My Daemon Poll

Apple

An apple by definition......

A business dinner in Sydney, New South Wales

These guys loved hearing stories about setting up new offices and the personnel problems/challenges that come along with them. And we talked about a few other things too. After I took a photo of Michael in his plastic surgical gown used to eat crab legs in, we took this photo of a really happy group of diners.

It's going to be a lot of fun marketing ETFs with these guys!

Storm Watch

Roger and I had planned to golf. But Typhoon #4 decided to march up the coast and destroyed all plans. Instead we hung out at his beach house in Iritahama, cooked, drank, went to a local beach scene hip hop/Hawaiian party at the Spice Dog restaurant and checked out the other beaches' waves.

Mom gets her 15 minutes a second time

The public tv network in Minneapolis/St. Paul is looking back at their history and trying to recreate what has taken place over the past 50 years. They found my mother who hosted a live half hour homemaking program weekly from 1960 to 1965 and had her on for an interview (taped). Here's a still of Mom talking about her experience doing "Tea at Three with Vivian Hoff"

Culinary delight in Santa Monica

Anton and I found a great seafood restaurant in Santa Monica after getting back to LA from Rancho Cucamonga and Menifee. All the sun had turned my face a bright red, and the seafood penne was wonderful! Nice photo, Anton!

www.enterprisefishco.com

Golf in Rancho Cucamonga

Besides hustling around the schools, I made a cunning plan to go golfing in the US. I managed to get out on the Highland Park course in St. Paul with my high school buddy Bill Pollnow on the 1st of July and on the 7th (7/7/7) I played Empire Lakes with Anton, Josh Neuman and his girlfriend Victoria. We had a great day - hot, but dry, and loads of fun driving our carts around, looking in the rough for lost balls and teaching Josh and Victoria Japanese slang.

Tom enjoying a Southern California moment

Tom came down to LA to enjoy the sunshine, have a few drinks with me and sample the Mexican food. Nothing new here!

Ha!

We also planned a Hoff/Knapp/Edwards/Haddock trip to Korea WITHOUT wives!

Anton goes on a college hunt

Anton is visiting the U of M, Macalester, St. Olaf, UCLA, Pepperdine and USC this week. He is asking about how these colleges deal with the IB and is "declaring" an interest in economics and math/physics. St. Olaf bought us lunch. Macalester and St. Olaf gave him personal interviews.

Here is a shot of Anton at Pepperdine.

Elle en veux

Someday Gronk will write a book about the yellow fire plug who changes into a young lady the way Pinocchio became a boy. Here is my picture of the yellow fire plug before she gets named, anthropomorphized and attends the debutante ball.

On the beach in Izu

Thor walking on the Katase Hot Springs rocky coast.

Malaysian History Lesson: Melaka

I thought having a weekend in Malaysia would be great. I had been in KL for an ETF conference, and then needed to be there the following Tuesday for the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Committee meeting. Rather than get on the airplane again over the weekend, I looked for a place to chill out.

The problem was that none of the Starwood resorts would let me use my hotel points on the weekend! Ha! So much for no blackout periods....... Rather than pay top dollar, then, I hit on a trip down the coast to the port of Melaka, aka Malacca.

So I bussed there from KL on Saturday afternoon and stayed at the Hotel Puri on Millionaires Street - where all the rich Chinese took up residence after the Dutch moved out. One block to the north was Jonker Street with its antique shops, restaurants and sweet shops.

It was hot and humid, so I didn't venture out more than a couple hours, coming back to the Puri's air conditioning and shower. Whew!

In one of the antique shops on Jonker a Chinese Nyonya shopkeeper took me through her collection of Buddhist, Chinese, Thai, Cambodian, Indian and other culture's icons, paintings, carvings, metal works - explaining the talisman function or symbolism of everything. She was a good saleswoman. As a souvenir, but also an Indian talisman, I settled on a Cambodian sandstone carving of Ganesh. I had been terribly impressed with the Ganesh at the National Stock Exchange in Bombay and a collection of small Ganesh in the office of the CEO of UTI Bank. Having my own Ganesh with the pending launch of the FTSE IDFC India Infrastructure Index Series seemed a good thing. So I paid the RM160 she was asking for and took the Indian god of good fortune back to KL with me. Later in the week Citigroup agreed to licence the indices with a six months exclusivity for US$88,000. Just the week earlier we had been arguing about them paying anything at all for the exclusivity, and now we got nearly a 100% premium on the base fee of US$48,000. Ha! Ganesh was thanking me from liberating him from that Melaka trinket shop and putting him on the front line where he belongs. He won't be some benchwarmer on the Hoff Team!

I left Melaka by car on Monday morning to go back to Kuala Lumpur to continue my meetings; then flew to Hong Kong Tuesday evening to prepare for another series of meetings for that market.

The big word at FTSE these days is multitasking!

Investor Freedom!

Izu Moon

Here's a typical view from the Hoff deck on a Saturday night with the full moon.

A Kyoto Hoji Shot

Naomi wanted to take a photo of her aunt Sayoko praying for the soul of the first wife of her husband who was also Naomi's grandfather at the family temple in the northern parts of Kyoto. Unfortunately the bell cord got in the way, blocking out Sayoko's face. Naomi corrected the problem by taking another shot. I, nonetheless, love this shot for its unique juxtapostion of purple cord and face. I could never have taken this, it is just to contextual.

Ken in fine form with Hank tanked and Joe in his cups

There are lots of pictures of Ken and I drinking beer. Here's another one. I blew into Seoul on a Saturday and called his mobile. He was down in Three Alley Pub with Hank, Joe, Kimchi and a whole bunch of SHHHers. It was a classic evening.

Someplace in Norway in the summer of 1948

My father took thirteen rolls of Kodachrome with him to Norway for a study tour in the summer of 1948. He took a number of interesting shots. This one is my favorite landscape photo. I am going to get it cleaned up and blow it up big and put it on my wall someplace. It hits all my buttons: blue sky, water, rural setting, youth, positive approach to everything!

The Latest Photo of the Hoffster

For a magazine article in Hong Kong they had a photographer come to the office and take my photo. This is what they selected. Does it look like me?

Ontological Nutrient Destruction

Here is what I look like when I have destroyed an Ontological Nureient while driving.

There's no such thing said the policeman.

The Bangkok Golden Buddha

We were told that they only show this Buddha once a month. I must take this claim for truth until I can return and be turned away. It is supposed to be 700 years old and comprised mainly of gold.