There are lots of little things to talk about this week, so here’s another dose of Ramsay Ramblings!
May 5th was Children’s Day
Mami and I have a little boy, and this year was his first Children’s Day. Thomas wrote all about Koinobori, Japanese Carp Streamers, so I’ll skip the detail and get to the photos:
Our Koinobori – Japanese Carp Streamers
A Kintarou cake
Kawashi-mochi – rice cakes wrapped in oak leaves
Rikuto celebrates his first Children’s Day at the park
Those bloomin’ berks at Bloomberg published the suicide gas recipe
Of all the dumb things I’ve seen, Bloomberg published the “recipe” to the poisonous concoction of household cleaning chemicals that people have been using to kill themselves in Japan lately. Shane kicked up a storm and we all pitched in. In the end, Bloomberg edited the dangerous parts of the article, so hooray for us! 😀
Making a start on WritingWorkbooks.com
I had a good response to the post about my dot com lifestyle, and was encouraged to talk more about what I do for a living. It seems I’ve inspired a few people to earn some money online, including my mum, so I’ve started some behind-the-scenes work on a joint project with her, taking advantage of her experience as a primary school teacher.
The idea is to make a large number of handwriting practice workbooks for children, each book based on an elementary school subject, such as dinosaurs and weather. Each page of each book will have a traceable general knowledge fact about a chosen school subject, and the books will of course be for free.
I already have a website in the “handwriting” niche, so WritingWorkbooks.com should complement it well. My mum is the perfect partner since she knows so much about the curriculum and knows exactly what teachers and parents need for their children.
In picking this topic for a site, I considered:
- Do I know enough about the topic? – Including my mum, yes.
- Will people find it useful? – My mum thinks so.
- Will it cost me anything? – $10 for the domain name. I already have the $100 fonts.
- Will it need ongoing work? – Not after it’s finished.
- How will I monetize it? – Probably with Adsense. Decide later.
The beauty of a site like this is that it requires no maintenance. A blog always needs new material, but sites like this can be built and left alone. That leaves you free to build more and more. That’s why I don’t worry too much about its earnings potential. Once you’ve got your starting costs back, it’s pure, passive income.
Jason got hitched! Congratulations!
Jason Irwin, has tied the knot. He had a long-distance relationship for nearly two years with his bride-to-be, Reiko, but after a succession of trips between Canada and Japan, they finally live together as husband and wife in the same city as me, Kakamigahara. In a related post, Jason poses the interesting question, is the distinction between the online world and reality fading?
Ramsay, Mark 1 launches into cyberspace
Speaking of online relationships, my brother, Mark, has discovered the internet for the first time. He is a complete newbie, so I’m helping him learn all the basics (left-click, right-click, drag and drop) before he joins me on our joint project, VirtualTripping.com. He’s already taken to the net like a duck to water, managing to watch 652 YouTube videos in his first four days online! It should be fun blogging with him on VT, so swing by and join the Ramsay brothers as we send blog “post” cards from Google Earth.
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
Wow you do make things inspirational Nick. Now a site (Which I’m sure I’ll be using!!) with your Mum, one with your brother mmm geez one day you will own the net!!
Very big congrats to Jason and his new wife Reiko and hopefully one day in the too distant future, we can all get together and shoot the breeze with our wives. (Hopefully by the beach at my place!)
Jason if you ever need a nice place for a honey moon (Or second one at that) you are always welcome down at my place. Nick speaks extremely highly of you and that is good enough for me!!
I still can’t believe that you picked up the domain “VirtualTripping.com” Nick and good luck to you and the bro!!
As for the “Gas Recipe” mmmm bloomberg needs really to be shut down for their stupidity.
Virtual Tripping is a pretty good name, isn’t it? I think I got lucky finding that, and maybe in 20 years when virtual worlds are all the rage, I can sell it for a million billion dollars! 😛
Aaaah I left out Riki-kun sorry mate. Of course you look great my little mate and look forward to sharing a milk with you soon!!
Nick your Mum and my Mom sound like they have a lot in common! We should put them together online so they can sing our praises to each other…now that’s the best source of advertising and it’s free! A new site for you MumtoMom.com
Seriously though, Riki is getting big and two front teeth I see! They sure grow up fast.
Thanks for your help with the Bloomberg berks. By the way what the heck is a berk?
MumtoMom.com? Like a cross-Atlantic social network for mums and moms!
A “berk” is a British word for “idiot”.
After a few lazy attempts and getting to know how it all works one of the most important things i can now agree with you on is “Will it need ongoing work – NO” …. not to be overlooked or underestimated.
After a few hours over Golden Week and a few more for the remainder of this week i will have a project back on track requiring little to no work from me … apart from a little SEO to kick it back off again.
Good luck with the new projects Nick.
Thanks Neil, and good luck with whatever you’re working on. It sounds mysterious! 😉
Thanks for the link, Nick! I can’t wait to get some of the pictures back from the photographer so that they can go into the image gallery!
Little Rikuto isn’t so little anymore, it seems. Hopefully he’ll stay young for another few years so that you and Mami can enjoy young parenthood for a little while longer 🙂
No, no, that’s okay, I’ve had my fill of parenthood now. He’s free to grow up, get a job and leave the nest now. 😉
Looking forward to the wedding photos!
Ahh sounds like a plan Nick! Good luck with it although I think the real money is on posts on things like `chorus water!`
You mean this? 😉
Just don’t put that Chorus Water vid on any of your money-making blogs 😉
Seems Rikuto already got his teeth growth 🙂
I like the idea of a mum to mum website, Nick. I will really be able to sing your praises across the world
Mrs.Ramsay, you are the Mum and my Mom would the other half. I don’t think the internet is quite ready for both of you telling the world how great Nick & I are and heaven forbid that you two compare notes and start sharing the embarrassing kid stories… 😉