Two years of beveling the wrong side, that's a new level of committed.

Used to figure the app was the flaky part, honestly. Figured a paid tracker was just some kid pulling data and slapping a price on it, so I'd trust my own ears and my old scanner over any phone app. Your radio being 20 minutes late though, that's a real eye opener, because a delay like that is exactly the kind of thing that makes you blame the wrong thing. These days I check the timestamp on the alert itself instead of just trusting that it came through at all, and if the timing is off then the gear is the problem, not the source. Takes a humbling to change your mind on that one, your mileage may vary though.

Watching a guy eyeball smoke color on one cook doesn't teach you fire management, it teaches you one guy's habit. Thin blue smoke sounds great until you're running a different rig in January wind with wet oak, and suddenly his 20 minute rule means nothing. That hinge trick is solid, sure, but you got lucky he wasn't the type who swears by soaking wood or mopping every 30 minutes, because then you'd have copied a bad habit just as fast. One pitmaster on one afternoon is a sample size of one, and half these old guys can't tell you why they do what they do, they just do it. Learn from five or six of them, compare notes, then decide what actually holds up on your own smoker.