🎉 Celebrating a Wanderfull year
Ep 52: It's a milestone, kids! Also, empty benches, getting sponsored, and my first run-in with rolled rubber flooring.
I wrote my first Wanderfull post on September 7 last year. Guess what? This edition marks a full year of weekly posts. That’s worth celebrating as a milestone! It takes a lot of discipline to write this every week and I’m grateful to all my subscribers. It means so much that you take the time to read this.
I enjoy publishing Wanderfull, both this narrative and the Friday cartoons. It started modestly, but my subscriber base has slowly and steadily grown with no marketing effort from me. I think that’s a testament to the power of the Substack network.
You can expect more of the same from me in the coming year: more tips from the modern worker, more reflections on my daily drawing challenge, and more observations about life. I’m still cartooning and trying to get something past the process at the New Yorker, too!
The first year saw my subscribers grow from 40 to 130, a 225% increase. A lot of that increase comes from
which recommends me to their readers – thank you so much for that! I wonder if I can make it to 500 in another year, which would be a slight uptick in the subscriber rate. I bet we can do it! You can help by sharing this with friends of yours, or sharing a particular post or cartoon you find useful or entertaining.A Tip for the Modern Worker
Get sponsored. If you’re interested in being promoted or recognized with raises and bonuses, you need to have people in “the room where it happens.” You need advocacy from people who know the value of your work and have a vested interest in your career success. A sponsor is not a mentor. They’re an advocate. They might be your manager, sure. But more likely, senior leaders or your manager’s peers. Cultivate those relationships and be transparent about your goals and aspirations. Once people know your career aspirations – and respect and value the work you do – they’ll help you get there.
This tip is one of 365 in my Handbook for the Modern Worker. Annual review time will be here before you know it. Have you made your aspirations clear to your leadership? They can advocate for you, but only if they know what to advocate for. I’ve been fortunate to have advocates in my past and can testify directly to their value.
#365DayDraw
I drew this and wrote the accompanying annotation as part of my #365DayDraw project 7 years ago today.
We've been strangers for years, but that all changed when I asked about her expression of sadness
Aw, that’s kind of sad. An empty bench? Think about what transpires while beings sit on the bench, though, and it can be inspiring. It could be a solo traveler, enjoying a quiet salad while watching the world walk by. It could be a pair of squirrels, chittering away at each other in the quiet pre-dawn hours. Or it could be a couple of long-time friends, catching up after not having seen each other for decades, reminiscing about loves lost, almost-forgotten trials, and the patchwork of infinite possibilities that lay forward for each of them. It’s just a bench. But it’s a witness to so much more.
Commentary
We’re heavy in renovation mode, having decided to replace half the flooring in our house in the coming months, and converting both kids’ bedrooms into legit guest bedrooms. We started with the gym this week and the before-and-after pictures are really fun. It started with a Berber carpet with fitness mats under the heaviest pieces.
Amy and I worked hard to get all of the equipment out of the room. The Smith was the toughest part, made simpler by removing the 200-pound plate stack from the back. I’m good at the demolition step of most things, so taking the flooring out was so satisfying.
The remnant carpet now has a second life in my Mom and Dad’s basement. I soon had things stripped down to the subfloor and carefully took out the staples that held the rug pad down.
The rolled rubber flooring we bought was SO heavy we needed a hand truck to get it into the room. We put the 1/2” flooring on top of 1/4” cork underlayment, bringing the stack height up to 3/4” to match the rest of the house. Installation was mostly smooth until I realized that the 4’ courses were actually a fraction of an inch wider, so I needed to rip a little more than an inch from the last piece. It was a nice opportunity to raid my Dad’s shop for the perfect tool and carefully cut the 17’ length of the last piece. Many thanks to my Dad and my friend Mike for helping bring the heavier equipment back into the room!
Miscellanea
💺 How did airplane legroom get so tight? After flying so much this past month, this was a timely inclusion in a recent Morning Brew. I couldn’t even bend over to get into a proper brace position during one particularly uncomfortable flight. As it says in the video, it wasn’t my decision to be tall!
🍌 I read this article in the New York Times about mandatory composting. We’re long-time composters here in upstate New York, but thinking about making it happen in a metropolis makes my head spin. It’s worth it, if only for the lack of stinkiness of my normal garbage. But it takes discipline and special attention to cleaning to keep the bin from being too disgusting over time. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’re a city dweller.
🎒 Lastly, tomorrow is the big kickoff for the schools where I live. Amy starts things off with a few staff days. Elizabeth begins her first full school year with kids, having already enjoyed staff time last week. I wish them both good luck!
Congrats on making it a year. Glad my audience is connecting with your content!