🍔 Celebrating the true Burger King

🍔 A Whopper of a gift. Kevin Rose has worked at Burger King for 27 years, never once calling out sick or missing a day. For his achievement, Rose received a small gift bag, filled with various knick-knacks like pens, candy, and a tumbler. Rose posted the recognition of his service to TikTok, and because he’s the man, he received the gifts with incredible positivity and gratitude.

@thekeep777

He's Worked for the Company for Almost 3 Decades and Has Never Called Out!!!😵‍💫🥺😱😭 #Grateful #Dads #FathersDay #Loyalty #Honor #WorkersUni... See more

The internet, though…..the internet was NOT pleased at how BK did our guy Kevin.

It quickly became clear people really identified with this father‘s relentless dedication to providing a living and health insurance to a growing family. A GoFundMe was started, and to date, it’s raised an astonishing $400,000.

Look, money obviously doesn’t solve the underlying problems that see a man work tirelessly and unfailingly for a corporation for nearly three decades with little meaningful recognition to show for it. BUT, it’s incredibly heartening to see so many rally behind a positive man just making an honest living to provide for his family.

The true Burger King - the only Burger King we recognize - still works at BK, progressing towards retirement. The money raised in the GoFundMe will be directed to his retirement account and towards seeing his grandchildren across the country. Kevin’s retirement - that dessert of life - will be well-earned.

His story reminds us we don’t need to wait for a saddening TikTok or a GoFundMe to recognize a hard working force of positivity. We all probably interact with a Kevin Rose every single day. If nothing else, we can afford each other some patience, pleasantries, and recognition to make the daily grind that much more tolerable.

🏃‍♂️ I just kept running. “I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason, I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean.”

Ernie Andrus shares several similarities with Forrest Gump. They’re both military veterans, and they both ran clear across the country. Unlike Forrest though, Ernie is 100 years old, and he did it for a very particular reason.

Last weekend, the World War II vet walked into the Pacific Ocean at Mission Beach in San Diego, completing a cross-country journey started back in 2019. It would be his second time attempting the feat, previously vanquishing it as a run back in 2013.

He did it to fundraise for LST 325, the last operational WWII amphibious landing ship-tank - the same amphibious ship that landed on the beaches of Normandy. After previously finding the ship in Greece and restoring it to working order, Andrus and a group of veterans hope to raise enough to take the ship back to Normandy.

In 2013, Andrus would run 3-5 miles a few days a week, hitchhiking back to his RV and then driving to where he stopped his run. Along the way, a firefighter named John Martin became familiar and fascinated with his story, messaging the American hero on Facebook and eventually meeting up with him in Mississippi. The two men have been friends ever since, and when Andrus posed the idea of walking back across the country to skeptical family members, he volunteered Martin to come with him.

Gee thanks, Ernie!

After 5 states, Andrus was forced to bow out, his aging body unable to take the pavement-pounding of everyday walking. Martin picked up where they left off, working his way across the country so that he could walk onto Mission Beach boardwalk with Andrus, completing the triumph together.

It’s like Forrest said: “Miracles happen every day. Some people don’t think so, but they do.”

This was nothing short of a miracle: a miracle of friendship, consistency, and purpose.

🦻A TikTok message worth hearing. I’m convinced 95% of TikTok content boils down to one of two simple, but equally mind-numbing subjects: what people eat in a day or what they wear in a day. Why we desperately crave this highly pertinent information, I do not know.

For the curious: I just ate a bagel, and my t-shirt is from Gap. Crazy, right?!

Despite the remarkable wealth of mindless content, among the remaining 5% on the Tok, there are some amazing things happening. Take for example, Daisy Kent. Kent, now 24, started losing her hearing in her left ear at age 15 thanks to Meniere’s disease, which was likely caused by Lyme disease. After struggling with speech recognition for years, an issue not remedied by traditional hearing aids, she chose to pursue cochlear implants, documenting the process on TikTok.

This video of the implant activation has over 12 million views.

@daisyykent

My first time hearing with a Cochlear implant 💘🦻🏻🧘🏼‍♀️ #cochlearimplant #cochlearimplantawareness #autoimmunedisease #healingjourney #fyp ... See more

Since the surgery five months ago, Daisy’s word recognition has improved from 4% to 70%, with 100% on the horizon. Importantly, her posts have brought comfort to thousands suffering from similar afflictions and those curious about the implant process. The education is important: only 5% of almost two million Americans who could benefit from cochlear technology have actually been treated with it.

Daisy also started a non-profit called Hear Your Heart to help others defray the significant costs of cochlear implant surgery. Imagine if all “influencers” were dedicated to great causes? Your five minutes of fame could be running out, guys….tick-tock, get to it!

🗣️ AI is a-okay for this one. At baseline, artificial intelligence is pretty terrifying. Science-fiction has warned us relentlessly for decades about its dangers, but now it’s actually here, and people are just like “Oh sick! Check out what ChatGPT can do!”

The AI thoughtbois are out in full force championing the power of this technology like it won’t eventually become our overlord….or at least take our jobs.

Nope! Nope nope nope. Do not want.

As it turns out though, the medical advancements enabled by AI are nothing short of incredible. Last week, a a woman who suffered a stroke 18 years ago “spoke” for the first time since….thanks to AI. University of California researchers implanted electrodes into Ann Johnson’s brain to detect her brain signals, sampled her voice from a video of her at her wedding, and translated the brain signals into sentences.

Apparently, the translating algorithm chooses the incorrect word up to 28% of the time, but given how early we are in the AI revolution and the fact speech has been restored where it previously didn’t exist, that’s pretty amazing.

Besides, my brain picks the wrong word way more than 28% of the time. So we can fear AI all we want, but resisting it entirely would be like cutting off your nose to spiderface.

See? Wrong word. Damn!

On this day in history in 1963, civil rights protestors marched on Washington for jobs and freedom. On that day, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech.

Those words have a strong claim to being one of the single greatest speeches in the history of the English language. Speaking to over 250,000 supporters, King passionately voiced his dream: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

King was later named TIME’s Man of the Year in 1963 and became the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. While his words and activism have had enormous, eternal impact, the work of achieving the described dream continues.

This week, let’s heed his poignant words in tribute.

This one is gonna be tough to top the next time August 28th falls on a Monday. The alternative events don’t quite stack up. For example, it was also the date the first Subway sandwich shop opened; Five Dollar Footlong fans stand up! And then maybe just take a seat and remain seated…a little respect guys, jeez. Read the room.

Today, we highlight not just one Great Samaritan, but an entire army of them countrywide. Thanks to Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service, an Alabama nonprofit, kids across the United States are taking on the 50 Yard Challenge.

The premise is simple: cut 50 lawns for free for the elderly, disabled, single parents, veterans, and anyone in need in your town. Hit 50 and win a brand new mower, blower, and weed eater.

To date, nearly 5,000 children have taken on the challenge across not just every state in the US but 8 countries in total. It’s an incredible program teaching young people a sense of pride in and responsibility to their respective communities.

You don’t realize how much a well-groomed patch of grass improves your state of mind until you move to the suburbs, and then you obsess about grass to an unhealthy degree. It’s unclear, however, if these bad boys are a requirement to register for the 50 Yard Challenge:

🏊‍♂️ Channel surfing phenomenon. You ever go to the beach or out on a boat, set down your beer, look out across the horizon at a distant land mass, and ask your friends, “do you think you could swim it?”

Because dudes rock, they ask each other stupid questions like this all the time, and they almost always answer affirmatively despite the very obvious inevitability of failure.

Andy Donaldson is one of the rare dudes that can offer a resounding “yes” to the bros’ hypotheticals. Donaldson now holds the Guinness World Records for the fastest time to complete the world’s seven hardest channel swims (355 days) and the fastest cumulative swim time (63 hours and 2 minutes). To complete the challenge, he swam:

• The North Channel, between Ireland and Scotland (21 miles)

• The Cook Strait, between New Zealand’s North and South islands (16 miles)

• The Moloka’i Channel, between Moloka’i and O’ahu (27 miles)

• The English Channel, between England and France (21 miles)

• The Catalina Channel, between Santa Catalina Island and Los Angeles (20 miles)

• The Tsugaru Strait, between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido (12 miles)

• The Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco (10 miles)

Dude swam into a different COUNTRY three times. Literally woke up one day and said, “think I’ll swim to France.” As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he raised $50,000 for mental health charities in the process.

We won’t question his own sanity for attempting the challenge, but we will confirm he’s a certified badass for completing the vaunted Oceans Seven.

🔦 Sharing the spotlight. Imagine exerting yourself to the brink of exhaustion in pursuit of a World Championship. Actually, forget that. Imagine trying to do the pole vault, period. That doesn’t end well for most of us.

After countless rounds of fierce competition in Budapest last week, American Katie Moon and Australian Nina Kennedy agreed to share the world title, creating a moment of outstanding sportsmanship. With the sport being dangerous to begin with, risk only increases as fatigue sets in. So with the ladies embroiled in a stalemate, unable to break the deadlock, a split of the title will be no mere consolation prize.

The decision comes two years after Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi chose to split the men’s high jump gold medal in Tokyo, delivering perhaps the most wholesome moment in Olympic history. Imagine going halvsies on a world championship? Dwight could never.

There’s more from Budapest. Last weekend, Dutch runner Femke Bol literally fell flat on her face trying to hold off the United States in the Mixed 4×400m Relay. A textbook face plant.

Yesterday, she found redemption, mounting an incredible surge in the final meters to deliver a comeback victory and a gold medal to the Dutch women. It’s like Ted Lasso says: be a goldfish. Sometimes, it helps to have a short memory. Yesterday’s face plant could be replaced by tomorrow’s triumph.

🤕 Headstrong, literally. Nine months ago, Alex Fletcher, a player for Bath City FC, a sixth-tier English football club, raced into the opposition’s territory and delivered a cross into the box. He took a slight nudge in the process and slid head first into a wall about 15 feet from the goalline.

The initial prognosis was bad, very bad. It took the ambulance 45 minutes to arrive, each minute feeling longer than the next as blood poured from an awake Fletcher’s head. Surgeons worked for four to five hours on Fletcher’s fractured skull and his brain. There was a real expectation he may not pull through the aftermath of that surgery, and if he did, there was a real expectation he would never be the same. At best, this was months-to-years of recovery.

And yet, here we are nine months later. This weekend, Fletcher returned to the pitch for Bath City. Miraculously, from the day of the incident onward, Fletcher’s prognosis improved bit by bit. His personality and wit quickly showed to be very much intact, and matters of movement returned quicker than expected as well, culminating in his emotional return.

bathcityfc

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The sixth tier may not be glamorous, but it’s a hell of a long way from death’s door.

🎉 Getting silly with the celly. The only thing better than scoring a goal? Hitting a killer celebration. If you need a laugh to start the week, check out comedian Karl Porter’s slow motion soccer goal celly.

It’s one of the best and most accurate pieces of physical comedy you’ll ever see, complete with the knee slide footballers seem to execute flawlessly every time. I’d try it, but like the pole vault, that only ends one way: pain.