About a year and a half ago, I paused operations at House Partners, my house-flipping company, because I needed to focus on other business.

With the other stuff mostly under control, we resumed operations this past weekend.

In this business, the name of the game is finding the houses.

Not just any house, but one we can buy at a price that allows us to renovate it, sell it, and earn a profit.

Finding houses to look at is easy…

When I left the introductory flight lesson, I was all in.

I'm gonna be a pilot!

Hell yeah!

I knew which airplane I would buy (Piper PA-32 Cherokee Six), what color I'd paint it, and that I wanted the interior redone in vintage tweed.

For the next week, I plotted multi-day trips across the country and daydreamed about global circumnavigation (that'll prove it to those damn flat-earthers!).

Then I decided the Piper was no good. Why settle for fixed landing gear when the Beechcraft Bonanza seats six AND has retractable gear?…

In business, I have a guiding principle.

If I can offend you, we're not working together.

Because being offended is bullshit.

And it's running rampant.

We have become the United States of The Offended…

Saturday, I posted a video about the proposed settlement of one of the class action lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors.

Nobody watched it.

I am not surprised.

Nobody outside of the real estate industry gives a damn right now because people only care about Realtors or the real estate industry when they are selling a house.

That's it.

But from my perspective, the whole thing is interesting. Two parts, especially…

Eighth grade was a long time ago.

Still, I remember when my girlfriend broke up with me. Sitting on the stairs at home, I cried in my mama's arms.

The indescribable sweetness of one's first love is no match for the inevitable pain when that love dies.

Yesterday, as the tears welled up in my daughter's eyes and I held her close, I flashed back some 35 years and found myself surprised that I still remembered…

I got this email (below) from a mentor yesterday. There was a time in my life when it would have pissed me off.

A couple of years ago, I would have been the smug guy in the group.

"Yeah, Fletcher, must be REAL NICE. . .(you f'n asshole)."

These days, I see it way different…

Three years ago

On this very day

I thought up a poem

Because I wanted to say

I thought it was silly

That folks were upset

That people were angry

At a family's request

To stop printing some books…

Years ago, when I lived in Chapel Hill, the Harris Teeter put me in a self-checkout lane.

I hated it.

Raised hell about it.

I had every reason under the sun for why it sucked:

-->People didn't know how to use it, so they were slow.

-->The software ran too slow

-->Job elimination

-->I DON'T WANT IT TO CHANGE!!!!!

At the time, I predicted that self-checkouts wouldn't last…

My regular weekday supper with Sam has turned into a business meeting.

It's cool watching a 12-year-old figure things out.

He wants to work and make money, but he's got a problem.

Baseball…

Y'all seen the Kellogg's thing yet?

Gary Pilnick, the CEO, says if your cash is tight, eat cereal for dinner.

And as to what consumers might think of the message, he had this to say:

"It's landing really well right now. Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now, and we would expect [it] to continue as that consumer is under pressure."

If you had any lingering thoughts that Kellogg's produces real food or that companies like Kellogg's give two shits about your health, think again…

Who do I know that's been to Baja?

Yesterday, in my RE investing group, the location for our next meeting was announced.

Cabo San Lucas, baby!

For as long as I've been "overlanding" (that's the fancy word for traveling and sleeping in the back of my truck), I have wanted to do the Baja Peninsula.

I mean, sure, I could just fly there…

Y'all, I can't get away from the flat Earth people.

Is it just the easiest way to make sense of the world?

Maybe.

Let me explain…

I get this question all the time.

Last week, I met with the GC on one of our projects.

"I wish I could take ten days off every month," he said.

"Me too!" I said.

He looked confused.

"What do you mean? Don't you?"

Umm, no…

Let's start with Fat Julia.

Last week, when I chose the adjective "fat" to modify the proper noun "Julia," I was admonished.

Not by Julia, mind you.

By others…

A few weeks back, a buddy of mine called and said he wanted to get the hell out of what he was doing and get into something else.

Here's what the conversation looked like, starting with me:

"Get into real estate investing, it's great."

"I don't know anything about it."

"You can learn, and you can make good money. I made $X my first year; you can do the same and then quit your current job."

"Yeah, but you've been in real estate for years, so you knew about it already."

"So what, you can learn. Go take this class."…

When we left off yesterday, Fat Julia was in the back of a pickup truck in Big Bend National Park.

How'd she get there?

How did my thin, athletic, flexible fiancé become an overweight couch potato who struggled with stairs?

One bite [of ultra-processed food] at a time, that's how…

Jason Isbell has a pretty great song about his recovery from alcohol addiction.

Amid dreams of drinking and wishing that cops would pull him over now that he's sober, the chorus admits that not drinking "gets easier, but it never gets easy."

A couple of my friends are getting off processed food now; they're finding that it's not so easy, either.

Processed and ultra-processed food, about 75% of what's for sale in a typical American grocery store, has a dirty little secret.

It's addictive…

I have a litmus test for anyone who wants to partner with me.

Are they Be-Right or Seek-Right?

Like most, my younger kids tend towards Be-Rights.

"Yeah, I know" is a typical response when I tell someone how to do something they've never done before.

Most kids grow out of it.

Some never do…