Hello Honies-- er, fellow Hivezens (is that the word?),
I was on Steem for a long time. I joined on my birthday in 2016. Oh, yes, I remember. It was a great birthday gift to myself.
A lot has happened in these last four years.
Yes, I was there in the early days. I clenched my teeth and other orifices through the wild rides along the way, with the hard forks, changes in reward systems, the spikes in price, Dan leaving, eventually the fighting, etc.
For a long time I held a lot of hope for Steem and all the projects that were promised to be built on that chain. A few of those projects did take off but a lot of them fizzled out and died, as I suppose many did in the fallout after the last big bull market.
I started my own "community" using the #myhuntingfishing hashtag, which I am proud to announce is still being used today, though much less than it once was. I am not sure if 
It was fun while it lasted. I enjoyed the friendships I built along the way and I'm sad I let those friendships wither away. But some of you are here! I will look you up and engage with you again.
I gradually lost interest in Steem with all the bid bots and junk posts that were filing the trending pages. Those were also the days of 
Speaking of
Anyway, back to the demise of Steemit and largely, Steem. It seemed the community was trying to eat itself alive. It was dying.
Then things started to stabilize and I was starting to have hope for Steem again. Lots of efficiencies seemed to be built to make things run more economically behind the scenes. Things like Resource Credits seemed to improve things. Communities were actually launched and a testnet for SMTs too. I won't fail to mention Steem-engine, SteemMonsters and curation leagues like OCD. There is so much more that is good here. It's bad to start making a list because you might offend someone by not including them. But you get my drift. This community rocks. I'll admit my ignorance too, as I have really only been watching from afar.
I was surprised to see the blockchain keep hanging on. It seemed that in some ways the community was becoming more refined and distilled down to the true essence of decentralization, freedom of speech, dialogue and healthy debate.
Then, shit hit the fan. There is a very good reason SHTF is an apt metaphor for stuff like this. It isn't pretty. It stinks to high heaven and it's a pain in the ass to clean up. But that is the story that brings us here to HIVE.
I am thankful that it happened. I know those are hard words to read for people who have poured their heart and soul into Steem, like my friend 
I'm glad we have a new opportunity here on HIVE. For me it means a new birth. A bright future of hope, even as the world collapses around us. It's nice to be here. I feel especially hopeful because of the way the community moved over to this chain, with so many devs and high quality witnesses. Are they called witnesses here?
Most of my Steem was powered down long ago and sitting and waiting for an opportunity to come along. To be honest, I never imagined the opportunity would look like this. This may actually be better than I could have imagined.
I doubt many will even notice that I am back, and that's okay. But hopefully I can build up my reputation here and help people out where I can.
This community really is special. When I compare it to other social media sites, even some of the new blockchain-based ones, there is really no comparison. The quality of interaction and value creation we find here is superior. Not to say I am exclusively going to use Hive. Just making note of my observations.
I'm back. If you remember me, I'd love to hear from you again.
Hoping you are all well and safe.
Let's build this hive!