Hugh’s Blog

It's been a great year.

I’m spending some time looking backwards this week instead of rushing into new goals and that ‘R’ word we think about at New Years. Here are my best pics from 2009. What do you think?

Best book I read: Four hour work week by Tim Ferriss http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/. Radical thinking, bold writing style and he goes beyond walking the talk, he lives this stuff. Read it twice and now reading the updated version. I’m a junkie to this stuff.

Best movies I watched: Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town. Brilliant acting. Rent it, sit back and get ready to laugh. Watched it twice and I never watch movies twice. Soloist with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. great acting and story. Funny and frustrating at times if you like movies that don’t follow Hollywood script.

Best web site: hands down it’s www.ted.com. I have a couple of hundred podcasts I listen as I walk my dog or workout plus videos on my iphone. Here are some of the ‘must get’ clips/audio:

• Bono’s plea for action in africa
• Sir Ken Robinson on education
• Steve Jobs on how to live before you die
• JJ Abram’s mystery box
• And Pranav Misty on his sixth sense

Best decision I made: individual adventures with my daughters. With one I went hiking in the alpine for four days the other sea kayaking for five days. Brilliant times to share and remember.

Favorite quote: Goethe did it again with “We are what we do. Excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit.”

Best song: Jason Mraz “I’m yours” I just feel good when I listen to it.

Best album: Neil Young live at Massey Hall 1971. This is the young neil – piano and guitar, that’s it. Very cool.

Funniest moment: there were many, but I loved the night out with my wife, Kirsten and within five minutes of sitting at the restaurant both of us realizing we needed reading glasses to read the menu. And then the surprise when the waitress brought us a tray of eyeglasses to choose from!

Saddest moment: helping to clean out my Dad’s workshop as my folks moved from their ocean front home to a seniors resident. Just knowing that Dad would never pick up a drill or create something out of wood ever again broke my heart.

Best purchase: no question, the 3G iphone. Outstanding design and functionality. It just seems to know what I need to do and makes it happen with a minimum of clicks. I bought a book on how to get the most out of it and don’t need it. Within a minute or two I can figure everything out. Love it.