“The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge.” — Aristotle

So.. how many wins, y’all?

Failing the bar exam isn’t the embarrassing part of this story 😬 Explaining that you’re a “lawyer,” just not an “attorney,” after serving as “general counsel” is where things get interesting. Here’s what reportedly happened: > Katie Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine’s law school in 2011. She took the California bar exam, failed, and never retook it. > That first part is nothing to mock. The bar is hard. Plenty of excellent attorneys failed on their first attempt. > But graduating from law school and being authorized to practice law are separate accomplishments. > One gets you a diploma. The other gets you clients whose problems you are legally permitted to make your problems. > Zacharia went on to work in China, publicly describe herself as a lawyer, and hold the title of “general counsel” at Fix California. > When questions about her credentials surfaced, she offered an explanation: she says Pepperdine’s president told her she could call herself a “lawyer,” but not an “attorney” or “esquire.” > That is an incredible amount of responsibility to place on a synonym. > There IS a version of this distinction floating around the internet: > “Lawyer” means someone educated in law. > “Attorney” means someone licensed to practice it. > You can find people making that argument. You can find dictionary discussions about it. > The problem is that California has an actual statute. > Business and Professions Code § 6126 covers people who practice law without authorization AND people who hold themselves out as entitled to practice law. > That second part matters. > You don’t necessarily have to walk into a courtroom, file a lawsuit, or bill someone $800 an hour to create a problem. How you represent your qualifications to the public can itself matter. > And the statute doesn’t say, “Unless you remembered to use ‘lawyer’ instead of ‘attorney.’” > The question is what you are communicating about your authority to practice law. A different noun doesn’t automatically fix that. > Which brings us to “general counsel.” > That’s a particularly difficult title to square with the explanation. > When an organization introduces its general counsel, people generally understand that to mean the person responsible for its legal affairs. > Nobody thinks, “Ah yes, their designated law school graduate.” > A watchdog group has now filed a State Bar complaint. A complaint is an allegation, not a finding, and whether her specific conduct violated the law requires more than watching a clip. > But the broader lesson is pretty simple: > A J.D. is a real accomplishment. So is working internationally. Neither needs to be inflated into a license you don’t hold. All she had to say was “I graduated from law school and worked at a firm in China, BUT I'M NOT LICENSED TO PRACTICE." Why lie? Geez.

Who keeps an emergency hotdog in their back pocket at the casino??

A single sentence from a motel clerk, about two extra dollars per child, led him to rebuild how America travels. He was born in Osceola, Arkansas, in 1913. His father died when he was nine months old. His mother moved them to Memphis. She worked as a dental assistant. He sold magazines door to door as a kid. At 17, he dropped out of high school. His mother was hospitalized two months before graduation. He went to work full time instead. He built a small business empire from nothing. Popcorn machines. Jukeboxes. Pinball machines. Movie theaters. Homebuilding. He was a millionaire by 1951. That summer, he took his wife, Dorothy, and their five children on a road trip to Washington, D.C. He was disappointed at every stop. Cramped rooms. No air conditioning. No pool. No restaurant. One motel quoted him $6 for the room. Then told him each child cost $2 extra. Wilson turned to Dorothy. "I'm going to start a hotel where kids stay free," he said. He came home and got to work. He took out a mortgage on his house. He borrowed $325,000. On August 1, 1952, the first Holiday Inn opened in Memphis. 120 rooms. Air conditioning. A restaurant. A swimming pool. A TV in every room. Children under 12 stayed free. The name came from a Bing Crosby movie. His architect suggested it as a joke. Wilson added three more Memphis locations almost immediately. By 1957, there were 30. By its peak, a new Holiday Inn opened somewhere in the world every two and a half days. He wrote his autobiography in 1996. He called it "Half Luck and Half Brains." Kemmons Wilson died in 2003. He was 90 years of age 🏨 🚙

at 22 years old, the last living grandparent I had at the time passed away. if any of them were still with us today, they would legitimately be floored pulling up to our house. my parents didn’t receive $1 of inheritance from them. I operate every single day as if I’m not going to see $1 from them either. I received a generational work ethic from them that kicked in at about 15 years old. before that? a values-based upbringing, people skills, and a relentless sense of optimism. that’s literally all I needed.

I photographed a corporate retreat last month. It was my first solo booking after four years as a second shooter. The events coordinator paid me by check at the end of the weekend, wrote it out at the front desk, and handed it over. I didn’t check the amount until I got home. She had overpaid me by $800. I called the venue the next morning and asked for the company’s contact info. They wouldn’t give it to me. Vendor confidentiality. I left my name and a message: I owed Whitmore Consulting money for an overpayment. Please have someone call me back. Nobody called that day. Not that week. Ten days later, a different number rang. Man: “This is Carlos. I coordinate events for a few firms in the building. I heard you’ve been trying to reach Whitmore.” Me: “Their coordinator overpaid me. I’ve been trying to return it.” He went quiet. Carlos: “How much?” Me: “Eight hundred.” Carlos: “And you’ve been holding onto that for ten days.” Me: “It’s not mine.” Carlos: “You’d be surprised how rarely I get this call.” He said the coordinator had never even noticed. She’d been rushing to close out the weekend and hadn’t double-checked the amount. Carlos: “You could have just kept it. Nobody would have known.” I hadn’t really thought about it that way. I’d only thought about the number not matching the invoice. Carlos: “I mentioned your name to two other coordinators I work with. Then I heard you were trying to return money nobody had flagged as missing.” Me: “I still don’t have a direct line to her.” Carlos: “I’ll get it to her today. That’s not why I called first.” I waited. Carlos: “I have a full slate of conferences this year I won’t hand to a photographer I don’t trust. I think I just found one.” Two days later, the coordinator called me herself. She laughed, apologized for the mix-up, and asked if I’d shoot their annual conference in the spring. Months later I asked Carlos what would have happened if I’d never made that first call. Carlos: “Nothing bad. You’d have just been another photographer with good work. I’d have never known there was anything else worth knowing about you.” I still think about that check sitting on my counter. I could have just cashed it. Instead I left a message saying I owed a company money, and waited ten days for a number nobody would give me. That was the whole interview. I didn’t know I was taking it.

I'm hiring a former founder for a very important role here at RMFG Head of Factory Software. In person at our factory in Fort Worth, TX. This is an individual contributor role and you will be spending the vast majority of your time building software, not managing others. What are we doing? We're building the fastest contract manufacturer for robotics and advanced hardware companies. We're getting there by launching multiple online-first manufacturing capabilities and letting customers combine those into much more valuable assemblies, eventually full robots. We have a crazy roadmap and we've accomplished a ton with an insanely small non-production team (Me, one mech engineer, one former hardware founder leading growth, and one customer support person). It's very important to me that we keep this lean / scrappy DNA as we scale. Some reasons why you would want to work with us - We're growing incredibly fast. Revenue up ~10x since start of year. All important charts going up and to the right at a compounding m/m rate - We're growing (physically) incredibly fast. More than doubled factory floor space from 17k to 40k sq ft. This time last year we were in 4.5k sq ft. - We have cool customers. People putting stuff into outer space, nuclear technology, countless robot companies, guys making great money selling weird niche components that we make, public companies, and everything in between. - Your work will be immediately impactful and important. There will be days where you will push code changes that you physically can see the effects propagated to the floor quickly. Some days I know that I just made a multi-million dollar commit, seeing how much money it saves us on a process, or what rework it prevents, etc. - Your work will help make the American dream possible for hundreds of factory workers here at RMFG. Today we have ~20 production staff, and multiple are starting families and buying homes because of the work we provide. - Meaningful amounts of equity - We are a venture-backed hardware startup that is making more money than it burns (highly unusual) - A ton of incredibly smart people have backed us. (YC, Patrick Collison, Kyle Vogt, etc). - You will work on hard real world engineering challenges What I'm looking for - evidence of extraordinary software ability - someone who has touched grass - relentless, killer, ambitious founder mindset send me an email w/ evidence of your skills kenneth at domain name

COLD FRONT INCOMING- I will be back to regular updates as the weather actually becomes interesting! The front should arrive right around October 1st, and the heat doesn't look to return as we permanently enter fall this time around!!! Say your last goodbyes to the heat!

Rain finally falls at DFW Airport, ending a 67-day dry streak

I don’t think I’m ever going to understand the people who will wait in a line for 15 minutes to save 20 cents a gallon on gas at Costco

When it rains it pours and hails. Holy sh!t this came out of nowhere.

Someone Doubted This Bumper Until The Cow Proved Them Wrong Someone told me today this Bodyguard bumper would not protect anything. This truck accidentally hit a 2000 pound cow at 75 miles an hour and the Bodyguard FT bumper held the welds kept the cow down low and saved the driver. Are you running a front bumper on your truck? #FordTrucks #WhitefaceFord #RanchLife

My neighbor caught an HVAC tech pretending to replace a part he never touched. AC stopped working in July. Tech comes out, looks at it for ten minutes, says the capacitor is blown. Common problem. $450 to replace. My neighbor doesn't know much about AC units, but $450 seems steep for a part. He agrees anyway because it's 95 degrees. Tech goes to his truck. Comes back five minutes later. Says it's all fixed. My neighbor asks to see the old part. "Already threw it in my truck. But you're good to go!" Something feels off. My neighbor goes outside after the tech leaves. Looks in the guy's truck bed through the window. Empty. No parts. He opens his AC unit. The capacitor has a manufacture date stamped on it: 2019. Four years old. If it was just replaced, it should say 2023. He takes a photo. Calls the company. Tech's story falls apart immediately. "Well, sometimes the issue resolves itself when we check the connections..." "So you charged me $450 for a part you didn't replace?" Company offers a refund "as a courtesy." My neighbor reports them to the Better Business Bureau and posts the photos online. Three other people in our neighborhood replied saying the same company did the same thing to them. Company's not in business anymore. Good.

I’m dreaming of the Rosa’s Café coming in the near future! Are you familiar with Rosa’s Café and Tortilla Factory? So good! My first cousin was the President of Rosa’s until the last year or so.

This is the first time in adult life that I’m considering donating to my undergrad (I won’t… but I thought about it for a minute) Go Broncos!! @KHendersonCo @Michellek4040 @TwoTeesSMB

Just spent the last 30 minutes explaining Aggie football and Aggie traditions to my boyfriend. He’s about to see a whole new side of me tomorrow lol