Welcome to my Substack. It seems like forever since I thought about posting on a social media platform. Like many millennials, social media accounts have been around since we were in middle school. Some of the earliest versions were Hi5, Tagged, and MySpace, before Facebook, Twitter, and others. Today, you can find various different ones, including Facebook, whatever is left of Twitter, SnapChat, et cetera. I have had a variety of accounts, from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Tagged, Hi5, and SnapChat, many that I am sure I have accounts sitting out there that haven’t been used in ever, if they haven’t already been deleted. But all those accounts seem geared toward making yourself look popular or receiving likes. However, life is too short to worry about those things. So, that begs the question, why am I even posting this? Well, it is not about gaining likes or trying to gain a following, but just around the curiosity of sharing. As I grow older, I have learned to enjoy the things we used to take for granted. For example, in 2024, I started to get into film photography, or as other people call it, analog. I tried a variety of cameras, from the Nikon F3, Pentax K1000, the Bessa R2, and the Pentax 17 (brand new in 2024). I have attached one of my favorite photographs from last year, shot on Kodak UltraMax 400. The photograph was shot on a hot summer day in July in New Orleans. If there is one place where you will sweat through your clothes from just standing outside, New Orleans is your answer. While it is muggy there, I loved the culture, the food, the vibe, and the city in general. I was glad to be able to travel there and enjoy the city while also bringing various cartridges of film to capture my favorite parts of the city. The one thing I enjoyed about film photography was the limited number of shots you could take. Instead of taking a digital camera and taking multiple pictures of each instance, I only had a limited number of shots from the different types of film I brought. If I stuck HP5 Plus 400 into the camera, I had to take 36 (72 on half-frame) shots at ISO 400 before being able to switch out to Porta or another color negative film. I was limited to the number of rolls I brought. For instance, when my wife and I traveled to India in October to see Durga Puja in her hometown of Kolkata and later to the mountains of Darjeeling, I only had eight rolls of film to spread over the two-week trip. Another thing I started in 2024 was making small travel videos, which I will share on this blog. While many other videos can be found online, I am not trying to compete with them. If people find them peaceful, then I will be glad. But I also want to share with family, and depending on how long the internet lasts, maybe my future generations could dig into these archives to see how our lives were. So to that, welcome to my Substack. While I welcome you to my Substack, I would also love to introduce myself. My name is Michael Rothfuss, and I am a Midwestern boy living on the East Coast in the USA. I am blessed to have a wonderful wife, who brings me daily happiness. She is my soulmate. I have lived in multiple states, starting in Texas, then in order, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Nebraska, and now Delaware. I have a couple of degrees, including an Associates from Metropolitan Community College (Omaha), a Bachelors of Science in Business Adminstration (major in Accounting) from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, a BMS (major in Poli Sci) from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and most recently, an MPA from the Biden School at the University of Delaware. For the past four years, I have worked in management, from being an Administrator at the State of Nebraska to being the Cost Accounting Manager at the University of Delaware. I specialize in leadership and data analytics. If I had to describe my career, I would say an administrator, analyst, and accountant. The AAA of business. For hobbies, I read, spend time in nature, travel, take photographs, and film little videos. I also have a positive view of life and live by the morals I inherited from life’s wonderful experience. I also believe that my future me will always be the greatest version of me, but I also love past me. So, this introduction is getting long, so I will highlight what to expect from this Substack. I plan to publish my creative endeavors on this blog, from videos, music, and photography, as well as share my thoughts on books, events, and nostalgia. I will also post about traveling, and maybe I will add things about my AAA work, on how to be a better leader, or better at Excel (which people say I am a genius at, but I will humbly say I am not). Anyhow, I will stop rambling on. Until next time, take care, y’all.