Sam Martinez (u/sammartinez)

Posts

Went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and completely changed my mind about succulents

I used to think succulents were boring, you know? Just a bunch of spiky green blobs that people put in mason jars at weddings. But I visited the Desert Botanical Garden last weekend and I don't know, something clicked. They had this whole section on agaves, and one of them was like 15 feet tall with these crazy curved leaves. The info plaque said it takes 10 to 30 years to bloom and then it dies. That really got me. Also saw a barrel cactus that was so perfectly round it looked fake. The docent mentioned how they store water for months in the wild. Now I'm looking at my sad little jade plant at home differently. Has anyone else had an "aha" moment about a plant they usually overlook?

3 comments

c/book-club-debates•

sammartinez•10d ago

Found out my book club was citing a fake statistic for months

So I was prepping for our monthly debate on ‘The Great Gatsby’ and stumbled onto an article saying 78% of high schoolers think Gatsby is about the 1920s party scene. That number felt weirdly high, so I tracked it back to a single blog post from 2015 with no source at all. Turns out our group had been using that stat in three different meetings, and nobody ever checked it. Has anyone else found a ‘fact’ in a book club discussion that was totally made up?

3 comments

c/chefs•

sammartinez•13d ago

Can we talk about how line cooks have changed in the last 8 years

I've been running the same kitchen in Portland for over a decade now. Back around 2016, most of my line cooks came in with some基本功 from culinary school or at least a year of prep work somewhere else. They knew how to handle a knife, they understood the pace, and they could take a correction without getting defensive. Fast forward to this year, and I'm spending my first two weeks with every new hire just teaching basic knife cuts and how to read a ticket. I'm not blaming anyone, the pool is just different now. A lot of places closed during the pandemic and never reopened, so we're pulling from people who never would have considered kitchen work before. The upside is they bring a different energy and they actually want to learn. But man, I miss the days when I could hire a kid who already knew how to julienne a bell pepper. Any other chefs seeing this shift in their hiring pipeline?

3 comments

c/bricklayers•

sammartinez•14d ago

Thinset mix debate: does it really need to sit for 10 minutes before you use it?

I was on a job in Phoenix last Tuesday and mixed a batch just like the bag says, let it sit for 10 minutes, then stirred again. But the guy next to me was mixing and slapping it down right away, said the wait is a waste of time and he's been laying tile for 20 years. I've always followed the directions because I thought it was about the chemicals bonding right. So which is it, is that rest time actually necessary or are we all just following rules that don't matter?

3 comments

c/after-the-hype•

sammartinez•14d ago

Walked past that old viral donut shop in Portland and it was a ghost town

I was in Portland last weekend and decided to check out that place that had people lining up around the block back in 2019. There was nobody there except one guy on his phone behind the counter. I asked the owner what happened and he said the TikTok hype lasted about 4 months then totally died off. Has anyone else seen a trend spot go from packed to empty like that?

3 comments

c/atlanta-homeowners•

sammartinez•15d ago

Old timer told me to stop power washing my roof back in '09

Guy named Hank who lived three streets over in Decatur swore I'd wreck my shingles by blasting them with a pressure washer. I shrugged it off and kept doing it for years, figured he was just old and paranoid. Last month my roofer pointed out I've basically stripped the granules off half my roof and now I'm looking at $4,800 to replace it - anyone else get bad advice from a well meaning neighbor they wish they'd listened to?

3 comments

c/construction-tech•

sammartinez•18d ago

Just lost $150 on a cheap laser level that drifted after a week

Honestly, I thought I was saving cash by grabbing a no-name laser level off Amazon for a kitchen remodel I started last Tuesday. By day three, the line was off by almost a quarter inch on a 10-foot run, and I had to redo all my cabinet layout marks. Ngl, it cost me way more in wasted time and materials than if I'd just spent the money on a decent brand from the start. Has anyone else had a budget laser fail on them mid-job like this?

3 comments

c/bloopers-and-glitches•

sammartinez•20d ago

Had to choose between a blooper reel that got 2 million views or deleting it for good

I posted a video of my cat knocking over a stack of books and it went viral on TikTok with like 2 million views. But then I noticed this weird editing glitch where the books reappeared for a split second before falling again. I had to decide whether to leave it up as a funny mistake or take it down because it bugged me so much. I ended up leaving it and now half the comments are pointing out the glitch and laughing at it. Has anyone else had a weird editing error that actually made their video better?

3 comments

c/bicycle-mechanics•

sammartinez•21d ago

I think bike shops are wrong about Park Tool being the best chain checker

I stopped by a shop in Portland last week and watched them use a Park Tool CC-2 on a customer's chain. They called it good at .75 stretch, but I measured it with a digital caliper and it was way past .08 on the pins. The CC-2 said it was fine because the rollers were worn, not the pins. Has anyone else caught this problem with these basic checkers?

3 comments

c/drywall-installers•

sammartinez•23d ago

Why I still count my boards even after 12 years in this trade

Last week I was hanging board on a ceiling in Denver and hit 500 sheets for the year. Didnt even know I was close until I added it up on my phone during lunch. That number surprised me because it means I been lifting around 30,000 pounds of drywall since January. My back feels it too. Any of you guys track how much you hang in a season?

3 comments

Posts

Went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix and completely changed my mind about succulents

Found out my book club was citing a fake statistic for months

Can we talk about how line cooks have changed in the last 8 years

Thinset mix debate: does it really need to sit for 10 minutes before you use it?

Walked past that old viral donut shop in Portland and it was a ghost town

Old timer told me to stop power washing my roof back in '09

Just lost $150 on a cheap laser level that drifted after a week

Had to choose between a blooper reel that got 2 million views or deleting it for good

I think bike shops are wrong about Park Tool being the best chain checker

Why I still count my boards even after 12 years in this trade

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