For all you people who said New York City was dead -- you were dead wrong.

As spring is now in full swing, so is the city. Every day there seems to be a new thing to do and a new place to go.

Among those new places to go is the amazing new public park literally in the Hudson River, Little Island. Barry Diller funded this only-in-NYC floating green space gem in partnership with the Hudson River Park Trust. And the 2.4 acre project, which has been in the works for a number of years, could not be more inspiring.

Little Island would have always been welcome, but, after such an especially trying year, it could not have opened at a better time.

I urge you to visit Little Island before things fully open up and it gets flooded with tourists.

​If you do plan on visiting Little Island soon, I encourage you to check out my "mini-tour" to give you a sense of all the great experiences that await you -- and for some important things to keep in mind before you go.

Summertime rocks in my world because the slower pace always allows me more bandwidth to broaden my creative skills.

One of my main goals for this summer has been to up my video production skills as I prepare to add video journalism and other forms of video content creation to my creative arsenal.

It's been amazingly easy so far to find affordable opportunities to learn the basic tech and techniques surrounding shooting and editing. I even learned how to fly a drone! Meetup groups and Apple Store classes have gone a long way towards providing creative support and expanding my expertise. It's all been super fun and all the workshops have either been free or crazy cheap, which is always a nice bonus. 

After just a couple of Apple Store workshops, I not only got a lot more familiar with the iPhone's video and editing capabilities, but I also started to learn to look at the city in a much more focused way. This led to my first assignment to myself, which turned out to be an homage to New York City's street food scene. I produced this "quick and dirty" style, with just the general idea that I wanted to cover food trucks -- no shot list, no storyboard, no narrative arc, not a lot of time to shoot, and I edited the whole thing on my phone. Shooting and editing this short piece was a blast, and I can't wait to dig in again soon with my next New York City-themed short. Coming soon! Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Street Food Fantasia...and sorry if it makes you hungry.