Justin Germino Ramblings

Sunday night my wife and I finally got together and worked on our Last Will and Testaments.  We decided to stop procrastinating and get it done because we both are flying to Italy this summer and in the event something goes horribly wrong we would likely both be wiped out at the same time.  We need to ensure our kids are taken care of and more than 1 guardian is listed in case other things happen.

We had decided to use LegalZoom and it was the first time I had used the service, we both found it easy to use and had both of our computers side by side while we drafted our wills together helping each other through the planning and question process.

Really while we were sitting there drafting up our special instructions, how our assets get divided the whole thought of imagining my kids losing their parents at their young age and me not being there for them came to mind and it is an oddly hollow feeling you get when you are working on your own will.  At least this is the way it was for me, when I was finished I couldn’t help but think I should savor the time I have with my kids now even more than I already do.

Everyone should have a will drafted and this is especially true if you have children, you need to have guardians legally appointed and disclose how whatever is left over gets handled.  I regret putting it off until 7 years after my first son was born, I should have had a last will and testament seven years ago and shouldn’t have waited so long.

The good thing about the LegalZoom package we bought is we can make unlimited updates and amendments, so as you collect more assets or items you can specifically chose who and where you want those assets to be distributed.  An example is if you want to leave a family heirloom to one person, or a computer to another.  You can specifically spell out each individual asset and what you want done with it. 

At around $70 for the will it will arrive in the mail in full documentation and be kept in a safety deposit box.  I know many people who have paid 5x that price to have a last will and testament drawn up by lawyers.  I am however glad that it is over with and it was a necessity that had to be ripped off like a Band-Aid.

-Justin Germino

This is a test post written from the WordPress iPad application and I am fairly impressed how easy it is to just connect your iPad to WordPress and start typing away on new posts. The hardest thing for me is to reduce my touch typing to using only two or three fingers on the iPad instead of my full hands. I can type much faster on the iPad than i could with my blackberry however and I am impressed with how quickly the iPad picks up keystrokes.

So far you can set tags, title and summary from the iPad WordPress application but I have not tried to upload media yet. Though there are buttons on the bottom of my WordPress app where I can easily insert media.

For our little Anniversary celebration on Friday night my wife had gotten me a new Canon Camera Bag (actually one made by Canon) this is the Deluxe Gadget Bag 10EG which claimed it can hold up to 2 camera’s or 1 camera and up to 4 lenses.  I had received a zoom lens for Christmas so was glad to finally have a bag that let me carry all of my camera lenses and components in one bag.

The bag fits all my needs and has an unused pouch which I am reserving for when I eventually get a Macro lens which I want so I can take more detailed up close shots of insects and lizards in the future.

I am a pretty happy camper right now as a result.

For my wife’s gift, I got her the Apple iPad 2 and she spent hours setting it all up and perusing through thousands of apps to load on it.

-Justin Germino

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It is funny that one of the highlights of my month is for my PC Gamer magazine to arrive in the mail so I can pour over all the reviews and information about the latest games.  I still do much of my reading on magazines the old fashioned way during the day.  Ironic considering I am online so much but sometimes I like a good old fashioned paper product between my fingers to hold my attention without distraction being a click away.

Anyway, I realize that I must say "I would really like to try that game" at least 5 times per day when in reality I maybe play games by myself 1 hour per week at most, sure I play about 5-8 hours per week if you count me playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean or Lego Batman with the kids but I am talking about my own gaming time alone with games that you don’t play with 4 and 8 year olds.

I realize that I am more of a former gamer who likes reading and wishing about games than actually playing them anymore.  The idea of gaming is more appealing than the gaming perhaps?  I actually find when I do have alone time I gravitate more toward writing blog articles than gaming even though I love gaming I have this strange habit of always wanting to write more content for my blogs when I know I should or could be gaming instead.

Ah well, maybe I am not really a gamer anymore but a gamer wannabe after all.

-Justin Germino

Portal 2 is a great example of a game that I wish I could find time to play and should.

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Happy End of the World day!

Obviously if you are reading this it isn’t the end of the world as it is already tomorrow in some countries.  The absurdity that the end of the world is supposed to be May 21st and people buy into this nonsense is almost hysterical.

Even if the world were going to have an “end” the most likely cause would be asteroid or some sort of extra-terrestrial impact or solar event powerful enough to disrupt or permanently damage the atmosphere.  There would be scientific information to backup some sort of proclamation or calamity that were going to befall.

Conspiracy cannot cover all the excuses that “scientists” are required to keep things hush and I think doomsayers are just as silly as cartoon characters really.

Do we really need a “judgment day” warning or threat to scare us into being better people or acting nicer to each other?  What people really need to do is wake up every morning and think about how to treat other with respect, care and be as open minded as possible toward life, culture and others.  If everyone had the same respect, care and consideration for others then we would be living in a much better world right now.  You don’t need religion to teach this, it should be common sense but seems to be lacking in vast quantities of the population.

-Justin Germino

I decided that I want to see Green Lantern on Father’s day next month, it is a fitting movie decision since we saw Thor on Mother’s day.  The previews look outstanding and Ryan Reynolds appears to do a great job as Hal Jordan.

Watch the Green Lantern trailer and let me know what you think of the film:

[youtube width=”550″ height=”441″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs2sZgO3OMk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Is this one movie you are interested in seeing?

-Justin Germino

Tonight is my son’s first Choir performance after being in choir for several months and it is important that I be there and see him.  I always think that as a parent it is important for you to be there to support your children through all of their hobbies, goals and achievements.  Nothing would disappoint my son more than if I were the type of father who never showed up at his recitals, poem reads or other activities and I know he would be emotionally sad.

The other reason is that time with children is finite, they grow up and each thing you miss is something that you won’t get to relive or make up for when they have grown up and become adults.  Work is extremely important and we all must do our job to the best of our ability, but it is imperative that if we chose the responsibility to start a family that we carve out enough time for our children to make sure we are involved in their lives and show that we care about them and that we are there for them.

Few things matter as much to me as making sure my kids know that I will always be there for them, always be there to cheer them on, stand by them and I am forever proud of them no matter what.

-Justin Germino

I had a discussion last week with someone who talked about their grandsons playing a lot on the iPad and other gaming consoles and they questioned whether playing on such devices is as bad for kids as watching TV for hours.  The truth is in moderation all activities are okay, but often the activities are unmediated and with studies showing kids watch an average of 4 hours of TV per day plus 2 hours of gaming, this is a total of 6 hours that is spent with too much inactivity.

Some TV is good for unwinding as long as the content is age appropriate my son who loves Iron Man saw that the Iron Man: Extremis was new to Netflix and wanted to watch it.  I saw the rating was TV:MA so I decided to check it out first and within the first five minutes I knew I didn’t want him watching the content so told him he was only allowed to watch Iron Man: Adventures instead which is a kid friendly version of the Iron Man cartoon.

The same goes for video games, I would never let my seven and four year olds play Call of Duty or any of the MA rated games, but they have just a blast playing Lego Pirates of the Caribbean or many other games that are rated E10+ or in some case Teen.  Some games allow you to turn off "gore" which is the difference between an MA rating and a Teen rating, but you don’t often know until you rent or buy the game on whether this is a feature.  Example is Sacred 2 for the Xbox360 which is a Diablo like game that allows you to turn off the gore so there is no blood, guts and really makes the rating more playable for younger kids.

Meanwhile, gaming has advantages in that it gives kids challenging ways to encourage thinking outside the box, some games can build analytical skills and this is especially in games where you have to manage resources, build items, manage units and play strategy.  Even puzzle games like Plants Vs Zombies can help kids think about strategy and using the right combinations of items to solve problems.  These are all good for helping them think and run into problems that require trying and testing things to solve them.

But like anything, they can’t play too much as physical activity needs to be a part of everyone’s daily activities including adults as well as children.  I think kids can reasonably get about an hour of game or TV time on a weekday (provided they keep up with school work and homework) and maybe 3-4 hours on a weekend.  Provided they spend at least equal or double the time playing outdoors or engaging in physical activity or non-screen time like building blocks, running, sports….etc.

My son has had a computer since he was two and my kids don’t know what it’s like to not have a console, computer or TV in their play room, but I draw the line at letting them have a TV in their bedroom or even a gaming system.  I don’t want it to affect their sleep schedule, the bedroom is for sleeping only and not gaming so they will likely never have a TV, computer or game system in their bedroom until they are teenagers.

Just my views and I don’t think playing games or watching TV is bad as long as it is in moderation.  My 4 year old loved watching some Leapfrog movies about preschool an math and was able to count to twenty by the end of watching 1 show at four.  It is a matter of keeping the content appropriate and not letting the kids watch and play what they want, but being involved and helping make good decisions on what they watch and play.

-Justin Germino

On the Weekend I finally finished catching up on all the "Draft" posts that I had written a few mere titles, idea’s and blurbs.  I am completely at a "no article on reserve" status and am now going to have to start building up some backup articles for my variety of sites.

I have been working double time on writing poetry to get poetry published every day on Wanderer Thoughts Poetry for the 12 days I will be on vacation later on this summer.  I am going to have to write 12 additional posts to queue on this blog as well as some other blogs.

All in all to be caught up I have to write somewhere in the area of 85 blog posts in the next 3 weeks to have everything I need for my blogs for the months of June and July and this is a lot of content I will have to write and put together.

Being a blogger is about perception and you have to appear to take no breaks, lapses in blog publishing when you have a set routing can lose visitors and you need to always have the appearance of being active.  Though on vacation I don’t usually take internet access so it will go a week or two before I can respond to blog comments.

So wish me luck in writing a plethora of content over the next few weeks on top of my already busy schedule.

-Justin Germino

Earlier in the week I decided to try my hand at a microsite after being given a Flex Belt product to try for myself I thought I didn’t really have a true "health/fitness" blog and I would chronicle my experiences and other fitness related specific articles on this microsite.

My primary goal for the site is to earn some income from affiliate sales of the Flex Belt and other fitness related products through either Amazon affiliate or direct affiliate partnerships with said products.

So my new Micro Site about Weight Loss Belts will focus on my experiments and trials with the Flex Belt as well as showcase other products I have tried, reviewed or think look promising to help people become fit.

When starting up a micro site it is good to see how much competition you are up against, so I did some research with Google Adwords Keyword Tool, found # of searches monthly, saw what sites were being targeted and wanted to make sure my domain name had my targeted keyword in it which it does.  It will be interesting to see how quickly I can start making an ROI on this site but I did get the domain name for free so other than investing time I spent 0 money to put the site together.

It was though reading some other bloggers who mentioned it is easier to build 20 sites all making $100 a month income each than to build 1 site and bring it to make $2000 per month.  I am going to test that theory, but this is a spare project and will no way slow down my work on DragonBlogger.com which is growing more popular by the month and gaining an average of 20% increase of readership each month since January.

-Justin Germino