Justin Germino Ramblings

It has been a savage week schedule with unforeseen complications that have made it nigh impossible to keep on top of everything going on in my life at the same time.  My catch up time has been at night where I catch up on work and everything else but this has been one of those weeks where you feel like you are trapped in a bus going 70+ miles per hour without any brakes and all you can do is hang on for the ride.

In times of great stress or overbearing and compounding issues that need to be addressed it is critical to take a moment to put things into perspective and find ways to break out everything you need to deal with into smaller manageable chunks that you can put in order of priority.

Thinking thoughts around the following for example:

I know what’s going wrong, what is going right?

You know if you are dealing with stresses what you are upset or struggling with, so take a few moments to focus specifically on what is doing well and what isn’t an issue.  Which things are good, do you have healthy family, something around the horizon to look forward to, or is there something that just is not part of the problem.

What am I thankful for today?

Who and what are you thankful for today, this is in line with what is going right except specifically think about what is a positive influence in your life and something you are glad that you have in your life.

What can I do right now, this minute to help work toward something?

See if there is a little task or action you can perform to make progress toward one of the many things you may have to get done.  Every little bit counts, and block a small amount of time to make progress or contribute to something.

If I can do only one of these items today, which one takes priority?

Sorting out what has to be done and which is essential compared to which can wait a few days is important.  You should try to minimize the feeling of being overwhelmed and know you can catch up over time.

Can I go to bed later, or wake up earlier and get some items done to save time?

I often leverage staying up late while family sleeps or getting up an hour earlier to help make progress and catch up on items, I will do my budget at 6am, or stay up late at night to catch up on work emails…etc.   Sleep is important, but sparing an hour or two a few times a week can make the difference between constantly feeling overwhelmed and feeling on top of everything.

Who can I call to just talk to and get comfort?

They say that just talking to friends, relatives and loved ones 2 times a week greatly reduces stress levels, anxiety and can help with depression.  Even Doctor Oz recommends phoning 2 friends a week just to talk.

Does doing this task really matter?

For those who think housecleaning is uber important, this should be the lowest priority on your list.  Vacuuming and dusting can wait if you have other super high priorities. 

What things do you do to avoid feeling overwhelmed and keep stress at bay?

-Justin Germino

So I don’t know if my readers remembered or not, but we cut back on Dish Network to only minimal channels and receiver only in the main living room to save money.  We then installed Roku XDS boxes in the other rooms so that our kids can watch Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon Prime free video’s and save the money from paying for extra receiver feeds.  It has worked out stupendously, we even use a Roku XDS in our property in CA where I have no live TV at all and no cable or satellite bill (only Broadband).

[easyazon-image-link asin=”B005CLPP84″ alt=”Roku 2 XS 1080p Streaming Player” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RtV9KXtRL.jpg” align=”center” width=”500″ height=”372″]

Well the kids had been making do with just a DVD player in their bedroom, so I decided to pick up a Roku 2 XS since I had some Amazon credit and wanted more options for shows so they could watch Nature, Discovery shows and such while they were in bed time mode.

The Roku 2 XS is the first Roku 2 model I bought and the main reason I chose the Roku 2 XS is the fact that it supports USB as the other models don’t, and I have tons of TV shows on DVD that were bought and I can rip to USB video files to play on the Roku 2 XS.

It also has the motion controller and comes with Angry Birds which the kids were excited about as having that as an extra option.  The Roku XS had some reports of sluggishness, out of memory issues but I didn’t experience any of those things setting it up in my kids bedroom (this is the 3rd Roku now in this house, the 4th one I have bought in the past 2 years).

I have been very happy with the Roku company and it’s devices over the years, I am just wishing that more channels with live News (CNN local) would be available, and actually I have more beef with Netflix not adding new content frequently enough than with anything else.

-Justin Germino

[easyazon-block asin=”B005CLPP84″ align=”center”]

For those who are fans of Where’s my Water the game where you help a poor alligator who’s just trying to take a shower by tunneling a path for the water to follow there’s a new game Where’s My Perry.

Tunnel to help find and rescue Perry the Platypus who has been trapped, it is a fun spin on the game and sure to please any kids who are fans of Phineas and Ferb.  The game is only .99 cents on the Amazon Android app store and is compatible with the Kindle Fire which is a huge plus!

-Justin Germino

So many people wanted to know how to invite all your Facebook friends to an event you might be hosting on Facebook, so I did a test of every single Chrome Extension that claimed to do this and found only 1 that actually worked.  This plugin is $2.99 but worth every penny (unless of course Facebook changes code and renders the plugin useless in the near future).

I did a full video tutorial showing the plugin in action and how I use it to invite all of my 2,500+ followers to my contest giveaways which greatly helps get them noticed and increase participation.  I strive to never send more than 1 event invite per month because I don’t want to spam my fans with event invites and only my big giveaways, never my little ones get an event created.

Here is an overview of the extension to invite all Facebook friends to events:

-Justin Germino

I had a blast testing WP-Hypnolinks which launches this Tuesday and can’t wait to show my readers how it works with a YouTube video I created showing it off.  The plugin does everything I wanted from Ninja Affiliate or the Deep Link module in Ultimate SEO but does it better because it is simply faster and doesn’t hurt pageload times when you load up on links in an article.

It probably is one of the most efficient plugins I have tested and am using it on 4 of my 6 WordPress blogs currently and likely will use it on all of them at some point.  It is a steal at only $47 for it’s intro price and is exactly the right price for performance you would expect for a plugin that is this efficient and helpful.

This plugin will make automatic link building a breeze, and stay tuned for reviews of it on both DragonBlogger.com and WP-Cypher.com in the next few days.  In the meantime, you can sign up for early access and know that there is a 2 day free trial for those who want to try WP-Hypnolinks before they buy.

-Justin Germino

The Dark Tower series was always one of my favorite of all time by Stephen King who managed to pull of a series that was part western, part fantasy, part science fiction, part post apocalyptic and part horror.  Weaving all of these elements with a parallel world that bordered on our own where paradigms, and influences bled through into both worlds.

[easyazon-image-link asin=”0451211243″ alt=”The Dark Tower Boxed Set (Books 1-4)” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qq94OVGzL.jpg” align=”center” width=”388″ height=”500″]

When I finished [easyazon-link asin=”1451658907″]The Wind Through the Keyhole[/easyazon-link] a few weeks ago I hadn’t read or listened to (I prefer audiobooks) the Dark Tower Series since the 7th and final book was published back in 2006.  So imagine my surprise when 6 years later I just “fell” into it and everything came back to me instantly.

The book seamlessly places itself in between the events of Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla and you can read it between books 4 and 5 or simply as a standalone book since it doesn’t reference too much of the overall story arc and is more of a separate story telling much like book 4 itself was.

The events surround Roland and his Ka-tet seeking shelter from a deadly storm and telling the tale when a young Roland Deschane riddled with guilt over the death of his mother and sent on a quest by his father to hunt what may be a “skin man” which is a form of shapechanger (think Werewolf but can take any form) that is murdering villages in a nearby town.

Read by Stephen King himself the audiobook was fantastic and I listened to it on my 13 hour drive to Napa Valley and 11 hour drive back to San Diego, finishing it up on the return 5 hour drive to Arizona.  So all in all was about 20-22 hours of listening time.

Highly recommended if you are Stephen King fan and especially a must read or listen if you are a fan of The Dark Tower Series.

-Justin Germino

[easyazon-block asin=”1451658907″ align=”center”]

My wife and I always joked about my two sons being my DnD minions someday and looks like that day may come sooner than I thought when my 8 year old showed so much interest in finally taking a gander at the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 collection I have and rolling up a character.  He has been playing MMO’s like Runes of Magic, World of Warcraft, Rift and also had played the Dungeons and Dragons board game (with board, pieces…etc) so knew quite a bit about it and adjusted quickly.

My five year old also rolled up a character the other day, and my eldest son chose to roll up a Neutral Human Rogue while my youngest rolled up a Lawful Good Human Fighter. 

I remember how much work I did creating Dungeons and Dragons maps, tables, excel generators (I created the most complicated spreadsheets with vlookup and randbetween to create encounter tables, gem creators and more).

I could create entire full stats NPC’s with a simply F9 key in Excel, or encounters in forest, desert or any terrain setting.

So I went through all my folders labeled "DND" on my computer where I have dozens of excel and word docs all of which have a timestamp of 2001-2004 (none more recent) and I can’t believe it has really been that long since I last played Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper.

-Justin Germino

So in an effort to try and connect more with my wife who has been on a mostly Gluten Free diet (a few slip ups here and there) but now has to really make sure no further slip ups, I have attempted to show my support by living with the same restrictions.

This way I know and can directly relate to the annoyance when you see something you want to eat but cannot, though I am self denying and have no medical reason to do so like she does.

I have of course eaten many gluten free products over the past 5 months mainly because my wife cooks most of the meals and since she went Gluten Free in February of 2012, it meant that any home cooked meals would be gluten free, fortunately I can’t taste a difference they are delicious either way.  It helps that my wife is a trained chef and can really whip up some amazing dishes with wheat alternatives and I do prefer the taste of corn based pasta to rice pasta on occasion, but both do suffice okay.

Bread I find to be the hardest, but Dr Schar makes some amazing rolls, pasta and bread products that are gluten free and pre-packaged, some of it you can get in Fry’s or Walmart but most of it you get on Amazon.com.

So far I am only 3 days Gluten Free and going out to eat is the hardest, I am not sure how long I will be able to commit to this but am really testing myself in seeing how much resolve I have and if I could do it if I had to type of thing.  We wound up cleaning out the cupboards, throwing away cutting boards and making nearly 90% of the pantry Gluten Free except for some staples for the kids, our oldest is completely supportive and at 8 years old was committing to go Gluten Free to help be supportive until he realized it meant no more McDonald’s, then he wavered quite a bit.

Meanwhile, really I should go dairy free, but rice cheese is horribly nasty and don’t like it, though when my wife baked some into some Gluten Free Lasagna it wasn’t intolerable, though the Lasagna still had Ricotta filling and the Rice Cheese was only shredded over the top.

[az_easel item=”B00759X6JG”]

Out of all the wineries and estates my wife and I visited in Napa Valley, V. Sattui was the only one we visited twice (2 days in a row).  It is just that good!

We also visited V. Sattui’s other property the Castello Di Amorosa but that is in a later article.

The V. Sattui estate is unreal, lavish, expansive and inviting.  You first enter and realize there will be no place to park close as it is packed the moment it opens.

The estate has sprawling grass area’s, picnic tables, benches, half barrel tables and several buildings which you can wander freely and explore.  We saw the barrels in the cellar aging and some HUGE barrels.

But, the real appeal of the V. Sattui winery is not only the wine tasting where we had some of the best wines ever sampled (particularly in the dessert wine category which happens to be my wife and my favorite type of wines), but they also have a fresh deli and cheese counter where you can find hundreds of unique cheeses, meats and deli items to feast upon.  It takes a long time and you have to get a number, so come early and prepare for 20 minute or longer wait until your turn to order (except for grabbing cheeses).

The Wensleydale with Cranberries was one of the best cheeses I ever had the pleasure of tasting in my life.  The smoked Gouda was also amazing, and over both days we sampled 11 wines and 7 cheeses from V. Sattui winery alone!

The Angelica, Gamay Rouge and most emphatically the Madeira were so amazing that we bought a bottle of each and 2 bottles of the Madeira.

Our second winery we stopped at in Napa Valley during our day excursion was Stags Leap Winery, my wife was very excited about visiting one of the famous vineyards that won against the French wines in the 1976 Judgment of Paris which was of course rekindled by the movie Bottleshock.

In doing some research I read on the wiki that Stags Leap winery was sold in August 2007 to a joint venture for $185 million dollars!

Overall the winery had the least to see, it is an attractive property but there was no barrels, caves or particular tour of interest. It was all about tasting and Cabs were the main item of attraction.

My wife and I both wound up linking their Cabernet Sauvignon and taking a few bottles home with us as purchase.

The experience was a tad rushed, instead of bringing the wine out one glass/pour at a time with some history about each wine, the server instead poured all 5 glasses in our tasting and just gave a very small intro to each one.  This was the only winery we visited that the whole tasting was done and we were out in about 20 minutes.

-Justin Germino