Borrowed my buddy's 4 foot level after fighting the same corner for days and it turned out mine was out by almost a quarter inch. Felt like such an idiot but also weirdly relieved it wasn't me. Now I check my levels against a known good one before every big job.

Heard a barber on a podcast say the guys who burn out their wrists and their clients both do it the same way, going too fast on the detail work. He said the fade is really just a bunch of small steps and if you skip one you can see it from across the room. Marcus spotting those lines in the mirror was him seeing a skipped step, plain and simple. That $1,800 lesson stings but you only have to learn it once, right? Ray sounds like he'd been watching guys make that same mistake for 40 years.

Typed labels changed everything for my candles too.