Hello, and thank you.

I got another late start this morning. 

For one, my wife is out of town and I have more morning rigamarole than usual. Second, I had my usual Thursday morning therapy. And finally, I had a work review the moment I got in and haven't faced the computer till just this moment.

Yesterday, my friend-from-blogging, the redoubtable Rich Siegel over at Round Seventeen celebrated his 500,000 viewer. That reminded me, I have just passed my ninth year as a blogger. Yes, I have been blathering publicly in this space since the world was somewhat cooler, way back in 2007.

Since then, I have written over 4,600 posts. At 100 words a post, that's almost half a million words. That's about 1,500 written pages, or five 300 page books, which isn't an insignificant amount of output considering that I hold down a full-time job and this is just a hobby.

Also since then, I've made a few friends along the way. The aforementioned Rich is just one. There are others. And I'm not a person who makes friends easily. 

This blog has also helped me find jobs. Work when I was freelance, and full-time employment when I was looking for that. As much as it's important for people to gauge your talent based on your book, these daily doses of writing and thinking, of humor or serious thought, often serve as reminders of who you are, and how you work.

That's one reason why I encourage friends--especially friends who are looking for work, to start blogging. When you do this as avidly as I do, you have to do many of the things in blogging that you have to do in advertising.

You have to show up. You have to be fresh. You have to be readable and relevant. You have to find an audience, and keep it.

That's all for today.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Seeya tomorrow.