Now that most of the leaves have fallen and the landscape is colorless, I feel less inclined to spend time outdoors. For the past several weeks, maybe a month and a half at the most, I’ve been getting up super early. Often at 05:00 a.m. But instead of stumbling off to Kockum Fritid, our local gym to lift weights for an hour or going for a 10k run, as I’ve been doing for a few years, I instead put myself through a 30 minutes hybridized routine based on my rudimentary knowledge of Yoga and Qi Gong. Do I break a sweat? Barely. But it’s definitely strenuous and irrefutably gets my sleepy body warmed up.

Mentally, I now enjoy the exact same euphoric state of mind as if I’d been jogging or pumping iron, sans the pains and aches those routines consequentially have as by-products.

At Kockum Fritid, I regularly attend Yoga classes and once a week, I have a private teacher at HTA for my Qi Gong training. The more knowledgeable I get about low-impact exercise, the more comfortable I feel about applying what I learn to my morning exercise regimen.

As hard as it at times is to get my relatively stiff body to bend and twist that the movements, poses and stances demand, the learning experience is absolutely terrific. Mentally, I can’t think of a better way to kickstart the day right now. And I’m certainly improving my physical elasticity – although the progress is incontrovertibly incremental. But that’s to be expected.

Elle Ingrid Agnes Raboff was born 17 years ago today at 11:05 a.m. right here in Malmö. The image above is a frame grab from a video I shot during our daughter’s very first hours. We had left the apartment for the hospital (after securing the taxi driver new without a doubt where we needed to go) the night before at around 02:00 a.m. and waited patiently until our daughter decided the time was right to leave the comfort zone of her mother’s tummy.

As a father, you obviously don’t get to experience the physical process of giving birth. Which arguably might be just as well given most men’s intolerance to the level of pain most mothers endure without much fuss. That said, I don’t think I have ever been or will ever be more present and mindful as when the miracle we call Elle entered our lives on this auspicious day, 17 years ago.

A few hours before sunrise, I hired a cab in Phnom Penh to take me to one of the memorial grave site where victims of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge lay. I had seen the movie “The Killing Fields” many years before, and felt prompted while in the capital to visit the site and at least try and understand the horrific brutality and slaughter that was inflicted on so unfathomably many innocent victims, including some 2 million innocent women, children and men.

We don’t really celebrate Halloween here, but today is called “All Saints Day” and as part of an age-old Swedish tradition, people light candles en masse, mostly on graveyards.

Shot during the week here in Västra Hamnen mostly on an iPhone 7+ and a few times using a iPhone 6s with DJI’s Osmo Mobile gimbal stabilizer.

With at least a half dozen or so towering conference and business hotels having been established over the last few years, nobody can have missed Malmö’s ongoing hotel boom. But the latest addition to the city is something completely different. MJ’S opened last April and is not only the city’s only real boutique hotel. It’s also one of Skåne’s absolutely coolest hotspots. I stayed there last night and ate a most sumpteous meal as part of a recurring gig for my wife Charlotte’s popular Swedish hotel site, Hotell Addict. All shots taken handheld with the increasingly versatile Leica Q at an amazing 1/30s and ISO 1600. Minimal post work – just a few notches of noise reduction in LR/CC. I’m blown away by this camera.

Truth be told, nothing symbolizes my current life quest as much as the morning smoothies I assemble for the family. Much of the ingrediens I use have documented anti-inflammatory properties with ensuing health benefits. Not that each shake magically adds years to our lives, but over time, I am absolutely convinced that they can help decelerate environmentally and/or genetically provoked virulent processes.

On a social level, the recipe isn’t as easy to put together. Preemptively sieving projects and collaborations with high odds of being futile, as opposed to fertile – or, even deleterious, is still something I need to work on. From time to time, my penchant for creativity still camouflages – even effectively hides – the self-evident from me. And the unavoidable echo-chamber that derives from the fercency does the rest…until…KA-BOOM!

Back to the smoothie.

Here’s what went into this morning’s spontaneous amalgamation:
Cinnamon, Ginger, Turmeric, Beetroot, Coconut, Spinach, Coconut flakes, Sunflower seeds, Vanilla, Banana, Almonds, Needless to say, all ingrediens were organic. Much of it purchased at and shipped from Amazon UK.