Blogs & Articles
Bookstore Day, the moon, and breakfast burritos 🌝🌯
This Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day, which happens to be our family’s Super Bowl. It’s the biggest sales day of the year for most local bookshops, and we start planning in January to have inventory, promos, and new products ready to go. Don’t forget to support your local bookstore on April 25!
Baseball, Optimism, and Giving a Shit
Happy Opening Day! It’s the first day of baseball season, which is my favorite national holiday. Here’s 10 things worth sharing:
Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love
February flew by, didn’t it? Here’s 10 things worth sharing:
The squad is growing! Welcome, Molly K. Smith 🌭
Molly Smith is a talented designer + illustrator who loves RISO printing, margaritas, thrifting, and danceable music. She grew up in Shawnee, Kansas, and graduated from K.U. School of Architecture & Design
“Layoffs Aren't the End. How Two Workers Reinvented Their Careers” (Repost from Indeed)
Justin recently shared his story on Indeed.com in an article featuring people who re-invented their careers after layoffs.
🚀 We’re going for it this year – 10 Things Worth Sharing
We’re going for it, you guys. The new studio is coming along -and- I just hired my first full-time teammate. We want to be able to take on more projects, grow our stationery side project, and even pop-up at a few events selling merch and goodies.
Greetings from the First Hot Dog HQ – 10 Things Worth Sharing
Our family is ending the year with some big wins: we re-opened the bookstore just in time for the holidays (thank god) AND I recently moved out of our home office and into my own studio.
“We’re here on Earth to fart around” – 10 things worth sharing
Last week, during yet another delay on the rebuild of our bookstore, I thought writing would make me feel less anxious but it turned out to just make for a very anxious newsletter. Lord knows we have plenty of those these days…
We all love a great story
I don’t know if it's the changing seasons or getting older or just the craziness of our life right now, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the art of storytelling. What makes a great story? Why do we do it? Why do we love it?
“Laid Off Today”: 10 Things Worth Sharing
I made this list of “Options” the day I was laid off from my previous job. Looking back, it makes me smile. I admire that I just sat down and took action – even though, for some reason, my first thought was to become a YouTuber.
2 Years of Hot Dog! – Thoughts On Running a Creative Studio
I never would have started my own business if I wasn’t laid off in 2023. At the time, my wife was planning to leave her corporate job to open a bookstore. I was going to keep my “stable” job that was enjoyable, paid well, and offered remote flexibility. Then one Friday morning, three days after my promotion, I saw the surprise all-company meeting on the calendar.
Why is Everything so Serious? – 10 Fun Things Worth Sharing
Family movie night has been all bangers lately: Cool Runnings, Rookie of the Year, The Pacifier (feat. Vincent Diesel). All these movies are 20 years old – do they still make movies that are just…. fun?
My Favorite Cocktail Recipes
Recently an old co-worker texted me because she had misplaced my “amazing margarita recipe”. I was kind of shocked because I’d never realized that my drink recipes might actually be that interesting to other people…
Spice Up the Dog Days 🌭 of Summer: 10 Things Worth Sharing
It’s hot in Kansas. I don’t really like the phrase “beat the summer heat” – I think you just have to give in and let the sweat overtake you. On that note, a few things that might make the Swamp Ass™ more bearable:
Darkroom Class and Finding Your Inspiration
You guys, it’s my birthday! You know those people who keep their birthday a secret from everyone and you find out 3 days later that you were eating lunch with them on that very day and they said nothing? That ain’t me.
Writing, Thinking, and Independent Bookstores
This weekend is Independent Bookstore Day, so don’t forget to go support your local bookstore on April 26. No matter where you live, they probably have some fun things planned!
10 Things We Learned from Opening a Neighborhood Bookstore
This list may not be “business advice”, but sometimes you just need someone to hype you up about trying a crazy idea.
Baseball, Trains, and Hat Sales – Newsletter #002
I love baseball. Here’s 10 things worth sharing to celebrate Opening Day:
Humans are more interesting than algorithms – Newsletter #001
Each month, I intend to share some interesting thoughts, quotes, articles, etc. Nothing fancy, but I believe in today’s algo world there is value in human curation.
Reimagining The Rio: the process behind a brand
Nobody asked me to do this project – It’s a passion project I created during a course last summer. BUT the cool part about that is that I can share every single detail about the process to show how a brand is made.