Justin Germino Ramblings

I was very nervous about my performance review at work today as my review was scheduled for 10 in the morning.  I kept checking one of my Torgoen watches as it seemed like the minute and second hands were standing still.  I had worked very hard all year doing dozens of projects some of them spanning many months, but being the perfectionist I am I did not know how my review would come out, maybe I didn’t work hard enough or was accurate enough.

My fears were alleviated shortly after my review, I received among one of the best reviews anyone could hope to receive and I breathed a sigh of relief.  There is nothing like renewing your happiness and commitment to the company you work for like being shown you are appreciated.

-Justin Germino

I actually had among the most pleasant leasing experiences from Chrysler Financial compared to other leasing companies, but as I turned in my lease this week they company deemed I had no wear and tear costs. This was amazing since there was some windshield dents, a long set of scratches from someone keying my car in the airport parking lot, and a rusted small section of the bumper.

I did however get hit with an almost $900 turn in fee for my lease, disposition fee and over mileage means I paid almost $900 just to turn in my vehicle. A friend of mine paid over $4,500 to turn in his lease once they added up over-mileage and wear and tear on the vehicle.

Even with the company offering to reduce the total price of the vehicle, I would have overpaid like $12,000 for the vehicle if I bought it after the lease came up. Had I financed the vehicle to keep from the start, I would have been better off, but most people lease for the same reason I did and that is to keep the monthly payment low.

So in order to keep costs down and get ahead in this difficult economy we have decided to consolidate to a single vehicle and at least go the rest of the year with only a single car. This is doable because I telecommute from my job 99% of the time, and I can carpool on days that I need to go into the office.

I would suggest everyone out there thinking about getting a lease, you will owe hundreds if not several thousand when you turn your vehicle in. It is not cost efficient and you will get burned, avoid a lease just to save some money on monthly car payment, you will pay much more for it in the end.

-Justin Germino

Last night for the first time in seven years my wife, two friends and myself sat down in our living room and rolled up some Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 characters.  I have been missing my favorite hobby for nearly a decade and it felt a little awkward opening books and volumes that had collected dust.

I have always been a fan of role playing games, especially ones that involve real life interaction with people and friends.  There is something you get as part of a gaming group in person that you don’t get playing anonymously online.  Role playing is something my kids will grow up knowing and help them in many aspects of their lives.

So now I have books, charts, maps and tables that I need to relearn and update over the next few days as we prepare for our first adventure that I have Dungeon Mastered since before my kids were born.  I am excited and nervous at the same time about this new prospect.

-Justin Germino

I haven’t worked out in about three days, and I feel guilty and physically unhappy as a result. I actually am in a better mood after sweating and being breathless for an hour or so, I feel depressed and blue when I go too long without working out. You would think I was a highly conditioned athlete, yet I am still what I would consider slightly overweight and needing some toning, primarily in my stomach area only.

I was dismayed when I weighed myself on Wii Fit last week and saw that I had gained 6 pounds since September of last year, I was at my best down to a trim 158, and now crept up to 164. My 32 pants are tight and my 34’s are too comfortable again, but this is much better than my worst point of size 40 just over two years ago when I was 207 pounds.

My weakness is eating, my family enjoys eating breakfast, it is kind of like a tradition. We love to dine out, and IHOP, Denny’s, Mimi’s and all the local breakfast joints are why I am consuming 1500 calories as my first meal and I should not be. That topped off with working out less due to busy schedules and I have added some weight.

I just need to be more conscious in my decisions and force myself to find time to keep my body toned and fit, if you neglect yourself you will break down, much like if you neglect a car or a house. Your body is no different, feed it the right fuel, work it out, don’t neglect your body or you will have a much lower quality of life as you enter middle and old age.

But saying the words and acting are two different things, now I am not nearly at the point where I would start looking at taking strong weight loss pills, but I am at the point where I need to start calorie cutting again. One of my greatest weaknesses is food and it is a constant battle not to overeat or eat more calories than I should.

Just thought I would share this, I am one of the many thousands who battle with fitness and weight every day in the world.

-Justin Germino

With my family being rear ended this morning while taking my son to school, I can’t help but reflect that people need to not take driving privileges for granted.  We are talking about large metal vehicles weighing thousands of pounds at our fingertips.  It is all too important that we treat driving like a responsibility and give it the respect it deserves, this means nobody should be text messaging while driving, nobody should be using a phone unless it is a hands free headset, and even then you can get distracted.

Drivers should always pay extra attention and not engage in conversations where you are looking at your passengers and taking your eyes off the road, it is easier to say all of this than do it, but it could be someones life you take if you make the mistake.  Minor accidents are common, but so is accidentally hitting a kid or person crossing the street, fortunately my family drives as safely as possible.  We have never been the cause of an auto accident in more than a decade of driving, however we were “hit” 3 times in 5 years, twice by rear end collisions and once by someone T-boning us who ran a red light at 40mph and hit the side of our vehicle.

So today we take that only our property is a little damaged, nobody was injured in either car, but it could have been worse.  Had the guy been going faster, or maybe somebody not wearing their seatbelt, there could have been a neck injury involved.  Be careful driving out there, and for those of you who are careful, you need to not only watch how you are driving but be aware of everyone around you.  This is hard to do, but never assume someone will stop at a red light or a stop sign, always slow down at intersections a little to make sure nobody is going to blow through one.

Be safe drivers,

-Justin Germino

This is the last week of February and at the time of this writing my blog has 18 votes so far on BlogNetAwards. If you haven’t voted yet and you think my blog worthy of your vote, I would appreciate you taking the time to VOTE FOR JUSTIN GERMINO on BlogNetAwards. There is a video on the right bar which shows you how to vote (I made the video).

It is really simple, just click on “Log In”, if you don’t have an account you can just click register.
Anyone can create an account you don’t have to have a wordpress blog, all you need is an email address.
Register, sign in and then go back to my vote page and click on the # of stars you rate my blog.

If you think my blog is worth 10 stars, click on the 10th star to the right.

It is simple, and your vote is appreciated.

I am offering 500 Entrecredits to anyone who votes for me, just leave me your blog URL and/or EC profile URL in the comments.

-Justin Germino

There is so many types of music and as an art form everyone likes or dislikes whatever works for them. I don’t agree with people just saying music isn’t good because all art is an art, and if it isn’t your taste that is really just that one persons opinion. Clearly people like just about anything, from any genre of music to the manufactured record label pop that is mass produced and played to death on the radio. It is still an art either way you look at it.

Working for my wife’s music production company has broadened my horizons on music, over the past year I have heard over a dozen local bands in Arizona and have a much greater appreciation for musicians and the “little guy” trying to get their stuff out there. Some of my latest music tastes come random from all over the category map.

One such song is “Sweet About Me” by Gabriella Cilmi, which I heard on Octane Hits the other day and the song stuck in my head so I had to listen to it some more. It has a unique style, an almost oldies feel to it. Her voice reminds me a little of Macy Gray.

“Love Lockdown” by Kanye is another song that gets stuck in my head, not sure why, but I had to play it like 30 times in one day just so I would stop hearing it my head.

I have always liked Everlast and wound up listening to his 2008 album (I didn’t even know he released one) called “Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” I really enjoyed his previous albums, some of the best songs like “Babylon Feeling” and “Black Jesus” were excellent tracks.

Shinedown has some great tracks from older and newer albums, I find when I work out that White Zombie’s Astro Creep album is among the best music you can work out to. “More Human Than Human” is my favorite White Zombie song of all time.

I listen to a bit of everything, Sting of course is my favorite musician and I never get sick of listening to the Sacred Love album, or Ten Summoner’s Tales.

-Justin Germino

This weekend my wife and I had a fairly large list of chores to do including going through all of our five year and two year olds clothes sorting what can be transfered from the older boy to the younger one, and what goes into storage because its too small for my toddler to wear.  It is amazing how fast children grow, I wonder why I ever bought more then five or six pairs of clothes as we had thirty or fourty shirts and pants that were outgrown within a year.  This took about an hour to complete including redoing the bookshelf in my son’s room, but before we took on this chore I took on one of the most difficult chores I didn’t anticipate.

We had some of the caulk between our kitchen counter and wall coming apart so we figured buy a tube of caulk, caulk gun and recaulk the entire kitchen countertop and bathroom shower ourselves. This appeared to be much easier said then done. In stripping the old caulk and applying the new caulk we quickly learned that spreading the caulk evenly and smooth is very difficult and when you press it to smooth it, it leaks out and smears over the wall and countertop.

Needless to say we stripped the whole first layer and redid it, wetting your finger prior to spreading helps smooth the caulk, but the smear spread on the countertop and wall are hard to prevent. I wound up having to use a razer and trim the caulk after it all dried and was painted over. This whole task took nearly two and a half hours and was extremely frustrating.

I did read after the fact that using painter’s tape can help keep the caulk to specific area’s you want to caulk, but for the future I think I will buy the caulk and just pay a professional to apply it, it is worth the cost of labor to have the caulk applied by someone with experience. Unless you are extremely patient and willing to try and try again, do not attempt to do this yourself. In fact, I would practice for at least 1/2 hour on wooden boards in the garage before trying it for real.

I am literally exhausted now and have turned to blogging while my wife went out to get a pedicure and manicure to relax a little bit after today’s chore fest.

-Justin Germino

I like many people were trying to find ways of making money on the side at home besides my full time day job. I didn’t want to take on a full second job where I would be spending even more time away from my kids, so I was looking for part time stuff that I can do from home online at night while the kids were asleep. Something that would allow me not to lose time with my family yet still bring in something on the side. Last year I was introduced to Inbox dollars by a blog site about making money online. I decided to sign up and try it, this site will pay you for reading (acknowledging) emails, completing surveys, signing up for free offers and sometimes for playing certain games.

Can you make money from it? The answer is yes but again this is something that will not make you rich quickly, you only get paid about 2 cents per Inbox dollar email you get sent, so this takes a long time to add up. You also get the most money by signing up for free stuff, and for doing surveys. The surveys can be 30 minutes long and pay you $1 – $3 dollars on average per survey, so realistically you average somewhere between $3 and $5 per hour of dedicated work on InboxDollars.

Now if you truly spend time doing all the things in the system you can make some money, they cut you a check by mail when you reach $30. I wish they used Paypal and made payments in $10 increments, I have between $15 and $20 in my inboxdollars account now, but I don’t do any surveys or sign up for any free things. I just do the email thing, so that is just from occasionally clicking on the follow through link of an email to get the credit.

I have seen some people claim they can make $50 – $100 per month leveraging inbox dollars, and I can see how this is possible. You have to be real good about signing up for free stuff, and remembering to cancel so your credit card doesn’t get charged later. Those kind of free trial things give you the big bonus amounts, and you can easily get $40 or $50 in one week by doing those type of sign ups. At the risk and inconvenience of filling out forms and having to cancel it later, or if you find legitimate stuff like if you were going to order a credit report anyway, why not get the extra $8 refunded via inbox dollars…etc

Being the fact that I make only about $1.20 per hour blogging, InboxDollars can equal or exceed that if you are looking to try and make a small increment of money from your own home. For me, I prefer blogging because I can share my opinion, my voice, build interaction with an audience. InboxDollars is a lot of effort for a little bit of money but you can do it from your own home and after hours and it may be useful for some people. If you are interested, click on the link at the top of this email to give them a try. They do give you $5 in your account just to start out, but remember you have to reach $30 to get this payout, so don’t think you can just sign up and get the $5. It takes some effort. Honestly some people make more from Inbox dollars than google Adsense easily, I earn about $1 per month just from clicking on email links. Which is about 60 seconds of effort a day at most.

If you are already using Inbox dollars, I want you to share your opinion of it, do you find it more or less useful than I described?

-Justin Germino

I can tell you from personal experience and from my heart that “The Arts” in all their form “Music, Theater, Paintings, Crafts, Games…etc” are vital in a child’s life. Exposing children to arts and creativity unlocks potential and mental ways of thinking you wouldn’t believe. Music especially helps children socially, logically, intellectually and emotionally in ways that forever shape the way they think in the future. My son for instance is only five and is only his 2nd week of drum lessons, he can know the difference between a quarter note, eighth and sixteenth notes. He can hit his snare drum in a pattern to those notes, he can read in silent notes and know when to pause his hits. His counting has always been very good but his grasp of timing and mathematics behind musical notes astounds me at how fast he can pick it up and learn.

Every child in this country should be encouraged to learn how to play a musical instrument, any musical instrument. They should be taught to read sheet music and experiment with a few instruments (Guitar, Flute, Drums, Trombone) whatever they want. The younger the age the better as they will develop that sense of creativity and understanding that will make it easier for them in the future. There are studies that show that music students are much better at mathematics, testing and even in problem solving. Kids who are creative with music have less stress, less depression, less tendency to turn to drug use, (don’t let the rock music folks fool you). Not just music but art in general, let them paint with oils or acrylics, let them sculpt in clay. Buy them a pack of high quality modeling clay that you can bake and make their creation a permanent decoration for their bedroom. Expose them to local museums and art shows if you are able, especially go out and see free live local music bands for all ages audiences.

The more things you expose your kids to the more “Worldly” they will become and more educated, creative and open minded they will become. The less they are exposed to the more rigid and closed their world will be, and it is harder as an adult to open your mind than to have it open as a kid and let it stay that way throughout your entire life. I like all sorts of gaming, but some games are better than others, I can justify Role Playing games for children more than hackem/killem games. Role playing games they have hit points, magic points, skills, points, numbers…etc

My five year old goes around pretending his toys are certain levels and he will tell me one has between 10 and 20 hit points and another does 6-15 points of damage. He understands ranges of numbers, and at 5 he can count to one hundred almost flawlessly. I mentioned before we rudimentary role play where I roll dice during a story to see if he hits or misses, or does whatever and he has to read me the numbers or add them together. This type of role playing and rolling leads to him learning to count faster, and numbers come very easily to him.

Children need hobbies, passions and encouragement for anything artistic and creative, if they are the lazy type, then help push them along a bit. Convince them to give something new a try, one free class for an instrument, try it for 4 weeks, then you can try something else. Don’t ever force to where they are unhappy, crying or just miserable, but don’t let laziness get them out of trying something new and different. The more you experiment and try to expose them, some of it will stick and later in life they will thank you for exposing them to it.

You will hear “Yeah my mom had me try drumming, guitar, clay modeling, painting, soccer, volleyball, swimming classes…etc” and today I like and enjoy doing those things as a result of my mom exposing me to it, or getting me to try it as a kid.

You shape your children s future and you want it to be filled with open creativity and happiness, because they will find what they “want” to do faster and easier if you expose them to as much that is out there as possible.

Just some of my parental opinions.

-Justin Germino