Day 10 of Thankfulness: Writing

I've had the fortunate pleasure of being able to write for so many different publications and in a wide variety of styles. My passion to write is what drives me (along with my photography and about a hundred others) and I love to be able to express myself, my thoughts, my experiences, and anything else in writing. I am lucky enough to write daily at work and then when I get home from my job, I keep writing. That is the true sign of love, right?

Anyway, as I have frequently explained on this blog --and will continue to-- I enjoy writing about all different topics and just this week I recently published another article at MyHOFS.com, the tremendously exciting and up-and-coming website that I am a contributor for. As I mentioned, I have hundreds of other hobbits away from the writing and photography and one of them is sports. I love watching, playing, commentating, and being a fan of nearly all sports and so this week I decided to cover the upcoming NBA season that we all were so lucky to have return to our lives. Although so many have gone without even noticing that professional basketball is back, others were relieved to see that the incredibly wealthy owners and the incredibly wealth players could agree on how they both would be getting incredibly wealthy this season.

So to give you a taste of my article on MyHOFS, here is a portion of it:

MyHOFS NBA Preview:
I have many gripes. The one most vocalized is my hated for the length of the baseball season. There is nothing worse than following a sport that lasts practically the length of the first two trimesters of pregnancy.

13 Days of Thankfulness: A Good Meal

I'm been very fortunate in my life to have some pretty darn good eats in my day. From my mom's spectacular BBQ chicken pizza to homemade pasta with meat sauce with my dad, I've grown up with some pretty delicious meals. And just last week while in Las Vegas I got to try out chef Tom Colicchio's (of the show Top Chef) restaurant CraftSteak. Let's just say it was incredible and I was able to try a lot of new things like caviar, frise'e salad, and gold sprinkled chocolate (all separately of course). But it was a tremendous meal that made me think about how appreciative I am of a good meal.

Making homemade fettuccine at home in New Hampshire.

Over the years I have had the chance to try all different kinds of foods from around the world. I spoke at a Peace Conference last month which was mixed with a traveler's forum and one of the questions was asked, "what is the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?" I had to dig into my brain a bit to think about exactly what it could have been.

14 Days of Thankfulness: Earth/Space

Today I am thankful for earth/space. Not for the normal reasons like giving us life or being a really cool area in the sky to look at. Those are a given, I'm thankful for living and thankful for the fact that earth indeed exists in space.

I'm thankful for earth/space because of videos like this (below). Fortunately I was shown this video from my good friend, Matt, as his appreciation to amazing photography, video, films, music, culture, writing, etc is very similar with mine.


Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

The video itself is a majestic look at earth from the International Space Station orbiting around our planet, our home, our everything, really. The time-lapse panorama footage boggles my mind as I can watch it hundreds of times over, staring at the connecting lights of urban plots and various colors that our planet projects out into space so beautifully. It's something that I feel every person should watch at least once to get a true understand of how special a place we live on and how much we can learn from it. I have to steal Matt's quote on this because its perfect...

"I feel lucky to have this. It’s a perspective of the earth — our home — that only a few years ago wasn’t possible. Think of everything that had to happen to make this video possible: all the years of  science and research that made sustained space orbit possible; the capital — human and gold — spent to put a station in the sky; the convergence of communication, video, and social technology that created the platforms for these images to be shot, edited, and broadcast to our virtual networks. We see a camera above the clouds mapping our physical networks — cities, highways, structures — broadcasting its images along our virtual network in the digital cloud. I think it shows that even in something as ephemeral as a viral video, there is a lot for which to be thankful."

I couldn't have put it better myself (hence why he was Editor in Chief and I was Managing Editor). Thanks, Matt for allowing me to publicly thank you and our good friend, Earth.
PS- and to make the rest of your appreciate Earth even more, I suggest watching this video below as well. It's remarkable:

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

15 Days of Thankfulness: Ayla and Logan

As I have mentioned in many prior posts, being an uncle is pretty magical. But I had to give thanks to the pair of little pieces of joy that have come into my life, Logan and Ayla.
I am obviously thankful to have a healthy and happy niece and nephew but I have also had the great privilege to take of taking photos of both of them. Both possess great photogenic attributes; big grins, expressive eyes, and fun personalities (plus they both have such unique kinds of hair which I love). So instead of writing it all out, I will show my thankfulness for my favorite duo of photo subjects. I cannot wait to keep capturing them as they get older and then eventually get scalded by them when they are teenagers for being the "photo-obsessed uncle":

"We live in such extraordinary times

exquisite visions fill up my mind,

Do you remember me taking pictures of you?

As the light came through." -The Kooks