An awesome Kickstarter project!

If you don't already know this brilliant chap, you're in for a real treat. My very good and talented friend Taylor Baldry has a project on Kickstarter, the world's largest funding platform for creative projects in case you haven't heard. 

Here's Taylor's bio, it totally backs up that he's a legit guy with a dream in his heart.

TAYLOR BALDRY is a brainstormer, artist-designer and large-nosed person. He studied Visualization at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and after graduation, became a graphic designer and animator for a boutique marketing agency. In 2009, Baldry was inspired to quit his salary job and moved to Ota, Japan, where he taught English, judged beauty contests and ate rice. Two years later, Baldry returned to Minneapolis and guided by a need for meaningful conversations and his love for office supplies, founded The Conversationalist Project and The Minneapolis Stationery Club, respectively. He shares his inventions on his idea website Project Centaur and is currently writing and illustrating a book on Romance language gender articles. He lives in Minneapolis with his house plants.

Taylor has to raise the entire $1,000 by Wednesday May 9, 6:01pm EDT. If he doesn't reach his goal he doesn't get anything and then it's back to square one. Believe you me, I don't think his parents are going to want to give him any more money...

The books that he's creating are not only useful, but the will make learning fun and you more popular. So donate generously!

Have a look at his video and please visit his Kickstarter page to become a part of the story!Please be warned that there are some rude bits in the video, but no strobe effects.

Ideas from far away lands

I had a great Skype call with my very good friend Taylor Baldry this morning. He has been living in Japan now for a year and half teaching English. The time difference thing really works in our favor in terms of catching each other on the old Skype. 

Taylor has an idea for a project and I am not sure how top secret it is so I'll mention it in a vague sort of way. For years now Taylor has been carrying around a notebook where he's been keeping a record of his brilliant ideas. Yes, I say brilliant and that's the honest truth! I've known Taylor since our time at MCAD and he's been pretty reliable in the old ideas department and he's one of my favourite people to work with.

Anyways, so Taylor has been filling this notebook of his with lots of ideas. The only problem is that Taylor is just one man. He couldn't possibly actualize all of them in his lifetime, unless someone gave him a lot of money to just create his ideas. Which by the way is one of the ideas in the book.

So Taylor thought what if he made the ideas public and let other people take them and bring them to life. I think it's a cool idea and am interested to see it develop.

While Taylor and I were talking about it he was wondering how it was actually going to work. Would people work in teams globally? Would they upload project plans to the website and people could comment on them? Would they send in their completed projects to him? What would be the benefit for people to take part in this project? Just basically how the thing is going to work.

Now, this is what I love about the digital age we live in. I suggested to Taylor that he could do a couple of test ideas on the site to see how the process worked before he launched it for real.

I guess if you're not sure how something should work the best way forward is to just try something and see how it goes. Through the process of actually doing it he'd be able to see what worked and what didn't and then refine his idea. It would the testing phase. 

I think sometimes, myself included in this, that people have ideas and they want to create something, but they think they have to know exactly how it's going to work before doing it. When actually things change all the time.There are of course a million ways to go about things, but the point is that you have to start somewhere.

One of my favourite quotes is from John Cage who tells us to Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

In this digital age we can revise things, adjust things, delete things, improve things, move things around, improve the user journey, make things look better, improve the copy and so on and so on. You get the picture.

I am excited to be involved in Taylor's project and to see what happens. I will keep you posted and share the link once it's gone live.

State Fair here I come!

Here's Taylor and me at the MN state fair back in 2008. We both look so young! I wasn't married yet and Taylor hadn't left to teach English in Japan. We were fresh out of university and ready to take the world by storm! 

A lot has happened since 2008 and let's just say that I am tickled pink to meeting back up with Taylor at the fair on the 26th of August. Taylor is home for a summer visit and we were keen coordinate our trips so we could go to the fair together. The funny thing was that Taylor hadn't even bothered to check the fair dates and he was going to be back to Japan before it even started! He came to his senses and changed his plane ticket :) 

I'll have to say that the last time at the fair was a bit of a whirlwind. Matthew and I arrived in Minneapolis and we went straight to the fair with Taylor that night. I usually don't like to arrive at the fair after 5 p.m. We were also dog tired after the flight and I spent too much time sitting on the bench resting my eyes instead of feeding my face. We didn't get enough eating in, which was sad. Matthew enjoyed it, but he's going to really enjoy this year!

I find this photo to be very telling. I have a special State Fair ritual that goes back many years. I like to start out by getting a chocolate milkshake in the dairy barn and then enjoy that whilst admiring the cows. It's how I start out every fair visit and I can't wait to do it this year. 

Even though we arrive on the 25th we've decided to go the following day for the reasons that Taylor so eloquently outlined in an email to me:

I say we hit up the State Fair on the 26th for three reasons:

1. It's the opening day so the bathroom facilities will be fresh.
2. It's Thrifty Thursday which means that admission is $9 instead of the normally exorbitant $11.
3. The streets and sidewalks will be at their cleanest - allowing for the smoothest and most obstacle-free motorized cart journey.

Oh yes, did I mention that we were going to be renting motorized carts??????

Do you need somebody to love?

I love talking to my friend Taylor on Skype. He's over in Japan teaching English and he's always got a funny story to tell, but I think he's a bit lonely. It's been a bit tricky for him finding fun ladies to hang out with. He's in a small farm town called Nitta. I told him that he's got to be in Tokyo, that's where the action is. I am sure he'd find some fun gals over there. 


I suggested that he try online dating. I am sure there are loads of ladies out there posting on Craigslist looking for a fun American guy to spend time with. Being the good friend that I am I went and had a look a myself. If you've got some time on your hands and enjoy reading funny personal ads on Craigslist this link is for you. Here were a few gems.

seek a funny, smiling, talkative man - 29

I lack excitement recently. I seek a man who stimulates and arouses me. only a man who can email and meet me constantly. I don’t like a freakish and whimsical man.
I look forward to talking with you! I am a 29year old, funny, smiling woman. 


Please be my friend (Tokyo)


Hello

The weather is not good here recently but if we have the sun in our heart, we will always be ok.
Could you be my sunshine?

I am SJF, in her early 40s, sincere, sweet, down-to-earth.
Looking for my best friend in Tokyo. If he were around my age and having a good heart as well as I do, it would be great.
I am not looking for any casual dating.

I am looking for someone I can talk to when I feel lonely and grow up together.
If we click, it would be great and fun to see where it takes us.

Serious reply only please.

Thanks for reading. Have a good day! 

Muse searching for a writer - 30 (Tokyo and the universe)

It is usually a writer searching for the source of inspiration but we don’t like stereotypes, do we?

So I would like to offer myself to be your muse for written forms, (for now being in a love-hate relationship with my job, as a part-time volunteer occupation but we can discuss possibility of full-time employment in the future).

I am not going to pose for a painting, too boring.

I can inspire several types of a literary work: we could date together into a screenplay for ‘Annie Hall’ – type of movie, do research for reportage on dealing with bore-out syndrom, or I could seduce you into a dense erotic poem. I even could inspire a self-help book but given my uniqueness, it wouldn’t sell to the ordinary audience. I am open for family saga, not too Strindbergesque though, or fairy tails but let’s not rush with writing a pre-nap, there is still a chance for a blind date horror. 

Oregon Trail

This is a serious throw down for Taylor and Elyse. Rhea J is back on the Oregon Trail and this time it's for keeps! Get ready to have that precious high score taken off you!

You think it was bad when the bandits made off with your last scraps of food and all your oxen? You ain't seen nothing yet!

The long train to Nitta and the mystery of the gyro stand in Ueno

I thought that I would paraphrase my friend Taylor's blog post in its entirety. It gives a bit more detail about why the journey from the airport was so darn long. Funny thing, when I was writing about it I omitted this bit. Which at first was a shame, but now Taylor has written for me! What a blessing!

Enjoy and be sure to check out his blog. He writes about living in Japan and teaching English, but it's not boring at all. His friend Liz also contributes to the blog, she's living in Berlin teaching English as well. http://gerpan.info

"Like a shepherd drawn by the light the of the Nativity Star to baby Jesus, I was invited by the smog-muted glow of Tokyo to visit one of its many lowly street vending establishments. In short, I was hungry and wanted a gyro. I yanked the train emergency break (figuratively) and steered my weary compatriots away from our intended destination and into yonder metropolis. I had faith that the little sandwich savior anointed in tzatziki sauce and wrapped in toasted pita would redeem me of all hunger.

The gyro was a Christmas delight but its redeeming qualities were lacking. On the way home, the brick of spicy shredded meats slowly dissolving in my stomach disoriented me – causing us to take trains in the wrong direction and not exit the trains when we were supposed to. That, in addition to the already time-consuming side odyssey into Tokyo, added an extra three hours to the ordinarily three hour train ride. By the time we finally arrived at my apartment, my already sleep-deprived guests were well into exhaustion. All attempts to rouse them with beer went in vain. After a brief respite, we celebrated the remainder of Christmas night with sushi and naps at the local izakaya.

REFLECTION

In hindsight, taking a detour to Tokyo was equivalent to leading my Oregon Trail wagon party to Fort Bridger instead of pioneering straight to the Green River in hopes of being lead safely across by bartering two sets of clothing with the fashion-savvy Shoshone Indian. It was a mistake that an amateur trail guide would have made."

I was in Japan for Christmas and New Years!

Matthew and I decided that this year we would do something different for Christmas. I was originally thinking that it would be nice to go home to Minnesota, but then I had another idea. How about we go to Japan and spend Christmas with my very dear friend Taylor Baldry?

Thankfully Matthew was keen on the idea and we booked our tickets. We were out in Japan from the 25th of December until the 4th of January. What a trip I tell you! Taylor had decided to teach English in Japan and we didn't want him to get lonely.

I didn't do much research on Japan before we left. Things were busy at work and even though I ended up carrying around a huge Lonely Planet guide book around with me, I never got around to reading it. I was happy to just show up in Japan and see what happened. I guess it also helped that Taylor would be there and he could do most of the talking.

I must admit I was a tiny bit nervous about traveling to Japan. Only because I felt like I was going to be in a completely strange and foreign land where I wouldn't be able to understand anything. That turned out to be true, but it wasn't a problem at all. In fact it was really nice to not be able to understand anything. It made it a true adventure.

We arrived in Tokyo on Christmas day at 10:oo a.m. We then waited dutifully for Taylor to meet us at the observation deck. The Tokyo Narita airport is very nice and it was easy to find where we needed to go thanks to the map also being in English. How thoughtful.

After waiting for Taylor for what felt like a long time we gave him a call only to discover he was waiting for us at the other Terminal. Oh, that Taylor. He eventually found us and after a jolly greeting we set off to his little town of Nitta.

Before we left I was talking to Taylor over Skype about the trip and he suggested that we should only bring very small bags with us. I hadn't planned on bringing a huge suitcase. I hate to be one those travelers who is staying with someone and turns up with a mountain of luggage. Matthew and I were sharing one large duffel bag on wheels and bringing a small carry on. Surely that would be ok? We were staying for 10 days and bringing presents.

When I questioned him about the reason for this he simply stated that we needed to be able to manage our luggage on our back because we were going to ride bicycles from the train station to his house. It was going to only be a 25-30 minute ride and wouldn't that be fun?

No, this didn't sound like fun and I immediately started to panic. My first concern was that we didn't have to backpacks and that the day before we left I would have to go out and find some. I then began to dread and resent the entire idea. We would have been on an airplane for 13 hours and then a 3 hour train ride!

Didn't Taylor realise that I am an old woman! The only sensible option to me was that we take a taxi from the train station to his house. I thought, gee maybe Taylor is really out in the middle of nowhere and we couldn't even get a taxi from his house. Or maybe it was going to be so expensive that it was just out of the question.

In the end I just told Taylor that we were very flattered that he thought we'd have the stamina to ride to his house, but that we would be happy to pay for a taxi. Panic over.

And that's what we ended up doing once we finally got to Ota station, hailing a taxi. It was a good thing because I was bit tired after the long journey to Ota. Apparently it should only take a person 2 and a half hours at the most, but the journey ended up taking 5 hours. I guess we got a little lost. The upside is that the trains are spacious and heated, so I slept pretty much the entire way.

For some reason I thought Taylor was about 30 miles outside of Tokyo, but I had just made that up because I was too lazy to find out.

It turns out that we could have gone by bike to Taylor's house since our luggage didn't make it and was going to be delivered the next day. It was really nice not having to lug the bags, but all the presents and English cheeseboard were going to have to wait until Boxing Day.

After getting to Taylor's we quickly freshened up and set off for our Christmas dinner at Taylor's local izakaya (local bar). This little haven was just down the road from Taylor's and we were treated to sushi and a hot bubbling Japanese stew, or nabe as it's called.

Sitting at that little table I felt the true spirit of Christmas. I never in my life thought I would be having Christmas dinner in a small town in Japan, but there I was. Enjoying fresh sushi and cold beer with my husband and friend I felt very blessed indeed.

Good Times

What a surprise it was to see that my dear friend Elyse had posted up some fantastic photos of Taylor and me! These photos go way back to 1973! Just kidding, 2005 :)

Elyse got us in the old studio at MCAD to work on a project for photo. I think it was an obvious choice for her to ask us to be her models. She's like a way famous photographer now, this early work opened all kinds of doors for her!