Justin Germino Ramblings

Read in the Casa Grande Dispatch the other day that Intel is investing 5 Billion dollars to build the worlds most advanced memory chip fabrication plant here in Chandler Arizona.  This plant is scheduled to be completed in 2013 and will bring thousands of jobs in both construction and manufacturing/engineering.  This is good news for the Arizona community and Intel has a long history with building facilities in Arizona due to the weather, and tax incentives the state provides.

What is interesting is the sophistication level of the plant which will churn out chips designed for technologies 4+ years from now and one can only imagine how small and compact memory chips will become and the types of fabrication methods employed at building them.

So as an Arizona resident I am certainly happy that Intel has chosen Arizona as the destination for its next memory chip manufacturing plant this will certainly help the local economy for years to come as not only do those people get employed but eat, buy homes, shop and spend money in the local economy.

Chandler is also a beautiful place to live and is located close enough to Tempe, Phoenix and other major destinations so that you are just a quick drive away from just about any activity or major restaurant you could want!

-Justin Germino

So last weekend my wife and I drove out to the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, CA to see John Pinette do his live standup show.  John Pinette rocked and is a funny individual but the dinner portion of the Canyon Club wasn’t very well thought out.

The problems started when you realize they cram 12 people side by side in tables meant for 10 people.  This is compounded when one fellow who was on the husky side complained about the tight squeeze and was so large he needed two chairs worth of room.  This caused him to pull a chair out which threw off the server who couldn’t “adjust” to the fact that the table needed 1 less person and more room between people.

The show required you to order dinner to get a table and decent seats, so I ordered the Thai BBQ Salmon and my wife ordered the Prime Rib. The food itself wasn’t so bad actually, but for a total price of over $110.00 with no alcohol ordered it was a very expensive price to pay for the service that would follow.

The first order of business was ordering beverages which included 2 hot tea’s, unfortunately they didn’t understand the word “hot” and two barely room temperature waters were brought out with tea bags in them that could never steep due to the lack of water temperature.  The fifteen minute delay to place the dinner order was no picnic either, top this off with the fact that some dining individuals waited over 1.5 hours to receive their entrée!  Yes, they actually ordered their meal at 6:15 and didn’t receive their meal until the show started at 8pm. 

Pretty much the whole table was upset and had some sort of service problems, it was compounded when my wife was about to reach for the salt and pepper only to have a waiter whisk it away to give it to another table.  Apparently, they only have 1 salt and pepper vials and they are shared between 80 people and 4 tables.

So despite the fact that the standup of John Pinette was excellent and the food was okay (no great, but not bad) I can’t say I recommend a meal at the Canyon Club prior to a show except that it is the only way you can get a table to see the show or else you are stuck with standing room only in the back.

-Justin Germino

The local Arizona rock band Razer will be playing tonight at The Clubhouse opening for In This Moment who is on a tour.  Razer is a heavier rock band with a unique sound that complement the strong and raspy vocals of Chris Powers the lead singer.

My wife and I became fans of the band years ago and have attended nearly every single one of their shows here in the valley, they recently toured with Fozzie and appeared in New York and Texas venues.

You can see the video’s for one of their most popular songs Superpaun right here:

-Justin Germino

Learning how to use god in a sentence was important to figure out which spelling of god to use for a spelling test. 

So my son had a spelling test two weeks ago and while studying for his words he had to spell “God” and god” I realized that I didn’t know how to convey to him a sentence where he would know whether or not to use the word with a capital G or a lowercase g.  I had to look it up in the dictionary myself to learn that when you reference any of the Greek gods or any god other than the Christian and Judaism “True God” you have to reference god with a lowercase g.

God with an uppercase G is reserved when you are referring only to the supposedly “one” god that is the father that Christians and Jews believe in. You aren’t supposed to use the word GOD with a capital G any other time unless you are referencing the one god and it is improper to use a capital G when using the plural like gods since this obviously wouldn’t refer to the Christian god specifically.

This made it easier to explain to my son and I was then able to tell him to spell god as in “Zeus is a god” and he knew to use lower case g.  This was some bit of knowledge I had not known before and filed away in my brain in case I needed it for some future trivia.

-Justin Germino

Most of today will be spent driving the 7 hour trip from Agoura Hills, CA back to Casa Grande after seeing John Pinette live at the Canyon Club last night. I was listening to Stephen King’s audiobook “It Grows on You” which is a collection of short stories and very good.

If you enjoy Stephen King novels and audio books, I highly recommend you pick up It Grows On You and listen to it, all the stories combined are about 5 hours or so of listening time.

-Justin Germino

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My wife and I really enjoy watching the comedian John Pinette, and today we decided to hike a road trip to California to see John Pinette play at the Canyon Club over in Agoura Hills tonight. It is about an 8 hour drive but as he won’t be anywhere near Arizona in his current tour for quite some time we thought it would make a cool adventure.

Here is a sample of some of his great material:

-Justin Germino

There is a rapidly growing trend in the blogging industry that seems to have started several months ago and is gaining at a shocking momentum.  This is the trend of "guest blog advertising".  You will receive emails from people who represent companies who will provide high quality articles which will help your site gain Google traffic in exchange for allowing them to include one or two outbound links in the article.

These are not guest bloggers and are not your fellow peers who are looking to build some readership with their own sites by providing content on your site in exchange for audience and mutual traffic benefit.  These are advertising companies pure and simple, they are selling "backlink packages" to companies and paying writing staff to churn out as many articles as possible to meet the commitments.

The way it works is this, company will charge X dollars to say they will get 200 backlinks for a targeted keyword and site.  They then hire ghost writers who will create a 400+ word article for like $5-10 per article payment (I know these companies have tried to hire me) and then they will look up blogs on the Internet find any with a certain PageRank or higher and contact the blog owner seeing if they are willing to host a "guest article".

Either way you look at it, this is a violation of Google’s ToS in regards to link building, though it is nigh impossible for Google to really find out in this case as long as the article is unique and not a duplicate that is being reprinted across dozens of sites.  Though Google is smart enough to penalize and lower the value of links from unrelated site niches.  Example would be my technology blog with an outbound link to a diet pill site, completely unrelated niche and Google knows this is not likely to be a valid link or related link.

Overall though, for experimentation and curiosity sake I have taken a number of these offers lately for DragonBlogger.com to see the quality of articles and whether or not they are truly written to capitalize on Google Search traffic and actually increase my blog readership.  Out of the 20 or so guest articles I accepted, 2 made it to my top 20 articles based on traffic according to Google Analytics and only 1 of the articles exceeded 1000 pageviews in the last 30 days, the other in the top 20 managed 400 pageviews.  Overall, all 20 guest articles accounted for about 3,000 pageviews which is about 7% of my total site traffic.  Considering though that my site has over 1400 published articles this is a pretty good ratio of traffic for such a low number of guest articles.

So my theory is that if the articles are of decent quality and attract positive comments and traffic than letting an advertiser have a keyword or two as part of providing the article isn’t such a bad exchange in some cases.  I get to steer the content to what I want, and I have full control over what publishes and what doesn’t.   I don’t think it is however cheaper for the companies who are paying these ghost writers, it probably is cheaper for them to contact the sites directly and pay the blog owner to write an article or link to them in a previous article though buying it in packages like this is probably easier from a time management perspective.

-Justin Germino

I was actually editing an article for my site when I noticed that this particular writer only used single spaces after periods and after doing some research I was actually shocked to learn that single space after periods appears to be the standard.  In a heated article over on Slate about Two Spaces it apparently is a relic of the typewriter days to use two spaces after a period when writing or publishing.  The ironic thing is I was taught to touch type in high school and learned on a typewriter, so I type double spaces by default when I write sentences.  It comes as second nature and is going to be a very hard habit for me to break, I still read online and my eyes are trained to expect a double space after a period rather than a single space.

I don’t know truly what is considered the formal or acceptable way but I quickly did some scans from professional online sites like Wall Street Journal and NY Times and there are no double spaces after periods in articles.  In addition I have seen a ton of professional articles that begin a sentence with And after a period.  I remember learning in school that the word “and” must always be lower case and can never start a sentence, but I believe this rule has changed over the years though it still causes me to consider it a mistake when I see it in articles.

How many of my readers use single spaces or double spaces after typing a period at the end of a sentence?  I am curious to know how many also have this “habit” by default.

-Justin Germino

So I didn’t blink when the other week I dropped $70.00 on some additional Nerf equipment which included a Nerf N-Strike Maverik, a Nerf N-Strike Nite Finder, Nerf Big Bad Bow and a Nerf N-Strike Firefly REV-8 which has glow in the dark bullets plus lights up when you fire it.

This now makes my Nerf collection include a Marauder sword, 2 Nerf Warlock Axes and several other guns including the ones purchased above.  My kids who are 7 and 4 years old love nothing more than going to the playground with me where we stage elaborate battles running around firing foam bullets and when ammo runs out we pull our foam handheld weapons and fight until the last man is standing.

The Bow and Arrow has a decent range, I was surprised to find that the strings are decoration and would have liked a real compound bow feel, but the large arrows shoot fairly far and are fun to see.  The most fun was the whistle darts, you load these black tipped Nerf bullets into the weapons and every shot produces a faint whistle from the bullets.  There is something incredibly fun when being shot at and hearing the whistling of the bullets as they pass just near your ear.

I play hard with my kids, even though my kids are computer and Wii gamers and spend hours indoors, we make the time to go hit the outdoors and play some outside games.  Physical activity and running around in staged battles for about 1-2 hours on a weekend is a great way to get everyone active, and my wife claims that I buy the stuff for me more than them.

I really want the Nerf Stonewall Shield and Sword as well as the Battlemaster Mace Axe. Also, our neighbor has the Nerf N-Strike Vulcan which is just incredible how fast it can fire automated bullets, it has amazing range and is just a really fun toy gun to play with.

So honestly, when role playing battles at the playground when it comes to foam weaponry for me It’s Nerf or Nothing!

I highly recommend any of these products to encourage outdoor and active play:

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-Justin Germino

There is no doubt that heating cost is skyrocketing. As a result more austerity measures like using radiators are becoming more prevalent than ever. People are looking for means to cut down their heating bill and the use of radiators always tops the must-do thing.

The truth is that: there are possible and inexpensive means to cut down your bill all throughout the winter season, the use of radiators is one. Plus, you don’t have to go bankrupt first or scammed to learn your lessons because with the following ideas and tips to learn, you will manage.

Practical and Easy to Do Ways to Cut Your Heating Bill

1. Though home improvements can be the solution, cleaning your furnace is a smarter thing to do before anything else. Cleaning your furnace means making it more efficient. This is proven to be effective measure will always remind you how it dramatically changes your heating bill.
2. If your air filter is old, it needs replacement right away. This is connection to the furnace because if your furnace is not clean the air lifter will be blocked and it will cause damage.
3. If you have ceiling fans at home, you should consider using it. For the record, ceiling fans actually draw warm air that will circulate in your home.
4. Again to cut costs, make sure that you use your washing or dishwasher as quickly as possible to avoid more usage of electricity.
5. During the morning, don’t miss the natural light coming from the sun. If you let solar energy in your home, your place will be all warmed up and it is a nice feeling.
6. Make sure that you have insulated the water heater. For the record, there are insulated water heaters that are more energy efficient and if you are not using the latest version, you better opt for a new one.
7. You have to use compact fluorescent lighting as it can be likened to natural light. Compact fluorescent lighting is a good choice if you are not a fan of incandescent light bulbs. Plus they last longer which is good enough reason.
8. Use one of the programmable radiators as they work better and produce better results. Now only will you save or cut down your heating bill but you will also acquire a furniture piece that is set for everything.
9. If you find leaks, you need to seal them all. This can be really frustrating but if you clean deal with your home, you must have to be reassuring about things in life.
10. Finally, if you are using any of the radiators, turn it off if you are done using it. Such final rule is in fact considered the rule of thumb and by using them only when needed you are saving a lot of energy and electricity.

What is there more to learn? You will never run out of things to learn but at least you get yourself immersed with the ten possible ways of cutting your heating bill at your home (interesting to know is that the Dutch term is Energiebesparing woning), plus, radiators will give you a head start.