My name is Freddie. I’m a recovering blog-a-holic. I’m happy to admit that I’m back on the sauce and blogging again.

If you hadn’t heard: I lost my laptop and even more tragically my flight log book (seen here) in the back of a London cab about two weeks ago. I’ve only now caught up with the back log and started to re-assemble my life and you will start hearing from me again on a weekly basis.

I stumbled across a couple of brilliant interactive art pieces over the last couple of weeks (via some smart friends of mine – Damion Parsons and Colleen DeCourcy). The first one is not very digital at all – it’s the ultimate “Human Interface” titled Hi. Effectively it’s a guy in a box that looks like a Microsoft surface performing all the computer functions himself. Entertaining and awesome – it’s a must watch and share video.

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This week I had a friend make a digital copy of my log book that I’ve been keeping since I was a kid. It has every flight I’ve ever taken in it since I was just over 3 months old. I’ve accumulated over 700 flights and 150 trans Atlantic crossings and I still take it on every flight. When I board the plane I give the book to the captain (typically through a flight attendant) and have the book recorded and signed in their own hand writing.

It is truly my most prized possession in the world as it’s the only material possession I own that’s not replaceable.

I thought it was about time I did this for safety’s sake if nothing else.

Check it out here: http://takemetoyourleader.com/logbook/

I recommend jumping to the 20th page where all the flights start, but the comments the captains leave are really classic ranging from funny to sentimental and they get better and better as time goes on and the book becomes a rich piece of history. I’ve had captains tell me their father’s had signed it or that they signed it once before 10 years ago.

I’m going to add a permanent menu link to the site to access the book and will keep it updated. I’m doing about 80 flights a year right now so it changes pretty rapidly.

Around this time of year I tend to get pretty sentimental. The holidays, my birthday, and then in early February the anniversary of my father’s death all make me crave some positive memories to keep him fresh in my mind. For those of you who don’t know me personally my father was my best friend, my #1 business adviser, and my mentor.  He had a full life when he passed away, but that does not mean I still don’t miss him like crazy and think about it him every day.

This week a gentleman named Robert Chandler (who owns the agency General Levitation) reached out to me to introduce himself and ask if he could tell me a story about my father.  To the best of my memory it’s the only story I’ve ever heard about my father directly interacting with advertising thus it has extra special meaning to me. I hope you enjoy it in Robert’s words (since he is a copywriter after all)….

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I stumbled across an incredible story today on the Playstation gamer message boards. A young paralyzed teen had an idea for how to build a rig that would allow him to play video games. The teen worked with Mark Felling who did the physical assembly of the gear and after a couple months they had a kit that allowed the boy to use the vast majority of the controls on a PS3.  Read More »

I wanted to apologize that we didn’t post for a couple of days. The last week or so has been complete madness.

I think I did five flights last week, spent two days on site at GE, completed two massive client presentations and still managed to keep up with my normal load (excluding Take Me To Your Leader).

This weekend burn-out finally caught up with me and I slept for two and a half days. I didn’t leave my house except to go to Best Buy. (One of my latest obsessions is trying to get Windows Media Center to work with my Comcast digital cable.)

All this withstanding I actually enjoyed every second of the pressure. I do get off on this stuff. The big reward was on Friday. I bought a puppy for my girlfriend (which I think was as much a present for me as it was for her). The puppy’s name is Amelie and she’s a 1 pound 10 oz. Pomeranian.

Check out her picture after the jump…

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