Aaron Francis

Ian & Aaron return after a few weeks off to check in on Aaron's new business, his studio, and yes, his healthcare woes. Sponsored by Laracasts, Buttondown, LaraJobs, & Screencasting.com. Send questions or feedback to mostlytechnicalpodcast@gmail.com.

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Transcript

Ian

00:00:00 – 00:00:00

Hello?

Aaron

00:00:01 – 00:00:03

Hello, mister Landsman. How are we doing?

Ian

00:00:04 – 00:00:10

We're back. Oh my gosh. It's been a rough month. Crazy. All kinds of stuff going on.

Ian

00:00:10 – 00:00:17

Finishing it here with a cold that has wrecked my whole house. So I haven't slept in a week. Somebody here some coffee.

Aaron

00:00:17 – 00:00:22

You slept in a week? Yeah. Basically. We gotta get you a chili pad, man.

Ian

00:00:22 – 00:00:27

Yeah. Maybe that's it. I don't know. This was a congestion y sort of situation, so I don't know if the chili if the chili pad's

Aaron

00:00:27 – 00:00:29

not gonna fix that. Yeah.

Ian

00:00:29 – 00:00:35

Yeah. But that's that's quite a recommendation then. Yeah. But yeah. So we're back.

Ian

00:00:36 – 00:00:54

We'll hold it together as long as I can here. I do wanna start out just by once again thanking Jeffrey Way of Laracast. Let me just bring that up on the screen. Here we go. Thanks so much to Lara Cast for sponsoring the show.

Ian

00:00:54 – 00:01:10

If you haven't checked out Lara Cast, definitely do that. The best resource out there for Laravel and really just web development in general. Obviously, all the courses they have there. New Laravel 11 course. So, yeah, you know, obviously, we're both lifetime members.

Ian

00:01:11 – 00:01:28

Wholeheartedly recommend it. So definitely check out Laracast. Thanks so much to Jeffrey for continuing to sponsor the show, and, definitely check it out if you haven't in the yet because it is the best resource out there. Thank you to Jeffrey. Okay.

Ian

00:01:29 – 00:01:34

Alright. So it's been a couple weeks here. We got a lot of stuff to cover.

Aaron

00:01:34 – 00:01:35

We got a lot to cover.

Ian

00:01:36 – 00:01:39

What did you what did you think about the eclipse? You were right in the path. Right?

Aaron

00:01:40 – 00:01:48

Was right in the path. So we were also maybe, like, a year ago, we were on the the partial path.

Ian

00:01:48 – 00:01:49

Okay.

Aaron

00:01:49 – 00:01:55

So a year ago, I saw a almost total eclipse. I was like, yeah. That's kinda cool.

Ian

00:01:55 – 00:01:58

That's what I got this time. No. It's like 94% or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:01:58 – 00:01:59

It was cool.

Aaron

00:01:59 – 00:02:03

I'll tell you what, the full the total eclipse, completely different.

Ian

00:02:04 – 00:02:04

That's what I figured.

Aaron

00:02:04 – 00:02:23

Just We Just amazing. Totally worth it. I mean, I was already here, so I don't know. You know, people did travel, but I think I think the next one that happens in the US, I will definitely travel and take the kids to if they're still kids. If they're grown adults, you know, hopefully, they'll join me.

Aaron

00:02:23 – 00:02:28

So Yeah. 20 years. Wow. Yeah. Hopefully, they'll take me in my wheelchair there.

Aaron

00:02:28 – 00:02:40

But, yeah, it was it was it was crazy. It was so awesome. We just walked right outside our front door, sat in our neighbor's yard, and, you know, laid in the grass and watched it happen. It was amazing. Totally worth it.

Ian

00:02:40 – 00:02:58

We thought about going, traveling a couple hours to get in the total eclipse, and we didn't do it. And we were all sick, and so whatever. It ended up being just wouldn't have worked. But, yeah, it was, like, a little, like, the the looking at the sun is cool. It's like this little sliver, but it's like, oh, you look around you, and it's still, like, amazingly daylight out.

Ian

00:02:58 – 00:03:08

Like, it's not like, oh, it's dark in the middle of the day. It's like, yeah, maybe some clouds went overhead. It's, like, incredible how powerful 6% of the sun is. It's still plenty of sunlight. So yeah.

Ian

00:03:08 – 00:03:08

Yeah.

Aaron

00:03:08 – 00:03:23

It was it was super cool. My, we we checked we checked hotel prices in Dallas just for giggles, and there's one hotel that's, like, $500 a night. But the night of the eclipse, it was $5,000 Wow. A night. Yeah.

Ian

00:03:23 – 00:03:33

It did seem like people were traveling, but, that's kind of I mean, since you can go anywhere on the path, it's, like, kinda crazy to have so much demand just in Dallas like that.

Aaron

00:03:33 – 00:03:35

Yeah. Yeah. Super fun.

Ian

00:03:36 – 00:03:38

So the kids get it? Totally. Were kids

Aaron

00:03:38 – 00:03:41

get it? Fundamentally different. No. They were in school.

Ian

00:03:41 – 00:03:42

Oh, alright.

Aaron

00:03:42 – 00:03:50

So student life. I asked them when I dropped them. I I think I dropped them off that day. I asked the teachers, like, are the kids gonna go outside? And they're like, no.

Aaron

00:03:51 – 00:04:00

We We don't have glasses. And I and I said, good. I don't want my 2 year olds looking up at the sun. Like, it's so hard to learn if you're supposed to do that.

Ian

00:04:00 – 00:04:07

Yeah. They're a little small for understanding those things. They're just messed up, pull their glasses down quick and just to look at it and, yeah,

Aaron

00:04:07 – 00:04:11

so directly into the sun. Yeah. That that doesn't seem good.

Ian

00:04:11 – 00:04:14

Got enough going on. You don't need another another thing with a

Aaron

00:04:14 – 00:04:18

No. I don't need temporary lives. Still joking. Yeah.

Ian

00:04:18 – 00:04:22

Yeah. Let's pass on that. Yeah. Oh, man. Alright.

Ian

00:04:22 – 00:04:27

What else have been going on? You have so much stuff. You've had a 1,000 tweets. You've got a 1,000,000 podcasts. All kinds of stuff.

Ian

00:04:27 – 00:04:29

I don't know if there's any any stuff we wanna talk about.

Aaron

00:04:29 – 00:04:31

Tweets and a 1,000,000 podcasts.

Ian

00:04:31 – 00:04:32

That's so much going on.

Aaron

00:04:32 – 00:04:38

Just no. That's not right. I was on a few podcasts. Yeah. You were every and I guess I have been tweeting more.

Aaron

00:04:39 – 00:04:41

Am I tweeting more? I think I might be.

Ian

00:04:41 – 00:04:47

I feel like it. I feel like you're more like they're catching on. Like, everything you tweet is really, like, hitting.

Aaron

00:04:47 – 00:04:49

Like do feel like I do feel like they're catching more.

Ian

00:04:49 – 00:04:52

I don't know what it is. Zone. You're in the zone right now,

Aaron

00:04:52 – 00:04:54

or the algorithm is, like,

Ian

00:04:54 – 00:04:59

pushing you hard. They're like, oh, that Eric Francis, whatever he says, let's just, like, push it. There's some there's something going on.

Aaron

00:04:59 – 00:05:05

There's something going on. The universe is conspiring, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna, you know, question it.

Ian

00:05:05 – 00:05:06

No.

Aaron

00:05:06 – 00:05:12

Yeah. I was on a couple podcasts. You know, you take a break here, and the energy's gotta go somewhere.

Ian

00:05:12 – 00:05:13

You know?

Aaron

00:05:13 – 00:05:17

It's the energy must get out. Gotta get out. Podcasting's gotta get into the universe.

Ian

00:05:17 – 00:05:18

Yep.

Aaron

00:05:18 – 00:05:29

I did one with, Ben Ornstein on his, you know, hackers incorporated. That's great. He's out. He's out at 2 people onto the next adventure. I know.

Aaron

00:05:29 – 00:05:36

He is living the dream. I know. It's crazy. How do I do that? Yeah.

Aaron

00:05:36 – 00:05:55

And then I did a few others about, like YouTube, and I went on the lemon squeezy one to talk about how side projects are a good insurance for getting laid off. Yep. So, yeah, you know, doing the tour, put a couple tweets out. It's it's a we're a media empire, man. Gotta keep it keep it rolling.

Ian

00:05:55 – 00:05:58

No. That's true. You gotta stay top of mind.

Aaron

00:05:58 – 00:06:01

And I put out a video that you were featured in.

Ian

00:06:02 – 00:06:03

So awesome. I was like

Aaron

00:06:04 – 00:06:05

Ian Lanceman on YouTube now?

Ian

00:06:05 – 00:06:07

I was, like, in a huge part of it. I was like, man, this

Aaron

00:06:07 – 00:06:08

is where I

Ian

00:06:08 – 00:06:17

was feeling kinda down. I was sick. I was like, man, this is, like, cheering me right up. Yeah. It was very, very nice of you to include me, and I think worked really well.

Ian

00:06:17 – 00:06:24

And then also since it was, like, for Cloudflare, I was like I know. Had this whole inside joke angle Listen. People in the know.

Aaron

00:06:24 – 00:06:28

People inside Cloudflare know your name, Ian. How does that make you feel? Is that

Ian

00:06:28 – 00:06:29

awesome? Very good. That is

Aaron

00:06:29 – 00:06:30

awesome. Figured.

Ian

00:06:30 – 00:06:32

Yeah. So cool.

Aaron

00:06:32 – 00:06:54

So, yeah, that was my try my triumphant return to independent YouTube was, I made a Cloudflare video, which was a lot of fun. You know? First one in the studio, still a few things. A few kinks I'm working out, but Yeah. It's, it's good to be back, and I think we're you know, Steve and I are gearing up obviously for a ton more video and the personal YouTube is a part of that.

Aaron

00:06:54 – 00:07:00

It's a part of that strategy. It's not really personal anymore. It's like Steve and I are both working on it, but still Right. My my

Ian

00:07:00 – 00:07:04

channel of your distribution channels that you offer. Exactly.

Aaron

00:07:04 – 00:07:05

Yeah. Exactly.

Ian

00:07:05 – 00:07:13

Yeah. I think that makes sense. How's, initial sales and leads and all that stuff going? What's the update there on the business?

Aaron

00:07:14 – 00:07:17

It's going great. Oh. I think we're I like

Ian

00:07:17 – 00:07:18

the sound of that.

Aaron

00:07:19 – 00:07:33

Make it. And, you know, not knock on knock on wood. I think this is knock on MDF, maybe. MDF with the wood veneer. But we might I don't know if it'll happen in the 1st 12 months.

Aaron

00:07:33 – 00:07:41

We might end up making a lot more than we made as as w two employees. Employed. Yeah. Yeah. Well Uh-huh.

Ian

00:07:41 – 00:07:51

I'm glad you got up here with it. You got up here. That's the thing. When you charge those, you know, you get into the 5 figures and Yep. High five figures and things like that.

Ian

00:07:51 – 00:07:54

Yeah. That's a lot of months of working. Like, even splitting it 2 ways, it's like

Aaron

00:07:54 – 00:07:55

Sure is.

Ian

00:07:55 – 00:08:03

That's a lot of that's a lot of salary there. So, I mean, that's obviously you have to make it continue to happen is where the rubber meets the road a little bit.

Aaron

00:08:03 – 00:08:05

That's how they get you. Yeah. Yeah. That's how they

Ian

00:08:05 – 00:08:19

get you. That's what that's when having a abnormal job is appealing again. You're like, oh, yeah. This money just comes in every week, and that's kinda nice. But, but yeah, if you can keep it rolling, obviously getting off to a solid start is the first step in keeping it rolling.

Ian

00:08:19 – 00:08:21

Because if you get off to a bad start.

Aaron

00:08:21 – 00:08:24

Rolling. That turns out, it's not rolling at all. Keeping it rolling.

Ian

00:08:24 – 00:08:37

Yes, exactly. So, so that's great. So I don't know. I know you don't probably wanna say too much, but, like, are you, are you still going ahead on, like, the your courses? You have contracted.

Ian

00:08:37 – 00:08:39

You're kinda moving ahead on both fronts.

Aaron

00:08:39 – 00:08:51

Moving ahead on both fronts. Right now, for, like, our, for the in house side of the business, we are working on a screencasting.com, relaunch and

Ian

00:08:52 – 00:08:52

Oh, good.

Aaron

00:08:52 – 00:09:05

Beefing it up. So Steve is working on a premier course right now. So it's like Mhmm. Premier for screencasting. So, you know, only the 20% of premier that you actually need to know to get started, that sort of thing.

Aaron

00:09:05 – 00:09:28

Right. So he's working on that. I'm working on, beefing up the main or, like, flagship course and changing the site up, just like touching the site up a little bit to include additional courses, that sort of thing. So that's what we're working on in house right now. And we're gonna hopefully launch that in about 2 weeks.

Aaron

00:09:28 – 00:09:53

So May 1st is when we're like pushing that out the door. Hopefully we'll get another big influx of cash off of, you know, the new course and the premier course. And then we have, you know, client projects lined up. But it's really like I get why I get why software development agencies are like, I just wanna build a product. I just wanna build my own SaaS products.

Aaron

00:09:53 – 00:10:05

Because I feel like we're already we already feel that, like, we're doing, you know, we're doing client work and thinking, how can, like, what can we own in the future to to, you know, think bigger,

Ian

00:10:06 – 00:10:07

have some baseline and

Aaron

00:10:07 – 00:10:31

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think we've got, honestly, I think we've got like the next 6 months probably pretty booked in terms of like what we're on the hook for. It's crazy. Yeah. And some of it, I can't, you know, I can't talk about it all right now, but some of it is, some of it is like in house courses that are also we're working together with companies on,

Ian

00:10:32 – 00:10:33

Kinda like sponsored.

Aaron

00:10:34 – 00:10:39

Yeah, exactly. So we'll do the course and sell it, but they're, they're gonna be a part of it, as a sponsor. And that makes a lot of sense and you can

Ian

00:10:42 – 00:10:56

be showcasing their platform, but still it's useful just in general for those kind of, you know, just the baseline knowledge. It doesn't matter which platform you're on necessarily, but, the one in the video is, you know, valuable to the company who's teaching you.

Aaron

00:10:56 – 00:10:58

So Exactly.

Ian

00:10:59 – 00:11:01

I like that. That's an interesting path.

Aaron

00:11:01 – 00:11:17

Yeah. We'll see we'll see how that works out. I think it I don't know. I think it I think it could be a really nice model because you get some cash up front. Because courses, you know, notoriously, you don't get cash except for the day you launch and maybe, like, half of the day after.

Aaron

00:11:17 – 00:11:36

And then it's. But getting some, getting a, you know, a payment upfront from a company like that, that moves the needle quite a bit when, you know, we're talking about these, the size of these payments. And then we can work on the course for a long time and then get that secondary cash infusion when we launch. So Yeah. It'll be interesting.

Aaron

00:11:36 – 00:11:55

I'm excited about it. I'm not working on high performance Laravel right now. Although, got we got a lot of feedback that was like, that's the course you should do. Yeah. And so I received that feedback and I believe it is just gonna take a lot more work to do high performance Laravel than it would like eloquent mastery or something.

Ian

00:11:55 – 00:12:18

Right. Then you have a lot of other stuff. I mean, it seems like you have a lot of hot leads, so I think there's also a little bit of risk there, like putting those aside or telling somebody it's gonna be 6 months is not as appealing as telling them it's going to be 1 month or 2 months or whatever. So you do have to balance that a little bit probably on the consulting end or this even the sponsored content end. It's like Mhmm.

Ian

00:12:18 – 00:12:41

If you have these things coming in now, you kinda wanna strike while the iron's hot there, I think, as much as you can. I really like the idea of relaunching the screen casting course. I think that is really smart. I think, you know, you launched it, but it was like, I think, like, you've talked about before. It's like, there's kind of just always that cloud a little bit of like, are you gonna be all day every day pushing this thing when you're supposed to be doing other stuff or

Aaron

00:12:41 – 00:12:41

something else?

Ian

00:12:42 – 00:12:55

Scale at that time and everything. And it's like, so now you can, like, kinda give it the big push. And, obviously, you also have just, I think, new people in the audience since then and everything like that. So and to me, that's still always, like, the foundational element for you guys.

Aaron

00:12:55 – 00:13:03

I think that could be I think it could be the baseline that, like, we could then take some bigger risks off of.

Ian

00:13:03 – 00:13:09

Yeah. And that's so it's so much easier to flesh that out. I mean, like, we've talked about before, but, like, get that SEO going on that. That. Like, there's just a huge market out there.

Ian

00:13:09 – 00:13:30

If you can get the SEO going for people, you know, whatever, however, Twitter followers you have, like, there's still, you know, 10000 times where people out there searching for screencasting. They're never gonna follow you. So, yeah, getting that kind of stuff going will be a huge help to that. And then, yeah, like this premier car is like whatever adding little bits to it where you can relaunch it every couple months. Yeah.

Ian

00:13:30 – 00:13:35

Kind of fresh with some new stuff and just yeah. Keep keep that going.

Aaron

00:13:35 – 00:13:42

Yep. And we're gonna we're gonna start, like, doing a lot of these gear guides and reviews and

Ian

00:13:42 – 00:13:43

Yeah.

Aaron

00:13:43 – 00:13:52

You know, put together, like, alright. You wanna do you wanna do a bundle and you're on, you know, super budget? Here's exactly what you can buy. Here's Yeah. Here's camera light.

Aaron

00:13:52 – 00:14:08

And if you wanna do a bundle and you're on, like, an extreme budget, here's, you know, here's the better camera and here's 4 lights and all of this stuff. Right. So, hopefully, we can get a lot of inbound SEO from people look looking for gear and that sort of stuff. Yep. But also I

Ian

00:14:08 – 00:14:15

could do videos with those too. Like, those could be on YouTube as, like, lead gen videos. Exactly. Like that. I'm in a

Aaron

00:14:16 – 00:14:21

real I'm in a real, like, everything goes everywhere kind of phase right now. So it's like

Ian

00:14:21 – 00:14:23

That's the play with these things. Right? Like

Aaron

00:14:23 – 00:14:55

That's the play. I think I've realized that I'm the top of the funnel here, and I'm like, I'm the person bringing most of this, which is the plan, bringing most of this attention in. And so like, you know, articles, tweets, podcasts, videos, it's all gotta be it's all gotta be used in multiple places. Yeah. And so, like, when I, you know, when I do a podcast or guest podcast, then I gotta transcribe it and pull out any ideas that could be turned into tweets or articles and turn those into articles and then turn the articles into videos.

Aaron

00:14:55 – 00:14:59

It's just like the whole thing. The whole thing's just gotta keep going. It's a whole lot

Ian

00:14:59 – 00:15:04

of work right there too. You know? You have the time for all that. And Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

00:15:04 – 00:15:23

There's even, like, SEO stuff around now. Like, one of the big SEO things is, like, time on page and stuff like that. So, like, when you make the YouTube video of the article about the premier, or, you know, the best camera setup or whatever, like, you wanna have that YouTube video embedded in there so that, like, people watch it and it's longer on the page. Blah blah blah blah blah. So, like, yeah.

Ian

00:15:23 – 00:15:31

So having all that stuff and then getting it organized correctly and getting it published correctly and all that is it's a big project.

Aaron

00:15:31 – 00:15:40

Yeah. That's what I'm working on. That's what I worked on this weekend for my personal site was getting it all, like, getting it all sucked in and organized.

Ian

00:15:42 – 00:15:42

And in

Aaron

00:15:42 – 00:16:06

terms of podcasts, getting those transcribed, all of that stuff so that people 1, people can find it more easily, but 2, Google has some stuff to chew on and hopefully will bring them to my site. So Yeah. It's fun. I like I like setting up, you know, systems to do things for me. And part of like, part of the places, part of the place that I've struggled historically is not having a system.

Aaron

00:16:06 – 00:16:19

And so feeling like then, oh, I'm not gonna do the thing, but it would take too long to set up the system. And so I'm just gonna sit here and worry about it. Yep. So instead of doing that, I spent the weekend building out a pretty good system that I'm happy with.

Ian

00:16:19 – 00:16:23

Nice. Now you just have to do it for all the other sites and then you'll be set.

Aaron

00:16:23 – 00:16:27

Yeah, exactly. I know. I know. There's so much to do.

Ian

00:16:27 – 00:16:28

Never never ends.

Aaron

00:16:29 – 00:16:36

No. I do feel I I will say, I do feel not having a job really opens up how much time you have.

Ian

00:16:36 – 00:16:38

Yeah. Yeah. Big difference if you're talking

Aaron

00:16:38 – 00:16:40

to Big old big old difference.

Ian

00:16:40 – 00:16:50

9:30 at night or 11:30 at night or 2 in the morning or whatever versus, oh, I can just do this at 2 PM and Yep. Still pretty awake and fresh.

Aaron

00:16:50 – 00:17:03

I will say, if you if you need money, jobs are that's actually pretty good. I'm still working. I'm still trying to figure that side of the the thing out, but having the free time is awesome. I just Yeah. I love it so much.

Ian

00:17:03 – 00:17:13

Yeah. Definitely lets you move faster for sure that you've been able to work that part out enough to have a little breathing room to get going on it. Yeah. Alright. What else is going on?

Aaron

00:17:14 – 00:17:21

Alright. Let's see. You gotta tell me about I need you to talk to me about this health care stuff. So here's the deal. Here's the deal.

Aaron

00:17:21 – 00:17:36

I had a great tweet, and I knew it. I knew it from the time it came out of my fingers. I knew this is gonna work. Yep. So I got my, you know, I got my, COBRA renewal notice, which if you're not in the United States, that's awesome.

Aaron

00:17:36 – 00:17:44

Congratulations. Yeah. In the United States, COBRA is like a legal term for, like, continuing health care coverage.

Ian

00:17:45 – 00:17:49

Yeah. When you leave a job, you can keep your health care coverage for a certain amount of time.

Aaron

00:17:49 – 00:17:57

Months, but you pay through the nose for it. So I got my renewal, and it was like, great. You can keep your health care. I was like, oh, oh, that's amazing. Thank you so much.

Aaron

00:17:57 – 00:18:05

What a kind and generous government. And you'll have to pay $37100 a month. Wow. Oh.

Ian

00:18:05 – 00:18:06

That's a hefty one.

Aaron

00:18:06 – 00:18:12

That's a lot of money. Yeah. So I put it on Twitter. Got 1,500,000 impressions. Wow.

Aaron

00:18:12 – 00:18:25

Which is it's the best one I've ever had. And it was something so stupid. But I think it touched a nerve with, you know, a certain political demographic, and they took that as a way to advance their message. And I'm like, that's great. Just as long as

Ian

00:18:25 – 00:18:28

you read me subtext a little there. But yeah.

Aaron

00:18:28 – 00:18:41

Yeah. And then you're telling me that because Steve and I have a 2 person LLC, I can sign up for for just works, and they're like, what is it, a PEO or something? So what's what's the story here?

Ian

00:18:42 – 00:18:58

So, I mean, definitely, that COBRA is crazy. I think you'll wanna get off of that. The, you know, like, the marketplace, the health care marketplace we have in the United States, which I think looked into a little bit, just a place to get health care, which could, you know, could definitely work. But that's where Which

Aaron

00:18:58 – 00:19:01

does work. Obamacare, right? Yeah. Obamacare. The marketplace is Obamacare.

Aaron

00:19:01 – 00:19:01

Right?

Ian

00:19:01 – 00:19:17

Right. Okay. I've never used that myself, but I think it's definitely a thing people do and works. But, yeah, Justworks. I mean, the thing with Justworks is it does a lot of stuff that you're gonna need to do, which you might not even be doing right now, which you're probably, you know, potentially breaking the law and things like that.

Aaron

00:19:17 – 00:19:20

Wow. I don't know about that. I'm not selling oregano as weed.

Ian

00:19:20 – 00:19:21

I mean, we're just getting

Aaron

00:19:21 – 00:19:23

we're just getting started here.

Ian

00:19:23 – 00:19:27

Okay? Like. Yeah. Stuff the government cares about more than that, actually. That's

Aaron

00:19:27 – 00:19:28

probably true.

Ian

00:19:28 – 00:19:53

Basically, you know, the big thing is, like, your payroll. So you have money coming in. There's 2 of you. There's different ways to handle this, but since you're already, it sounds like having some fair amount of money come in, you really are supposed to pay yourself a salary and not just take everything as owner draw. And once you do that, like you have all the payroll taxes, you have social security, Medicare, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the stuff you have to be paying.

Ian

00:19:54 – 00:20:03

So you're gonna need some kind of payroll provider in general. I would think accountants can do it for you, or you could do it yourself, which is insane. I would not recommend you do it yourself.

Aaron

00:20:03 – 00:20:04

I'm not an accountant,

Ian

00:20:04 – 00:20:14

anymore. So you could so you could have your accountant do it, which I'd actually did do for a while, but it's not the best. They don't really love do I don't know. It it's kinda weird.

Aaron

00:20:14 – 00:20:17

You don't like all of this ability. They're terror they're terrible at everything.

Ian

00:20:17 – 00:20:18

They don't really wanna do it.

Aaron

00:20:18 – 00:20:29

Can you send me an email once a year and remind me, like, to do stuff? And they're like, nah. You gotta contact me and fill out my organizer that's 40 pages long. I'm like, what what am I I paying you for? Anyway I

Ian

00:20:29 – 00:20:40

I do now have an awesome accountant. So if anybody needs an accountant, I can recommend you an amazing one. But still, I don't have him do this stuff. Like he does my taxes. That's what he does and he's there for advice and other things and that's it.

Ian

00:20:40 – 00:20:58

Like, he doesn't do any of this other stuff. So yeah, so that's, that's a big one. Once you have some organization doing that for you, then like, at least in the case of just work, you could get healthcare through just works. You are paying just works every month for this opportunity at $99 an employee a month.

Aaron

00:20:59 – 00:21:02

Just for the opportunity to then pay for health care?

Ian

00:21:02 – 00:21:06

Well, no. For them to do the payroll and all the other stuff they do plus the

Aaron

00:21:06 – 00:21:08

entire thing. They're $99

Ian

00:21:08 – 00:21:10

an employee. Got it. Yeah. Got it. Got it.

Aaron

00:21:10 – 00:21:11

It. Here's a question. It's

Ian

00:21:11 – 00:21:18

$59 an employee if you don't go get healthcare through them. If you want healthcare through them, then that adds to go to $99 an employee.

Aaron

00:21:18 – 00:21:27

That's how that gets you. Here's a question for you. Mhmm. And would it be that Steve and I are a group or do we join some sort of like just works conglomerate group?

Ian

00:21:27 – 00:21:31

Yeah. You're like in the just works conglomerate group. So you're getting, like, the just works pricing.

Aaron

00:21:31 – 00:21:34

Okay. So it may not be prohibitively expensive.

Ian

00:21:35 – 00:21:48

No. Like, I think, you know, it is different in where you live and all this stuff, but I think ours is like for the family plan, like $1100 a month. I wanna say something like that. That's, like, on the lowest one. Like, I just get the lowest one.

Aaron

00:21:48 – 00:21:49

That is bad. Yeah.

Ian

00:21:49 – 00:22:09

The high deductible and whatever. You can get fancier ones. I don't have those, but they do offer them. So, yeah, so I mean, that's a path to the healthcare depend, you know, comparing it to the marketplace and what you want to do there. If, but there's other stuff they do too.

Ian

00:22:09 – 00:22:31

Like, there's if you wanted that 4 zero one k, you could get around that right now if you wanna do, like, sub IRA, which you can do while you don't have any employee employees while you're just owners. Once your employees doesn't work as well, which we can get into if you want. But, 401 ks, if you wanna go that route, there's, then, like, contractors, workers' comp. So there is, like, these different things where, like,

Aaron

00:22:31 – 00:22:33

contract all the 10 the 1099?

Ian

00:22:33 – 00:22:40

99 and stuff. Yeah. Like, it organizes all that for you, which, again, like, an accountant can do it. Maybe, I guess, you could do it yourself.

Aaron

00:22:41 – 00:22:42

No. Stop saying that. I'm not doing any of that.

Ian

00:22:42 – 00:22:50

I'm not doing any of that myself. I know I've been anybody that does anything themselves. Like, it's so nice to just have Justworks. You have a question about something, like, you go to them. They've always been very helpful.

Ian

00:22:51 – 00:22:51

Aaron

00:22:51 – 00:22:58

I don't recommend anybody doing anything themselves. Amen. Right. If I if there's one thing I love, it's just not doing stuff. Yeah.

Aaron

00:22:58 – 00:22:58

Just love not

Ian

00:22:58 – 00:23:05

doing stuff. Somewhere between $59.99 an employee a month, it's like that's a write off. You just write it off.

Aaron

00:23:05 – 00:23:06

That's a write off.

Ian

00:23:06 – 00:23:23

Somebody does all this stuff, and they make sure the paperwork gets to you and everybody else who needs paperwork. And they deal with just all the overhead of the, even individual states. If you're remote and you have different states in the mix and, like, each state has their own weird stuff that needs to be paid as part of payroll and all that stuff. So

Aaron

00:23:23 – 00:23:30

they kind of handle this. This, just works is the same or different than gusto or which you might call it gusto.

Ian

00:23:31 – 00:23:38

No. It's different. And I haven't looked at gusto in a while, but I believe they were just like a payroll

Aaron

00:23:38 – 00:23:39

Payroll provider.

Ian

00:23:39 – 00:23:42

Oh, looks like they've expanded a little bit to say they do HR stuff.

Aaron

00:23:43 – 00:23:44

Let's

Ian

00:23:44 – 00:23:56

see. They might have it's a payroll. They do they do more of this stuff now. They don't do it doesn't look like, it doesn't look like they do health care, though. Oh, no health benefits.

Ian

00:23:56 – 00:24:19

Yeah. So I think it is the same as Gusto. I guess, this point it was it didn't used to be the same as gusto, but now it looks like gusto is expanded to, take on the rest because it's kind of like it makes sense because everybody wants to outsource this part of their business. Like, they want the other stuff too. Like, so you just wanna go to one spot and, and have the healthcare and all that stuff.

Ian

00:24:19 – 00:24:33

I mean, the other nice thing is you're not here yet, but, like, as you get employees, like, any trouble they have with, like, healthcare plans and things, like, they go to just works, not you, which is a huge thing. It's like how

Aaron

00:24:33 – 00:24:34

you, yeah.

Ian

00:24:34 – 00:24:48

We used to do this, like where we managed the health. Like we went to the insurance provider. We had a health care plan for user escape. If employees had problems, they basically had to come to us first and then go. We would try to send it up the flagpole to, like, the health care company, whatever.

Ian

00:24:48 – 00:24:51

It was, like, a total mess. So now it's, like, no. Just go to just words.

Aaron

00:24:51 – 00:25:00

And Can you imagine going going to your boss and being, like, hey, I got a I got a tummy ache and my insurance isn't working like that. There's nothing more embarrassing than that.

Ian

00:25:00 – 00:25:02

Yeah. It's like I don't want to be in the middle of this stuff.

Aaron

00:25:02 – 00:25:04

No. You're. Tell me about your tummy aches.

Ian

00:25:05 – 00:25:05

Yeah. So

Aaron

00:25:05 – 00:25:08

supposed to be a barrier here. You know, I'm not supposed to know that stuff.

Ian

00:25:08 – 00:25:12

Yeah. That stuff even gets weird. It's like, I don't know. Am I supposed to know about this? Like, what am I supposed to know about?

Ian

00:25:12 – 00:25:17

I don't know. You know? So I like having this all be separate. So yeah. And Just Work's definitely not the only one.

Ian

00:25:17 – 00:25:20

So, apparently, Gusto does it. There are others.

Aaron

00:25:20 – 00:25:25

ADP is big dog. Right? Don't they do it all? Yeah. ADP and what's the other one?

Aaron

00:25:25 – 00:25:26

In Sparelli? No.

Ian

00:25:27 – 00:25:35

ADP Something else. Used to do it all. They used to just be payroll, which we used to have ADP. Uh-huh. For payroll after we moved off just the accountants, we went to ADP.

Ian

00:25:36 – 00:25:43

But and then we went to Justworks because ADP did not do it all. But now I do think they have also got on the we do it all bandwagon. So I'm pretty sure.

Aaron

00:25:43 – 00:25:47

So this is the way that you know all of this is you've done you've used every single

Ian

00:25:47 – 00:26:12

one of these. Yeah. I started with just the accountant and getting my own insurance myself, like, through the whole process of this evolution of these PEOs, and now we don't have to do any of this ourselves and it's great. And so, yeah, so everybody had it much easier now. Of course you I had to suffer you all can live life easy street, but, and yeah, I guess now I haven't looked at anything else in years.

Ian

00:26:12 – 00:26:31

Like, I just paid just works. I don't even think about it. Obviously, if you're just starting out now, yes, you should probably go to Gusto and go to Gusto work to maybe be able to play them off each other and like get, save a few bucks. Who knows? But they're all providing the same type of service where you're gonna be able to, just outsource a lot of this and not have the headache and make sure you're compliant with the law.

Ian

00:26:31 – 00:26:36

Because then, like, when you're not paying these, like, federal taxes correctly and stuff, then

Aaron

00:26:36 – 00:26:38

you can call them. That. Yeah.

Ian

00:26:38 – 00:26:41

They care they care about that. They care about that a lot. They get on you for that.

Aaron

00:26:41 – 00:27:03

Yeah. If there if there's one if there's one thing that the government actually enforces, it's paying taxes. You don't wanna you don't wanna mess around with that. There's even a line on there for, like, I think, on your income taxes for how much money you made via bribery and, like, how much money you made via stolen goods or something like that. Yeah.

Aaron

00:27:03 – 00:27:11

And my my recommendation should my my non accountant recommendation is if you make a bunch of money off bribery, put it on just put it on there.

Ian

00:27:11 – 00:27:11

Just put it on there.

Aaron

00:27:11 – 00:27:16

Just put it on there, pay your taxes, and figure it out later. Yeah. Exactly.

Ian

00:27:16 – 00:27:44

Agree. You gotta pay the taxes. And, like, the thing is people try to skirt the, like, personal taxes a little bit by, like, if you just take it all your money you make as owner draws, then you're gonna pay income tax, but you're gonna not have to pay the corporate, like the different, like social security taxes and things like that, pay payroll taxes, which saves you some money. But they look, they frown on that very much. So you really should pay yourself a salary.

Ian

00:27:45 – 00:27:56

Anybody out there who's not paying themselves a salary, you should pay yourself a salary. You're supposed to pay yourself a salary commensurate with what you would be paid if you work for somebody else. I don't go necessarily quite that far with it, but I'd

Aaron

00:27:56 – 00:27:59

I'm talking, like, 60%, 50% where

Ian

00:27:59 – 00:28:26

you can make someone else. A reasonable salary. And so because basically here's the thing, like it maxes out at like 120 or 140,000 or something like that. So like, if you get, you know, if obviously you, once you're making more money, but like if you make a half $1,000,000 a year and you pay yourself a 100,000, you're in the ballpark of like maxing out your social security and stuff. So that's what they care about.

Ian

00:28:26 – 00:28:37

If you make if the business is bringing in a half $1,000,000 a year and you pay yourself $10,000 a year in payroll, and then you withdraw $300,000 a year as owner draw that they don't like to see. So

Aaron

00:28:38 – 00:28:39

That's what I wanna do.

Ian

00:28:39 – 00:28:39

That's a little

Aaron

00:28:39 – 00:28:40

That sounds awesome.

Ian

00:28:40 – 00:28:45

Yeah. I know. My wife is big on that. She's like, screw them. Let's just wait.

Ian

00:28:45 – 00:28:47

Why do I hate she hates pay the taxes. She hates

Aaron

00:28:47 – 00:28:48

it. But

Ian

00:28:48 – 00:28:52

I don't like that in jail, so trying to avoid jail time.

Aaron

00:28:52 – 00:28:58

Yeah. I that is something I'm optimizing for as well. Right. I think that's all. I don't We never been arrested,

Ian

00:28:59 – 00:29:00

so I don't know. Maybe we should.

Aaron

00:29:00 – 00:29:04

That's true. And, honestly, a quiet night in a jail cell

Ian

00:29:04 – 00:29:06

Oh, sounds pretty good. Yeah.

Aaron

00:29:06 – 00:29:08

As long as I'm by myself, that sounds kinda awesome.

Ian

00:29:08 – 00:29:10

That sounds a little vacation.

Aaron

00:29:11 – 00:29:24

Yeah. All of this, of course, only applies, I think, to s and c corpse. Now we're getting real into these because pass through entities, you just you gotta pay tax on everything. And so I think we need to elect s before we file next year.

Ian

00:29:25 – 00:29:28

Yeah. I know c corps are a whole different beast there. I don't know about the

Aaron

00:29:28 – 00:29:31

c We didn't we didn't incorporate a c, so we can't Yeah.

Ian

00:29:31 – 00:29:38

You don't wanna be a c. You wanna be LLC filing as an s, I think Yeah. Would be the play you're working with. You. Yeah.

Ian

00:29:38 – 00:29:39

So that way,

Aaron

00:29:39 – 00:29:40

Paul, you

Ian

00:29:40 – 00:29:43

want the protections of the corporation and LLC and all that stuff.

Aaron

00:29:43 – 00:29:46

Talk talk to a real accountant. Don't get your advice from podcasters.

Ian

00:29:47 – 00:29:48

Yes. You definitely need to always talk to

Aaron

00:29:48 – 00:29:49

your accountants. Unless unless

Ian

00:29:49 – 00:29:50

I mean, you are

Aaron

00:29:50 – 00:29:51

an accountant,

Ian

00:29:51 – 00:29:52

and I was an accounting

Aaron

00:29:52 – 00:29:52

manager. Hell.

Ian

00:29:53 – 00:29:56

So we kinda know something about this. We know a little more about this than the other side.

Aaron

00:29:56 – 00:30:04

We know. Yes. We know a lot more than the average person, but a lot less than we should to be giving advice.

Ian

00:30:04 – 00:30:19

Everybody's particular arrangements are different, what your situation is. So definitely get a good accountant. If you don't, you'll know if you have a good accountant to me, this is like, if you feel like your accountant, like isn't great, that's that means they're a bad accountant and you should go get a different account.

Aaron

00:30:19 – 00:30:20

Yeah. I need a different accountant.

Ian

00:30:21 – 00:30:24

I gotta hook you up with my guy. He's the best. He's unbelievable. Yeah.

Aaron

00:30:24 – 00:30:26

I when I got the guy.

Ian

00:30:26 – 00:30:40

So, like, I went from the accountant to another accountant. They're both terrible. The first guy was actually pretty good, but he just wasn't like modernized and stuff. We, we outgrew him and then the second guy was no good. And then I was just desperate, desperate.

Ian

00:30:41 – 00:30:47

And I knew this guy way back in the day, there was this thing called slice host, which was like kind of one of the first partial

Aaron

00:30:48 – 00:30:48

Yeah.

Ian

00:30:48 – 00:31:00

Server hosting things. And he got they got really big and they got bought, whatever. And I knew this guy and I was like, dude, I need an accountant. And he was like, I have the greatest accountant in the world. So I was like, let me have him.

Ian

00:31:00 – 00:31:10

So I got this accountant and he is the greatest accountant in the world. These they're they're unbelievable. They're so good. I bought this guy, like, a super fancy bottle of scotch or something, sent it to him. I was like, this is, like, the greatest thing ever.

Ian

00:31:11 – 00:31:16

Just like when you get in with a good accountant, it's just so much better. They just know what they're talking about on somebody front. So

Aaron

00:31:16 – 00:31:24

Alright. 22 things. You know, 1, first, you know that that accountant put that bottle of Scotch gift on his taxes, and he paid he paid tax on it.

Ian

00:31:24 – 00:31:27

He's like, you got the tax amount. Yeah. That's just a compensation.

Aaron

00:31:27 – 00:31:35

Second question. Are they, are they remote? Can they do the taxes of a person in Texas, for example?

Ian

00:31:35 – 00:31:41

They're in St. Louis, and I've never met them in person. So they work very well remotely. Yeah. No problem.

Aaron

00:31:41 – 00:31:54

And are they, like, proactive? Because the problem I have with accountants historically is Mhmm. You hear from them on April 14th, and they're like, hey. Just wanted to let you know, like, where's your stuff? I'm like, we haven't talked.

Ian

00:31:54 – 00:31:54

Right.

Aaron

00:31:54 – 00:31:57

We haven't talked in 364 days. Like Yeah.

Ian

00:31:57 – 00:32:25

No. They are way more proactive than that. They're always on us in, like, January to, like, start getting our stuff together. And then usually before that, like, in November, they'll at least reach out, if there's anything big or weird on the year that we might need to adjust for before the end of the year and things like that. Or just, you know, to sketch out the year where it stands now and if there's gonna be a huge tax bill and if we wanna wanna spend some money, ahead of time or things like that.

Ian

00:32:25 – 00:32:48

So, yeah, for the most part, they're, they're really good about that. And I imagine, like, I've always been pretty hands off with them other than that they you know, we're always on time with everything, and they're always well ahead of schedule of getting our stuff. Definitely not, like, the April 14th stuff. But, you know, I've also reached out to them many times, like, hey. Question, business thing, contract, whatever.

Ian

00:32:49 – 00:32:52

And they actually help. Good. They actually help.

Aaron

00:32:52 – 00:32:54

Yeah. That's crazy. Alright. We gotta we gotta talk.

Ian

00:32:54 – 00:33:05

These people up with, like I must have sent them at least 10 or more companies over the years. And as far as I know, everybody, still is with the Lyricast uses them, Titan.

Aaron

00:33:05 – 00:33:06

Oh, no way.

Ian

00:33:06 – 00:33:13

So a lot of people Really? In our circles. Yeah. So and they've been happy with them as far as I know. So

Aaron

00:33:14 – 00:33:18

He should be sending you a bottle of scotch. Okay. I don't know why I don't know why you're sending him stuff.

Ian

00:33:18 – 00:33:42

When he sends me these 5 figure tax bills, I'm like, Like, I probably sent you and he funded the $5 or 1,000,000 of, dollars. I mean, he is whatever. They'd actually do their he he hooked me up in some different ways, but, yes, like, I do agree. They're they're kinda old school. Not you know, they're not thinking on the modern Internet program sort of thing, but, and whatever.

Ian

00:33:42 – 00:33:51

I just want them to stay in business and be wealthy and keep doing what they're doing because I don't wanna have to find a new account. So No. That account is not easy enough. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron

00:33:52 – 00:33:53

Alright. Well, I'll get that name from you.

Ian

00:33:54 – 00:33:58

Yep. So I don't know. So, yeah, you guys gotta figure that out, but don't put it too

Aaron

00:33:58 – 00:34:11

long. Doing. So I haven't I have till the end of I have till the end of April. There is a podcast called Startup to Last, kind of the same same as every other Bootstrap podcast. It's Rick and Tyler.

Aaron

00:34:11 – 00:34:12

And I listen to

Ian

00:34:12 – 00:34:13

this one.

Aaron

00:34:13 – 00:34:31

I've listened to that one for many years. Tyler works as the founder of less annoying CRM, and Rick, his cohost, is the founder of Leg Up Health, which is like it's hard to explain, I think. They serve as like insurance agents or brokers or independent somethings.

Ian

00:34:32 – 00:34:32

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:34:33 – 00:35:00

And one of, like, his, his cofounder just moved to Texas, and so he's licensed in Texas. And so I reached out to him and was like, hey, is this the, like, the kind of thing you do? And it's exactly the kind of thing that that they do. And so I talked to this guy for, like, an hour and he, you know, walked me through all the available plans and stuff. And apparently, if you are an individual and you go through the marketplace, there are tax incentives or credits available.

Aaron

00:35:00 – 00:35:22

But unlike other tax credits, they come off of your health insurance premiums upfront. So you put in you put in, like, your number of dependents, and then estimated income, and it calculates, like, here's what your credits are. We'll apply that to this list of premiums that you're looking at now.

Ian

00:35:22 – 00:35:23

Mhmm.

Aaron

00:35:23 – 00:35:47

And then if you, you know, if you lie, it all gets trued up on your tax return. Right. And so that I think what I'm told is that is what Obama and his, you know, his, agencies built is that is the marketplace. It's the coordination between the individual and the the company and the tax, like the IRS. That's, like, what the marketplace means.

Aaron

00:35:47 – 00:35:57

Right. And so we looked at several plans, and I think we're gonna be able to hit 1,000 dollars, maybe 1215 with with these credits. And so

Ian

00:35:57 – 00:35:59

These days, that's not not bad.

Aaron

00:35:59 – 00:36:07

No. It's not bad at all. I mean, unless you're European and you get it for free and, like Right. Yeah. I don't and that's not helpful to me.

Aaron

00:36:07 – 00:36:17

I know. No. Thank you for telling me, but that's not helpful. So we'll see. I'll talk to him again this week, and then I will look at Justworks, and we'll see we'll see where it lands.

Aaron

00:36:17 – 00:36:21

But the good news is we'll end up with something, and it won't be 37 $100 a

Ian

00:36:21 – 00:36:26

month. Yeah. That's that's crazy. That's, that's crazy. I don't yeah.

Ian

00:36:26 – 00:36:34

I remember how COBRA works if you could switch plans. I kinda don't think so. Right? You're, like, locked into the company's plan, whatever they had. So then you just end up paying, like, the raw cost and

Aaron

00:36:34 – 00:36:35

Exactly. Yeah.

Ian

00:36:35 – 00:36:40

They got that VC money they're trying to blow through. So they're like, let's get the let's get the Cadillac health plan.

Aaron

00:36:40 – 00:36:58

Yes. Yep. And, apparently, these these health insurance companies kinda, like, kind of gouge the companies like the like the planet scales of the world. And so then when you, are are let go, you get the, like, price gouged price as an individual. So Yeah.

Aaron

00:36:58 – 00:37:04

The whole thing whole thing is bad news, but I think we're on the straight and narrow. So Yep. Okay.

Ian

00:37:04 – 00:37:48

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Ian

00:37:48 – 00:38:24

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Ian

00:38:25 – 00:38:44

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Ian

00:38:44 – 00:38:44

What is

Aaron

00:38:44 – 00:38:45

Oh, man.

Ian

00:38:45 – 00:38:47

What is this? Give me something.

Aaron

00:38:48 – 00:38:55

Here's the thing. I'm about to say some stuff, and I know I know that, like, I'm mostly in the wrong.

Ian

00:38:56 – 00:38:57

I love that. That's the best.

Aaron

00:38:57 – 00:39:11

But but I want you I want you to defend me and back me up anyway. But I okay. So I know I'm mostly in the wrong, but I'm still it's still kind of annoying. Everybody everybody updates their apps too fast. Okay?

Aaron

00:39:11 – 00:39:28

So, like, Laravel 11 comes out, and, like, that day, people are like, hey, Aaron. All these packages that you wrote when you had a lot more time, they're not up up to date with Laravel 11. And I'm like, it just it just released literally this morning, and I'm getting DMs. It's like, hey. Do you think you can update this?

Aaron

00:39:28 – 00:39:39

I'm like, I just lost my job. I don't know what I'm doing here. So here's the thing. Updating to Laravel 11 on the day of, that's that's that's great. I love that.

Aaron

00:39:39 – 00:39:56

For our community that we're, like, Johnny on the spot, that's awesome. As a package maintainer who does it as, like, does it as a hobby and didn't really have that much time anymore. God, you guys gotta give me, like, a just a second now. Yeah. Here's here's here's the bad news.

Aaron

00:39:56 – 00:40:13

It was really Laravel 11 was released a few weeks ago now, and I still haven't updated my packages. So I don't have a lot of, like, I don't have a lot of ground to stand on here, but still, everybody updates everything too fast. Like, what how are you updating your production applications in a day? This makes no sense to me.

Ian

00:40:14 – 00:40:17

I I have so many thoughts and questions on this. This is such a Yeah. Totally.

Aaron

00:40:17 – 00:40:23

It's crazy. You gotta wait for the point one or the point zero one release because, you know, you don't wanna what are your thoughts?

Ian

00:40:23 – 00:40:38

Feels like. And I'm sure there's exceptions out there. Part of me feels like the these people on the day one upgrades, these are not real applications. These are people with little side projects. These are not people with thousands of users who are, like, day 1 of the release.

Ian

00:40:39 – 00:40:51

I'm looking to get the new version of our old, the new packages that some guy in the middle of the night, because he's got a day job, just slapped together some fixes. I'm not trying to ship that out to production. Like, I'm just not I don't know why we would do that.

Aaron

00:40:51 – 00:40:53

No. You gotta let it bake. You gotta let it bake.

Ian

00:40:54 – 00:41:05

We're getting a little too far behind on our Laravels. So, like, HubSpot has been converted onto Laravel in this sort of crazy way. We're still, like, on 8 or something crazy. So, like, that's one of my projects is to get to 11 here. Talking about.

Ian

00:41:05 – 00:41:13

Yeah. But some I'll I'll try to do it day 1 for sure. So part of me is like that. That's like one of the negatives of the open source maintainer. Right?

Ian

00:41:13 – 00:41:28

Is it's like, oh, like people are on you. And it's like, are these even people who are, like, really shipping this to their big apps with lots of users? Are they really shipping level 11 the first day? Maybe a couple of really hardcore people are, but, like, can't be the majority, I wouldn't think. Can't be.

Ian

00:41:28 – 00:41:31

Even any large percentage. So Yeah.

Aaron

00:41:31 – 00:41:38

But they're very nice, wonderful, lovely people. And if that's you that's you, listener, I am grateful for you. But, yes, carry on.

Ian

00:41:38 – 00:41:46

I am amazed that you're able to pull it off. I cannot, pull it off for sure. Yeah. You know, I don't know. What is your, I mean, we could flip the script, right?

Ian

00:41:46 – 00:41:52

Like, Hey, it's open source. It's out there. It's popping you, your packages. Aren't that crazy. Like

Aaron

00:41:52 – 00:41:53

they're not very good.

Ian

00:41:53 – 00:41:59

I mean, I don't know. Like how much work could there be to upgrade it to Laravel Levin? It's not like Laravel Levin, like

Aaron

00:41:59 – 00:42:01

change tiny amount. Yeah.

Ian

00:42:01 – 00:42:06

All of Eloquine or whatever. Like, everything's totally different. Like, I mean, it can't be that much work. Like

Aaron

00:42:06 – 00:42:08

Yeah. This, again, is a strike against request

Ian

00:42:08 – 00:42:08

about that.

Aaron

00:42:09 – 00:42:13

Strike against me because it's very little very little work, and I should just do it. And so It's

Ian

00:42:13 – 00:42:16

full size to complain. The kind

Aaron

00:42:16 – 00:42:21

of person people have, and I haven't merged it because I'm like, I just got I gotta I gotta address this later.

Ian

00:42:21 – 00:42:39

That that's a little more on you. Yeah. Maybe if they me. If they've submitted a poll request and you'll merge it, that's a little more on you. But, like, if you're the kind of person who's complaining, but you're also shipping Laravel Levin to your production app on day 1, then I think you can make the half an hour to, like, submit the poll request and help Aaron out.

Ian

00:42:41 – 00:42:51

Now if it's in your court now and you just haven't merged it, that's okay. That's a little more on you. Like, you could you gotta maybe carve out a little time. This is part of your media empire.

Aaron

00:42:51 – 00:42:53

It is. It really is.

Ian

00:42:53 – 00:42:56

Part of your brand out there. And how many how many of these do you have?

Aaron

00:42:57 – 00:43:03

Oh, I probably have that people actually use. I've probably got 5 or 6 packages.

Ian

00:43:03 – 00:43:04

Okay.

Aaron

00:43:05 – 00:43:12

Sidecar being the biggest, then probably airdrop, and then a bunch of random little stuff.

Ian

00:43:13 – 00:43:22

Did, I I thought I saw this, but I could be wrong. Didn't Laravel Shift have a thing for packages too, or am I making that up?

Aaron

00:43:22 – 00:43:46

He'll open PRs against against packages, and he did. I think he did for I think he did for sidecar and airdrop. But and I think Sidecar, I've already updated to 11, and AirDrop, I've maybe updated to 11 to 11 as well. And those those PRs are somewhat helpful. They're automated and so they miss or do some weird stuff.

Ian

00:43:46 – 00:43:46

Right.

Aaron

00:43:46 – 00:43:49

But it's it gives me a, it gives me a starting point for sure. It's

Ian

00:43:49 – 00:43:50

in the ballpark

Aaron

00:43:51 – 00:43:51

of some of

Ian

00:43:51 – 00:43:53

the low hanging fruit and things like that.

Aaron

00:43:53 – 00:44:20

Yeah. So I know that I'm the bad guy here, but it's like, guys, it's day 1. Now I don't you know, that we should've done we should've recorded this on day 1, and it would've hit a lot harder. Now that now that it's, like, day 15 since it's been released, I kinda look like an idiot here, but still, imagine it's day 1. Imagine it's day 1, and people have already up upgraded, and you're like, I just I haven't done it yet.

Aaron

00:44:20 – 00:44:20

It's crazy.

Ian

00:44:20 – 00:44:25

Does Laravel need a release every year at this point? That's kind of an interesting question. You're

Aaron

00:44:26 – 00:44:27

just you're going broad.

Ian

00:44:28 – 00:44:39

Software as a agent, not new help spot release every year of, like I mean, we release updates, but usually, every month ish, but, like, they're not a huge new release with tons of new features every year. Like, yeah.

Aaron

00:44:39 – 00:44:50

Are you suggesting that that Laravel maybe do a, a release once and then call it finished software? We could do we could have, like, a manifesto, like, at like, once.com or something. Yeah. That's a good idea.

Ian

00:44:50 – 00:44:51

That's a good idea.

Aaron

00:44:52 – 00:44:56

I don't know. I think it's nice. No. It is nice. Here's the answer.

Aaron

00:44:56 – 00:45:04

No. The answer is no. They don't need to release every year, but the really and they've already switched from 6 months. Do you remember when it was 6 months? Major version every 6 months?

Ian

00:45:04 – 00:45:05

Oh, it's crazy.

Aaron

00:45:05 – 00:45:07

That was crazy. We were flying, man.

Ian

00:45:07 – 00:45:08

Things were happening. Yes.

Aaron

00:45:09 – 00:45:31

I think it's it's just a nice escape hatch for them to do, like, 2 breaking changes that are, like, 6 layers deep in the framework and nobody even knows they're breaking changes, but you know, some person's gonna be like, no, this was technically a breaking change. So but, yeah, the upgrade times are like if you look at the guide, they're like, up estimated upgrade time, 15 minutes.

Ian

00:45:31 – 00:45:31

Right.

Aaron

00:45:31 – 00:45:34

This is crazy. How is this so good?

Ian

00:45:34 – 00:45:41

I actually think even bigger than that, the actual biggest reason is, marketing. Like, this is part of what's helped keep Laravel on top

Aaron

00:45:41 – 00:45:42

is, like That's true.

Ian

00:45:43 – 00:45:47

Just constant stuff to talk about. Right? Like, the conferences need stuff to talk about.

Aaron

00:45:47 – 00:45:48

Mhmm.

Ian

00:45:48 – 00:45:52

The blogs need stuff to talk about. It's like Laravel Levin. It's a big release. Laravel 12.

Aaron

00:45:52 – 00:46:02

People need to feel like it's moving forward even if even if, like, the the improvements needed at this point are incremental. It still feels like, oh, we're still moving forward major version.

Ian

00:46:02 – 00:46:05

Give you a chance to talk about. I mean, they add stuff during the year too, and it's like

Aaron

00:46:06 – 00:46:07

Yeah. Give you a chance to

Ian

00:46:07 – 00:46:19

talk about all that stuff where, like, people are actually paying attention because it's just too hard to pay attention all year long to every release. Yeah. Even though you have Laravel News out there, obviously, doing its best to keep people updated and everybody else.

Aaron

00:46:19 – 00:46:23

Show, which doesn't talk about Lerville, but pretends to. Like, we're keeping you updated.

Ian

00:46:24 – 00:46:26

We recycle? We spent, like, a whole episode on recycle.

Aaron

00:46:26 – 00:46:28

Oh, that's a great one. That was a great one.

Ian

00:46:28 – 00:46:30

Episode. I love recycle.

Aaron

00:46:30 – 00:46:33

The first versus soul or soul versus own video, whatever.

Ian

00:46:33 – 00:46:35

Yeah. We've got it set up.

Aaron

00:46:35 – 00:46:47

You're telling me that you think part of the major version updates is marketing, and you're suggesting that Taylor Otwell might be good at marketing. That's crazy. It's Yeah. Is I'm entitled to to hear that. Yeah.

Aaron

00:46:47 – 00:46:50

I can't believe that. I wonder if that has contributed to his success at all.

Ian

00:46:50 – 00:46:52

Nah. Maybe just a little bit. Maybe a

Aaron

00:46:52 – 00:46:52

little bit.

Ian

00:46:52 – 00:46:58

Yeah. The genius. He probably wrote off that Lambo. That's how that's how

Aaron

00:46:58 – 00:46:59

smart he is. Did? Yeah.

Ian

00:46:59 – 00:47:00

Off a Lambo as market.

Aaron

00:47:00 – 00:47:06

Get a you get a license plate that says facade, which makes it a business expense, which makes it a write off.

Ian

00:47:07 – 00:47:07

Oh, so good.

Aaron

00:47:07 – 00:47:11

Can you imagine if Taylor at well went to jail for tax fraud because he wrote off

Ian

00:47:11 – 00:47:18

his Lambo? Goes out in a blaze of glory. This Lambo. Oh, hysterical.

Aaron

00:47:18 – 00:47:19

That would definitely be a I don't

Ian

00:47:19 – 00:47:20

wanna tell you.

Aaron

00:47:20 – 00:47:28

No. I don't need that. Jail Taylor, but that would that would be a major storyline. That would be good that would be good content. So consider it, Taylor.

Ian

00:47:28 – 00:47:44

He's pretty conservative financially in some ways, obviously, on to Lambo, but he's still at heart is kinda conservative, so I kinda doubt he wrote it off. But, like, I I I, like, internally have this story where I believe he wrote it off. Like, that's what I call myself, and that that's a more fun story to me. He wrote it off.

Aaron

00:47:44 – 00:47:47

Yeah. He's way too responsible to do that. But yeah. Sure.

Ian

00:47:48 – 00:47:57

Alright. I'll need an update on the office. You got a butcher block desk. You got a walkie desk. You got behind you, we see it's looking beautiful.

Ian

00:47:57 – 00:48:04

So get get I need the whole thing, especially the walking desk, but I wanna hear the whole you did a lot of stuff since last week talked. So give us

Aaron

00:48:04 – 00:48:11

a lot of stuff. I'll tell you what. 1 of you know, I've had a lot of good ideas. You know, some people would say

Ian

00:48:11 – 00:48:12

Mostly good ideas.

Aaron

00:48:12 – 00:48:15

Mostly. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Mostly good ideas.

Aaron

00:48:16 – 00:48:20

This may be one of my best ideas. This whole this whole apartment scheme

Ian

00:48:21 – 00:48:22

Yep. Is

Aaron

00:48:23 – 00:48:24

amazing. We'd love to

Ian

00:48:24 – 00:48:25

pays off.

Aaron

00:48:25 – 00:48:47

This This is this is one of my best schemes ever. So the the the state of the union over here is I'm in the studio right now, which is, would traditionally be called the bedroom of the apartment, because one would most often put a bed in here and not Got a closet. Yeah. Not a fake wall.

Ian

00:48:47 – 00:48:48

Right.

Aaron

00:48:48 – 00:49:12

So I'm in I'm in the studio slash bedroom in here. This is where I have my full on, like, filming gear and lights, camera, microphone, beautiful backdrop, lights everywhere. And so this is it's just is perfect in here. Like, everything looks great. I still have a few tweaks for, like, settings and stuff, but super duper happy.

Aaron

00:49:13 – 00:49:28

In the living room right out there, I've got a balcony that overlooks the pool, like, the interior courtyard. Yep. And I now have so, like, I got this this desk that I'm working on here. I got this as a gift from Autonomous. Thank you, Autonomous.

Aaron

00:49:28 – 00:49:31

So I have my old desk, a gift. Yeah.

Ian

00:49:31 – 00:49:32

Hot damn.

Aaron

00:49:32 – 00:49:38

Unless unless the IRS is listening, in which case, I don't know where this desk came from. Hold on.

Ian

00:49:38 – 00:49:49

Just a second. I got I got to spend another, so we're not gonna just go past that. So, I mean, I get that. That's awesome. I just wanna say that this is one of these areas where, like, I've always want, this is like physical world products.

Ian

00:49:49 – 00:49:52

It's like, I can't give somebody help desk software. Like it's not

Aaron

00:49:52 – 00:49:53

a gift. It's not interesting.

Ian

00:49:53 – 00:50:01

Nobody welcomes it. They're not like, oh, great. Let me spend 20 hours setting this up and getting people. Nobody cares. Nobody wants it as a gift.

Ian

00:50:01 – 00:50:11

But, like, you could just send somebody a desk and they're excited. And they talk about it on their vlog, and they do all this stuff. Like, it's a physical world, but you could send things. It's so glorious. Anyway, that's

Aaron

00:50:11 – 00:50:20

not It is is pretty great. You know, I don't know if you want to get into the furniture world, but a help desk is kind of a great idea. I don't know what angle is there, but it's like

Ian

00:50:20 – 00:50:22

We send people actual desks.

Aaron

00:50:22 – 00:50:26

I'm telling you, it's good branding. It's funny. This is your help desk.

Ian

00:50:26 – 00:50:28

A pretty good idea, actually.

Aaron

00:50:28 – 00:50:29

I just came up with that.

Ian

00:50:29 – 00:50:31

Gotta think about this a little more.

Aaron

00:50:31 – 00:50:31

The thing about

Ian

00:50:32 – 00:50:34

this is going. Maybe it's just a little desk.

Aaron

00:50:34 – 00:50:34

There you go.

Ian

00:50:34 – 00:50:37

Little wooden desk. Can we just send that out, and it's kind

Aaron

00:50:37 – 00:50:37

of cool.

Ian

00:50:37 – 00:50:38

Just a little tchotchke.

Aaron

00:50:38 – 00:50:42

Mhmm. Here's your help desk. That's pretty

Ian

00:50:42 – 00:50:44

good. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Aaron

00:50:44 – 00:50:45

That's pretty good.

Ian

00:50:46 – 00:50:46

Alright.

Aaron

00:50:46 – 00:50:52

Alright. Alright. I'll send you an invoice. Alright. So, you know, I've got the free desk out here.

Aaron

00:50:53 – 00:51:20

And then in the living room, I have my old desk, and I'm like, this you know, it's it's a standing desk, so it's like a it it's a good desk, but the the tabletop is all bowed down from years of use. Right. And I'm like, I wanna kinda have this space be multifunctional, and so I got some casters, some, like, you know, workshop wheels to put on the desk. So now I can just roll the desk anywhere. Right?

Ian

00:51:20 – 00:51:21

Love things that roll.

Aaron

00:51:21 – 00:51:33

So I'm chasing I'm chasing the sun around the room. I'm living the dream. Yep. And I'm like, this desktop is kinda 1, it's a little bit, you know, it's a little bit, warped, but 2, it's kinda like a little janky. It's kinda ugly.

Ian

00:51:33 – 00:51:35

And so I'm giving you the vibes you want?

Aaron

00:51:35 – 00:51:48

No. The vibes are all wrong. And so I still had an IKEA countertop, because I thought I was gonna make shelves out of it. Mhmm. But I made that first shelf and was like, wow.

Ian

00:51:48 – 00:51:49

This sounds goofy.

Aaron

00:51:49 – 00:52:12

So I had a full a full second countertop that I was gonna use, and they're like Mhmm. I don't know, $150, but extremely heavy, and I didn't wanna drive to Frisco to return it. And so I thought, wait. I could use this as a desktop. So I took the old desktop off, put that on my standing legs, and now I've got, like, a, you know, 7 foot long countertop on wheels that I can just roll around.

Aaron

00:52:12 – 00:52:33

The right side of it is dedicated to, like, basically makeshift, like, meetings. You know, I've got my my laptop and my camera and my other microphone out there just from taking a casual meeting. The whole left side is dedicated to, like, notes and books and research and room to draw stuff. It's like, this is just this is perfect. It's Wow.

Aaron

00:52:33 – 00:52:33

That's

Ian

00:52:33 – 00:52:34

a great setup.

Aaron

00:52:34 – 00:52:47

Yeah. And then and then I've got a walking treadmill. And so I can just, like, roll the desk over the treadmill and just, you know, start walking and get to work. It's and I'm looking out the window. The door's open.

Aaron

00:52:47 – 00:52:54

I'm drinking a, you know, a non diet Coke soda. It's like, yeah. Might as well. I'm living the dream. It's great.

Aaron

00:52:54 – 00:52:56

I love it so much.

Ian

00:52:56 – 00:53:17

I said that's why when you tweeted the picture, I was like, you're Casey Neistat, baby. You're Casey Neistat of the Laravel world and the YouTube world. It's just like That's insane. Energy of, like, a a space dedicated to your work that's got, like, and things on the wall and everything has its place and things on wheels and top down cameras. And, like, that whole vibe is so good.

Ian

00:53:17 – 00:53:18

Like Yep.

Aaron

00:53:18 – 00:53:18

Yep. I

Ian

00:53:18 – 00:53:28

haven't been able to get myself all the way there yet. Now this is interesting. What you just said unlocked it for me because I've thought about the walking treadmill base thing many times.

Aaron

00:53:28 – 00:53:28

Okay. And I'm

Ian

00:53:28 – 00:53:35

like this. I'm just so many times I'm like writing email or stupid shit that I could, like, be doing that while I'm getting in some steps. Why not?

Aaron

00:53:35 – 00:53:36

Yep.

Ian

00:53:37 – 00:53:46

But it's like, it's in your way. Then when I wanna sit, it's like, now I gotta move this big, heavy treadmill based thing. And like, I know I'm just never gonna do that. I'm gonna move it out of the way once. I'm just gonna sit.

Ian

00:53:46 – 00:53:51

I'm never gonna bring it back. But if you leave the treadmill base where it is and then you move the desk

Aaron

00:53:51 – 00:53:54

Move the actual desk. Yeah. You gotta replace

Ian

00:53:54 – 00:53:55

it in. Do it.

Aaron

00:53:55 – 00:53:56

Yep. That's how you're gonna

Ian

00:53:56 – 00:53:57

do it.

Aaron

00:53:57 – 00:53:57

It's great.

Ian

00:53:57 – 00:54:09

I love this idea. That is the key. I actually have a perfect spot over on the side here where, like, there's a lot of space where I could do it. I wonder if I can edit this desk. Like, I have this IKEA desk.

Ian

00:54:09 – 00:54:13

I don't know. I guess I could probably find a way to attach some wheels to it.

Aaron

00:54:13 – 00:54:17

I'm telling you, man. The the desk on wheels was a huge that was

Ian

00:54:17 – 00:54:17

Aaron

00:54:17 – 00:54:25

huge unlock for me. I obviously, I you know, I've replaced my wheels on my office chair to be, like, these roller blade wheels so that I can just, like, I can fly.

Ian

00:54:25 – 00:54:26

Right.

Aaron

00:54:26 – 00:54:41

I never thought about putting a desk on wheels until I looked down and saw that it had those little screw in leveling feet. So, like, if your floor is wonky, you can level your desk and stop. I can just swap them. Oh, shit. I'm sure there's size screw in.

Aaron

00:54:41 – 00:54:59

I unscrewed one of those leveling feet, took it to Home Depot, and they've got the thing on the wall where it's like, what size screw and what thread, you know, is it? And so I found the thread pattern and the size of the the screw, and then I went online and ordered just ordered them off Amazon, and they just fit. Just screwed right in. It's great.

Ian

00:54:59 – 00:55:00

It's crazy.

Aaron

00:55:00 – 00:55:02

It's crazy. It's crazy. I'm living the dream.

Ian

00:55:02 – 00:55:08

So interesting because I have, like, this night so my office is directly across the street from Vassar College.

Aaron

00:55:08 – 00:55:08

Cool.

Ian

00:55:08 – 00:55:20

And so I can look over at the college and stuff, but like where my desk is, I don't necessarily have like the best view and sometimes the light's in weird spots. So like if I was on wheels, I could be moving around My personal base, I could put it on top of that.

Aaron

00:55:21 – 00:55:21

Yep.

Ian

00:55:22 – 00:55:22

Oh, man.

Aaron

00:55:22 – 00:55:23

Yep. You're just out there

Ian

00:55:23 – 00:55:24

inventing shit.

Aaron

00:55:25 – 00:55:43

Yeah. So that's out there. In here, the, the desktop is not IKEA countertop. It is IKEA butcher block island. So the IKEA the IKEA countertop is, you know, whatever countertop depth, whatever that is, 32, 36 inches, whatever.

Aaron

00:55:43 – 00:55:53

So it's not super deep, for a desk. Right? But it's great. It's great for a mobile desk, hang space, But for an actual desk, it's a little shallow.

Ian

00:55:54 – 00:55:54

Good.

Aaron

00:55:54 – 00:56:08

So I got an IKEA kitchen island, which is, like, super deep. I mean, we're talking 4 feet or or more. It was however too long. And so I zipped 18 inches off of the side. Nice.

Aaron

00:56:08 – 00:56:26

But that's what I use. That's what I put on top of the autonomous legs in the studio because I've got a whole, like, white and, white and wood thing going on in here. And so now everything everything matches. So we're all we're all IKEA. I just IKEA just

Ian

00:56:26 – 00:56:27

I do love IKEA.

Aaron

00:56:27 – 00:56:28

Fitted out this whole space.

Ian

00:56:28 – 00:56:30

I love IKEA. It's such a great place.

Aaron

00:56:30 – 00:56:30

Love it.

Ian

00:56:31 – 00:56:37

I don't like, I don't like their chairs, like office chairs too much. I've been a long time since I looked them. But everything else, IKEA. Yeah. Everything in my office is IKEA.

Ian

00:56:37 – 00:56:46

I love IKEA. It's like you go there, you get stuff. It's great. I did notice you didn't attach your monitor to the desk. Now why why is that?

Aaron

00:56:46 – 00:57:01

It's crazy. Right? Here's the thought. So, you know, I've got this big desk, and then behind the desk, I've got, like, a little basically, a little buffet table. It's one of the old shelves that used to be behind here until I decided no shelves.

Aaron

00:57:01 – 00:57:26

So I bought these janky legs, and now I've got just, like, a little, you know, 10 inch table that runs along the wall behind my desk. So my monitor and my camera and my, my secondary monitor, my confidence monitor, are all attached to that buffet table instead of this desk. The reason I didn't attach the camera to the desk is because when I type, the camera wobbles

Ian

00:57:26 – 00:57:27

Just shaking.

Aaron

00:57:27 – 00:57:48

And it just it looks bad. It just looks really bad. And so that was always gonna be back there, but then attaching the monitor back there gives me gives me the ability to swing the monitor all the way to the side and then lower the camera and do, like, a do kinda like a talking head with, like, you know, 3 quarters of the desk in the shot.

Ian

00:57:48 – 00:57:50

Wanna show some stuff? Or

Aaron

00:57:50 – 00:57:57

Exactly. So if I wanna show some stuff or not be, like, screencasting and doing more of the, like, sitting at my desk vlogging kind of thing.

Ian

00:57:57 – 00:57:57

Right.

Aaron

00:57:57 – 00:58:06

I have that I have that ability with this setup. So that does preclude me from standing in here, which I'm fine. I'm fine with. I don't really care. Yeah.

Ian

00:58:07 – 00:58:12

Interesting. And how do you secure this buffet table? Because that sounds like a lot of heavy stuff. Is it attached to the

Aaron

00:58:12 – 00:58:18

wall or counterweighted? Yeah. A lot of heavy stuff leaning outwards. Well Or it's just

Ian

00:58:18 – 00:58:20

been okay so far? It

Aaron

00:58:20 – 00:58:37

it's fine so far, but I will I will confess as long as my apartment manager isn't listening. I I did attach that to the wall. Okay. Like, I built an entire wall out of 2 by fours. It doesn't touch the wall at all, but this little buffet table, it's like, I gotta I gotta screw that to the wall.

Aaron

00:58:37 – 00:58:39

So it's it's screwed into the wall. Yeah.

Ian

00:58:39 – 00:58:41

I mean, that's fine. People put stuff on their walls. It's, you know

Aaron

00:58:41 – 00:58:48

It's fine. I actually I did the don't put a nail or screw in the wall on that kind of as a bit so they can

Ian

00:58:49 – 00:58:49

Right.

Aaron

00:58:49 – 00:59:00

And it's gonna make good YouTube content. But the guy, the leasing agent was like, dude, I don't care if you hang a TV. Like, you can do whatever you want as long as you fix it before you move out. It's like Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Aaron

00:59:00 – 00:59:02

I guess that makes sense. People hate TVs, don't they?

Ian

00:59:02 – 00:59:03

Right.

Aaron

00:59:03 – 00:59:11

I still think I still think of all the crazy stuff that I've done. I still think I'm probably in the top 2% of good tenants in this in this complex. I've got

Ian

00:59:11 – 00:59:13

to be. I'm sure. You have to be.

Aaron

00:59:13 – 00:59:27

Gotta be. I'm walking down the hall and I'm smelling weed. People's dogs are throwing up in the hallway, and they don't clean it up. And I'm like, I'm I'm a I'm an insane person, but I'm the best tenant this place has ever seen. It's it's crazy.

Ian

00:59:28 – 00:59:33

I thought this place was up was high up, but now now I'm thinking this place down a notch. If there's It is high. Dogs.

Aaron

00:59:33 – 00:59:34

It is. Dogs in

Ian

00:59:34 – 00:59:35

the hallways, maybe.

Aaron

00:59:35 – 00:59:44

You get freaking Not ideal. Puked all over the hallway, and somebody just walked off. I mean, we're living in a society here. So I don't like that. I don't

Ian

00:59:44 – 00:59:44

like that.

Aaron

00:59:44 – 00:59:46

I don't like don't like that one bit.

Ian

00:59:46 – 01:00:00

But, yeah, nowadays, to hang a TV. Right? Like, a big one of these big 65 inch, 75 inch TVs, I'm sure people are still putting even in apartments and stuff like I mean, the thing's got 10 screws and a big plate and, like, it's not like, one nail. It's a huge thing with big holes. So

Aaron

01:00:01 – 01:00:04

Yeah. You're putting lag bolts into the into the wall. Yeah.

Ian

01:00:05 – 01:00:18

So, yeah, I'm sure you'll be fine with your one one hole. And you're not even you're you're living there 40 hours a week if that. So, like, you're not even messing up the, like, the carpet. They're not even gonna have to replace the carpet or anything. They're gonna be real bad inside.

Aaron

01:00:19 – 01:00:20

Thing is is so great.

Ian

01:00:20 – 01:00:25

Yeah. You're not making a mess of the fridge. Like nothing spilled in there from the kids.

Aaron

01:00:26 – 01:00:30

Nope. Not a thing. Yeah. So I still think I still think I'm a model tenant.

Ian

01:00:30 – 01:00:33

I think you are so far. We'll see. You never know.

Aaron

01:00:33 – 01:00:39

We'll see. I may get kicked out, but that's good for that's good plot for the content anyway, so we'll see.

Ian

01:00:40 – 01:00:43

I got one more thing on the formal list that you put on here. Give it to us.

Aaron

01:00:45 – 01:00:50

Alright. So here's here's the deal. I got a good life. Right? Great life.

Aaron

01:00:50 – 01:01:07

Very good. Great life. You know, loving loving family, lots of great kids. I will say there are there are 2 people that I look at, and I'm like, I, you know, I don't really wanna trade places with anyone, but I I kinda wanna trade places with with you right now. First one.

Aaron

01:01:07 – 01:01:14

K. First one, person I want to be is my 2 year old daughter at about 7:30 PM.

Ian

01:01:15 – 01:01:15

So I put, you

Aaron

01:01:15 – 01:01:28

know, I put the kids to bed. I put the kids to bed every night. They're like it's kind of it's kind of, like, convincing. You know, I'm doing my best negotiations in there. I'm putting socks on hands and clipping toenails, and I'm like, okay.

Aaron

01:01:28 – 01:01:39

There's not there's literally nothing else you can ask me to do. It's time to go to bed. I'm going to leave now. I walk out, you know, put him to bed at 7, walk out. 7:30, check the monitor.

Aaron

01:01:39 – 01:01:50

This is every night. This is every single night. 7:30, check the monitor. My 2 year old daughter is laying amongst gotta be 30 stuffed animals. Right?

Aaron

01:01:50 – 01:01:58

Stuffed animals everywhere. She's carved out a little hole in the middle, and she's in this little hole of stuffed animals everywhere. She's laying down. She's talking. She's playing.

Aaron

01:01:59 – 01:02:09

She looks so happy and so comfortable and cozy. Yeah. And it's like, it's the end of the day. She doesn't have anywhere to go. She's just playing.

Aaron

01:02:09 – 01:02:33

She's talking to her brother on the other side of the room. She's got her hands behind her head with her feet crossed over, and she's in her long sleeve pajamas. And it's like, I don't think I've ever seen someone be so comfortable and cozy and cozy without a without a care in the world. She'll she'll stay up for an hour and a half just like blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, this you are you are living the dream.

Aaron

01:02:33 – 01:02:46

You're so relaxed. This is if I had $10,000,000, I would be as relaxed as her. But she's like, I just you know, I'm in my crib surrounded by all these stuffed animals, and I got nothing to do, so I'm gonna play. Looks amazing.

Ian

01:02:47 – 01:02:55

And you know what's so unfortunate is that you don't even remember those years. Like, you don't even remember that one point. You don't even remember. It doesn't help you now. You're not like, oh, you know, so relaxed.

Ian

01:02:55 – 01:02:57

You don't remember anything. Like, you

Aaron

01:02:57 – 01:02:59

don't remember anything. She's

Ian

01:02:59 – 01:02:59

got it.

Aaron

01:02:59 – 01:03:01

She's got it as good as she'll ever have it.

Ian

01:03:01 – 01:03:11

She won't remember. I know. It's crazy. We were just going through this. I was looking at some photos for like kids, yearbook stuff, whatever.

Ian

01:03:11 – 01:03:30

And looking back at this, like our trip to Europe, where we took this big trip to Europe or talked about on here before. And it's like the oldest, you know, he remembers it. It's mostly the middle one, kinda, mostly he, like, didn't remember, like, being dragged around. The youngest barely remembers it at all. It's like spent a $1,000,000,000 on this huge trip Europe.

Ian

01:03:30 – 01:03:33

Yep. Like, they don't they don't remember it. And we were like, oh, they're written it now. They don't remember it. No.

Ian

01:03:33 – 01:03:51

They don't remember it. They they barely remember it. They'd remember, like, an impression of it, but, like, not the thing itself. And their takeaway is the exact opposite of the takeaway we want them to have, which is going traveling's a pain, but I just wanna be home where it's, you know, nice and comfortable and fun. Like, it's like Yeah.

Aaron

01:03:51 – 01:03:51

That sounds right.

Ian

01:03:51 – 01:04:00

You around to expose you to all this stuff, and your takeaway is the opposite. Take Yep. No. Hopefully, in the future, they might think about it differently. But

Aaron

01:04:00 – 01:04:05

Yeah. I feel like it probably yeah. It it left an impression on them even if they don't remember.

Ian

01:04:05 – 01:04:07

Yeah. They're still on the page.

Aaron

01:04:07 – 01:04:10

Yeah. That's what I tell myself. So the second second person

Ian

01:04:10 – 01:04:15

2 year old kid in their room. I get I'm with I'm with you on that. That's a good spot to be.

Aaron

01:04:15 – 01:04:19

Surrounded by levees. Just living the dream. Yep. Yeah.

Ian

01:04:19 – 01:04:20

I could go for that right now.

Aaron

01:04:20 – 01:04:29

There's this guy there's this guy that lives across the street from us. Okay? Okay. So I love my life. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

Aaron

01:04:29 – 01:04:36

This guy, though, this guy, I I think he's married. Maybe he has a girlfriend, something. There's a woman that lives there as well.

Ian

01:04:36 – 01:04:37

Okay.

Aaron

01:04:37 – 01:04:55

But I don't I don't know how he does it. This dude is watching TV 247. Like, the blinds in the front of his house the blinds in the front of his house are up. And so I'm up. You know, I'm I'm dragging my tired, sorry, broken body out of bed at 7:30.

Ian

01:04:55 – 01:04:56

Yep. Or, like,

Aaron

01:04:56 – 01:05:08

out to the kitchen at 7:30 to cook to cook for the kids. And I walk out. Dude's already got, like, game pre pre golf golf on. At 7:30 on a Saturday morning, he's just like

Ian

01:05:08 – 01:05:09

master.

Aaron

01:05:09 – 01:05:17

He's got this huge TV and this guy golf on, and I'm like, it's 7:30 on a Saturday. What are you doing? And then,

Ian

01:05:17 – 01:05:18

you know,

Aaron

01:05:18 – 01:05:36

I'm I'm cleaning up I'm cleaning up peanut butter off the underside of the table, and this guy's walking out at 9 o'clock with a cup of coffee and a dog. And he's like Yeah. Alright. I guess I'll just guess I'll just cruise around for a little bit. Easter weekend, I swear he spent he spent all day outside just, like, planting.

Aaron

01:05:36 – 01:05:46

He's just planting some flowers. He's our age. I'm like, what? How are what life luxury are you leading? He's watching TV all day, every day.

Aaron

01:05:46 – 01:05:58

This guy is having friends over. He's just, like he walks out with the dogs the dog's leash around his neck. The dog's not on a leash. He's got his he's got his AirPods in and a cup of coffee. He's just, like, looking around at stuff.

Aaron

01:05:58 – 01:06:03

And, like, if you whenever you walk outside and you just look around at stuff, that is

Ian

01:06:03 – 01:06:03

a life

Aaron

01:06:03 – 01:06:05

that's a life of leisure.

Ian

01:06:05 – 01:06:06

Let's talk about that.

Aaron

01:06:06 – 01:06:12

That is a that he is a king. He might as well have a palace at Versailles. He's just walking around looking at stuff. So

Ian

01:06:12 – 01:06:13

Yeah. I

Aaron

01:06:13 – 01:06:17

don't wanna be that guy, but that I kinda wanna be that guy. That guy's that guy's on easy street, man.

Ian

01:06:17 – 01:06:31

There is. It's so funny. Like, the grass is greener on these things. And, like, obviously, like, people without kids might have feelings about, oh, I wish I had kids and all this stuff. But like, it's just those moments like this weekend for us, like, you know, obviously you're in the deep grind now of just like 4 kids and all that stuff.

Ian

01:06:31 – 01:06:48

But, but like, even just for us where our kids are big and it's like this weekend, our oldest went to see 2 colleges that he was accepted to. So my wife took him all weekend. They drove, like, 700 miles around the northeast to these colleges. I'm home. Everybody's sick.

Ian

01:06:49 – 01:07:07

Where the, you know, the middle kids got karate, like you know? And it was still you know, we're trying to get everybody fed and all stuff. And it was like the, the younger one wants to have a friend over, but we're 6. So we're not gonna have a friend over Like, the whole thing. And it was still even quasi relaxing by our standards ultimately, but it was just like there's just, like, nonstop action.

Ian

01:07:07 – 01:07:18

There's just never a dull moment of, like, somebody needs something. Somebody wants something. You gotta be somewhere. The counter's got 40 things on it. And, yeah, when you look at that guy across the street, you're like, that guy, he could have slept till noon.

Ian

01:07:18 – 01:07:30

He could have done whatever he wanted, And then he's gonna watch golf. He's probably got a DVR where DVR is golf, and he's, like, still, like, 10 years back there. And he's like, I'm just gonna DVR this golf here, and I don't even watch it. Skip the commercials when I go home. And, like, the whole plan.

Aaron

01:07:30 – 01:07:48

Last night or the night before, I was I was doing something, and it's I just feel like such a creeper. I was looking across the street. His blinds are up in the front. His blinds are up in the back. So I see him and his his wife in the backyard gardening, and a pizza's delivered to his front porch.

Aaron

01:07:48 – 01:07:59

And I'm like, this son of a he's he's having pizza. He's chilling all weekend. And I thought, I wonder he he's in the backyard. I bet I could sneak over there and grab the pizza

Ian

01:07:59 – 01:08:07

before he knows it's here. Steal the pizza and drop 2 kids off. Like, just, like, take these take these 2

Aaron

01:08:07 – 01:08:07

kids for

Ian

01:08:08 – 01:08:09

a couple hours.

Aaron

01:08:09 – 01:08:11

So I'm telling I'm telling

Ian

01:08:11 – 01:08:11

my wife

Aaron

01:08:11 – 01:08:38

I'm telling my wife about, you know, wanting to be Emilia and this guy across the street, and she says, you know, whenever whenever I'm, like, watching TV and someone on TV is watching TV, I think, man, it must be good to be them. That looks like so much fun. It's so funny. You're doing you're doing the thing that you the person on TV is doing. She's like, I know, but they just look so much happy.

Aaron

01:08:39 – 01:08:40

Looks so much cozier.

Ian

01:08:41 – 01:09:15

I have this whole theory that, like, I think even still your your age group would probably fits this of, like, the shows that we had as kids where it was, like, all these sitcoms and, like, Seinfeld aside, like, they were all, like, happy and everything ended happy and everybody got what they wanted. And, like, all the families were happy and, like, all the stuff, like, just did us all, like, such as disservice of, like, setting these expectations for what your family's supposed to be, what your life is supposed to be. And it's like, not everything doesn't get solved instantly at the end of the episode, like, in your real life. There's no there's no nice

Aaron

01:09:15 – 01:09:16

nice neat wrap up at the end.

Ian

01:09:16 – 01:09:29

Yeah. What what's your theory about this? This is a thing that freaks me out that you brought up here. I'm not a fan of the TV that faces out the window in a direction where a lot of people will see it. Like, I don't like that lot.

Aaron

01:09:29 – 01:09:38

Hate that. Hate that. Not a not a fan of being able to see through the entire house either. That that weirds me out a little bit. But, yeah,

Ian

01:09:38 – 01:09:39

having the

Aaron

01:09:39 – 01:09:45

TV having the TV that faces out and then also keeping your blinds up so everybody can see what you're watching all the time.

Ian

01:09:45 – 01:09:50

Yeah. It's like people over my shoulder watch it, but then that's how carefree this guy is. Right? He's so carefree. It's like, whatever.

Ian

01:09:50 – 01:09:53

You wanna look over my shoulder and watch some golf? Go for it. I don't care. I'm I'm chilling.

Aaron

01:09:53 – 01:09:58

If you wanna look over your shoulder and be jealous, you know, yeah, that's great. But, yeah, I don't want that.

Ian

01:09:58 – 01:10:00

Yeah. That's good for me

Aaron

01:10:00 – 01:10:12

either. I do like I do like having the big windows that look out, though. Yes. Like, in in the place we're we're renting, we've got this big bay window that looks out into this guy's living room, but it's still it's like, oh, it's so nice. I'm Oh.

Aaron

01:10:12 – 01:10:14

You know, have keep these windows open.

Ian

01:10:14 – 01:10:19

Wait a minute. So what's the update on the second house? The under construction house.

Aaron

01:10:19 – 01:10:25

House, but not the apartment. So I'm trying to remember all the properties under management. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, that makes sense.

Ian

01:10:25 – 01:10:27

The one you're gonna move into at some point.

Aaron

01:10:28 – 01:10:34

At some point. It is almost done, which it's been almost done for forever.

Ian

01:10:35 – 01:10:35

Okay.

Aaron

01:10:35 – 01:11:00

But we have we now have cabinets, and we have countertops. All the walls are closed. The bathroom tile is not done, and painting is not done. So they still they still have a good portion to go. Our lease at this rent house was up on May 1st, which I thought, you know, when I started this project, I thought, that's an incredible amount of time.

Aaron

01:11:00 – 01:11:12

What a hilarious what a hilarious amount of lead time we've given ourselves. You know, now it's April 15th, and it's not done yet. So we extended our lease by 1 month, but we did not tell our contractor.

Ian

01:11:13 – 01:11:13

So as

Aaron

01:11:13 – 01:11:22

far as our contractor knows, we're still dropped dead on May 1st. Yeah. Because the dude told me it would be done in January. It's free. Come on, man.

Ian

01:11:22 – 01:11:25

Did you, did you redo the kitchen, too?

Aaron

01:11:25 – 01:11:29

Yeah. Kitchen While you're in there. Kitchen. Master bath and yeah.

Ian

01:11:30 – 01:11:30

How many bedrooms?

Aaron

01:11:32 – 01:11:34

It is 5 bedrooms.

Ian

01:11:34 – 01:11:36

We got full coverage.

Aaron

01:11:36 – 01:11:37

Got it. Cool. Yeah.

Ian

01:11:37 – 01:11:38

Yeah. Actually, full coverage. Yeah.

Aaron

01:11:38 – 01:11:43

Yep. And it has enough stairs, so we're gonna have to be going up and down the stairs.

Ian

01:11:43 – 01:11:49

It's annoying with the kids because they're little, and you'll be up and down the stairs all the time. But it is nice to have the separation, like

Aaron

01:11:49 – 01:11:53

Yeah. I think so. Yeah. You'll have to come see it when you come to Lyricon.

Ian

01:11:53 – 01:11:57

That's what I'm talking about. I like it. I will be there. Hopefully, it's done by then. We'll see.

Ian

01:11:57 – 01:11:58

We'll see if it's ready.

Aaron

01:11:58 – 01:12:01

If it's not done by then, I am bankrupt. Coming to live

Ian

01:12:01 – 01:12:03

with me. You'll be up here. We live in New York Prayer?

Aaron

01:12:03 – 01:12:08

I'll be walking across the street and telling that guy I'm moving in. Yeah. Yeah.

Ian

01:12:09 – 01:12:12

Oh, boy. Alright, man. Anything else we need to cover?

Aaron

01:12:13 – 01:12:26

Just one one follow-up that I want to cover. Yeah. Lost lost in the weeds of all just a huge amount of email that we get, to do mostly technical. What I don't know. You'll have to tell us later.

Ian

01:12:26 – 01:12:27

What's the technical thought?

Aaron

01:12:28 – 01:12:35

A gift card to Chick Fil A from Josh Hurt. And you know what? I love Chick Fil A. I go to Chick Fil A all the time. Work that.

Ian

01:12:36 – 01:12:36

So what

Aaron

01:12:36 – 01:12:46

a nice guy. What a nice gesture. I haven't used it yet, but I did add it to my CF mobile app. So I'm ready I'm ready to go. So thank you so much for that.

Aaron

01:12:46 – 01:12:49

That's very unnecessary and very, very kind.

Ian

01:12:49 – 01:13:03

And we are caught up on follow-up. I've emailed everybody back, and we do have a couple queued up to discuss still that we will try to hit next time here. So, yes, that was awesome. People have been so nice. People are so nice to you.

Ian

01:13:03 – 01:13:03

It's like

Aaron

01:13:04 – 01:13:06

People are so nice to me. Yeah. That's crazy.

Ian

01:13:06 – 01:13:09

You you bring up you you put out the good vibes and the good vibes come back.

Aaron

01:13:09 – 01:13:11

I like to think so.

Ian

01:13:11 – 01:13:16

Yeah. I think that's true. So and now I beg it to see you up on your feet, which I love.

Aaron

01:13:16 – 01:13:16

That's right.

Ian

01:13:16 – 01:13:20

You're out there. Start starting anyway. We're we're getting there. Things are happening.

Aaron

01:13:20 – 01:13:23

Getting there. It's gonna work. We're getting there. So all signs point to yes.

Ian

01:13:24 – 01:13:29

Yeah. I love it. Alright, man. Well, this has been a good one, everybody. Thanks for joining us.

Ian

01:13:29 – 01:13:41

You can, check us out. Mostlytechnical.com. Mostly technical pod on, Twitter and mostly technical podcast atgmail.com. So if you have any feedback, hit us up there. Thanks to these sponsors.

Ian

01:13:42 – 01:13:46

And we will see you next week if all goes to plan. Thanks a lot.

Aaron

01:13:47 – 01:13:48

See you.

We're Gonna Make It

Transcript

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