Hi, I'm Lyndon Froese.
Twitter: @LyndyEffect
Instagram: @lyndonfroese
Email: lyndon@lyndonfroese.com
Some of my projects, past and present
Clockwork
A new software product called Clockwork for property managers. It's a QR code check-in system for people coming and going from buildings.
Electricity 1 – course
This project is in progress.
Pacing Thing – social platform for independent learners
Super simple concept:
- A group organizer sets up a series of assignments.
- Group members join the group, but are kicked out if they don't do the assignments on time.
There's a firehose of information out there to learn anything. The digital frontier allows anyone access to the same distribution tools for our projects as the largest companies. What's missing are deadlines and bit of structure.
It can also be lonely operating independently and Pacing Thing gives you companions for the journey.
Social enforcement of deadlines seems to work very well.
It's been used by my friends and friends-of-friends for four years.
The most common uses are weekly songwriting clubs and monthly essay clubs.
» See it
Timeline Notation – publishing platform for educational audio
A system to add timestamped material (such as transcripts) to podcasts and other audio programs.
There's a web-based editor where you can add your transcript or supplementary image content. It generates a webplayer that you can embed anywhere. It can export your content as JSON to import into your own player in your own app.
It's mostly used by language learning podcasts.
Digits – interview series
Cover art for interview series
Random phone calls with people behind cultural phenomena, including the guy who wrote the By Mennen jingle, the winningest Jeopardy player in the world, a woman who makes space suits for NASA. Basic research into the things human creatures do with their time.
These were some of my favourite interviews I did in my radio career.
Originally aired on 680 CJOB in Winnipeg.
» Listen
Good Luck Out There – podcast
A series of me talking into a microphone at a time that I was spending a bit too much time alone. I was living in a ski-in cabin in the winter and on a boat in the summer, on Canadian lakes.
Listening back now, I see I started out discussing the best ways to answer the question "How are you?" and ended off talking about the importance of having different sized chairs around a table, rather all the same (HT: Christopher Alexander). I also gave dating advice apparently.
I made about 200 episodes.
Representative episodes:
» (All We Are Is) Garbage in the Wind
All episodes:
Biped Radio
A radio show I hosted and produced for 680 CJOB in Winnipeg with some friends. We had no idea what we were doing, but somehow we got a ragtag NPR-ish radio show on a big conservative station. The show was about friendship and living in a spirited way.
Our tagline was somehow we got a radio show.
» Sample episode: Biped's Guide to Camping
Sometime I will post the rest of the catalog.
Biped Magazine
Published monthly from 2011 to 2013. It was about living inventively and looking at everything we could think of with fresh eyes. Made by my friends and me.
This project wound down as we got traction doing similar content on the radio.
I was the main publisher and editor.
Sunday Night with Greg Glatz – radio segments
For several years I was an on-air personality on Sunday Night, a radio show syndicated in Winnipeg and Calgary on the Corus Radio Network. It was a live call-in show.
Lake Time – podcast
I was co-host of the Lake of the Woods Brewing Company podcast. It was a show about living at a lake in the Canadian Shield.
At the time I was living on the lake on my old 1970s Carver Mariner (cabin cruiser boat).
I also made the podcast artwork.
Coffee commercial – acting
I played an Italian roaster tormented by perfectionism. Long-form commercial for Broken Paddle Coffee Co.
At the time I was living on a boat on the lake where this was shot.
Beer commercial – acting
In this Miami Vice spoof, I played "Sonny" Crockett, the detective in the white suit jacket.
Commercial for Lake of the Woods Brewing Company.
Another beer commercial – acting
A minor role. I was the guy in the snowshoes.
I kind of played myself. I was living in a ski-in cabin at the time, getting my water out of a hole in the lake ice and my firewood from the forest around.
What People Do for Fun in the Woods – book
I was hired to write this book for Falcon Trails Resort, a ski hill and woods cabin place. I've spent long periods of time living at the resort. These stints were like a Canadian woods version of the song Margaritaville: "Don't know the reason // I stayed here all season".
The book is a series of stories about the characters around the ski hill and resort.
I also did the book layout.
Independent Streak – mini book
A mini book I made after a decade of self-employed freelancing. It's the rules I followed: Philosophies on customer service, skill development and running a solo business.
It's more of a draft than a polished work, but it contains all of the ideas I had at the time about how I did what I did.
The time I was hired to go on a Christian cruise
Geez magazine hired me to go on a Christian cruise and write about it. Geez is a Christian magazine started by a former managing editor at Adbusters. Their tagline was "Holy mischief in an age of fast faith". This cruise article was their big, crazy idea. For better or worse, I suggested we make it even more strange by sending me on a Christian singles cruise. The result was half disaster, half success.
» Read
Genesis 1 – radio piece
How the Earth was created in 1.1 trillion days. This was a piece I did for the radio.
» Read
Technical manual design
A technical manual for Timeline Notation made to be clear, beautiful and entertaining.
» See more
From the Moon – rock operas
Lollipop in space artwork by Caleb Thiessen for our album The Cat's Meow
This project by my friends and me produced three original musical theatre productions, two full-length concept albums and five dumb Christmas EPs from 2007 to 2011.
I was the songwriter and record producer.
The project wound down when the band newsletter evolved into From the Moon Magazine, later Biped Magazine.
Misc. audio engineering
Between 2004 and 2009 I recorded and/or mixed about a dozen albums for my friends' music groups.
The only record that became sort of famous was The Liptonians' album which won a Western Canadian Music Award, but not because of my engineering.
Those guys were living in and recording in an old house. They got me to come over because they heard I knew how to record drums. By the time we were mixing the album we were friends and I had moved into the house.
The House Party of Canada
In 2011, my friend and frequent collaborator Mike and I made a political platform. I ran as an actual candidate in the Canadian federal election. We didn't run a serious campaign but it did get the attention of some local media and led directly to my radio career.
One of the first radio things I did was a regular segment on a commercial talk radio station where I was always introduced as "Lyndon Froese, the Future Prime Minister of Canada, leader of the House Party of Canada". Every week I would call in from wherever I was – the woods, New Orleans, the beach, a shack in Alaska, cycling across Texas – and I would discuss some current event and give the off-beat House Party of Canada angle on it to the conservative audience.
Stove labels
Everyone was always turning on the wrong elements on my friend Emily's stove, so I made these handdrawn labels. It is one of my 12 Rules for Life to take any excuse to modify factory-made things.
The Wild Things – acting
I played Max in Flying Fox and the Hunter-Gatherers' original rock opera based on Where The Wild Things Are. It was featured in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival where it won Best of Fringe.
Royal Canoe's "The Hunt" – software
A treasure hunt app for the only copy of Royal Canoe's new album, which was literally buried somewhere in the city.
I wrote the code.
Cold exposure instructional video
Falcon Trails Resort hired my brother and me to make this for their workshop series / film festival.
It was literally -40° the morning we shot. Unsurprisingly I got frostbite from being barefoot.
Base 12 clocks
Some peculiar clocks, which at the time I was using to promote the number system I preferred.
» View
Outhouse by a lake
I'm proud of this outhouse I built. There's no road access to it. It's called Chez Froese (my last name is pronounced like "phrase"). In exchange, I got to stay in my friend Emily's off-the-grid ski-in cabin for the winter.
"Congratulations from your pal Lyndon!" hats
Some hats I had made. The worst and best wedding gifts I've given.
Later someone told me that Hemmingway never used exclamation points.
Lyndon's Karaoke Palace
Karaoke Palace is my karaoke hosting service.
» Details
Stage hosting and rodeo announcing
Announcing the action at the Marchand Rodeo
I've done a fair amount of stage hosting and MCing for music festivals and whatnot.
» Details
Solar-electric feasibility
Solar arrays at Falcon Trails Resort in Manitoba, Canada
Feasibility/economics consulting for a proposed solar-electric project at Falcon Trails Resort. Several large arrays ended up being installed and are still functioning.
Caboose Lands Campground
A rough map of Sherwood Forest
I've purchased 20 acres of forested land in Manitoba. I am currently working on the legal plan so that I can open it up to people to build small cabins or campsites. It will be a campground-town in the woods.