Author: Samuel

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Quotes Samuel

A great quote

wanted to save this great quote for later:

the only thing you have to do is decide what you want to do. knowing how or the specifics of the goal is irrelevant, those aspects will unfold as you progress

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Fixing Stuff Laravel Samuel

Fixing NPM Run Watch Error

Today we are getting this error on a Laravel site:

To fix this issue we are going to do the following:

  • delete the node_modules folder
  • delete package-lock.json file
  • run: npm install
  • open the .env file and make sure our environments line up with the script we are trying to run- IE make sure “npm watch” is set to work with the environment we are currently on. In this case “npm dev” was set to local and “npm watch” was set to staging.
  • Run: npm run dev locally to confirm it works.
  • Run: npm run watch on the staging site to confirm it works

Now we need to add a migration to get a portion of the site working with a new DB column, for this we will run:

  • php artisan make:migration create_payment_status_column
  • inside of the migration file we will add:
class CreatePaymentStatusColumn extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::table('companies', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->enum('payment_status',['trail', 'active', 'inactive'])->default('trail');
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function down()
    {
        $table->dropColumn('payment_status');
    }
}
Categories
Fixing Stuff Phase Two Samuel Sisters House

Tips For Tiling A Shower

These expands upon my earlier post laying out a full shopping list for tiling a shower .

Tiling A Tub Surround:

Start By Setting your lazer level up on a jack pole like this one:

Set the lazer up so that the line is slightly below the first tile
Set the lazer up so that the line is slightly below the first tile

Start with the back wall so that your grout joints are not visible from outside the shower. Take the First tile and use the lazer to mark it for cutting:

Flip the tile upside down so you are marking the bottom of the tile. Mark on either end where along the lazer line.

Next transfer the line to the front of the tile:

Take a tile pen and mark on the sides and then use a T square to draw a full line on the front of the tile

Cut the tile along the line:

Helpful tips & Tricks:

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Samuel Thoughts

Navigating A New Phase Of Life

I want to try and take full advantage of my wife having more free time once she switches to part time work next month and has a baby. I want to try to optimize our time with a young kid – all the adults I’ve ever spoken too – pretty much unanimously – always say that’s their favorite time in their entire life – that time when they had little kids – My wife and I both have our parents to enjoy it with as well so I just want to make sure we don’t take that for granted and we really enjoy it, my plan to do that is to follow this outline loosely – Not exactly. Not every single day – but to follow it on most days because this is the best way that I can think of to live life, I’ve given it a lot of thought and read a lot of books on the subject. It’s totally subjective but at the current moment I think this is the best way to structure day to day life.

Daily Ritual

  • 10:30 – 11:30: Go to bed somewhere in this time range.
  • 7:30 – 8:30: Wake up somewhere in this time range.
    • Note: I’ve tracked this extensively with the fitbit. I get the best sleep far and away going to bed and waking up in the ranges above. I don’t have to stick to this perfectly, if I miss a day no problem just get back to this path as quick as I can 🙂
  • #1: Reward drink + relaxing walk w/Ellen to plan our day.
    • Choose my, up to 5 hour time block, reserved for uninterrupted completely focused work.  This time doesn’t have to be early and it doesn’t need to be late.  Don’t think judgmental thoughts about whatever time I choose, who cares what everyone else says about when “successful” people work.   I have worked extremely hard to set my life up so that I have the luxury of being able to choose when I will complete work tasks – enjoy this luxury, don’t judge yourself for it.  Just remember; I’m happiest when I get a great workout in early  + when I complete important and challenging work. It’s fine to enjoy the work – and to occasionally spend some leisure time working – but try not to fixate solely on work, choose a small window of time – work hard during that window – then completely turn that off – as much as you can – And aim your powerful focus towards whatever  activity(s) you choose to do for the rest of the day…. social, family, adventure, sports… whatever!
      • Note: Having this flexibility feels like the key for me, I can try to set strict limits like – were always going to get up at 6:00 a.m. and do 3 hours of work – but that’s not realistic for my life anymore. My sister might text and have a fun activity to do with the kids, or my parents my call and have a random chore they need help with – I just get pulled in many different directions + I actually enjoy not having a super structured day, I enjoy a more freeform choose your own adventure vs a strict rigid structure, if I wanted a strict rigid structure I’d work a corporate job.
  • #2: Brush teeth + Choose Workout On Tablet -> Workout
  • #3: Cold shower to cool down then Breakfast
  • Questions:
    • What Time will I complete my focused work today:
      • Note: While working put phone in DND + if working in office put DND sign on door.
    • What Time will I go to bed today: 
    • Fill out my Workout & Happiness Journal
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Samuel Thoughts Uncategorized

Hospitals In Cuba

Something strange is going on in our world today. Using an example from my own life, a conversation I just had with my older sister. My older sister is very intelligent, she is someone I look up to in many ways, which made this conversation all the more strange. I found myself sitting with her listening to her say that hospitals in Cuba are good, that they are better than the US. I believe her exact words were “their medicine is socialized and free, so its good!”.

I can’t make any logical since of this, I know my sister is intelligent. I know she has to be aware of how silly this comment sounded. I mean just without even examining it; Cuba is a country that has food shortages, they lack basic infrastructure. Doctors all over the world share many similarities, and one thing is for sure – you are going to have a hard time attracting world class health care talent into a country where they will be concerned about finding their next meal. A quick search online shows that Cuba is not even in the top 100 ranked countries in therms of healthcare. I know my sister knows this deep down, I don’t understand why she would say something like this? She does watch a lot of main stream news and she lives in LA which is from the outsides seems like it has a very narrow minded echo chamber of ideas, (but then all of us live inside our own echo chambers to a degree).

Really almost all of the health care comparisons that people shout about are really very useless. The US heath care system ranks 30th in the widely shared rankings, behind many other countries. These rankings are obviously very silly though – these rankings are trying to do an almost impossible job anyway. What does it mean to have the “Best” healthcare. Does that mean having the best doctors, the thought leaders of the industry? Or does it mean having the best “average” of skill when you factor all of the doctors in any given country? The answer really depends on who is asking the question. Germany and the US are widely believed to have the best raw talent in the health industry, these countries have the most “thought leaders”. These countries drive the most innovation. So if you are someone who is in need of very advanced care – its obviously that your first choice would be Germany, or the United States. Beyond that if you have a simple injury that could be fixed by almost any doctor – or if you don’t have enough $ to afford treatment then you would be best off in a country where the “average” of all the doctors skills is the best and or the care is subsidized by the government.

The entire ranking process seems pretty silly and basically totally politicized.

Categories
Samuel Thoughts

You Can Make A Point or You Can Make A Difference

I passively observing a lot of the social movements in our country from a distance, not because I don’t care about them (I do!) but as a white man I’m very unsure of how to help. There are things that seem obvious to me from my perspective, but I don’t want to inject myself 1 because I realize my perspective could be wrong, and 2 at this point its just natural self preservation to avoid these topics as a white guy.

The main point I would want to offer some of the prominent social justice movements is: you can make a point of your can make a difference but its very hard to do both, I’ll elaborate:

From my perspective the goal of the BLM movement is to try and root out all the of systemic racism in this country – a lot of this racism is invisible to the average white person because they have never felt it directed towards them. So if the goal is to change these whites peoples mind and to show them the discrimination and get them on the same team to help end this discrimination then the messaging should be designed to changes these white peoples mind. A few concreate examples:

BLM = Black Lives Matter. This slogan is not going to be very effective in reaching the average white person (the person who’s mind we need to change). If you contrast this with:

BLAM = Black Lives Actually matter. The average white person would read this and say something like “well of course they do…. I’m confused”. At which point the conversation would be primed for success, they would be open to receive the message that BLM is trying to impart, instead of being back on their heals and in a defensive mode they would be open and (I think) much more easy to interact with. And in turn they would be much more willing to change their mind and or be shown the systemeic racism and the societal structures that are in place.

Obviously to a person of color this will be very frustrating, they have lived their whole lives under these systems and don’t want to be told how to protest. I’m fully aware of that and that’s why this topic is such a challenging one to bring up. But not bringing it up makes me feel like I’m standing on the sidelines of a family argument watching 2 people yell at each other – and I can clearly see both perspectives, and more than that I can see ok here is the argument person 1 could use to change person 2’s mind. I think its a lot like when you watch your spouse interact with their parents. Your spouse has years of built up interactions with their parents so a small comment can trigger a massive argument, which to you as someone who only has a few interactions with their parents seems totally silly. It’s not until you comprehend that this is the 5000 time their parent has made this annoying comment that you can fully grasp why they are getting so angry haha

Oppressed people have lifetimes, generations even, of built up interactions which can be triggering to them. That is 100% understandable, and justified. It’s just as someone who hasn’t lived under that lifetime of oppression, and someone who grew up as apart of the group of people that have historically done the oppressing – its very easy for me to see the pit falls of trying to change this groups mind. And i’m not saying we should try to manipulate the average white person – I’m saying there is messaging that would be effective at reaching the average white person – and I wish that messaging would rise to the surface because 10 or 15 years of progress could be made in 1 or 2 years.