Meanwhile there is still enough decent items left over to hold one more yard sale and my wife will probably hold one this weekend coming up.

-Justin Germino

One advantage to being able to telecommute for your business is the ability to work from home when you have a bad cold or mild flu. If you are able to work but are sick enough that you would have taken a sick day, you can instead telecommute and know that you aren’t spreading germs around the office and infecting other people.

I would think more companies will leverage the telecommuting option where they can as reducing employee’s from getting sick can increase employee productivity and efficiency which in turns increases company revenue. Many companies still are slow to adopt or take advantage of telecommuting plans and policies and the more companies that jump on the bandwagon the more we will see this become prevalent and a key asset in searching for jobs.

I for one appreciate the telecommuting that is available to me and utilize it to be as productive and efficient as possible, I am not one to slouch and often work nine or ten hour business days to keep on top of my busy schedule. This allows me to work the extra time that I would normally be spending on the road driving, so I can basically use the same amount of time and get more hours of work put in by telecommuting.

Even while I am sick, though I have just a cold so it is not so bad to work, but at least I don’t have to drive into the office and worry about getting everyone else sick in the process.

-Justin Germino

Seriously when my kids take baths or showers together they hang over anything in the tub that they can get their hands on. The safety bars to help you stand become jungle jims and my two year old became obsessed with turning the faucet on and off over and over to make the shower run and stop.

This caused the hangle and rusty bolt holding it in place to snap and come apart, I jury rigged it for now but will probably have to spend some time looking for discount faucets to replace the broken handle.

I am not a plumber, and have rudimentary handy man skills so when I see this faucet it appears to require some plumbing work and caulking to get it replaced, I may give it a go, or I may take the easy route and hire somebody. For now lets see if my jury rig fix holds.

-Justin Germino

I had convinced my wife to use Ubuntu Hardy Heron for over a year but finally she had just had enough, Ubuntu lacked the printer drivers for inkjets, Internet Explorer, Active X, and many other programs that we just could not find equivalents of on Linux. So I spent eight hours yesterday and two hours this morning completely rebuilding her PC as a Windows Vista Home machine.

With 2GB of RAM (Toshiba Satellite can only read 2GB RAM max, and only has 2 bays for 1GB Sticks) the operating system is sufficient and not terribly slow. I miss being able to work openly on a Ubuntu Linux box now, and creating posts on my technology blog will be harder to do now that I don’t have Ubuntu to play around with.

I would dual boot my other machine, but with my 200GB hard drive crashed I only have 10GB of free space left and need to save up to buy a new hard drive.

Score 1 Microsoft and Linux 0 in my household.

-Justin Germino