Justin Germino Ramblings

It was really a blast setting up Facetime and talking with my kids and wife between our 2 iPad devices.  This really is what the future of video calls will be and I took my family on a video tour of the CA home holding the iPad like a movie camera and walking them through each room and feature.

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Ironically when I was showing my kids the bedrooms (since they haven’t been up to the new place yet), my wife noticed the bed was made and was like “You made the bed?” I was responded that I wasn’t a slob when by myself but truthfully it is much easier to make a bed when you are only using 1/2 of it and it involves just folding the sheet/blanket back over the wedge you unfolded.

I can’t talk enough about how cool Facetime is on the iPads, I have seen people using it to talk to each other over iPhone’s and it really shines when you have 2 people on an iPad.  The camera resolution of course needed to be better, if the iPad camera was 8MP like the iPhone 4S will be then it would be outstanding.  Perhaps a little LED light in there too just so you can see each other in dimly lit rooms.

But hey, these are minor quips and I am sure the iPad 3 will have a better camera and maybe some flash/light capabilities built in right?

So I am now officially a Facetime fan, and we did about 5 Facetime calls during my 3 day stay in CA before my family could come up and join me.  The kids really enjoy it and seeing them to say goodnight is infinitely better than just saying it on the phone.

-Justin Germino

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I have noticed that with caching and other tweaks my site performs fairly well, not great but fairly well.  Pingdom.com shows DragonBlogger.com loading in 5.6 seconds and Google Performance testing tool gives it an 88/100 which isn’t bad but not in the 90+ range I want to be in.

One thing I really notice and this is very apparent when I go comment on other WordPress blogs using CommentLuv is that my blog feed is terribly slow responding.  The homepage and posts aren’t, but the feed itself is so slow it often times out on the CommentLuv check (Even CommentLuv Premium).

I manually tested and show that it is very slow, it is almost like there is a delay and then once it gets passed it the feed loads fast.  I can’t tell if there is queuing or something on the database layer but it is really bugging me so I need to work on improving the performance.  I considered maybe building a redirect statement to send the feed to Feedblitz but not sure if that would work or break my feed.  I should probably test it at some point.

Meanwhile, I am continuing to test some new performance plugins and try various options to improve my blog speed.  I found some really helpful articles online and am going to test out a few things I haven’t tried before.

These are 3 of the articles I read recently, though much is information gleaned from other sites there is some new info on each site that I considered.

http://wpmu.org/speeding-up-your-wordpress-website-11-ways-to-improve-your-load-time/

http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/01/27/13-most-robust-wordpress-plugins-to-speed-up-your-blogs-loading-time.html

http://bradblogging.com/tutorials/speed-wordpress-up-3-times-as-fast-under-a-minute/

Has anybody noticed a performance issue specifically with their blog feed (served from WordPress not Feedburner or Feedblitz)?

-Justin Germino

Australian company EnviroMission wants to bring the a Solar Tower to Arizona at a cost of $750 million dollars that can stand for at least 80 years and is projected to be able to generate up to 200 megawatts of power per day (enough for 100k homes).

This solar tower stands 2600’ tall and would be the 2nd tallest structure in the world if this project is approved and starts construction.  The tower has 32 turbines in it that capture hot air as it rises from the base of the tower which spin the turbines and which generate mechanical energy which is converted to electricity by generators.

It is a completely Green project, there are 0 emissions as the only thing powering this Solar Tower is air.  The base around the tower is covered in a football field sized canopy that helps trap heat near the ground and allow it to funnel into the tower itself.  Because the ground stays hot even at night the Solar tower generates power all day long all the time, unlike Wind turbines or Solar panels which operate part time under specific conditions.

A much smaller Solar Tower was constructed in Spain and lasted 7 years during the testing while it provided 50 kilowatts of electricity per day.

This project would bring in up to 1,500 construction related jobs for up to 2 years as well as 35 full time jobs to maintain the Solar tower.  Some speculate that the company is overestimating the amount of Megawatts the tower can generate but given the extreme heat of Arizona and the desert, it may meet expectations.

The plant has an extremely low operating cost once completed due to being powered strictly from air.

What do you think, should this project be approved and put in Arizona?  I myself think it should be done and this could be far more cost effective and produce more power than Solar panel fields.

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It will be a relaxing fall break as the family spends some time in our new vacation property over in Encinitas California.  This will be the first time the kids and Grandma are seeing our 2nd home which is our getaway from the AZ heat and only a 5.5 hour drive away.

We will spend a full week there and take the kids to the San Diego Zoo and Legoland for their birthdays since we are between their birthdays and these were being done instead of a birthday party this year.

Meanwhile, I have broadband internet and am taking two days off of work but will be working from the vacation home so taking my work laptop with me.

I hope to have some pictures posted of the beach and such around the place, the house was painted by a contractor and had a dog gate installed a few days ago so I have no idea how it looks with it’s new painted color and trim and the gates.

This vacation property is something my wife and I have been dreaming about for a long time and the right property came along at the right price after many years of looking.

-Justin Germino

Now that I will be spending some of my time in San Diego county, more specifically Encinitas it was just ironic that I was thinking about some places I might be able to find a rummage sale in San Diego.

This is where a site like Yardies comes into play, which is specifically for people to post yard or garage sales and what contents will be listed.  Due to the very specific types of posting and arranged by cities it is perfect for those who don’t want to scour the papers and want to find a yard sale in a hurry that day or coming up soon.

I honestly didn’t know about Yardies back a few weeks ago when we consolidated our items with a neighbors Yard Sale and would have put up a listing there if I had known about the site.

Though we found many items for the little vacation property there is always some small things to find and yard sales are good for finding decor pieces that may be just right.  Furniture is a good option too if the wear isn’t too bad on it.

A quick search and I saw there were like 9 yard sales in 25 mile radius of San Diego area on October 1st weekend, but only 1 was currently listed for October 8th.  Still the site is awesome and makes it really easy for someone to specifically find yard sales, garage sales or estate sales in any city.  You can just simply search by city and radius in miles around the city you want to include.

-Justin Germino

Apparently the rules of the McDonald’s Monopoly game favor simply finding one of the 5 rare pieces, if you find one of the rare pieces you are pretty  much guaranteed to win a prize for the set if you just invest in a few medium drinks or hash browns to catch the common pieces missing.

So the whole pooling aspect isn’t really an issue, I thought they would release different pieces geographically and more randomly, but apparently there is some other system in play.

McDonalds prohibits pooling or trading pieces with other players to try and collaborate to win the game together anyway, so you are better off just trying your luck randomly.

Meanwhile, from reading online the last big prize winner happened to pull both pieces Park Place and Boardwalk off of the same drink cup at the same time.

I don’t really follow the game, though occasionally get the free drink, fries or big mac that come as an instant prize.  I also usually play the tokens again in the online game to win a 2nd instant win prize occasionally.

It isn’t like I go out of my way to buy 20 hash browns to get 40 play tickets, or anything like some of the devoted monopoly fans.  The odds of winning the AZ State Lottery are higher than winning the McDonald’s monopoly game it would seem.

-Justin Germino

At first people thought it was rumor, but too widespread to be anything but the unfortunate truth.  Apple posted a memorial to Steve Jobs on their website in honor of the truly innovative leader.

I was really sad to find out the news was true and really think we lost a brilliant creative mind and inspiring leader.  Though Apple will survive and develop and do well he carried an air of flare in the same way Walt Disney did for the Disney corporation.  Like Disney decades will pass and nobody will forget or ever not attribute it to Steve Jobs and the success he brought the company.

This also servers as a mortality reminder and just how fragile we are as humans, despite the wealth and access to medicine most people could only hope to afford he was unable to recover.  We are all mortal and must make sure we enjoy every moment we have in this world.  Life is too short to hate, stress and have negativity, we should all strive to enjoy every moment, love everyone and promote respect everywhere.

-Justin Germino

Was a really easy going weekend where I spent much of my time just playing with the kids in the mornings we dueling at the playground with our new Nerf Vendetta double swords which also slot together to form a double bladed sword.

[easyazon-image-link asin=”B004XMU6JQ” alt=”Nerf N-Force Vendetta Sword” src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31w7VYEp54L._SL160_.jpg” align=”left” width=”160″ height=”160″]These are some high quality swords and at about $20 per double sword you really get 2 foam weapons in one.  I bought 3 sets one for my kids and one for myself and we already enjoyed about 3 hours of total dueling time.

It helps keep the physical activity level up and the kids are big time live action battle fans.

Meanwhile, my oldest son who is going to be 8 years old on Tuesday is fixated on Wizards101 lately and I joined him in a few sessions this weekend and see why he likes it so much.  The game is a cross between Magic the Gathering, World of Warcraft but set in a Harry Potter type of scenario.  The turn based combat where you choose spell cards to attack, defend, heal or augment spells make it an interesting but simplistic strategy game.

The simple quests are easy for kids to follow and the arrows which show you exactly how many steps to reach your quest goals are ideal for little kids.  Even my 4 year old created a character and started playing by choosing cards in battle, though needed help with reading the quests he can follow the arrow to reach goals with ease.

Saturday night we enjoyed a feast at Benihana where I had the Salmon while my son had Chicken and Shrimp, the meal was fantastic but I never did get my $30 off birthday coupon that they were supposed to send me.

-Justin Germino

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Today is my oldest boy’s birthday and he turned 8 years old today.  He is a great kid who has a passion for computer games, bug hunting and wrestling/sword fighting with his dad (Nerf N-Force swords).

He is so much like me probably because he is a Libra born October 4th and I was born on September 29th, but in his mannerisms and his likes.  I am very proud of him and hope he likes the gift we got him (it was a new bicycle since he didn’t really have one) and we are taking him to Peter Piper Pizza with some game tokens to celebrate after school.

Being a father and a parent is one of the greatest things in my life and I really truly live for my kids in the hopes that I can inspire them to become the best at whatever they want to be when they grow up. 

Wishing my boy a Happy 8th birthday, and watching him grow and learn over the years.  It won’t be long before he starts his own blog and YouTube channel I imagine as he has been asking for a  while and I want him to make sure his handwriting is solid before he does so much typing, I know because I have horrible handwriting since all I do is type myself.

-Justin Germino

It is actually getting more difficult to find specific items on classifieds for local area’s if you don’t live in an area that has it’s own dedicated city listing.  For example if you want to find virtually anything in a New York City classified you know you will find hundreds or thousands of matches generally because the city is so large and so many people use almost all of the classified sites that you will find somebody posting something there.

I can’t find any such site that recognizes any listings for Casa Grande, Arizona for example and Craigslist only has a “South Phoenix” or “East Valley” equivalent which really means 40-55 miles north of the city I live in.  Even with its population of over 120,000 people it should have it’s own listing.

Zaarly, is a unique classified site in that you post what you want and the dollar amount you are looking to pay for it.  You then get offers from people who either will sell it for what you are looking to pay or make a counter offer for what they are willing to sell it for.

This has a lot of potential to make it easy to find stuff you want without having to deliberately search through endless piles of listings.  You just post what you want and what you want to pay and wait for offers to come in.

It saves time, but again I was browsing for any wants in the Casa Grande city and couldn’t find anything.  They have all the major cities covered, but apparently nobody from my current city has decided to try the service yet.

Some items I would be looking for are used iPod touches, maybe some cheap used Wii or Xbox 360 games…etc.  I can use Swap.com or other sites but you still have to pay for shipping and the ‘fee’ assessed for using their service.  Direct people to people trading or purchasing saves you the extra fee’s and if you can find someone within a driving distance who can complete the transactions you even save the shipping.

Zaarly has potential and can do well if it can grow it’s user base and include some listings closer to my general area.

What are some of your favorite classifieds sites or ways to find or sell items online?

-Justin Germino