Snapshots of the Past Week

Some weeks I have nothing much new or interesting to report about my life. Other weeks – I can’t catch my breath. This past week was breathless. Since I’ve become a bit sporadic about posting, I figured I’d get these snippets up while they were still fresh in my mind, giving me joy. Shengri La turned 3 years old recently so a great deal of my week was involved with that. That will all figure in the next post. But there were a few other things happening as well.

First: I know this is a little late – but do catch the end of the Beyond Blogging Conference today:

April 8th
08:00 PDT 11:00 EST Homesteading in the IBM Grid
09:00 PDT 12:00 EST Lessons Learned from IBM’s Academy of Technology Virtual Conferences (This should be VERY informative and interesting! But I bet he doesn’t mention the landscaping… *grin* )

I have spent most of my work week sitting on the ground, contemplating my rezzer. I was quite alarmed at how much I’d forgotten from my scripting lessons with Hell. So I probably spent several hours just kicking my brain back into scripting mode. But by the end of the week, my rezzer worked, my graphs appeared, things rezzed in the right location and the right color. And my brain seems to be back in the proper mode for thinking and developing. If only I had more time……

One of the best things that happened this week was a reunion. I didn’t post on it here, but Dale posted on his blog. He had to leave his shack at Pier. That was my first home. Literally. When Dale rescued me from Orientation Island, SL set Pier to my home location. And it stayed my home until I finally moved here to McIntyre. If you go back to my posts on my first hours in SL, I’m sure that I mentioned the wonderful black kitty that lived on Dale’s couch at Pier. I LOVE Kitty. Kitty was my best friend on many an occasion. I’d go hang out with Kitty, model my new outfits for him, feed him tuna snacks (oh does Kitty have fish breath sometimes!!!). I’d cuddle Kitty and we’d confide in each other. And then… Pier was no more. Kitty was locked away in inventory. A little piece of my heart was broken when Dale and Kitty left Pier. But we were reunited this week. After a party Dale and I went back to visit Kitty, and see his new home. Oh joy!!! We sat forever, talking and relaxing and loving Kitty. It was heaven. It’s not Pier, but it was still Home. Ah Kitty – *hugs* I love you. /me fills back with tuna treats and marks calendar for next visit.

And there is the great Mainland is Ugly propaganda. Well, I live on the mainland. Yeah, my next-door neighbors put up a landing strip. You know what – it has never bothered me. THEY have never bothered me. Almost nothing that happens around my house has bothered me. Until this week. Finally a neighbor did something that I did indeed find not to my taste. I like to sit by my pool, at my table with my laptop, drinking coffee while I work or blog (as I am doing now). The other morning I sat down, looked up across the way, and there was a large revolving religious symbol. Very large. Very obvious. As close to my property line as they could put it without going over the line. It actually was brushing against some of my tree branches. So I stared at that a bit. Decided that I really did NOT want to see it anymore. They were entitled to their opinion, but having seen it, I didn’t need a constant reminder. So I put up a thicket hedge. Shenlei had given me this particular hedge when I moved in – she used it to block an ad farm near the back of my property. So I tossed the tree that was there, put up the thicket and there you go. Problem solved. I guess us Mainlanders are pretty flexible folks.

I spent so much of the week not being “me” (I’ll explain that more in another post). It’s not so bad when I’m staring at my rezzer. I mean – I am okay with how I look there. No AO, which annoys me. No boots, which also annoys me. But the hair and clothing aren’t too bad. And I’m working, so mostly I don’t even notice. But by late Saturday evening, I needed a bit of comfort. Von Johin was playing the blues. I tp’d home, put on my boots, jeans, and hair, and headed over. I spent a wonderful hour chatting, dancing and admiring an extremely neat cat avatar. I think that maybe I will buy an av like that and spend a week as a cat. I need a break.

Wow. I didn’t think I had anything to say, but I went on and on, didn’t I? That’s because this will have to hold you through the week. It’s Pesach, and RL takes precedence this week.

Starting the morning right

I was at both my RL and SL desks before 7:30 am today. I had a lot of building to do, emails to send, meetings on the calendar and I’d not slept well. So I sat there staring at my virtual office, trying to decide what came first, when the fairy tale began.

In walked a handsome stranger, dressed in an elegant tuxedo. I greeted him and he replied and asked if he might sit down and join me. I said of course. Isn’t that one of the purposes of my office – meeting with people? So we chatted a bit about why we were in SL and what we liked. We read our profiles and discovered that we had a favorite pick in common: Midsomer Isle. I remarked that I hadn’t been there in ages, that it was probably time to go back. Blue suggested that we go then. I thought – why not? So I said sure. Blue tp’d first and sent back the taxi. We went to the library first. The kitties were still there, adorable as ever. But no dancing.

So we went over to the pavilion to dance. It’s lovely, with roses everywhere. But…. also another couple already dancing there. So we strolled over to a gazebo to discuss what we would do. Blue decided to look for another dance spot and I promised to change into dance clothes. But he was fast and I snuck in some rl work. So I never changed.

We danced. I started my morning twirling and soaring and spinning and feeling my spirits lift with each pass. Blue had to take a business call, I fended off some emails. But we came back and continued chatting and dancing. All and all a lovely start to what had promised to be a bleak day.

Now here is an example of true tackiness. Blue and I are dancing and IM’ing and having a wonderful time. I noticed a guy in a bathing suit come by us once or twice. Didn’t think much of it. Then a blue box appeared in my window: Bathing Suit asks if you would be his friend. Excuse me????? I’m dancing with some other guy. You’ve not said a word in local chat. You’ve not even pinged me to say hi good-looking. And you’re extending friendship????? I think NOT. *grin* C’mon buddy – get with the drill. You at least want to say hello first. Oh – by the way – Blue and I ARE friends.

Animals of the Crown and Pearl

I probably should reach all the way back to the Rez day party. That’s when I first saw the CnP filled with non-Avatar animals. Remember all the sheep? Things have been fairly calm since then. I think that I have seen one or two animals appear. Maybe a little cat on a shoulder. Maybe a turkey hat around Thanksgiving. But it’s been fairly pet-free.

Until this past week or so. I guess the cold weather is driving all the animals inside. For me, it started one night when we were hanging about dancing. I’m not quite sure what started it and to be honest – I probably don’t WANT to remember. Because the conversation sank to a low level fairly quickly. It began with Spike. Spike is a friendly, inoffensive dog. But the people around him were NOT so inoffensive. Poor Spike. I will simply say that some people have not quite mastered their inner 6-year old. Spike turned quite blue in misery.

Next to rez was a horse with 5 legs. I apologize – I do NOT have a picture of this “horse”. I only know that it was a horse because it WAS vaguely horse-like and its owner claimed that it was a horse. It looked a lot more like a squirrel with 5 legs. Yes, it was definitely a 5th leg, starting from the poor creature’s belly and ending in a hoof on the floor. It was perhaps the sorriest excuse for a horse that I have ever seen. I will provide equal time for a rebuttal should its owner choose to offer a defense.

Then we had the post-Christmas infestation. The reindeer was fairly cute but was NOT house-broken. Sigh. This is why you are supposed to take your pets for a walk. Parents – PLEASE do not give your children pets if the children are NOT ready for the responsibilities.

And of course, there were the squirrels. Rrish’s squirrel was well-behaved. It did leave a few nuts about but they disappeared on their own. It wasn’t too noisy. It allowed people to change its name. It didn’t respect personal boundaries, however, as it went burrowing beneath the couch cushions. But not too bad, all things considered.

The well-behaved squirrel appeared to have rude, aggressive cousins. We had been sitting and chatting quietly when Phin was ATTACKED! Yes! Attacked – the wrath of the squirrels. Prad, Bailey – it is DEFINITELY time for an exterminator.

This week more animals came out of hiding – uh, inventory. Marisa introduced us to Astro the dog, Turf the psycho cat and her little yellow chick. There was another dog there as well, but I confess that I don’t remember its name nor who owns it. We were all relaxing, not talking about much in particular. Mowgli was telling us a hilarious story about his encounter with a senior citizen in Greece. Mow had arranged his schedule so that he could see the Acropolis by moonlight. I won’t tell you the story nor the punchline but it was a case of the sublime and the mundane crashing headfirst.

We also talked a bit about Las Vegas. In many respects I’d have to agree with one of the comments – SL IS a bit like Las Vegas. I like Vegas. I wouldn’t want to live there and I don’t think I would want to stay there for more than a few days at a time, but I’ve had a great time whenever I’ve been there. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is. There are lots of fun things – just put yourself in the right mindset. I don’t even mean the gambling. I think that I’ve only played the slots once while I was there. I know – I’m NOT the kind of visitor they really want. We toured about the area around Vegas and we did all the 3D rides on the strip. There IS such a thing as 3D overload. By the time we were doing the last one, at what was 1am by my body clock, I simply closed my eyes and endured.

So how we got from the Acropolis and Vegas to more animals running about, I’m not sure. But that’s how conversation goes, does it not? Our friends were over yesterday to watch the football playoffs. They were hanging about in the living room while I set up on my laptop in the dining room. I was in SL but could watch the screen also for replays and such. Yes, I LIKE football. American football that is. With the odd shaped ball. 11 players to a side. TOUCHDOWN!!! GO GIANTS!!!!! Oh – sorry. I got carried away. Anyway, the fragile thread here was trying to explain to my RL friends what it is we DO here. We hang out and chat. Just like I do with THEM. Except my SL friends don’t leave crumbs and chips that I have to clean up. OTOH – my SL friends don’t bring me chocolates. So I guess I’ll have to stay in BOTH lives. Because I can’t avoid the psycho kitties and squirrels in either world.

Details

Love and Sex are the 2 big draws in SL blogging (maybe in all blogging). I’m busy landscaping. But if you want the serious conversation, go to Bailey’s blog. She’s talking about lying and sex and love.

It’s the attention to details that makes SL such a wonderful place to inhabit. After days and days of planting flowers and trees and landscaping, that fact has been driven home. I’ve been having fun and learning a lot. I’ve been learning about rezzing objects, moving objects, stretching, shrinking and rotating objects. I’ve learned that I am a bit obsessive and compulsive about my work. Maybe some of you knew that already. I cannot walk away and leave the plant as it rezzed. I NEED to tweak it. I need to scatter the placements so that the plants are not in a straight line. I rotate each plant slightly to different angles so that the tops have a more natural look. I change the size of each one – some larger, some smaller. It takes me forever. But I can’t not do it. I tried to simply put a bunch of flowers in and walk away. I couldn’t do that. I HAD to make tiny adjustments to each one to differentiate it.

I have finally finished with the 6 flower beds. Now I’m making my way along the river. Ahuva Appleseed!!! I am planting weeping willows and weeping crab apple trees. I have cattails for along the shore. I have rocks to size and move and pile. I have weedy water plants along the shore (hey – maybe some lily pads????). Thank goodness there are some other people doing some landscaping as well, because at the rate I’m going, I’ll be done sometime in the spring of 2009. And the conference is next week. But trees and shoreline go much faster than tailored flower beds. Less tweaking is needed. Large open space is acceptable. But even so – I am compelled to fill in spaces with little touches of color or rocks. I went in this morning to take some pictures for this blog and I see that J and J have been very busy planting trees. And you know what – it looks great! Obviously they understand the macro view and are not obsessing about tweaking each leaf. There are trees all over. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that they all look the same………. Bad, Ahuva!!! Get with the BIG picture!!!!

I am sure that there are still more tricks to this than I have grasped. I have learned to group objects to copy but I’m not very good at it and I still feel compelled to change them. I’ve learned to flip plants in the middle of a group of plants in order to change the look and feel even though the individual flipped plant doesn’t show. There are things that happen when I try to move a plant or rotate it that I don’t know why they happen or how to stop them (note: these are not “good” things that happen LOL). I definitely need to get a building lesson (Hey Bailey – I’m going to take you up on your offer) and I need to learn about textures.

It would have been easier perhaps if I’d had more time to learn the nuances before the conference. LOL But I didn’t know that I was going to jump under that particular bus. It will be quite a relief when the conference has begun and I am done with this pressure to plant, plant, plant (that’s pressure applied by me to myself, by the way – no one else is “making me” do anything). I miss my life – both RL and SL life. I dream about this project. I think about it most of the time. LOL. I wish I could pull a Tom Sawyer and get someone else to logon as me and do some planting! I can’t wait til I can kick back, put my feet up, go into SL and NOT feel obliged to head to the work sim and plant. Soon, soon. And yet – I am so grateful that I am having this experience. It is great.

So there are many many many places in SL where the builders and creators get all the details right. The pictures in this post come from the library at Midsomer Island. If you go back and look at the picture of Darcey stretched out on the floor reading, you will see one black kitty sitting there watching you, and one black kitty reading its own book. But there is a third black kitty – a naughty black kitty sitting on the shelf, trying to catch itself a fish! I stood one night for awhile and watched her play.

Burning Life

Many many people have blogged about Burning Life and posted wonderful pictures. I’ve been over there three times this week. I’m planning to go back again this weekend before it closes Oct. 5, RL permitting. No one else has posted what has been MY favorite lighthearted exhibit (to date). So here it is, Lorimae’s Blue Cat House, although I think of it as Cat and Mouse. (074-Art, Burning Life (Micro) (174, 39, 24) )

CATS!

Last night was cat night at the benches. U was showing off her beautiful snow leopard avatar. C decided to get into the act and became a bunny. That may have been a mistake because U growled “Lunch!”. C bravely reached up and rubbed U behind the ears and the peaceable kingdom reigned. G and U wanted to compare avatars, so next thing we knew, we had G the lion! C definitely began to look like a tasty snack, sandwiched between the two, so she took refuge on a bench. G and U put their avs through their paces – sitting, reclining, roaring and scratching! We were a bit concerned about fleas at that point. C slipped from bunny to jellicle cat, waving a fish. We all relaxed, chatting about nothing much, when U mentioned that these animal avatars can dance. G put up a photo of Lion and panther dancing quite sweetly in each others arms (???), on their hind legs. U put on a dance animation. Oh my heavens!!!!! That snow leopard shimmied and wriggled and swayed and boogied! As someone remarked, that image was sooooo wrong on so many levels that it was hilarious. Oh for a movie camera! But even if I’d had one – I was laughing way too hard to have been able to film. Cats all over the universe were cringing last night in embarrassment! If that’s how cats dance – I’m skipping the jellicle ball!

Dinner Date?

[caption id="attachment_485" align="alignright" width="457" caption="The Lion, the Leopard and the Bunny (and a lampost straight from Narnia)"][/caption]

What happened to the bunny? (yummy)

[caption id="attachment_488" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A pride of cats"][/caption]

More Fragments

Some nights at NCI it’s so busy, it’s BYOC – Bring Your Own Chair! I’d sat myself down on one of the benches. There was only one seat left open then, next to me. My bench started moving – forward, back, sideways. I didn’t have my camera at the correct angle to see who was doing the moving. Finally I said “ENOUGH with the bench, you’re making me sea-sick” and stood up just at the same time E asked me to please get up. LOL. Don’t have to ask me twice!!!! E and G had been trying to copy the bench to make more seats. I realized that I had my OWN chair sitting in inventory. A very very comfortable chair I might add. So I moved over to a corner, rezzed my relaxing chair, and stretched out. If you look in the other corner you can see that someone rezzed a wooden rocking chair as well. One is always prepared in SL! LOL. (Hey B – you always complain that my pictures are too small – you can click on this one and see the full size. )

Hmmm. Maybe this post should be entitled “Sitting”. This fragment is about one of my favorite places to sit. I know I’ve mentioned my friend the cat before. Usually sitting and looking at water soothes my soul. But sometimes I like company. And sometimes when I’m trying on new clothes or putting together and outfit, I appreciate another opinion. LOL. This cat’s fashion sense is not quite as good as my dog’s (My dog is a true devotee of craft shows. ) but he is a very comfortable companion. Always happy to cuddle, never a cross word.

Or call this “My Favorite Cats”. I was sorting inventory this morning when I got an IM from U. She had a new avatar and wanted to show me. So I hurried over and fell in love!!! What a great avatar!!! Complete with poses and growls and tail lashing! She gets TWO pics because I liked it SO much!

D complained yesterday that while he enjoys reading my blog he is “sick of those darn trees”. Well D, I am ALSO sick of the trees!! LOL . So find me some and we can be done with it!!!! You are competent, resourceful and quite the “man-about-town”. You owe me one since you refused to be my bus driver! I’m sure you can deliver. And the ante’s been upped. I heard something that made me think J is attempting to round up trees on her own. What? She doesn’t think I can do this?? LOL. WHATEVER could have made her think that? Perhaps she’s reading this blog……….. /me wrenches a leaf off my house-plant in revenge.

Shapes and Changes

Alright. I did it. I explored alternative life styles in SL. Hah! Get your minds out of the gutter!!! I’m talking about avatar appearance. After my discussion with Ryg (see “What would YOU do?”), I tp’d back to NCI to my friends who thought I looked just fine. LOL. But I decided that perhaps their opinions were a bit skewed. That evening, more of us were non-human than human. Everyone was rotating through their various forms and appearances. It really was quite a show! U and I were the only ones without a non-human av. I do have at least 2 other avatar shapes I picked up for free, but I’ve never used them. Oh, not quite true. I took the eyes from one. Used the hair from another to go shopping one day. But you get the point. So when L offered me a new shape I figured now was the time! So I took myself to the dressing room and transformed myself into a Mini Black House Cat.

It was cute. I’m not sure why Tinies need to have special chairs for sitting. Note the carrot that L supplied as well. Certainly the orange set off my black fur and blue eyes quite nicely. But when all is said and done, eh. I still have no desire to be an animal. Perhaps I am simply boring or uncreative. Wearing wings on occasion is amusing. I’m still thinking about getting ears and a tail. But being a cat really didn’t do much for me. Maybe this is like true love – I’ll “know” when the right shape comes along. In the meantime I will simply admire and enjoy everyone else’s creative shapes. Such as this 3-headed dog that leaves fire-y footprints. You really do meet the most interesting people at NCI.

A RL friend asked me about buying hair and skins. It does sound peculiar if you’ve never done it. So here you go. The first photo shows the display (the ad) for the hair style and the various colors. If you click on the gray Demo box, you buy a demo for L$1. You can try it on to see how you like it. Notice that there is a big box floating above your head. So you can’t wear the demo unless you also want to wear the box. If you decide you want the hair style, you click on the color you want. At that point you are charged the full amount (assuming you click pay). And that’s it – the hair is in your inventory and when you want to have your hair look like that, you wear it. And when you want a different look, you wear different hair. Or skin. Or shape. It’s really that simple. So what do you think? I rather like this ‘do. Now which color……