Justin Germino Ramblings

I have become a regular contributor for Ya’Sou Ezine and they gave me the editorial position of “Resident Blogger”. This magazine puts out a fine collection of artistic works by people in the community and accepts submissions from poets, writers and artists from all over. In this issue I wrote an article called “Challenge Yourself Creatively” which encourages other literary artists to keep challenging themselves to hone their literary skills.

I encourage everyone who is a fan of literature, poetry and art to check out Ya’Sou Ezine and read my article and let me know what you think.

-Justin Germino

After reading several days ago about how Hula Hoop exercises are 150% more efficient and burn more calories than almost any other aerobic activity save for vigorous swimming, I decided to revise my Wii Fit routine.  Seriously, apparently 1 minute of intense Hula Hooping burns as many calories as an 8 minute mile.  We are all looking for best “Bang for the Buck” the least amount of time spent working out with the maximum impact for weight and physical fitness.  Hula Hooping also is better at helping lose belly fat and trimming waistlines faster than running, jogging and walking.

So now I start off every morning with a 6 minute Advanced Hula Hoop on Wii Fit, and after 3 minutes of gyrating in each direction I seriously start feeling a burn and my heart start racing.  By Saturday I will bump it up to 10 minutes (5 in each direction) and it should help even more.  I don’t work out on my Wii fit as much as I should, I still bench weights 3 days a week, but my cardio routines on Wii Fit have slipped, now I have ramped them up to include my ideal morning set.

I try to do this every morning between 6 and 7am before taking my boy to school.

• Advanced Hula Hoop 6 minutes
• Bridge (1 set)
• Cobra (1 set)
• Jack Knifes (30 set)
• Push up and Side Plank – (20 set)

This combo of 5 Wii Fit activities takes about 25 minutes to complete and really leaves me feeling both muscle burn and heart racing. I recommend anyone with Wii Fit to try this routine and see how it works for you, if you are not ready to take on such long sets, do the same activities but on the lowest rep settings.

Overall, 269 days after having Wii Fit I still think it is a great product, I am looking forward to more intense workout software for the Wii.  I do wish the Wii balance board was wider however, when doing Push Up and Side Planks my arms aren’t spaced out as far as they should be.

-Justin Germino

Ok, so many of you know that I was involved in an auto accident a few weeks ago. Another driver rear ended my car at an intersection, claimed he was insured and provided insurance to the police. It turns out the driver had let his insurance lapse just 2 weeks prior to the accident and is uninsured, now I would have to pay $500 from my own deductible to file through my own insurance company.

I had been involved in uninsured auto accidents before, 2 out of 3 times I was hit the other driver was not insured. I never received subrogation money back from my previous times. There has to be harsher penalties for uninsured drivers, and there has to be a more accurate way to validate insurance. A system where insurance cards can be scanned and instantly validated if the policy is still “valid” or has lapsed.

That other driver should have gotten a citation for failure to own insurance, but because he had a card that made it appear he was covered, he never was cited. This really bothers me, and I was so furious I felt like spewing epithets from my mouth like water flows through Moen faucets. So I am going to get a damage estimate and send the other driver a copy of the bill. I will pursue the filing in small claims courts to determine if I can somehow get this settled without having to pay a deductible to do it.

Seriously 3 accidents in 3 years that were both caused by other drivers crashing into our vehicles and 2 of the 3 are uninsured? Insurance is supposed to be mandatory, how do so many people drive without it?

-Justin Germino

Thanks to all of my fans and readers who voted to make this blog the winner of the February 2009 BlogNetAwards. I have promoted BlogNetAwards before and can’t tell my readers enough that if they run their blogs, they should get them nominated here. Everyone should participate and vote, comment and nominate on others blogs.

Just for commenting and voting you get entered in a drawing where you can win cash, entrecard credits or advertising space every month. BlogNetAwards continues to grow more and more rapid and I anticipate it will continue to thrive and attract bloggers as well as sponsors and larger entities.

It has all the makings of a great awards sites and the best part is the people who run BlogNetAwards are very approachable and easy to work with, they love feedback and suggestions and are very active in the blogging and social network arena. This is why I have done a few demonstration video’s to help promote their site such as how to comment & vote, and how to add their widget on your wordpress blog.

Thank you BlogNetAwards and thanks to my readers and votes. You do win $100 CAD for being named Best Blog of the Month, so that earnings will go into my blog fund and be put toward future blogging endeavors.

-Justin Germino

So remember when I posted how our seven year old refrigerator broke down three days before Christmas and we had to go out and buy a new fridge. Well this week I finally am paying off that fridge free and clear, and at over seventeen hundred dollars that Stainless Steel Whirlpool refrigerator cost me as much as if I were buying engagement rings seriously.

But the new fridge works well and has a nice warranty, I paid to have it replaced or repaired for free if anything goes wrong with it in the next two years, there isn’t even a service fee or deductible. So far it is working out very well for us, I finally did get the $79 rebate card back from Lowes, they give you the installation back as a prepaid VISA card. It took about four weeks to get it once I filled out the rebate form and sent it in.

Just an FYI for all you families out there, remember household emergencies do happen. Appliances break down and there needs to be repairs, so it is a good idea to keep a savings to cover these incidentals, or else you will end up having to finance a replacement or be stuck making payments.

-Justin Germino

We took the kids to the Phoenix Children’s Museum for the first time on Saturday and I have to say it was so much fun. First of all everything in the museum is hands on and lets the kids get down and dirty for hours. We spent a total of three hours there and there are three floors with several rooms on each floor devoted to a variety of activities that will get your kid interested and playing.

The first room has various tubes on the wall with air flowing through them, kids can put in plastic balls, or silk like cloth to watch them shoot through the tubes. Similar to office mail room tubes, they can even work on a table to build their own PVC tubing and control the flow of air and suspend balls in mid air. This room also has a large crawling pit for the little ones, my five and two year olds spent almost a full half an hour in the first room of the place.

The next room was full of arts and crafts, you get to work with your kids with paper, scissors, cardboard and can create robots, there are paints and paintbrushes and a house structure that kids can put an apron on and just go wild painting this large wooden house in the middle of the floor.

Other rooms included a hallway filled with foam tubes that you have to push your way through, like a corn maze with nothing hollowed out. There are various kitchens with full playsets, an entire grocery store with check out lines, tons of real cans and food boxes where kids can offload a truck, weigh their products, check them out, put them in bags…etc.

The list goes on, literally hours and hours of fun for little and bigger kids and the best part of it is that you get to watch them use their imagination like crazy. Almost all of the materials used in the entire museum are made out of recycled materials as well and you notice this on every exhibit.

It truly was a fun place to visit, and at $9 per person you get to spend as much or as little time as you want there for the price of taking the kids to see a movie at the theater. But no theater movie can match this experience.

I recommend if you live in the Greater Phoenix area and you have kids under 10 you should definitely take the time to visit, it was a blast.

-Justin Germino

This year we want to take the whole family on a little getaway during summer vacation and we haven’t decided what to do yet, I am thinking about maybe a weekend at the beach in California, or perhaps four or five days over at one of the cabin’s up north at the Rim where we can do some fishing, hiking and general break away from the heat activities.

We did go to Disneyland a few years ago when my son was two, and realized that two is a little too young to take advantage of most of the rides and activities. But if you are going to Disneyland I recommend you stay at an Anaheim California hotel it is cheaper than staying at a hotel on premises and many of them have shuttles to Disneyland.

Either way, I think trying to have one family vacation per year is a must. It doesn’t have to be expensive just do something different, take your family and kids somewhere new, expose them to some new activities and scenery, and you will be surprised at how much they remember these trips. My son asks for months the next time he can go up to the lake to catch and squish crayfish with rocks, or when he can go looking for bullfrogs.

When my children are older I want to expose them to the world in ways I didn’t have the luxury or opportunity when I was a child, I want them to have a cruise, visit Europe and experience the world. I think it builds character and helps them expand their minds and views on everything in life as a whole.

As a kid growing up I had very few family vacations, two of the only ones I remember well are when we went to Salem, MA around Halloween and the whole town was decked out in full grim fare, it was a blast. The other time was in West Palm Beach, where we really didn’t do much but stay at a hotel.  I never visited any theme parks except Six Flags in New Jersey, I had a few camping trips and really enjoyed those but maybe 4 or 5 times in my whole childhood that I can remember.

-Justin Germino

Most kids, especially those with outgoing personalities are instinctively trusting of strangers and people in general. Even children who are shy tend toward trusting adults and most often women even if they are strangers. As kids an adult is intimidating and an automatic authority figure, little children always assume by default that adults are the authority and need to be taught that not all adults are treated equally.

When teaching young children, especially three and four year old preschool children about strangers you don’t want to sugar coat the dangers of real life, but you don’t want to overly frighten them either. You have to explain to them on their level about good people and bad people.

My son was always into super heroes and had a clear Good Vs Evil concept in his head, but we had to explain to him that bad people don’t always look like bad people, you can’t tell by the clothes they wear, or the way they act. Bad people can act and look like good people and still think like bad people, so you should never trust a stranger. We have told our children that you always be polite in saying Please, Thank You, and Hello if spoken to. However, unless the person is one of your family you never go with a person, or answer any questions that probe.

Kids have good instincts and I let them trust those instincts as well, if you are uncomfortable talking to someone say excuse me and that you aren’t supposed to talk with strangers. Explain to your young children to never accept items from a stranger who offers them candy, money or treats without asking mom or dad or a family member first. If no family member is around say “No, Thank You” my mom isn’t here and I can’t accept anything without my parents knowing about it.

Don’t try to have one 30 minute sit down session with your young kid at once, do like weekly reminders. Once a week set a good 5 or 10 minutes aside to pop quiz your child in hypothetical what-if scenario’s. Role playing with your children is the best way for them to understand the different types of scenarios that can happen, so they can see and anticipate how to react to them. Remind them often until they answer 100% of the time and are sure and confident of themselves.

There are too many dangerous people out there, and it is imperative that we all teach our children to be careful and wary around people they don’t know.

-Justin Germino

I consider myself an artist of sorts, and literature or more specifically poetry is my art form.  I cannot paint, draw or sculpt very well but I can craft imagery with my poetry.  My poems though they might be considered freeform and not “professional” in a style sense they often invoke powerful imagery or emotions and are drawn from that.  My inspiration could come from anything from an event that happens in my life, to a word or conversation someone has with me.  Often my inspiration comes from news or media stories, or even my own brain just having a thought.

Since I started blogging and sharing my poetry with the world I have become more confident and inspired as a writer, I originally had all of my poetry stored in a dusty book on my dresser, where I was hoping it would get published someday.  But sharing it with the world has meant so much more than the few bucks I could have made selling them and only reaching a small handful of people, I regularly have people who play my random twitter poetry game and people look forward to what I will come up with next.

So everyone should have some inspiration or something artistic in their lives, give your mind a creative outlet of any type.  If you enjoy writing, then write whatever you want even if its just for fun or nonsense.  If you want to draw, then draw anything that makes you happy.  Let your creativity out and consider sharing some of it with the world it gives you a sense of satisfaction that you don’t get from it just sitting in your own posession unappreciated and untouched.

Just some of my opinions today.

-Justin Germino

Knowing the difference between sensitive teeth and a tooth that is dying could save you days and weeks of discomfort. The initial symptoms experienced when a tooth is dying are very similar and easy to miss, this could cause someone to delay going to a dentist until their symptoms are much more severe.

Nobody should have to be in pain if they don’t have to so use the following information to help determine if you may have a dying tooth.

The number one symptom is tooth sensitivity, cold or hot liquids or solids touching the tooth will produce a sharp pain that can quickly fade once the temperature around the tooth normalizes. If you have sensitive teeth you should try to use a specific toothpaste for sensitive teeth which fills in the gaps in the enamel. If this does not provide relief after a few days, this could very well reveal you have a dying tooth.

More advanced symptoms of a dying tooth can include:

Numbness – The tooth and surrounding gums can become numb and have almost no feeling whatsoever, if you feel numbness, use a toothpick to touch and test to determine the extent of the numbness. See your dentist if you experience this stage to have the tooth x-rayed.

Discoloration – The tooth may take on a grayish or yellowish tinge as the decay happens and the tooth dies off. This is not necessarily always the symptom of a dying tooth, since stained teeth can be discolored as well. This symptom in itself is only a concern if combined with other symptoms, or this tooth specifically is discolored noticeably more than other teeth around it.

Pain – Constant pain in the tooth or surrounding gums could indicate infection, swelling or an abscess in the tooth or surrounding area. This could be an infected tooth, not necessarily dying one, but if you have this symptom you should be getting your tooth examined as your symptoms could get much worse. If you have a dying tooth infection can set in as the tooth pulp dies and the tissue becomes infected. This almost always leads to pain and an abscess swell in the gum and tooth center.

If your only symptom is tooth sensitivity that isn’t cleared up within three days of using a sensitive toothpaste, then you should see a dentist to have the tooth x-rayed and examined to determine if the tooth is damaged. worn enamel on a tooth doesn’t indicate that the tooth is dying, but if there was trauma to the tooth or a cavity in the tooth, the nerve of the tooth may be injured and dying.

I highly recommend you read the Wikipedia Entry Tooth entry as well, if you want to learn all about the parts of a tooth and the varieties of tooth symptoms and issues.