An Average Guy on Second Life

A good father never...

2010-12-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

Learning opportunities happen every day. I was at the vet this morning with my dog who had a few seizures of the last couple of days. As we were checking out, the vet tech was showing me how to split the meds so I could up his dosage a little bit. It was a neat little trick, and the other dog owner standing nearby made a comment of "well look at that, you learn something new everyday" (he had never seen the little trick either).

That got me thinking about how much we really do learn every day. I would qualify that by saying if we are open to it, we learn something new every day. Sometimes we learn something about ourselves, or other people, or just how life in general works.

As a father, I try and help my boys learn every day. Sometimes that education comes from letting them make mistakes (as long as the mistake is not life threatening). I have the same philosophy when it comes to my Second Life.

Ever since Alicia and I set up our winter cabin (I love winter cabins), I brought Rocky out so he could play in the snow. He really does love the snow, almost as much as he loves the beach. At the end of the day, I always bring him back inside, so he can sleep by the fire and keep warm until we come back, and he can go out and play for a bit again. Well, that little bugger always seems to find a way OUT of the cabin, because more often than not, when I log in, he is outside rolling around in the snow. But of course as soon as I log in, he is all whiny about wanting to come back in.

Well, today, I decided he needed to learn a lesson.

Rocky needs to learn that there are consequences to his actions. If he is gonna break out of the cabin without knowing how to get back in, then he is gonna have to suffer some of those consequences in order to learn that lesson. It is what a good father does right?

Ok I admit, as much as I want to be a good father, I am also a softy at heart. How can I resist that face! I did open the door and let him back in. MAN! It is HARD to be a good father!

Oh well. I do try.

I hope each one of you learned something new today!

It's that time once again...

2010-12-02T08:18:00.000-08:00

Good morning fellow grid travelers!

I wanted to share a few things with you this morning since I have a few minutes to spare.

I realized the other night while I was trying to help a new friend with a male makeover that just about all my landmarks for guy stores are no longer valid. I should clarify though, because it was not I that was actually in charge of the makeover, but since I was the only other guy in our little group it fell to me to point out good guy stores.

When asked, I started to tp around to some of my old haunts like Lookr, Blacklisted and such, only to find out they are gone. This made me a bit sad, but also gives me a reason to drag Alicia around the grid for a change to rebuild my arsenal of guy stores.

Anyway, as Alicia, Ulaa, Drazala and I popped around the grid the question of good guy hair came up. Of course the ladies' first thought was TRUTH, but I personally have not really been fond of Truth's guy hair. It has always been a little too metro for me.

BUT...I also knew he had finally come out with some new guy hair, so we went over to check it out. After looking at the new stuff, I actually wanted to try on. So I grabbed a couple of demo's and kept following the pack around the grid for the rest of the evening.

Now last night Alicia and I actually had a bit of nice quiet time together, so we were taking away and going through our recent inventories, which included several demo hair that I had picked up.

Both Rocky and Elle were happy to see us, as we have not been to the cabin in a few days. Elle even tried to climp up into Alicia's head a time or three.

Even Rocky was falling apart from laughter. I really think Elle just wanted Alicia to give her a bath, which she did and she was a very happy kitty once again.

Besides...who wouldn't want to be close to this face right?

Sorry, I got a bit distracted there.

Anyway, so the evening was all said and done, I actually found a Truth hair that I like. I don't change my basic appearance often, but I am not opposed to it at all. There are some new guy skins coming out later this week also that I am interested in looking at.

Anyway, here is the result of the new hair.

It is a little different for me, but I am liking it so far.

Even though I in no way consider myself a fashion blogger, I have been kinda trained so I will do my best to give you the details of my look. Alicia will have to add hers in comments if she so desires.

I am wearing:

HAIR - >TRUTH< Eric - night
SKIN - -Belleza- Jonas SK 6 (hair)
SHIRT - + Blacklisted + This River (UrbanDigi) by TG (no longer available)
JEANS - Zaara : Classic jeans for men *sky*
SHOES - AKEYO CHUCKS LowTop

For those who do not follow me on plurk, I received my Christmas present early this year. I got a brand new Dell Laptop. It has made Second Life run SOOOO much better for me, and it will allow me to even run the graphics as anything higher than LOW and still be able to move around. I am in heaven.

The other thing this means is that I am going to try and find time to do more work on my other two blogs, which have to do with pictures more than anything. Now that I can do more photography, I am looking forward to playing around with that more. Stay tuned.

Have a wonderful Thursday everybody.

A funny thing happened on the way...

2010-11-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

Greetings fellow grid travelers.

I have been itching to do some writing and you would think that with 2 blogs I would have no trouble finding things to write about. Somehow it never seems to work out that way.

Actually I do have a lot to write about, but it seem that something always comes up that keeps me from actually sitting down and writing. I feel like my skills are deteriorating, so I am going to put some extra effort into it and write even if I think it is silly.

This is not a silly post however.

In my over 4 years of grid travel, I think I have just about seen it all. So I find myself having an idea to write about, then I look and I realize I have already written about that subject. Sometimes it is about SLife in general, or about a new toy (I have really cut back on my shopping over the past year, mostly because I HAVE everything in one form or another). I don't usually talk about things that happen TO me, because they are personal, and while I share my personal insights from time to time, the other stuff is just boring to anybody but me.

But it is always interesting to look back. I have been cleaning a bit of inventory, and files from my laptop. I am waiting for my NEW laptop to arrive (I cannot WAIT!), and while I am waiting, I am trying to clean up some of the old files that I no longer use or need so I don't have to transfer them over to the new laptop.

It is interesting to see the progression of things. Being the thinker that I like to think of myself as, I try and look back and see how I arrived at this day. What brought me to this point.

Not only has this trip in the wayback machine been started because of a new computer, but because yesterday was somewhat of a milestone. While it seemed like an ordinary Tuesday for most, it was the day that marked 5 months of Alicia and I being together.

I chose that phrase "being together" because that is what it is. We are not partnered, engaged, or married in my mind. We just are....together.

(I will interject in here that as I wrote that line above, in my head I heard a "yet". Funny thing is, it wasn't her voice saying "yet", it was mine. Interesting)

I have always had an interesting take on relationships. For me, having someone in my life is not about filling a role (i.e I want a gf/wife/partner), it is about having the RIGHT person in your life. Someone who just fits, without drama and is a positive addition to your life.

That is how I look at it. When I consider a relationship, I try hard to be a positive addition to that relationship. I am not looking to be mommied, or to prove that I am worthy by saying "LOOK everybody! I am worthy of being special to someone!" because I know that I am worthy.

So I don't rush things. I watch, listen, and contribute. I see how things grow. It is a hard road sometimes, because many times, things just don't grow the way you would like. That is life though, so I don't let it get me down.

But when it DOES grow in a way that makes you happy, it really is an amazing thing. When it grows naturally, with very little extra work, it is even better. I truly think that makes it have an even stronger base, because it wasn't something that was forced, or pushed, or even coaxed. Some would say that makes it "meant to be". They could be right.

Alicia and I have been friends for a very long time. I have always enjoyed her company when we were just friends. She has always struck me as someone who was kind, sweet, funny, and just a joy to be around. These last 5 months have proven that I was right over and over again.

Because 5 months ago yesterday, we decided to be more than just friends. Best. Move. Ever.

These last 5 months have also shown me once again, that my instincts are not as out of whack as I was beginning to think they were.

I am not surprised at how this has all worked out, because everybody deserves to be in a relationship like this. I am just overjoyed that it is happening to us!

The last 5 months have been amazing with this wonderful woman. I look forward to many, many more.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everybody!

Hello, my name is Al and...

2010-10-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

...I am a Second Life Snob!

It has been so long since I have blogged about anything in Second Life. Every time I get the urge to blog something, I look back and either find I already have done it, or the subject is already been done to death.

I little while ago Alicia and I were out enjoying an evening together, and something came up that made me think of something that I wanted to blog about. I have been trying to actually do this post for about 2 weeks but things keep coming up, and I was having trouble doing the pics for it.

So today, I had a day off (kinda). I didn't get called to sub, and although I had to fix a broken toilet I had the day basically to myself. So I got Codie on the line and worked through some of my imprudence crashing and picture issues so I was actually able to take the pics I wanted.

So I got the pics done...and now here I am blogging.

The idea that came up was about being a Second Life Snob. I totally am. I recently got a new neighbor in my sim, and it has been very entertaining to watch them set up the land. Knowing that these two avatars were just a few months old, I can forgive to a degree the stuff they put out on the land.

Now, given that I have been around the virtual block a time or 3, I have found that I definitely have my tastes for things. I know what I think looks good, and tend to buy stuff that is more "modern" in Second Life, meaning good textures and some sculpties. Whether it is a house, or clothes, or even toys I can see when something is "old", as in, inadequate textures, no sculpties etc. It is just something I see.

So when I got my island, I went house shopping and did find a place that I thought looked really good and fit perfecting on my island.

When you look at the two lots side by side, it is like night and day. Part of me wants to IM the guy and give him a few pointers. But, he already has a girl, and has now set up a party place next door to me that you even have to buy a pass to get into. Obviously he is doing something right? Maybe?

I feel like looking down on his stuff makes me a complete snob. Granted I joke about it with Alicia, and I wonder how they can see what else is around and not think to themselves "wow, where do I find that cool stuff". But then again, if they do not put money into this game, or don't want to find work to earn more lindens, why not use what you have or whatever you can find for free or 10Lindens? And if your woman is still willing to jump on a 2006 heart shaped sex bed with you...does it really matter?

I admit that I have high standards. But these standards are mine, and I have chosen to live with them. Granted these standards have gotten me a great little island and house to call my own, and a wonderful woman to spend my inworld time with.

So does that make me snob? Probably. Do I care? Not in the least.

Have a wonderful day, even if it is from 2006!

MY OWN SIM!

2010-05-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

So last night I took the plunge. I got my very own SIM!

Before you start to congratulate me, let me explain. I have been playing around with all the different viewers recently, and exploring some of the other "grids" available out there. I had a long talk with a friend about inWorldz for example, and even spent some time on OSGrid. It was strangely reminiscent of my early days in SL, but it did have an air of excitement to it.

During my chat, I mentioned how great it would be to have a SIM that I could load on my home network to build stuff on. I was promptly given a link to such a beast! I could not believe it!

Of course I downloaded it right away! 700megs and 1 burned CD later, I booted up one of the "spare" computers I had laying around, and VIOLA! I had my very own SIM!

Since I use the Rainbow and Imprudence viewers almost exclusively, it was very easy to connect to my new SIM! A quick login, and BOOM! There I was, my own island in the world. All those prims and room, JUST FOR ME!

Now granted, this little world is pretty darn small. This SIM is not connected to anything, so all I can do is walk around. Even that was a little sketchy. I mean, it IS OpenSIM.

Don't get me wrong, I completely support OpenSIM. It just is not up to SL status yet but I have no doubt it will get there someday. When someday will be here, I have no idea. But I like that it is completely open sourced, so if other open source projects are any indication, at some point it will really start to take off.

I was thinking about what this could mean. Imagine you are content creator, and you have your own private sim you can build on, upload textures too for testing, and all without any charges. I am not sure there is a way to transfer stuff from OpenSIM over to SL just yet (I have not researched it much), but I would say if there is not, I bet that eventually there will be. The possibilities are really amazing.

So while I actually DO have my own private SIM, it is kinda like owning the same car you had when you first got your license to drive. Definitely some fond memories of those times, but not sure I would use it for everyday stuff...YET!

For those of you who like to see what might be possible, and an extra computer laying around, here is the link to this neat little project.

http://magrathean .ca/project/dgig

Also, some more information about OpenSIM

OpenSIM Main Site

Get your Geek on!

You can dance if you want to...

2010-05-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

...you can leave your friends behind.

I was catching up on some TV shows tonight, and I was able to watch the latest installment of Glee (Dream On episode). It had a song in it that came out when I was in high school. The Safety Dance. It was a one hit wonder for the group Men Without Hats, but we sure loved the song, and the group name actually inspired a few friends of mine and I to form our own little group. I will refrain from going into that more at this point.

Anyway, I thought the timing was interesting, because not just the night before I went out dance shopping. I am very picky on what dances I will use for my avatar. There are some really great dances available in SL these days, but most of them make my avatar look a little too feminine. I actually enjoy watching all the ladies use them, cause they look great, but I don't like them on me. So up until last night, I had my standard 4 dances that seem to fit my personality pretty well.

My favorite place for guy dances is Akeyo. I always try there first. This particular nights shopping adventure started at 3fx. 3fx really does have an amazing assortment of not only single dances, but couples dances as well. I highly recommend you take a look there if you need to add some new dances to your repertoire. After checking out the new couples dances, there I was back at Akeyo.

One of the other things I have been meaning to do was tweak my AO a little bit. I have a few stands that I am not wild about, and I always like to look around for some new ones to add in to freshen it up a bit. The first thing I notices when I arrived at Akeyo was the new AO vendors, so I decided to take a look.

I hopped on the vendor and started to cycle through the animations. Most I liked, some I have seen too much of recently, or the stand just moved a little too much for my taste. I kept going back and forth, trying to narrow down which ones I liked. I finally just decided to get the whole AO, so I could play with all of them on my own time, and not take up the vendor for hours on end. So I plopped down the $1,800 lindens for the Rudeboy AO.

I checked out some of the new dance moves that had arrived, bought a few of those, then headed home. I unpacked my new purchase, and immediately wore the new AO. I had to laugh because just that morning I was teasing a friend about wearing 2 AO's, and here I was doing just that. Like can be kinda funny that way. I noticed a few things right away on this new AO.

First, my first impression of the HUD was good. It defaults to the upper left hand corner of my screen, where I do not usually have anything anyway. It is horizontal, as opposed to vertical as so many AO HUDs are. There were quite a few buttons I needed to explore, but the standard ones were there (Stand, Sit Override, Ground Sit). One new thing I found was the "Dance" button, which is not uncommon these days, but my current AO does not have that option. I use a huddles HUD for my dances, and I will probably keep using it for the features that it has on loading different sets of animations. I am not always dancing in a club, so it's nice to be able to load up a few casual dances if I am listening to some live music.

Anyway, so I was playing around with my new AO HUD, and I figured I would add my new dances to it, just to experiment. This is where I found the neatest part. Up until now, when I had to configure an AO, it was all about editing a notecard to tell the AO what animations to use for what. This Rudeboy AO did not have ANY notecards in it at all. So I went exploring around to see exactly how I was supposed to get this all to work.

As a guy, I always try to see if I can figure stuff out before I fall back on reading the directions. This time was no different. But based on past experience, I knew that I would have to drop the AO onto the ground before I could add anything to it. So, with it sitting in the sand on my beach, I dragged my 4 new dances into the AO.

All of a sudden, I saw in my chat history that the AO had detected I had added some new animations. This is not really all that new, but what was really interesting was that it was able to automatically determine what catagory to put them in! I have to say, that was impressive. I am pretty sure that it was able to figure this out by using the names as a clue, because it was Akeyo dances I added. BUT...I have to say, it was nice to see some thought put into how this HUD worked.

I poked around a bit more, thinking that it would not be able to automagically know where to put ALL the animations throughout SL. What I found out was actually pretty ingenious I think. There is a "reconfigure" button on the AO (you have to expand

I am not sure if I am quite ready to give up my Vista AO quite yet. My original plan was to strip the animations out of the Rudeboy AO and add the stands I liked to my Vista. After playing with the Akeyo AO for a little bit, I am not sure if that plan will still be my plan A or not. Who knows, maybe I will try out this 2 AO thing a little.

I am always happy to see progress made in making our lives in this world a bit easier. The process of setting up an AO has been one of those things that is rarely attempted in the first months of being in SL. Even veterans of this world tend to not change AO's very often because of the effort required to do it. With the system that artoo Magneto has created with the Akeyo AO's, I can see a time very soon where changing your AO becomes even more commonplace, and done much earlier in a persons Second Life.

So once again Akeyo has come through for me. I was able to find a few more dances that seem to suit me, and some new AO stands to liven up my current AO a bit.

Now if I can only find the dance that Aritie did at the mall.

Aritie at the Mall dancing

*Helpful Info

Akeyo_PowerAO_Rudeboy (v1.5) - $1,800 lindens

*SLURLS

http://slurl.com/secondlife/AKEYO/147/118/51 - Akeyo Main Store

http://slurl.com/secondlife/MoonLand/97/61/321 - 3fx Store

A small shift...

2010-05-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

I came to realize a short while ago, that while this blog was originally designed to be a place to talk about all stuff Second Life, that more recently I have been using more for general musings. I wanted to get this particular blog back to my original intent, so I have made a small change.

I have started a "personal" blog, located over at Al Unplugged

As I have mentioned in previous entries on this blog, writing has really been a great outlet for me. I want to do more of it, but I also do not want this particular blog to wander too far away from its original intent. This blog will still have thoughts, but those thoughts will be specifically about Second Life.

There is much to discover about Second Life, and my goal is to write about that. Anything else that I might feel noteworthy, will be over on Al Unplugged

I hope you find at least one of these blogs worthy of your precious time.

I thank you for all the comments I have received so far. I do appreciate them more than you know.

- Al

Being self critical.

2010-05-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

***Please Note - This entry is mostly about RL, and I only put it here because it is a bit long for a Plurk (http://www.plurk.com) so I just decided to put it here. If you have no interest in reading something a little bout my RL, then I direct you back to whatever you were doing before. :)***

As some of you already know, I am a part time DJ. I do mostly weddings, but I also do school dances, corporate parties, birthday parties etc. I have been doing it for about 4 years now, and I get lots of compliments on my events. There have been up to 6 DJ's total working for the company I currently work for, and I have been the top tip earner for 3 years straight.

When you work alone on stuff like this, it is hard to see what you might improve on, because I don't see other DJ's do their thing. I try and catch other events when I am not working, but it doesn't always work out for me to catch other DJ's doing thier thing. I always strive to improve my work, so most of the time I am left with sefl evaluation only.

This past weekend I was able to help chaperone our local high schools Jr/Sr Prom. My wife was in charge of the event, and even though they decided to NOT hire me for it (mock indignation inserted here), my event of that day ended early enough so I was able to come over and be there for the last 2.5 hours or so. This gave me a very good sampling of how the DJ they did hire does his events.

Without going into too many details, I was not impressed. His setup was not done right. His speakers were too low, so while the base was able to be heard properly, his mids and highs were hidden behind a wall of kids, so the sound was not able to travel very far. This made the music sound very muddled to most of the room. I was able to get a good look at his setup from behind also. All I could say was ...um...really? Are you planning on using those turntables? Are ya gonna scratch for us? *shakes his head.

Even before I checked out his rig, I was listening to him. His presentation was very broken. He did not flow very well on the microphone. Now I realize not many people would notice things like this, but it stood out to me right away. He also had too much dead air between songs. If you are trying to keep people dancing, you want to keep the music flowing.

At one point, the DJ instructed the kids to bring all the chaperone's out onto the dance floor. My wife and I were standing over near the entrance, and about 20 kids ran over and grabbed both of us and pushed us onto the dance floor. We even got the principle to come out and do a fun dance. After we did our cute little dance, things just kinda stagnated. Much to the chagrin of my wife, I asked the DJ if I could have the microphone. He happily handed it over, not realizing what I was up to.

I started talking to the kids, getting them yelling, pumping them up. I got them clapping, stomping, while my wife had the DJ cue up a song for me. Just as I got the kids to a fever pitch, I queued the DJ, and we all exploded into a very fun dance. The dance floor was just going crazy. Wifey and I danced 2 more songs, then went back to our duties. The dance floor settled back down into a steady group of dancers, and kept going for about anothe hour or so.

Overall, I do not think the DJ did a bad job. It was just, nothing special. His selection of music was appropriate for the most part. There were only a few songs that I thought "really? why would you play that". And watching the kids on the dancefloor, I would say that overall they had a good time. I did overhear the DJ talking to one of the event staff afterwards, complaining about how hard this event was, given that the school administration was fairly strick on the playlist. Once again, to myself I was thinking "really? hard? are you kidding me?"

It is not often I get to compare myself to others in my profession, and I would definitly not put that DJ as somebody to try and emulate, but seeing how he did his job, I can look for other areas to improve my work, and not worry quite so much about some of the basic stuff I had worried about in the past.

So not only did wifey's prom go off very well, I ended up feeling pretty darn good about what I do, and how I do it.

Ok, I am done patting myself on the back now.

Happy Tuesday everybody!

Honest is the best policy....

2010-05-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

.....usually.

I do try and be honest. It's not always easy, and I don't always succeed at it. Sometimes I am not honest because I think that being honest would just hurt someones feelings, or because I don't think it will accomplish anything.

I have had a few instances over the last several months, where I decided I didn't care about the consequences, and I was brutally honest with someone. It was not the "I hate your shoes" type of honesty, but more of "This is how I felt about what you did". I was hurt by something, and even though it was MY hurt, and I did not "blame" the other person for my hurt, for some reason I was driven to make sure they knew about it.

The funny thing is, that after I expressed my "feelings" on the issue, I noticed that my anger and frustration about that particular situation seemed to diminish greatly. I should qualify this, cause this "discussion" I had was not in any sort of public forum. It was a private conversation. We were having a discussion and while it started out as a casual conversation, it turned to a subject I was not happy with, and I brought up how I was feeling.

Anyway, I did find it interesting how much my "pent up" anger and frustration was now gone after that particular conversation. For the most part, I do not "fight" with people. I honestly feel that words spoken in anger do more harm than good. I would like to think that in this particular instance, that while I was "angry", what I expressed was not a just said to spite someone, but was a true expression of how something made me feel.

I don't think this experience is going to make me start going around telling everybody about how something makes me feel, but I think I might be a little more open to, given the right circumstance, express my "feelings" about something to help me process through it, and then let it go.

It is interesting however, to note that while talking to others about an "issue" can be helpful (i.e. bff's, significant others, therapists etc), I think it is not quite the same as actually telling the person you have the "issue" with. This is not always possible, and usually can lead to more arguements. I don't recommend just blindly going out and telling every person you have "issues" with exactly how you feel about them, because truely the "issues" are with you. But if there is someone in your life that you are "angry" with, and you think you have a good handle on "why" you are angry (i.e. what is it that you are "really" angry about), if that person is important enough to you, you might be able to have that conversation about it, and then maybe you can get past it and start moving forward again.

Most people are not able to handle someone telling them exactly how they felt about something they did. Most will get defensive and take it like an attack on them, which kinda defeats the purpose. This personal experience however, has made me realize that even if I am listening to someone tell me how something I did made them feel bad, or angry, or sad, or whatever, it is important to let them express those feelings, because while I cannot undo something that I might have done, hopefully by being honest with me about it, it will not fester and become something much bigger than it has to be. Unresolved anger/frustration is nothing but a cancer that eats away at our very soul, so I hope I can be a better friend/husband/father by taking what people might tell me, and hearing it for what it truly is, an opportunity for growth.

I can always hope, right?

Happy Friday everybody!

Those special moments.

2010-05-05T09:30:00.000-07:00

We all have them. Sometimes they are shared with others, sometimes not. Sometimes it is just a moment when the world is not banging down your door, and you can just be. Those moments where you are not thinking about what you have to get done that day, or the next, or what you are gonna make for dinner, or any of those daily things.

It is a time to let your mind wander a little. Maybe even reflect a little bit. Think about where you are, and where you might be going.

Some people dread these moments. It can be a reminder of how things are not going the way they want. Others just ignore these moments, because they are too "busy" to even take a few to just....be. I try and recognize these moments as often as possible.

I tend to be the last person awake in my house. I would not call me a nightowl, but I stay up later than the rest of my family. Sometimes I wonder if it is the guardian in me, making sure everybody is where they are suppose to be, safe and sound before I finally rest from the day. Whatever the reason, I do get more "moments" because of it.

The other day, we had a rainstorm come through. We don't get many were I live, so when I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof, it really did make me smile. I woke up a bit earlier than normal, and put on my thick robe and went out on our back deck and just sat down in the chair. Our house faces west, so from the back yard we get a direct view of our sunrises.

It was early enough so that most of the surrounding world was not really moving yet. I had about 20 minutes of just listening to what was going on around me, and letting my mind just ride the universe. The sounds, the smells, everything about it was just...there. I was just...there. I love those moments.

It is during those moments, what I personally take stock in my life. I look at what I have done, what I am doing, and what I have planned for my future. While my life is not perfect, I do have to say, I am a very lucky man. When I look at where I am, I feel that while I might not be exactly where I want to be in my life....I am not far off, and I am very happy with the people I have surrounding me.

So after recognizing my moment, and enjoying it for what it was, the moment was gone, and I started my day like any other. On this particular day however, I had a little wider of a smile, because I was comfortable with what I saw during my "moment".

I hope you have your own moments. Whether you use them to redirect yourself, or to just remember to appreciate what you have, I hope you take advantage of these "moments" when they present themselves.

I have not been doing much SL photography recently, and I have really missed it. I have wanted to capture one of these "moments", and with the help of my plurk friends, found the items I needed to create a visual of a "moment". I did not do any post processing on this shot, but I thought it captures that idea pretty well.

Have a wonderful Wednesday everybody!

You are what you....

2010-04-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

....THINK!

As you may have already figured out, I think a lot. I also observe a lot. I think about observation a lot. I observe thinking, not so much unfortunately.

I am a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do. I have taught classes for years, and I always enjoy that "WOW" moment from kids when you show them something very exciting and new.

I was teaching an Adult class the other day, and I had one of those "WOW" moments from a few of the adults when I did a very simple demonstration.

This was an off the cuff idea, that came from teaching a Womens Selft Defense class last summer. The demonstration had to do with the power of the mind.

If you have a baby around your house, or you remember it well enough, you will know what I mean when I describe this.

The demonstration I did was how easy it is to change your body with just your mind. I had one of the smallest girls in class come up to help me. I stand behind her, and using a bear hug, pick her up. It was very easy, given that she is a tiny little thing.

Next, I tell her to imagine that she is a concrete block. Thats it. Picture it in her mind. She does, and I TRY to pick her up. When I say try, I mean TRY! I cannot do it, no matter how hard I try.

I have the rest of the class try it. It works EVERY SINGLE TIME!

How does a baby play into this? Think about it. When a child WANTS to be picked up, it's pretty easy to pick them up. If the do NOT want to be picked up, they weigh a ton. SAME PRINCIPLE!

So, if all it takes to change the density of your body is simply picturing yourself as a block of concrete, imagine what you could do if you focused on, say, other stuff?

Think about it. And do the test yourself. I dare you! :P

Have a wonderful Hump Day everybody!

A Very Special Day!

2010-04-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Today is a very special day in my world.

Today is the day that my first child was born. Actually at 10:43pm on April 14th my first son was born.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a father. Having children was never something that we just did, both of my kids were very, and I mean VERY, planned. But even with all that, it has still been a very interesting journey through this.

I remember the day very well. My wife and I took all the baby classes, and we were very book smart when it came to the whole process. We had EVERYTHING planned out, down to making mixed tapes for the hospital room of all my wifes favorite songs. But as things rarely do, it was not long before our PLAN was out the window.

It was a pretty normal Thursay for us. I was already home from work, because our due date was passed (by about 2 days I think). This day was seemingly going to pass by without any activity also. Then it started.

In all the classes, they talk about how things build up slowly and that you will just know. Well not for us. When the contractions started, they started HARD. After a few of them, I called the hospital to let them know we were on our way. I got the typical "oh, first time parent overreacting" tone from the nurse, so I listened and then told the wife what she said. One more big contractions, and we both said "fuck them, we are cominig NOW". Which is pretty much what I told them when I called them back.

On the way to the hospital, I called all the appropriate friends (we only had my sister in law in the area family wise) to let them know that it was happening. We got to the hospital, with all our crap, and they casually brought us in, and got us up to the room. They were moving very slowly, which was very irritating, but I kept my mouth shut.

They FINALLY get wifey on the bed, and the nurse examines her. "OH!" she says, "You are already at 3 cm!" and BOOM, the whole demeanor changed. I really wanted to yell 'THANK YOU! THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING!" but I didn't. I was holding her hand, and tryng to keep her focused.

So there I am, bent over my wife, talking and breathing with her. Keep in mind, I am 6'4" tall, so I was bent over in half basically to keep in her face. After a few more contractions she says to me "honey, stand up, you are gonna pass out". Evidently my face was not looking good, not realizing that I was having trouble breathing bent over like that. Fortunatly I did NOT pass out.

So things were moving along, but not quite fast enough for my wife. There was a woman in our baby class that had her kid after like 2 hours of labor. So when the 2 hour mark passed, wifey was getting irritated (playfully so mostly, but still). So it was just us in the room, and we are kidding around when another contraction hits..and HARD. She is holding my hand, and telling me to go get the nurse, because the meds are wearing off. I start to move and she says "NO! Don't leave me!".

Ok, so here I am, I need to go get the nurse, but I cannot leave my wifes side. "Honey, I will be RIGHT back". "No! Stay here". "but you want the nurse! I cant stay here and get the nurse also." (don't even start telling me about the call button, it was a stressful moment). "Yell for her!" she says. "um..no. I am not gonna yell for the nurse, I will be RIGHT back". "FINE!" she playfully scorns me as I head out the door.

So as I said, nothing in our plans actually came about. "Honey, would you like to listen to your music?" "NO!" Ok, I am just gonna stand here then.

We finally are at 10cm. Nurses buzzing about, but no Doctor. I ask about him. "Oh, he is on his way". Really? from where, MARS? Wife starts wanting to push, but no Dr. yet. Can she have more pain meds? Nope, too late now. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE DR!

FINALLY he arrives. He swoops in, gets his gown on, gloves etc. He sits down on his little rolly chair, and rolls up between my wifes legs, and said "ok, are you ready?" "YES! You are a little late there buddy, I have been ready for 5 minutes!" (she makes me laugh so hard sometimes). He laughs and says "ok, lets push".

Three pushes later, and VUUUWOOOMP! There he is! 9lbs 2 (maybe 3) oz baby boy. He was a big sucker too!

They check him out, and clean him up, while I keep holding wifeys hand. She is tired, but doing fine. They finally brought him over to us, and he was just the UGLIEST little thing in the world (Kidding, I tell him this story though, and I cannot help but say that). He really was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Funny little side story. My Sister in law was in the waiting room during this whole process. The woman in the room next to ours, was screaming bloody murder the entire time through her delivery, and my sister though it was us. She was in complete panic. I wandered out after all was said and done, and she jumps all over me about "what the FUCK is going on in there!". I look at her very confused and say "All is fine, he wasa 9lbs blah blah, and its all good!". She is completely confused, until the other woman started screaming again, finally realizing it was not her sister that was being cut up into little pieces and fed to a meatgrinder (from the sounds).

Anyway, that day, changed my life. I finally became what I had wanted to be. A DAD!

I don't get to tell him this today, because he is on some remote island studying dolphins and octopy and other marine animals, but to my son I say this: I am SOO proud of you! Happy 16th Birthday!

Because I can, and it's free!

2010-03-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Good morning!

I am blogging this morning because I have been itching to write for a while now, but have not been able to come up with anything important to say. And this blog entry will be a perfect example of this problem.

I really don't have anything interesting to say, so I am going to write about...writing.

I don't know how it is with you, but for me talking and writing are extremely theraputic. I don't mean "how's the weather" talking/writing, I mean deep, meaningful, thoughtful talking/writing. Having to describe something, or express a thought or emotion is hard work, but is very helpful to me.

As an example, my wife and I rarely fight. Sure we have disagreements, but never a real outloud yelling fight. I hate fighting, because things are usually said that can never be taken back.

One day several years ago, my wife said something to me that just really, really angered me. When I get angry, I get very quiet. I actually didn't say a single word to my wife for 3 days. She knew she had done something, but had no idea what.

During those three days, I really tried to figure out what I was really mad at. What she said to me was by itself, pretty mild, but it was "the straw that broke the camels back" on an issue that had been building up for many years. I didn't want to say anything until I really understood what it was that was really behind my apparent anger.

So during those 3 days, I wrote letter after letter to my wife, trying to describe what I was angry about. That process helped me identify what was really going on in my head, and allowed me to filter through all the crap that was easy to say, but not really relevant to what was really going on.

After 3 days, I finally was able to filter it down to the real issue. Once I had that figured out, I was able to present my issue calmly and somewhat rationally. We climbed into the bath together, and talked it out. It was a very good talk, and it really made a huge difference in our relationship.

I learned from that, and from many other times, that having to form a thought either into words written down, or verbalized to somebody else allows me to see how valid my thought might actually be. It allows me to hear it outloud, and look at it from a slightly different perspective. Many times I will write something down, or say it, and then realize how silly it is. Even with that, I was at least able to process it out, and move on from it.

Some might say that fighting and saying things in anger does the same thing. I would be hard pressed to argue that point, but I do like to really think about what I am saying before it slips out of my mouth. I have this talk with my kids often, about how I choose my words very carefully (most of the time), so please listen with as much energy as I took to choose the right words to say.

I would say the process of writing ones thoughts down is similiar to trying to teach someone something that you have been doing for many years. I am going through this right now as I am teaching my oldest how to drive. I have to think about the process once again, instead of just relying on habit. Thinking about all that we do when we are driving has been reeducational for me. It definitely reminds me of the old saying, that if you really want to understand a subject, teach it to somebody else.

So what does this all mean? Well, it says to me, that communication is key to human mental evolution. How can we grow, unless we express and communicate with each other. I know that once I learned how to write, I have been a better communicator. Maybe it is just me, but I know I am not all that unique in the word, so maybe it is significant.

I think I might promote the idea of a journal to my boys. Both my boys are avid readers, and maybe writing stuff down on a daily basis will be as benificial to them as it has been to me.

Don't you just love this process!

Have a wonderful Tuesday everybody!

Back in my day! (Love Thursday)

2010-03-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

This particular blog has absolutely nothing to do with Second Life, so if you absolutely have no interest in reading anything real, click away now!

Hi, thanks for staying.

So today my oldest son and his high school band are competing in a concert and jazz band competition. The competition is right across the street from my office, so I get to go watch him! I am very excited.

When I was in band (yes, I am a MAJOR band geek!), we did the same thing. One thing is different though. In the state I grew up in, when we did these competitions there was a different component. For all you band geeks out there, it was called "sight reading".

Basically how it worked was that we were given sealed envelopes of our music. Our director was given 10 minutes or so to preview the score, and make notes. Then, we were given 5 minutes to open our music, have our director point out thing he felt were significant, then we had to play it!

Of course this was only one part of the overall competition, but it was kinda exciting to read something brand new like that, but it was also scary as hell.

For histories sake, my HS band ususally did VERY well at both these types of competitions and marching and field shows as well. We were a hell of a band, and had the racks and racks of trophies to show for it.

When I asked my son about this last night, he looked at me kinda funny. "We don't do that dad" he told me. WHAT! I was stunned. Once I recovered, I got so good old fashion dad ribbing in, which was tons of fun.

Even though they are not going to "sight read", I am very excited to see my son play today. His HS band is the band to beat this year. They say the nut doesn't fall far from tree. I only hope he gets all my good stuff, and none of the not so good stuff.

I think I am gonna turn this into my Love Thursday post since I have not done one in a while, and I love my son, and I love good music!

Have a wonderful Thursday everybody!

The one thing that never changes...

2010-02-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

...is the fact that there will always be changes.

People hate change. I don't quite get that, because life IS change, but we humans are creatures of habit. We learn to do things in a certain way, right or wrong, and we fight any attempt to change that process. We become comfortable with a certain process, and rarely to we embrace any attempt to alter it.

I personally am not afraid of change. I have fought against change at different times in my lilfe, but overall I try and be open to change. I do not subscribe to the notion that change for changes sake is a good thing, but I do try to look at what benefit any particular change might bring, before I sign onto it. When my wife and I decided to pick up and move to another state 10 years ago people thought we were nuts, but it was the best thing we have ever done, and has had a huge positive affect on our family. Change is not always bad.

In that light, I have been looking forward to the new Second Life Viewer 2.0, which was released to Public Beta today. As soon as I heard about its release via Plurk (thank you Prad!), I downloaded it and began to poke around. The interface is quite different, and after watching a quick video on it, I just started to play with it to see what I thought.

First of all, the biggest concern I had was how would the new viewer run on my aging Dell laptop. Up until today, most viewers would not run well on my poor lappy, except for the Rainbow viewer by Boy Lane, and the latest Snowglobe viewer. I was pleasantly relieved to find the new Beta 2.0 ran pretty well on my system. That was a huge hurdle in my book.

After playing around with it between RL phonecalls and meetings, I felt pretty comfortable with the whole thing. There are still parts I have not explored yet, and I have had to ask on Plurk where to find a few things that I was too lazy to dig around for (thanks to all that have been helping with that), but I can see where Linden Labs was going with this new interface.

I don't want to make this a review on the new viewer, because I think if you want to see it, you should download it yourself and give it a run. Don't be scared, it won't bite you (or at least that feature has not been added just yet).

But I would like to point out one thing. Even though this new beta version seems to run pretty well on older hardware (and btw, the new Snowglobe V2.0 even runs a bit better on my older hardware), there still is a lot of work underneath all this fancy new interface stuff that needs to be done.

I know that Linden Labs has quite a bit on thier plate on the back end. There has been much written about making the communications process between the viewer and the servers more efficient, changing the protocols used, etc. My main hope with this new 2.0 viewer is that they have laid the groundwork for those changes to be implimented in a much cleaner fashion.

The debate over new features vs improved reliablity has been waged over and over. There does need to be a balance of both I feel. A stable grid and viewer do enhance the overall experience, as do new features to make everyday Second Life living easier and more enjoyable. The new feature train has been moving ahead very quickly with all the 3rd party viewers available these days, from Snowglobe to Emerald to Rainbow. I hope that with the new 2.0 code, that more changes will be made to help the speed and reliability part of the equation.

We also must not forget, that Linden Labs is a business, which needs to be able to make a profit for it to continue operating. They have been implementing things to help draw in new users, then keep them at a higher rate. The new linden homes is just part of that process. The new interface for the viewer is also part of it. Looking to the future is essential for any business, especially in today's economy. If these changes help Linden Labs remain a profitable businss for many years to come, I am fully behind it, and I will change to accomodate.

I know change is hard. Any new idea, or venture, or change in direction requires energy to get off the ground. People are busy, and to have to learn something new takes time, but I feel it will be time worth spending. This new viewer is just out in beta, so right now there is not pressing NEED for everybody to use it, but I would suggest you set aside some time and start getting used to it. It will make the inevitable changeover less burdensome when it happens. Also remember, that the point of a public beta, is to see how it works in a much larger pool of users. There is still time to make tweaks, fix bugs, and possibly even implement some new ideas before it becomes the official viewer. If you have ideas, bugs, suggestions for the new viewer, make sure you make then through the proper channels. it's the only way the people behind the viewer, will know what is really going on.

A few links to help you along:

http://secondlife.com/beta-viewer/

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Snowglobe

and remember..Change...CAN be...good!

Practice makes Perfect!

2010-02-08T15:50:00.000-08:00

There are certain jobs in our real world that take a LOT of training to do. Many of these professions use virtual simulations to help people practice their skills, before putting them into situations where a mistake could cost millions of dollars, or lost lives. Think about what pilots have to go through, in order to keep their flight status. The simulators they use these days are simply amazing to see, and I bet even more amazing to actually use.

I have worked on several projects inside of Second Life during my stay, and each one has taught me something that has had a positive affect on my skills in RL. I have been learning website design, and graphic design, and have been doing more web marketing recently, which as rolled over into a few RL projects I am currently working on also.

Which is somewhat interesting, because one of the articles that I read many years ago that peaked my interest in SL was about how the Dept of Emergency Response (Which now I believe is the Dept of Homeland Security), was using the technology of Second Life to simulate real disasters, and training the responders. That was very fascinating.

I was thinking more about this subject recently, especially when I got a compliment on a logo I did for the company I work for. Granted, it was nothing real fancy, and could be tons better, but the skills I have learned in SL doing photography really came in handy.

It also reminded me of an old friend that is no longer in SL. Shortly before she left, we had a nice long talk. She told me that being in SL really helped her come out of her little shell she had created for herself, and had helped propel her into the dream job she had always wanted, and even helped her become more confident in herself, which led to her going out more. Because of all that, she then met a man that she was really starting to have feelings for, and he was falling for her also. In her mind, she was able to use SL as a testing ground for some real life achievements.

So what if SL is more than just a fantasy world. What if it really is a testing ground for some very real challenges, and improvements of our real lives? Does what we do in SL really have that much of an affect on our Real Lives? Does how we conduct ourselves inside this fantasy world relect who we are in RL? Is it possible to really become more than what we were when we started by practicing in SL?

I am not sure of all the answers to these questions, but I do know that my experience in SL has taught me some very valuable things about RL, from both a personal standpoint, and a professional one as well.

So I will add one more thing to my list of things that I love about SL. It gives me an opportunity to practice things that will allow me to improve my RL, in ways I probably would never have considered before.

I hope that SL can be that for all of you also. It is a very valuable resource, when used that way.

Have a great Monday everybody!

Big Announcement!

2010-01-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I have something that I want to share with all of you!

No, it's not that I am really a woman in RL (shocker, I know). It's about a project that I have been working on recently. It's something I have been thinking about doing for a while, and it has finally all come together.

It is still a bit rough around the edges, but I have been sharing it with a few friends, and they have been giving me some great feedback, and a very positive response overall. So I am announcing it to the world, sorta speak..:)

Here it is! My latest blog/website...

SecondBodies.com

The goal of this site is multi-fold. The two main objectives is to have a place where people can share the hard work they have done on thier avatars in Second Life. The second main objective is to have a place where people can browse through different looks, and have information regarding how it was made, so they can learn about new items, new shops, and/or new skills! The focus will be just on the avatar itself, and parts to make it what it is.

On the topic of the second objective. I have been getting some great response so far from the women, but I REALLY want this to be a good resource for men also. So I need a bit of help on this front.

Ladies, if you have a man in your life and/or you have men you know in Second Life that have a look you like, please encourage them to submit an entry! You might even make a fun night out of it to help them take the pictures (hint hint).

As you already know, men usually are not big shoppers, and are basically visual creatures. One of my hopes for this site is to give men a place where they can see what is available out in the world.

Anyway, as far as announcements go, I know this is a bit unconventional. But then again, I am a bit unconventional.

Please take a look at the site and let me know what you think! There is still work to be done on it for sure, but it has been coming along nicely I think.

I would also like to thank EVERYBODY that has already submitted, and is planning on submitting a post. I have been overwhelmed with the responce so far (in a very good way), so THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled SL wednesday evening.

The More You Know!

2010-01-15T11:18:00.000-08:00

I have spent many an hour working on getting my laptop to run Second Life as best as it can, and I have achieved a pretty good environment for myself. My home lot runs pretty well, but when I venture out onto the grid, I usually run into lots of lag, and I am always curious as to where it comes from.

I have heard a lot of things that people have said that will help with lag, especially at busy places with a lot of avatars (i.e. Store openings, big sales, concerts, etc). I always wonder how much of these "lag reducing" methods actually work, but I have never taken the time to really dig into them.

Today I found a blog post that really digs down into the causes of lag, and what is really true about what might be done to reduce it. I honestly think that anybody that owns a store, or a sim, and wants to make the experience that people have in your palce the best that it possibly can be, need to read this post thoroughly. It has some really important tips to make things just work better, which I think if implemented properly, would really improve the over all experience for many people.

The Anatomy of lag

I hear a lot about how Linden Labs needs to make things better, and while I am all for pushing Linden Labs for performance enhancements, I am also a big believer of people doing all that they can to make thier own lives, both RL and SL, better using all the tools and techniques available to them.

If you are a builder, a store owner, a sim owner/manager, a content creator of almost any type, I think you will benefit from the information in this post!

Please take a look and please let me know what you think! Feedback is always appreciated!

Have a lag free day!

Slap me some Skin Bro! (Nice Rant!)

2010-01-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

(I call it a nice rant, because I am not really angry, just a bit frustrated)

OK, I am going to rant here for a few minutes. I don't mean any disrespect with this, it is just me venting my frustration.

I had a friend recently want to show me a skin shop she "found" (I had already known about it). They had some new skins, so I figured I would get some demo's just to look them over.

I happen to love my current skin, but even that designer has a new one out, so I decided to get a demo of that one also..just for some fun comparisons.

Here is my complaint. I collect the demo's of these new skins. They appear in a folder in my inventory. I look in the folders and they have the "name" of the skin, and usually some number reference. There is no way for me to know what demo skin is what. I have to try them all on to find the one that I saw in the store.

Granted, I am kinda picky on my facial features (I am partial to beards), and I would probably end up trying them all on at some point, but it would be REALLY helpful if there was textures included in the demo pack showing each face, and the name of the skin in the folder that matches it.

Guys are not big shoppers, and when we have to sort through things over and over because we are not sure which one is which, we get VERY frustrated. I really makes us NOT want to buy a new skin at all, because it is just too frustrating. Woman have a memory geared for this kind of thing, men do not.

Here is my suggestion, if anybody cares to take it. In each demo folder, have a texture that is a mosaic of all the skins included, probably just the face shots like you have at your store. This may be harder than I think given the limits of texture sizes, but maybe not. On each picture, have a way to identify each skin, so I can look at at the folder, and see exactly what skin matches with the pictures. I personally would also include a close-up shot of each one, so we can see it in the picture better, but the mosaic is key, because we can sort through them nice and easily to find the skin we saw in the shop, and try it on.

Personally, I think that each group should include all the skin tones, but that might be being a bit too picky. If a mosaic is included in each demo pack, its not hard to get each tones demo pack, and look to see which one I want to try on, and then do it.

Outside of that, I am soo happy that men's skins have been improving so much. Cudo's to the creators who are amazingly talented, and are devoting their time and energy into creating these fantastic skins!

The Evolution of Man on Second Life

2010-01-11T13:50:00.000-08:00

I have been in Second Life long enough now to see some amazing improvements. So many things are different these days, that somebody new coming into this world usually does not have any idea of the progress that has been made to get where we are.

As far as avatar improvements go, there have been huge strides in how good you can get your avatar to look. If you talk to any woman who has been around long enough, they will tell you all the options that are available for them. Women have a huge advantage over men in the availability of shapes, skins, hair, clothes etc.

But I wanted to review something for the guys. Although we do not have as many options as the ladies, it really does not take much to make a huge difference in how your avatar looks.

I went back to on of the default avatars available when you sign into Second Life for the first time. I chose "Musician Male by Renegade Clothing" for this example.

So that is a default avatar for Second Life.

So I decided to add in each basic part from my current avatar, one part at a time. To illustrate how some very simple things can really make a difference.

So I added my current shape:

Quite a difference, right? Already the avatar starts to look better, with just the change of a shape.

Next, I added my current hair:

Even more change. I think it looks pretty good, even though I hate black eyes on my avatar.

Next I added my current eyes.

Not a huge difference, unless you look close. But I have gotten many compliments on these eyes, and I like the way they stand out.

I don't think this guy looks all that bad to be honest. I have seen much worse on the grid.

Lastly, I added my current skin.

Now that is the biggest difference of all. The amazing quality of the skins available to guys, while not as broad as the ladies have, has really improved dramatically!

These simple things, really do change how an avatar looks on the basic level. I think it shows how far you can really take things in Second Life with just a few simple steps.

I have been hearing all sorts of things about the new client/server stuff about new meshes and all. I have a pretty strong feeling that it will take things even further which should be VERY interesting.

Ok, here are the parts I used for this demonstration:

Shape - RAFAEL by MADesigns
Hair - Modern Rail by ARGRACE
Eyes - Twilight Eyes by Exodi
Skin - Jonas SK 6 (hair) by Belleza

I think many guys feel a bit intimidated about changing their look. So guys, if you have any desire to change your look but have no idea how to go about it, understanding how each item can change your look is a good first step. Then I would recommend finding a woman friend, that you think has good taste, and take her along shopping. Trust me, it will be a huge help, and a heck of a lot of fun!

Good Luck!

Freeze Frame! (Click Click)

2009-12-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

Wow what a day!

I have had an idea rolling around in my head for a couple of months now. Today, it finally all gelled together!

One of the things that drives me nuts is that when I want to do a picture in Second Life, I always have to scroll through the windlight settings to find something that I think looks good. That takes FOREVER!

On top of that, I am a very visual person, so I have to SEE what the settings look like. Which I know is kinda redundant, but the process is laborious, and painstaking.

I have been trying to figure out a way to make a catalog, or a gallery of pictures showing what different windlight settings look like. I have been mulling around how I would sort them. Would I have them inworld? on my computer? all these little details.

Well today, while talking to Rylan, it all came together.

Here is what I came up with folks!

Second Life Freeze Frame

It's a blog where people can post their Second Life pictures, and all the information about how they created that picture. Information would include locations, windlight settings, graphics details, and any other information they would like to share with people.

I hope to have a picture on there of all the different windlight settings at some point, and I am going to strive to label things in a way that people can find a specific setting easily.

If you have a pictures you would like to share, please check out the site to see how to submit it.

If you have a blog of your own, please consider adding it to your blog roll.

I will be adding sites to it myself as soon as possible.

Please let me know what you think of this! If you have suggestions about improving the site, please let me know that also!

I hope you get something out of it. I am pretty sure I will!

Now go out there, and TAKE THOSE PICTURES!

*hugs

I hate to complain, but

2009-12-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

I have blogged about how great i thought the idea of open sourcing the viewer code was. I still hold that position, because people have been working on the viewer for a bit now, and there are some versions available now that have some really cool features.

Putting aside the security issues of having an open source viewer, there is something that I have not seen done yet, and I am not exactly sure why.

While there have been many changes to the User Interface, and things to make your experience easier, I wonder why there has not been much, if anything done about the raw speed of the viewer.

Here are a few things I notice when running Second Life:

I am at my home, and everything is fully rezzed. I tp over to a store, or to a friends place. I am there for say 20 minutes. Then I tp home. Why does everything have to rerez? I watch my computer, and its not loading these images from my hard drive, cause my hard drive is not being accessed. It seems to be downloading all these images all over again. Um...why? Isn't that the point of having a cache?

Lets talk about going to a store for a moment. I tp in, and usually set my draw distance down to like 64 meters (there is a chat command that does this in the Emerald Viewer, its called DD. It is very handy). I sit there and watch the rezzing process. I look at my frame rate, and the bandwidth being used by the client. While I admit my video card does not have the best frame rate in the world, but why is my bandwidth only at 50 kbps, when my internet connection is at least 10mbs? I do a ping test, and a ping plot, to see if there is anything that might be having trouble, and it all tests out with PLENTY of speed.

I know there many questions inside all of that, but my big question is...are the caching and networking routines that complicated? I know from my own programming experience that changing around an interface, and even just making an interface for a given feature is not all that hard. This is not to diminish the work that people ARE doing on the viewer, because they have done some awesome work! I am just wondering why nobody has done much work on these basic issues.

Can you imagine, if somebody came out with a viewer that had a significant speed increase for everybody? Talk about improving the user experience!

To be fair, I am in the process, slowly, of downloading the source code, and all the tools required to compile this code myself. I can only hope that I can decipher enough of it to see if there might be something that can be done about this without too much pain.

Even if I cannot figure that part out, I am still very interested to see if I CAN get it to compile! How cool would it be to have Al's Viewer! Maybe I can take all the features that I like, and put them into a viewer, just for me.

If there is anybody out there, who would be willing to help me decipher the caching and networking code for the viewer, please contact me. I am seriously wondering if its just been overlooked because nobody thinks they can understand it!

Have a great day everybody!

Morning Routines (Love Thursday)

2009-11-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

We all have our morning routines. Sometimes these routines are more important than others. I know that when I have a particularly busy day ahead of me, my morning routines become very important.

I also think that it's important to make sure my morning routines actually help me prepare for the day ahead. I try and include some private time to contemplate things, and to make sure I am centered and mentally prepare. I have my RL routines, and as strange as it may sound, I have my SL routines also.

I have dogs in RL and in SL. I walk my RL dogs in the mornings, and for my SL dog, we have a ritual we like to do. Believe it or not, it actually helps me prepare for whatever my day has to throw at me.

Funny thing is, that if I was able to live someplace similar to where I live in SL, this is exactly what I would do every morning.

It really is amazing how a virtual swim around my island, really does have such a wonderful affect on my day.

I guess it really is the simple things in life.

Have a wonderful Thursday Everybody!

Funny think happened....

2009-10-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

...on the way to...social networking.

I had an interesting little thought the other day. I was perusing Plurk and there was a little note from someone about what they were doing. Cleaning out a desk I think it was.

Now, normally I get a bit pissy about stupid shit like that. I have a niece on facebook that post about EVERY LITTLE THING SHE DOES during a day. Frankly, I don't care that you just woke up, and brushed your teeth. (Of course she only does that because she posted about how she woke up one day, had breakfast and everything else she did to get ready, and did NOT brush her teeth, so I gave her hell *chuckles).

Anyway, I have facebook for RL, and Plurk for SL. I can barely stand Facebook, but I do love Plurk. Yes, on Plurk, people post about what they are doing, and I accept that. I think it is because all my friends on Plurk are SL people, and there is a certain amount of "this is just about having fun and being silly with friends" that I accept with this group. We are all sharing a very strange and exciting experience in Second Life, even if we are not all on each others friends list inworld.

But what really just made me laugh my ass off the other day, was again a plurk about cleaning out a desk, that deteriated into a plurk about sex toys. I was just laughing so hard, and it was somewhat typical of this group of SL people.

I have never seen that happen on Facebook, although I bet some people could tell me it does. Because Facebook (or MyFace as my older sister calls it) is mostly Real Life (unless you have an SL Facebook, which it seems more and more are doing that) and Real Life public chatter rarely degenerates into sex toy discussions, or surprise buttsecks (unless you are in a public restaurant in NYC with your 3 best girlfriends, but I digress).

I like Plurk for many reasons. I like its format. It is easy to manage, easy to follow many people, and has a certain amount of customization that you can do. Facebook drives me crazy, and as technical as I am, I still have issues with it.

But its more than just the "interface" of Plurk that I like. I think it's the people that are there. Sure I have my "fans" from indonesia, but for the most part the people that I follow, and that follow my plurks are all from Second Life. It's almost like we are just one big family.

Now of course every family has issues. As much as we all are non-judgemental, we also have times when we are VERY judgemental, even on what I would consider very stupid stuff. But, for the most part we as a group, are very loving, caring, and fun people. We even have our factions from what I can tell, but that is expected with any large family.

I thought it was interesting that Plurk added an option in the "where are you from" part of the Plurk profile for "Second Life". I read somewhere that Second Life members were the largest "subgroup" of people on the service. Just shows the power in numbers!

Anyway, as with Second Life, there is a certain amount of freedom that people feel on thier Plurks, and that is what I really find interesting about it all. What do people do when they feel free? Free to express themselves, with minimal judgements, and hopefully no impact on thier Real Lives. Does it bring out the true selves? Does it give people the outlets they do not have in RL? I think it does. And that is what makes it sooo interesting, and soooo much damn fun!

So why am I writing all of this? Well, I just wanted to say thank you too all my plurk friends, for even if we are not "friends" in Second Life, I enjoy you being on my timeline, and hope that I contribute as much to yours as you do to mine. Yes, even you in those "other" factions. You are part of the family, and that makes you special.

Have a wonderful day and always remember, family sticks together!

We Use Botox

2009-10-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

Look at us...we are ecstatic! Can't you tell? NO? It's cause he talked me into botox. *rolls her eyes*

I have a couple of those emote huds, but they look so unnatural (except when Cole is screaming for his life - those pics to come later!) Maybe, just maybe, there will be a way to add a smile, or an emote that looks a bit more real in the future?
Shockingly, I stood around and threw some clothes on. I figured a couple pics might be cool, since I really liked the way the look turned out!

Please don't expect some lavish write up about outfits. For now, those days are behind me (I never wrote "lavishly" anyway.) So, he's wearing a shirt from Aitui (I don't even know if I have the spelling correct.) He's also got on hair, tats, and jeans. Amazing! I am wearing the following since I know it's more important than his outfit:
hair:
<< Discord >> Prim Hair [ MIKAGE ] Black&Gray
bracelet:
:: Exodi :: Autumn Bracelet
blouse:
[LeeZu!] Valerie Blouse /rust
shoes:
[LeLutka]-TEESE shoes/darkred
scarf:
Maitreya Long Scarf * Sangria
bra:
[CoL] - Gift - Black Lacy Lingerie
jacket:
fri. - Military Jacket (Army)
pants:
fri. - Trousers (Khaki)
..~love me or leave me~..

Letting go

2009-10-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

No one ever said change was easy, but often necessary. I have taken some time to deal with things, and I need a lot more, but time will come, change will come, and, hopefully, good things, too, will come. To move forward you need to let go of the past, not always the easiest thing to do when you have invested your emotions in people who have disappointed you one way or another. I need to let go...I've heard it from so many. Let go, to allow yourself to move forward....let go, and trust that there is someone who cares and will be there for you.

When you trust and open yourself up, you give so much and always risk the possibility of hurt. Is it easier to close yourself off? To some degree, yes. However, the opportunities and events you miss out on often out-weigh any possibility of hurt. Because, without pain and sorrow, the joy of life would not be as sweet. Cherish good moments and good people...let go of the evil and the shit.
I've learned that I have a strong capacity to hate, HATE with everything inside of me. I've had days of extreme bitterness and spite. I never knew it was in me...I now know it is.

It's time to let go...and I am...moving forward..."I wanted to forget, I'm trying to forgive"...Without You, Breaking Benjamin. The latest release from them is amazing. Listen, it's worth it.

BOOBS...

2009-10-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

Got your attention? Of course I do! lol

Before I start, I just want to thank Al for letting me do this...for giving me the opportunity to still blog, but without my ever notorious need to be perfect and obsessive. Just you watch, I'll take over his blog in 2-3 days! j/k! Thank you for believing in me.
Now, let's get to it...let's talk BOOBS! Cause, OMG, that's all I've been hearing about lately! If you have been living under a rock, which, in a way, I kinda have...but, even I heard about the new Emerald Viewer release and this whole option of jiggly boobs! I'm not even going to get into my opinion of the viewer, but I have one. To get an idea of different viewers, take a look a couple of posts down...Al did another fantastic job reviewing! Anyway, oh yes...boobs...so, listen ladies...if you're IMing him and it's taking him a few minutes longer to respond than usual...it doesn't necessarily mean that he is IMing someone else (although, it might be the case,) but, if he is using Emerald, he's staring at your boobs. Don't take offense, we have them for a reason, and in SL, we know what it's for *wink*
Another observation I've made lately, prior to this "jiggly boob" epidemic is that designers have been making GREAT progress in the area of cleavage. Exciting news, right?! Well,yes, you see Laqroki has released a cleavage option that you wear, not much different than that shading one of the past (the name escapes me at the moment, and I'm not going to obsess or stress about it.) The positive to this option is that they made it to shade their skins perfectly, the negative is that it takes a clothing layer. I like to wear tats...please don't make me choose between my tats and my boobs. There is no winner there.
Both Belleza and League have skins that give you the cleavage option in their actual skins! Yes, exciting and VERY well done. I'm sure there are more, and if you know of them, please share! I was obsessed with my boobs before, I am obsessed even more so now. Maybe next time I'll talk nipples, because they need some attention! <3

I Need Your Help!

2009-10-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

Something VERY exciting is happening today!

There has been a hole in the blogosphere for a little while now, but that is about to change.

My favorite person in SL, and the author of one of my favorites blogs has returned. She has been gone for a bit, and I have missed her deeply. But today she makes her return, and I have been blessed that she agreed to write on this blog.

She has a very unique style and perspective on things. I have given her cart blanche to write about anything she so desires, which is exactly what I liked about her previous blog.

I am sooooo thrilled to have her here!

Ladies and Gentleman, please help me welcome the incomparable....

Rylan Carling!

*kisses her hand

Better, Stronger, Faster - Part Deux

2009-10-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

In Part 1, I talked about how Second LIfe had become very slow on my laptop. I went through the 1st phase of my search for the reason. Now it is time for phase 2.

So, after cleaning up my laptop as much as I possibly could, I did two more things. I upgraded my hard drive and memory.

Upgrading my hard drive was very simple, thanks to a program called Casper (http://www.fssdev.com/). This program allows me to make a complete image copy of my hard drive to a new hard drive, then just swap out the drive in my laptop. So I got myself a 500 gig 7200rpm 2.5 inch hard drive, plugged it into my usb external hard drive case, and cloned my drive. After the cloning was done, it took me 5 minutes to swap out the hard drives (Thank you Dell, for making a laptop that is easy to work on). BOOM! brand new system.

I also maxed out my memory on the laptop. I had not done it before now because there was some question as to whether our not my model would take any more memory. Dell said no, but many other people said it would. I found a website where someone documented how he upgraded his Dell laptop (same model as mine), and the bigger memory worked great. So I jumped in and upgraded. It's working GREAT! Now I can have Second Life, Photoshop, and my porn running at the same time! (kidding about the porn, you pervs).

So with all THAT done, now it was time to see just how fast Second Life would run.

I blogged a while ago (and yes I am way to lazy this morning to find the actually entry) about Linden Labs making the Second Life Viewer open source, and the impact that it would have on it. That impact is really starting to be felt.

There are now several "alternate" viewers available to run Second Life. You can see most of them listed here - http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Alternate_viewers#Third-party_Viewers

I decided to start looking into them more, because I was reading more and more about them from other users, mostly on Plurk. (http://www.plurk.com)

The thing about viewers, is that they are in my humble opinion, somewhat personal. People talk about "features" of viewers, and I have found that one persons "absolutely have to have, complete deal breaker" feature is kinda "oh, well, sure, I suppose that would be nice" feature to me, and probably visa versa. So I had previously only taken a cursory look at some of the alternate viewers up until now. But I was now on a mission to see if ANY of them helped with my lag problems.

Being a software programmer for many years, and a software tester for many years before that, I needed a way to quantify my testing. This is when I remembered something I had seen in one of the viewers menus a while ago: The Statistics bar (located under the View menu or Cntrl-Shift-1).

This bar gave me a way to quantify what I wanted to see. It was when I brought this bar up that I really saw just how bad things had gotten. I was running at about 2 fps (frames per second), and things were just taking WAY too long to rez. I won't go into all the technical details of frames per second, but if you know anything about gaming, that really sucks.

Now, I looked into more stats. I was not having any packet loss. My bandwidth usage seemed a bit low, given that i was on a 10 meg ISP connection. So I tripled checked that I was getting the bandwidth I was paying for. I use http://www.speedtest.net, and picked a server that was in San Francisco, since that would be close to Linden Labs. Sure enough, I was getting my 10 megs down, and 2 megs up. My ISP was not the problem.

I ran a few more internet tests including a new http://www.pingtest.net by the people from speedtest. No hops that were slow, everything seemed perfect there.

Now there is a LOT of other stats on this information bar, and to be honest, I have not delved into what all of them mean. I really only care about how fast things "work" for me. But these numbers did give me something concrete to compare.

So, I cleaned out ALL of my Second Life Viewers, and started over.

Not only was I watching my frame rates, but also just how long things at my home took to rez. I set my graphics settings to medium, and kept the draw distance down to 96 meters for my testing. I did turn up all the boxes, shaders, reflections, etc, just to see how it would all work.

I also would chat with my friends in IM, to see what the typing lag would be like, while things were rezzing. I have noticed that when things seem to get very graphic intensive, that my typing becomes a real chore. I know typonese is somewhat expected, but it does not need to be THAT bad.

So I tested the current main Viewer, the First Look Viewer, SnowGlobe, Emerald, and imprudence.

I don't want to get into what is in each of these viewers, because there are so many new things, but I will point out a few. The "Worn Items" tab in inventory is great. Nice to see all the attachments that you forgot you had on. Putting the windlight settings in a button on the main screen is great for photography also. Some of the new minimap features are pretty cool too. Each viewer has its own set of features, so you do have to try each one, and see which set of features you like.

The one feature that has been getting a LOT of chatter recently is the new "effects" option. The actual name of it is "Enhanced physics on avatar breasts". My name for it? Jiggly Boobs.

I have been amazed at the chatter that this has caused. What is even more amazing to me is that the chatter is coming from the women, not the guys. I cannot tell you how many times after this feature was released that I would ask a friend what she was doing and the answer would be "standing here watching my boobs jiggle". Swear to god!

Anyway...I did not come here to talk about boobs. I will save that for another day...:)

Back to my quest for speed. I started with the main viewer as a benchmark. My FPS was around 2, but even more so, it was just taking FOREVER to rezz textures and especially sculpties.

I then moved on to the First Look, then Snowglobe. Slowglobe seemed to run a bit better, but my FPS was still around 3, and while it seemed a bit faster, was not significant.

Next was Imprudence, then Emerald. I will admit that I looked around at some of the other new features added, but since it was not my main goal, I did not spend too much time on them. I had to keep looking. Honestly I was getting a bit sad, because nothing seemed to be helping. I was beginning to think I was either just gonna have to bite the bullet on a new laptop, or minimum, try the video card upgrade I have read about on the web. Either way, it was gonna take some work.

I looked at one other viewer, called "Cool Viewer". The original one I downloaded did not seem to make that much difference. I decided to give up for the night, because I was just too depressed.

As I woke up the next morning, something flashed in my memory. I had seen something in my searches, or on plurk about another version of the Cool Viewer. I came back to my desk, and started my search.

It didn't take long to find it. Boy Lane had been working on a version of the Cool Viewer. There was a note in her blog about how there was a problem with older ATI cards that caused them to run slow. She had fixed it in her version. It was not the latest and greatest version out there, but at this point, I didn't care.

I downloaded her version, and I could not believe the difference! My frame rate was bouncing between 6 and 10 (which I know is still slow, but OMG!), but things were rezzing, sculpties were forming....and my typing was not delaying! I just about jizzed in my..um..I mean..I was VERY excited!

I played around quite a bit on it, going to busy sims, some with lots of sculpties, some just with a lot of people. I am sure compared to some of the newer laptops and desktops, I was still very slow, but on my system, Second Life had become completely usable again!

Now for the disclaimer. This version may not help you, with your particular issues. And it does not have all the new features that are coming out now in the Emerald and other viewers, but to be honest, while those features are nice, I would rather be fast.

I have seen this complaint over and over in discussion forums. People screaming at LL to fix the reliability and speed of Second Life, and don't spend so much time on the frivolous new features. I will make the same argument for my use of this version of Boy Lanes Cool Viewer. Speed trumps fancy features.

You can fine Boy Lanes version of the Cool Viewer here (http://my.opera.com/boylane/blog/).

Now, for my final comment. The fact that Boy Lane was able to find a way to fix a speed problem in the current drivers, makes me wonder how many other “issues” exist in the existing code that would speed the client up? I have a few ideas of areas that probably need some serious work, given the work that I have done on my system. I have looked into downloading all the source code to look around myself, but honestly, I have enough on my plate as it is. So I am not complaining at all about all the work that has been done on the viewer so far.

I just wonder, given all the complaints that people have about speed, if there is anybody out there who DOES have the skills, and the time to work on the viewer, to look into some things that might make the client faster for everybody?

I hope that there is. In the meantime, I would personally like to thank Boy Lane for all her work on the Cool Viewer. She has made my Second Life usable again, and for that, I bow at her feet!

Happy Sunday Everybody!

Love Thursday

2009-10-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

(Part 2 of Better, Stronger, Faster is still in the works, but given that it's Thursday, I felt this might be appropriate)

Son: Dad, what do women want?

Me: How much time do you have?

I have been dreading this day. I knew it would come, but I have been dreading it.

As a parent, it's my job to educate my boys on how to be sucessful in the real world. I have tried to be a good role model. Both his mother and I have done our best to model a healthy relationship (which we happen to have, so it does not take any effort to model it). As a father, I feel it is my job to help my boys be successful in matters of the heart as well, since I have, for the most part, been pretty darn successful.

But how do I answer this question?

It's a question that has been asked over and over, for time and memorial. What do women want. What do men want. And there are soo many different answers.

I have listened to what women have said they want. Then watched them go after, or become involved with exactly the opposite. I have also had women describe thier "perfect" guy. Most of which fit me pretty well at the time. Did they show any interest in me? No, not really. I was not sure how much help I was going to be!

The conversation continued while we walked the dogs...

Son: There is this girl. I like her a lot, but I don't know what to do to get her to notice me.

Me: What is it about this girl that you like?

Son: She is funny. She has a great smile. She is very smart, and talented (she is in chior and band)

Me: Well, there are things you can do to maybe get her to notice you. But most important: Do not change who you are to try and win her over. If she does not like you for who you are, then even if you are able to establish some sort of relationship, it will be a short one.

Son: I am not sure what you mean.

Me: You are going to meet lots of girls in your lifetime. Some you will be attracted to, some you won't. Some will be attracted to you, some won't. Through it all, if you remain true to who you are, then the right girl will find you, and it will be what was meant to be. But always remember, there will be girls that you fall for, that will not return your feelings. That is ok. It does not always work out.

Son: How will I know?

Me: Listen to your gut. Trust it. There will be times when she is just not into you. That does not mean you are not worthy. I just means it was not meant to be with her.

Son: But I really like her.

Me: I know. I have been there. You just have to trust that if it is suppose to happen, it will. It might not happen on a time table you want (like NOW), and it may never happen. But if you try and push it, or force it, trust me it will not work.

Son: *sighs. Ok, but she sure is cute.

Me: *laughs. I am sure she is.

(she is VERY cute actually. My son has good taste, just like his dad)

As I sat down at the computer later that night, I was struck by a memory. A memory of my youth, on how hard it was when the girl I liked didn't like me back. It was heart wrenching. It was painful. I hated it. I doubted myself. I asked myself all the typical questions: Why doesn't she like me? She seems to like Billy..what makes Billy better than me? I am a nicer person than Billy, so why would she like Billy more than me? yada yada yada.

Through all those times, the one thing that was always there was that I knew I was a nice person. I knew I was a good person. Obviously there was something about me, that didn't "click" with said girl, and I may never know what that was, but I could not find anything in myself, that would NOT be attractive (No, I am not perfect, but I do try..;) ). So I eventually chaulked it up to "she was just not into me".

I became a bit better at it as I grew older, and ended up meeting the woman of my dreams, getting married, having kids, the whole dream. But I had a few relationships before her, and there were times when I just did not understand what I was doing wrong.

But that conversation with my son brought back a lot of those youthful memories. Not all great memories, but memories just the same. Memories of times where I didn't want to believe that someone I had feelings for, did not return those feelings. It was very hard to accept. Eventually, I had to accept them, and I learned from it.

Not having someone return my feelings does not invalidate those feelings, nor does it mean that person that didn't return them is a bad person. As I told my son, she just "was not into me". Simple as that.

It sounds easy. It is not. But when it is the truth, then it is the truth. Let it go. Which again, easier said than done. Especially when you are young, and are dealing with all the raging hormones. The heart wants what the heart wants, even if it is not reciprocated.

I am glad my son talks to me about these things. I just hope I have had enough experience to help him through it.

I love being a dad, but there are times when I feel really stupid for losing the instruction manaul.

Happy Love Thursday everybody

Better, Stronger, Faster (Part 1)

2009-10-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Change is an interesting thing. Sometimes it happens quickly, other times it happens so slowly you do not really notice it. Then all of sudden you see it, and think.."when did THAT happen?".

I have had a few of those "When did that happen" moments recently, but I am only going to talk about one of them today.

A few weeks ago, I was popping around SL, shopping, playing with a few new vehicles I acquired, and just generally having a good time. I had been noticing things were taking longer to render, but had not really paid that much attention to it. Then I had my moment. When it took my new home over 20 minutes to render, I knew something was wrong.

So I started out on my quest to find the problem. I did all the things I have done in the past to get rid of lag problems. I cleared my cache. I checked all my drivers for updates. I made sure Windows had all its updates. I ran a full virus scan. I ran a full spyware scan. I made sure some other program had not snuck into my startup groups that might be running in the background. I did the works.

As you may have deduced, I have had a LOT of experience dealing with lag in SL. Not only from my side, but helping friends deal with thiers also. I am a research maniac, so when faced with a technical problem, I start digging, and don't stop until I am satisfied that there IS no solution, or I find it.

The quick end to this story, is that I am no longer lagging, in any significant way. But for those who are interested, I thought I would share what I did to get here.

As I said, I started by looking around my system, to see what needed to be updated. I learned many many...many...years ago, that before you dive into any sort of tech problem, always check for updated software. I cannot tell you how many times I spent hours, if not days trying to solve a problem, then I finally would call the company and hear "oh, we fixed that in version x.y". Always check for Windows and driver updates.

Virus scans. I happen to use AVG (http://free.grisoft.com) for my virus protection. I started using it with my clients many years ago, when Norton Antivirus finally became unusable for most people. AVG does a great job, and does not try and take over my computer. It is free for home/personal use, and updates on a daily basis.

Spyware: I use Spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org ). I load up the tea-timer option, which is resident. It monitors the parts of the system that programs like to sneak into so they can load each time Windows does. It can be a bit technical in its messages, but at least I know when something is trying to sneak in. Spybot is also free, but does not update automatically. I usually run a full scan about once every two week, after I manually update its signature files.

Auto loading: There are many programs that will tell you what is loading each time Windows loads up, but I just use msconfig. If I dont recognize a file that is loading, I just google it, and can usually find out what it is pretty darn fast. You can run msconfig by clicking on the "Start" button, then "run" and type in "msconfig" (without the "'s). The "startup" tab will show you all the programs that are loading on startup.

Combofix: This is an amazing little program. I was told about it by another IT friend, and it has saved my bacon a few times. It is able to remove stuff most antivirus's cannot. Download it from http://bleepingcomputer.com Exit all of your programs, then just run it. It will shut down most of the things running in the background, and scan for some very nasty stuff. It will reboot your system, so be prepared for that. Everybody should run this program. You can download it from http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

Free Space: Check your hard drive for free available space. If you click on "My Computer", you should see all your hard drives. Then go to the View Menu, and click on "details". It will show you the total size of your drive, and the free space. If you are under 1 gig, you may have a problem. If you can, try freeing up some space, or upgrade to a larger hard drive.

Defragmenting: I stopped doing this on a regular basis about 5 years ago. Starting in Windows XP, Microsoft built in a rudimentary defragger. Basically it means that Windows does some stuff that helps applications load faster after a few runs. But even given that, over time your files definitly become fragmented on the hard drive. This can cause a general slowdown of loading files, especially large files Ii.e. pictures, movies, graphics files, textures, etc). I started using a free defragger called "defraggler" a little while ago, and I really do like it (http://www.defraggler.com). One of the nice features it has is the ability to defrag only the free space, or even just a file or a folder. I have defragged just the SL cache folder, and I do notice a difference on things loading.

Memory: Memory is like money: You can never have too much. If you computer is low on memory, then it is working VERY hard to do all the things you are asking of it. Quickest way to check: Right mouseclick on "My Computer" (either on the desktop, or in the start menu), and then click "properties". The tabbed box that comes up should be defaulted onto the "General" Tab. At the bottom of that window, it should tell you all sorts of techie info, including how much RAM you have. If you have less then 1 gig, you are really pushing things. The cheapest thing you can do to upgrade your computer is to put in the maximum amount of RAM that your system can handle. You will be amazed at how much faster things run when you have enough RAM.

Graphics/Video Cards: If you are running a Desktop computer, this can be another fairly inexpensive upgrade to your system (If you are on a laptop, you are most likely stuck with what you have, sorry). Many systems come with "built-in" graphics, usually an "Intel" graphics chip. These are usually very basic, and while they do work, they are about as slow as you can get. If you are going to look for an upgrade, you first have to know what type of card your system will take, which can get somewhat technical (i.e. PCI slot, PCI-Express Slot, AGI, etc). What I can tell you is that the more ram you get on the video card, the better. Also, you do not need to spend more than maybe $150 US Dollars for a card that will be MORE than enough for almost everybody (Graphic designers, engineers, animators are the exceptions). I have purchased some very nice video cards with 512 megs of ram for around $80.

More on Graphics: There are two major Video Card Manufacturers out there. ATI and Nvidia. I have used both brands, and while each have thier issues at times, both run very well. I have used ATI cards longer than Nvidia has been around, but I have had lots of experience with the NVidia's also and have not been disappointed. It's hard for me to tell you exactly which one to get, because if you have every tried to compare these brands, its enough to drive you to drink with all the chipsets and model numbers etc. I tend to look at the memory, and the price. I have not been disappointed yet.

Second Life: This is where it gets interesting. This will be part 2. Stay tuned

Today's Beauty Treatment

2009-10-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

HEALING HATRED
By His Holiness the Dalai Lama

"The destructive effects of hatred are very visible, very obvious and immediate. For example, when a strong or forceful thought of hatred arises, at that very instant it overwhelms one totally and destroys one's peace and presence of mind. When that hateful thought is harboured inside, it makes one feel tense and uptight, and can cause loss of appetite, leading to loss of sleep, and so forth.

If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations. If in that instant we examine carefully the way anger arises, there is a sense that it comes as a protector, comes as a friend that would help our battle or in taking revenge against the person who has inflicted harm on us. So the anger or hateful thought that arises appears to come as a shield or a protector. But in reality that is an illusion. It is a very delusory state of mind.

Chandrakirti states in Entry into the Middle Way that there might be some justification for responding to force with force if revenge would help one in any way, or prevent or reduce the harm which has already been inflicted. But that is not the case because if the harm, the physics. injury or whatever, has been inflicted, it has already taken place. So taking revenge will not in any way reduce or prevent that harm or injury because it has already happened.

On the contrary, if one reacts to a situation in a negative way instead of in a tolerant way, not only is there no immediate benefit, but also a negative attitude and feeling is created which is the seed of one's future downfall. From the Buddhist point of view, the consequence of taking revenge has to be faced by the individual alone in his or he future life. So not only is there no immediate benefit, it is harmful in the long run for the individual.

However, if one has been treated very unfairly and if the situation is left unaddressed, it may have extremely negative consequences for the perpetrator of the crime. Such a situation calls for a strong counteraction. Under such circumstances, it is possible that one can, out of compassion for the perpetrator of the crime and without generating anger or hatred, actually take a strong stand and take strong countermeasures. In fact, one of the precepts of the Bodhisattva vows is to take strong countermeasures when the situation calls for it. If a Bodhisattva doesn't take strong countermeasures when the situation requires, then that constitutes an infraction of one of the vows.

In addition, as the Entry into the Middle Way points out, not only does the generation of hateful thoughts lead to undesirable forms of existence in future lives, but also, at the moment that strong feelings of anger arise, no matter how hard one tries to adopt a dignified pose, one's face looks rather ugly. There is an unpleasant expression, and the vibration that the person sends is very hostile. People can sense it, and it is almost as if one can feel steam coming out of that person's body. Indeed not only are human beings capable of sensing it, but pets and other animals also try to avoid that person at that instant.
If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations.

These are the immediate consequences of hatred. It brings about a very ugly, unpleasant physical transformation of the individual. In addition, when such intense anger and hatred arise, it makes the best part of our brain, which is the ability to judge between right and wrong and assess long-term and short-term consequences, become totally inoperable. It can no longer function. It is almost as if the person had become crazy. These are the negative effects of generating anger and hatred. When we think about these negative and destructive effects of anger and hatred, we realise that it is necessary to distance ourselves from such emotional explosions. Insofar as the destructive effects of anger and hateful thoughts are concerned, one cannot get protection from wealth; even if one is a millionaire, one is subject to these destructive effects of anger and hatred. Nor can education guarantee that one will be protected from these effects. Similarly, the law cannot guarantee protection. Even nuclear weapons, no matter how sophisticated the defence system may be, cannot give one protection or defend one from these effects. The only factor that can give refuge or protection from the destructive effects of anger and hatred is the practice of tolerance and patience."

The Dalai Lama from Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective:

Beauty is not just how you look, but how you feel, and how you think.

Tell your beautiful friends how much they mean to you today!

Have a BEAUTIFUL Wednesday!

Endless Summer

2009-10-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

As I blogged about a little while ago, I have been making lots of changes to my Second Life. Some were not voluntary, but most of them are and I have been having a ball with them!

I decided that not only did I need a new place, but also that summer shall never end in my world. I don't care what the calendar says, SUMMER shall reign in my world!

So with that in mind, I started shopping for a tropical island that I could hide from the reality of winter on. Funny thing is, it did not take me long to find the PERFECT spot.

I found myself a tropical island that is surrounded by water (I know, an island by definition is surrounded by water so shush), and has TONS of open space and water to play with some new toys I have indulged in (there will be a blog post on those later).

So with the land aquired, I needed a new dwelling! This SIM has some specific covenants in keeping with the tropical theme, so I had to really look around.

As I have said before, when I am shopping for something, I usually do not have a specific "thing" in mind, but I do know when I have found exactly what I am looking for!

As with the land, my search really did not take that long. I found exactly what I wanted, at a place I had never heard of before.

This is what I found (click for larger view).

It's called the MAALAEA from Tiki Tattoo, created by Hatzfeld Runo.

There were several homes that I just loved, but given the size of my island, I felt that this particular model suited it best.

It comes furnished with all the furniture you see in the following pictures. Hatzfeld has done a wonderful job with the built in animations also!

Here are a few more shots of my new home (click on each picture for a larger view).

Tiki Tattoo also has a ton of great beach/tiki related stuff. I will be going back to round out my beach front here shortly.

You definitly should swing by and take a look at what Hatzfeld has put together, you will not be disappointed!

Surfs Up!

NO means...what?

2009-09-13T13:05:00.000-07:00

Another typical Sunday at the Zanzibar household. I am working with my boys on our weekly clean the house chores. As I am moving kid stuff from the living room (which the boys think is thier closet) to thier rooms, my eye catches something in my youngest sons pile of paper work.

A sticker that read "No Violence is GREAT!"

One the surface this seems perfectly fine, even good. But something came to my mind that made me think of the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

The intention of this little sticker is wonderful. Nobody condones violence. But here is my thoughts on the matter.

I have done a LOT of reading and personal reflection on how our minds work. How we process information, how we establish habits and all that fun stuff. There is one thing that I have read over and over again from many different sources. Our subconscious minds do not understand negatives.

What does that mean? It means that to our subconscious minds, the phrase "No Violence is GREAT!" actually translates into "Violence is GREAT!" Talk about unintended consequences!

This concept, btw, extends into many realms of our everyday lives. Many people work from the position of "Don't do this" or "Don't do that". I like to work from a position of "here is what you CAN do!". I try and deal with my boys that way also. I do point out things that they should not do, and why, but I always alway try and point out what the CAN do! It would seem to me that a life centered around "CAN" is much better than a life centered around "can't".

If you are involved in any sort of compaign, or think you might be in the future, think about this. Instead of telling people what they "shouldn't" do, try and find a way to convey your message in a way that is about what they "should" do.

I think the Beatles stated it in the simplest terms. Instead of "No H8t", maybe it really is "All you need is LOVE".

Happy Sunday Everybody!

It was a typical morning...

2009-09-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

...in the Zanzibar household. The children were puttering around the house, my wife was puttering around the kitchen.

We had just finished breakfast, and I had finished gathering up all the little things that they needed to take with them for that day.

I remember standing in my bedroom, reviewing my list in my head. I was in good shape. I was a bit ahead off my usual routine.

As happens so many times in my life, a thought appeared in my head that was a bit out of the normal. Nothing dramatic, just "Everything is all set to go, and I am early. Let's see what is on the news this morning".

I turned on the television. There on my screen, was an image of the World Trade Center. One of the towers looked like it was on fire. Tickers were running across the bottom of the screen, but I did not understand what it was I was looking at.

Then, as I was trying to make out what as going on, the camera on the TV moved focus, locking on to a airliner. I didn't understand why this was significant, so I watched.

I just watched as that airliner flew straight into the second tower.

Stunned is the only word I can think of to describe what I felt at that moment. Questions running through my head..What just happened? Why did that airliner just do that? and a thousand other questions.

I called my wife into the room, and told her what I just witnessed. She looked at the TV, then looked back at me with wide eyes, and I saw all the questions that she had run through her face.

From that point on, I was just numb. I was working at home full time at that time, so I spent the day keeping the TV on, listening to all the reports coming in. I felt like a zombie, just walking around, not really doing much, just trying to process all that I was seeing and hearing.

It is easy to say that day had a profound affect on me. I think that is a given.

You read about days like that day in history books, but there is something different about actually experiencing it, in each of our own personal ways.

I did not have anybody in my immediate family, or immediate circle of friends, that were killed on that day. But in my own way, I consider everybody as part of my extended family. I try and treat all that I meet and know, as if they were part of that extended family. So I did lose people that day, even though I had no idea who they were.

Did the events of that day change my life significantly? I don't think so. It may have clarified a few things, but my life is not significantly different now as it was on September 10th, 2001.

And for that, I would like to send out a monstrous thank you, to all the men and women who serve in our military.

Whether you think the actions overseas are warranted or not, it is THESE people, these VOLUNTEERS, that protect my way of life, and your way of life.

They literally "put their lives on the line" every day, so that we may have our "morning routines" and our "family traditions".

If you know someone who is currently serving, or has served in the military, please..today...Tell them that Aldwyn Zanzibar says "Thank you".

If YOU have served, or are serving...

THANK YOU!

May all of your sacrifices, not be made in vain.

I'm a Big Boy now!

2009-09-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

I know it's silly...but up until recently, I rarely shopped for myself in SL. I should clarify that: for my avatar.

Every since I started in SL, I have had help, usually from people I cared about, and felt had a good sense of fashion. Plus I liked hearing a womans point of view.

But recently, I have been striking out on my own more and more. I have always had a "style", and there are just some things I will NOT wear, RL or SL. So even though I would not be able to DESCRIBE my "style", it is one of those "when I see it, I will know" kinda things.

I have had so many changes going on in my life recently that I felt the need to change my "look". Now, before I continue I should tell you, that I don't change my look easily. I get my avatar looking the way I want and I stick with it, because it takes a LOT of time and effort to find a complete look that I can live with, and actually like. So for me to change, it is a BIG deal.

So as I said, I have been "shopping" around. Looking at hair, skin, tattoos, etc. As most of you already know, the selection for men is not nearly as vast as the selections for women, which is fine because men just don't shop for different "looks" as much as women do (unless it's for a party or event or some special thing).

I actually like to shop, but shopping for my own avatar can get frustrating. I really made an effort to not let it get to me this time. I was patient, and kept at it until I found stuff I liked. I admit, I did ask for some help, but only on generalities, such as asking for LM's for tattoo shops and such. Everything that I changed, I picked out all by myself.

So, after all of that, here is what I ended up with: (Click for larger view)

After I put all this together, I decided to "double check" my work. (which is what I tell my children to do all the time). So I asked a few friends what they thought of my new look.

Here is what they said.

Ana Lutetia

Ana: I don't think you have done such a bad job. Your new look makes you look more mature. However (and this is purely a question of personal taste), I vote for 3 day beard skin and, even though I love tattoos, I prefer to see them beneath a shirt, a tee, tank or even a open shirt.

Al: Thanks Ana! Maybe next time I will take you with me..:)

Arcadia Nightfire

Arcadia: Wow. You know what I love most about your look? Your muscular but not in that overdone boxy way that we see so much of in SL. You look much more naturally muscular and toned. This is a shape begging to be photographed. ;)

Arcadia: Also, I must admit that I'm not generally a fan of facial hair but it works on your av. It definitely lends a bit of mystery and sex appeal to your look.

Al: I have been looking for a skin that had a good beard, and I was thrilled with I found this one. Thank you!

Clementine Ishtari

Clemintine: The new look is yummy! I <3 the facial hair, although I'm not usually a facial hair type of girl, but it works for you. You look different from most of the other male avs running around SL who all tend to look the same. Nice shape, not too bulky (cause we all know what too many muscles on a male avatar means) but not too scrawny. Over all? Great new look (tats.. nummy) with just enough uniqueness to make it your own. Three nipples, erm, thumbs up! :P

Al: Awww, thanks Clem! *checks to make sure HE does not have a third nipple

Luna Jubilee

Luna: I'm not one for beating around the bush... you, Al, are a fine hunk of pixelated man meat. The new you is not too shabby. Not that were hard on the eyes before ... but your change is for the better. I'm proud of you for going before so many of us for our thoughts and feedback. Not many can do that willingly ... unless you upt your dumbness. Regardless you're still Al! Luv ya! Great job on the make over :)

Al: Awww..thanks Luna!..I think (unsure)

Magen Jigsaw

Magen: The shape fits well with the skin, and hair. The tattoos are subtle and not too overpowering. Good build on the shape. All around good put together.

Al: :)...thanks! *goes back to SL situps

Risa Bright

Risa: Aldwyn's new look is a twist on the classically- rugged sort of handsomeness. The artistic tattoos are so intricately nuanced that they add an aesthetic sensibility. His new hair has the look of a precision cut that has grown out and now has a casual elegance. It is the new amped-up Aldwyn!

Al: That is quite an answer..Thanks Risa!

Rylan Carling

Rylan: "One of the sexiest men in SL...even after he went shopping alone! How many girls hit on you again while you were out shopping?"

Al: Oh..stop that...some more...;)

Strawberry Singh

Strawberry: I think you look cute, I'm not always a big fan of facial hair on men but it makes you look more manly and rugged. The tattoo is very nice, I like the faded colors and of course I love the jeans! :D Good job...you get a cookie! :P

Al: COOKIE! *nom nom nom. I love the jeans too! I have like 3 or 4 colors. Thanks Berry! *hugs

Given that I know that these women always look absolutly fantastic, I figured I better save myself a ton of questions about what they happen to be wearing, so here are the details.

Ana Lutetia is wearing...

.skin. *League* Skin Suntan -Misty- Emo (BT)
.eyes. :: Exodi :: Vetro Eyes (Grey)(Lg)(NoVeins)
.lashes. *Sin Skins* Fluff Lashes
.hair. fri. - Tabs - Jealous Red
.top. fri. - Boyfriend Beater (Gray) - Top | fri. - Henley Hoodie (Black)
.bottom. *League* Garage Jeans - Straight Leg Fit - Turquoise
.accessories. *No Mercy* Face Piercings | Zaara : Indra painted stacked bangles *silver* | Zaara : Sarayi hoops *color* silver | Reek - I Heart Colors Belt
.shoes. [0N] Engineer Boots Black
.poses. -AnaLu- *fresh poses* | Tillie’s Posing Stand

You can read Ana's blog here, and check out her awesome poses at her shop Here!

Arcadia Nightfire is wearing...

Skin: ::Exodi:: - Shiloh (Honey), Nosferatu
Eyes: ::Exodi:: - Zbilja Eyes, Blue
Hair: Argrace - Fedora Hat Glamourous Wavy, Amber
Manicure: Sin Skins - Glitter Manicure, Crimson
Shirt: Alphamale - Femme, Black
Skirt: Kyoot Army - Scarlet Mobstress Skirt, High Waisted
Corset: Kyoot Army - Austere Corset, Scarlet Stripes
Stockings: Reasonable Desires, Miss Kitty Burlesque Seamed Stockings (part of costume)
Shoes: Pixel Mode - AF Danger, Black (Laced)
Jewelry: Inks & Kinks - Diamond Nostril Stud
Balderdash - Jazz Funeral Merlot Set
Callie Cline - The Rock **Blogger Appreciation Gift**

You can read Arcadia's Fashion 360 blog Here

Clementine Ishtari is wearing...

Skin - *League* Skin Suntan -Misty- Bronzed
Hair - >TRUTH< Meara
Eyes - :: Exodi :: Zbilja Eyes
Eyelashes - Silhouette Lashes: BUTTERFLY
Jacket - **en Svale** Denim Jacket_Indigo
Sweater - Maitreya Savoir Turtleneck Top
Skirt - Maitreya Cleo Jeans Skirt
Boots - Jaywalk: Melisande
Belt - Maitreya Coin Belt

Clemintine has two blogs, which can be read Here and Here

Luna Jubilee is wearing....

hair: Magika Hair - Poof - Blonde A
eyes: CHAI Eyes +Allure+ [BLUE 1]
lashes: MADesigns EYELASHES ~ Diva
skin: LAQ ~ Carina 01 [Fair] Glow skin
jeans: **MIS** EveryDay Jeans - dark wash1
undershirt: [Pink] Di Tube Top (undershirt) - pearl
shirt: [Pink] Poppy Sheer Chiffon Blouse (GIFT) - light green
shoes: Maitreya Gold - IXkin Sienna
ring: ~flirt~ Pizazz Ring :: PLAT/DIA
bracelet: ZC : Sadaf shell bracelet *silver* (hand attach) R
pose: .:StoRin:. P11 Waiting
props: m.fox & Trompe L'oeil

Luna has a couple of blogs that you can find here and here. How she finds time for both when she spends sooo much time hassling me, I will never know!

Magen Jigsaw is wearing...

Hair Fri.Day-Deena
Eyes: Poetic Colors- Jungle
Top- ::EmJay::- Teal Off the shoulder top
Jeans- ::EmJay:: Super Dark Ripped Capris
Shoes- SoReals- Brown and Sky

Mags has a great little shop located Here. You should really check it out!

Risa Bright is wearing...

Skin: Laqroki Jessica 03 / Nougat
Hair: Analog Dog.... Lua in Cafe
Eyes: MADesigns: Soul Eyes Blue 5
Nail color: (Kunglers) Nail Polish - green
Skirt: LBD Nell Skirt/ turquoise
Top: Fashion Nomads Couture / "Noir" Underlayer
Boots: BAX Prestige Boots /Black with accent color customized to skirt
Stockings: Sheer Opaque Black
Bracelets: *al* Kiana Silks- Depth Bracelets (color customized to skirt)
Rings: Bandit Jewelers Lady Yellow Gold Combo

Risa does a ton of things in SL, so many that I can not even begin to list them, but I do know it centers around Kmadd mostly.

Rylan Carling is wearing...

Skirt: Nyte'N'Day - Vestige Skirt Spherule SD􀀂
Top:~*RunoRuno!~Hyperkinetic Dress Black􀀁
Jacket:.:Malt:. Fashions - SE Antique Gold Suede Jacket
Hair: TRUTH: Veronica - Black
Rings: Left - P.C; Times Squre Ring - Kyanite - Dark Blue
Right - PD Gemmed Kitty Ring
Boots: BAX Prestige Boots Black Leather

Rylan has a great blog here. You really need to have her on your "must read" list. :)

Strawberry Singh is wearing...

Skin: :: DUTCH TOUCH :: ::CleO:: Olive - Smokey w/freckles by Iki Ikarus
Eyes: Poetic Color Eyes - quicksilver medium by Lano Ling
Eyelashes: Cake - Bedroom Lashes by Stumbelina Ophelia
Hair: (Dernier Cri) Ella - Brown Shades by Asuka Martin
Top: ::EmJay:: Boyfriend Tank- Pink by Magen Jigsaw
Pants: -WMD-"Ronin" Hara Jeans Low Rise Ripped by Maruko Sakigake
Shoes: PornStar Hi-Tops MultiColor v2 by Coke Dreadlow
Bag: **Slanted Fox** Yummy Tote - Strawberry-Vanilla by Riki Yifu
Bangles: Zaara : Indra painted stacked bangles by Zaara Kohime
Necklace: by Zaara Kohime (coming soon)
Pose: Long Awkward Pose by Dove Swanson
Location: Zaara sim

You can read Strawberry's blog Here

She also manages, or something along those lines, over at {Zaara}, which really has some amazing clothes. Find them Here

I suppose since everybody else did, I should spill what I am wearing...

Skin: -Belleza- Jonas SK 6 (bald)
Eyes: Poetic Color Eyes - Ocean/Seaweed by Lano Ling
Shape: RAFAEL by .::MADDesigns:: version 2 (with a bit of custom work by me)
Hair: *ARGRACE* ~ Modern rail ~ (Black)
Tattoo: addiXion - VENOMOUS inkREAL
Pants: Zaara Classic Jeans for men *sky)
Shoes: you cannot see them, but [hoorenbeek] Patagonia Boots- Used Brown

How did this end up being a fashion blog entry? *shakes his head

(a HUGE thank you to all you ladies! You all ROCK!)

I know, I know

2009-08-31T16:49:00.000-07:00

I have not been writing much lately. Even though I have been incredibly busy, I really miss writing, for many reasons.

I have had experiences and thoughts that I have been working through, and I might write about them, I might not. I might write about them, but never actually publish what I write, because honestly, nobody really cares about my little life, and nobody should, because it is MY life, and quite honestly, it is not that interesting.

I also have lots of neat items that I have either been given, or found in SL that I want to write about. I just have been a bit overwhelmed lately, but either I am just getting better at dealing with it all, or things are starting to settle down. Not sure which yet.

BUT.....

There is something that has been on my mind recently.

I have had this "concept" in my head for quite a while, something that I have observed in people for many many years, but have not really been able to crystallize down.

Many years ago, I worked for a software company. We had our engineering dept at one end of the building, and it was off limits to all personnel except the engineers. Pretty standard stuff.

One day, one of our new hires (not in engineering) came in, and told me that he could not work for us anymore. When I asked him why, he said that it was because it was obvious that we were doing illegal things in the "engineering dept" because otherwise why would nobody be allowed back there.

I just stared at him. I told him that if that was the way he felt, then he was making the right decision.

Just for disclosure, there was nothing illegal going on in there, just the development of a cutting edge software application. Since nobody had done what we were doing, it was important to keep it secure. It was that simple.

What made it even more interesting was I actually saw that persons name in the paper about 3 months later, for being arrested for fraud. Something about credit card numbers or something.

That experience kinda stuck with me. Not sure why, but it always stayed with me. Over time, I began to see an interesting pattern in people.

I have had many more experiences where somebody accused somebody I know of something that was totally off base, only later to find out that the person doing the accusing was actually doing the exact thing that they were accusing my friend of.

I have been trying to understand this phenomenon. Some people call it misdirection. A person is trying to deflect attention away from their own sins, by accusing other people of the same sins.

I think I have finally found a more appropriate description of it. It's called Psychological projection.

Psychological projection

Now obviously this is not 100%, but I have seen it so often in RL, and more and more in SL, where people accuse others of certain sins out of anger, or insecurity. Then come to find out, usually with proof behind it, that the accuser is either actually the guilty one, or at least just as guilty as the person they are accusing.

This is not to say that victims should not be taken seriously. I don't mean that at all. What I am saying is that there are many times, when the accuser needs to be looked at just as closely.

I really wonder, how much of this is happening out there. How much of this affects how people view the world. I know from my own RL, that my sister views the world as a crime ridden cesspool, because her husband is a police officer, and that is what she hears about all the time.

How much of our worldview, is solely based on how we view ourselves, and project outward, to maybe make ourselves feel normal?

Something for me to think about on my way home tonight. I have been told it's Taco night...so I will try not to think TOO much about it..:)

Investing...

2009-08-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

I had never really considered myself an "investor" before. I had an image of a banker type, or someone with money to spare that would start to use that extra cash to invent in things. I never thought I was in any of those categories.

Recently it has become clear to me that I AM an investor. I would even argue that every single one of us are investors.

What do I mean by this? We invest in things every day. We invest time, energy, money, even ourselves into many different things in our lives.
We invest in ourselves (education), other people (partners, kids, friends), even causes (political, social).

If you have even done any reading on investing (which usually centers around the stock market), there is a theme that seems to carry through just about any book on the subject. One of the major rules of investing: Do not get emotionally involved in your investment.

Now while this is very good advise when dealing with the stock market, it is a bit different when you are investing in yourself, another person, your family, etc. It's almost impossible to NOT get emotionally invested when a family member is spirally down into a pit (of which there are many). You put your time, energy, and even money into that investment, many many times, with little hope for a return (the return of that family member to something better).

But we do get emotionally invested in many of these things. We pour our heart and soul into many of these "investments". We see it everyday, people getting married, starting a business, having children, finding a cause that excites us, etc. We devote ourselves to what ever it is, for us, at that time.

Then, something happens. A relationship changes, a business starts to crumble (or never really takes off), a family member moves down a wrong path, or a million other things. Many times, the signs are pretty clear. Heck, sometimes the signs can be screaming in your face, but we don't listen...we have too much invested to walk away. This is a crucial point. This is when things become almost dangerous.

When a decision is made to ride out a bad investment because "I have too much invested in this already" or "I know it will turn around, I just have to be patient", the potential for disaster really starts to grow. Decisions are made not on facts, history, trends, etc, they are made solely on wants, needs and fear. When decisions are based solely on wants, needs, and fear, the potential for gimongous (Yes, I said gimongous) disastrous events grows exponentially.

It doesn't always have to be a gimongous (I plan on using this word a lot, so get used to it) crash, but the potential is there. I have seen it happen around me, and to me quite a bit recently. I have seen RL businesses fail, RL families torn apart, SL relationship go nuclear, all because an investment went bad, and all the signs that were screaming out were ignored, or thought temporary.

Does this mean that we should not be emotionally involved in our investments? Not at all! Many investments actually require emotional involvement. I think we need to try and RECOGNIZE when our investment decisions are based purely on emotions, and when we are ignoring other facts, to our eventual detriment. Maybe we need to ask ourselves some harsh questions more often.

Maybe we need to remove the emotion from an investment, just for a few moments, to see what it looks like without it. Is this even possible? I honestly don't know. I do know, that after an investment has gone completely out, and you THEN look back, it's easy to see where it changed, where certain things SHOULD have been done, or a change in strategy MIGHT have actually lessened the loss, but wasn't done because of the "emotional" investment involved.

I do believe that any "investment" can be analysed from a purely unemotional viewpoint. Should all investment decisions be made this way? I don't think so, but I do think that it can be a healthy and productive part of any investment strategy. This seemingly simple step, might help keep your investment from causing harm, to you and those around you.

So there it is. I am an investor. You are an investor. You just don't know it yet.

Am I a good investor? Probably not yet. But recognizing something..is the first step.

The Big Bad Blogger Challenge!

2009-06-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

So my good friend Alicia Chenaux came up with the Big Bad Blogger Challenge. I usually don't do blogger challenges for several reasons.

1. I don't really consider myself a "Blogger". I just play with toys and talk about them.

2. I usually don't have time to do them.

3. They are usually about girlie stuff, to which I usually dont have much to contribute to.

This particular challenge runs over several days, and I have seen several great entries for them. Again, I just have not had the time to keep up.

But today..for some reason, I got it into my head to do one of the themes: If there was someone you could trade places with for one day in Second Life, who would it be and why?

So here goes.

I would like to trade places with Truth Hawks for 1 whole day. Why? Let me 'splain.

1. It would be interesting to see what it would feel like to actually have talent!

2. I might get a sneak peak at his next work of amazing..and hold it over my friends heads for a little bit.

3. I might be able to influence him to make more GUY hair!

4. I would have is Avatar eat more...he is a SKINNY little dude!

5. I would upgrade his dances ...so I dont have to keep adding him to my Huddles

6. Being Truth for a day, would give me a break from my stalker.

So, as I log in as Truth, I weed through ALL the messages he gets, I scan the "in process" folders for unreleased stuff, then start to peruse down his friends list. That is when I see it! My stalker...IS ON HIS LIST TOO! *facepalms

Damn..well, 5 out of 6 ain't bad!

*thanks to Truth for indulging me with this little lark AND...thanks to the Amazing Rylan, for not only thinking I am crazy...but for helping me with the pic when I was getting frustrated!

So it's only "a game"...

2009-06-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

I my previous post, I laid out 3 "types" of people that inhabit the world of Second Life. In the third type, I referred the the phrase "It's only a game". I have heard this phrase used about Second Life many times, and it always confused me a bit, mostly because I don't consider it "Just a game". Tonight, I had a small epiphany.

A game is a game. Poker, Chess, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, Nascar, Barrel Rolling, Downhill Shovel Racing, and even Politics are all games. Some games have higher stakes than others, but when it gets right down to it, its ALL, "just a game". The difference is how much energy each player puts into whatever "game" they are playing. Heck, people make entire lives out of "games". Careers are created, maintained, and die, playing "games". People are born, live, and die..in games. It has been said, that all the world...is a game. (Actually, I believe it was "All the world is a stage", but you get what I mean..:) )

So when somebody says Second Life "is just a game", I think they really don't understand. Of COURSE it's a game. But EVERYTHING is a game.

So, here is something I want you to really think about.

Maybe it really IS not whether you win or lose...but HOW....you PLAY...."The Game"!

*smiles, and slowly turns, heading back to his favorite spot for some more playtime

Avatars are avatars..

2009-06-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

(sung to the tune of People are People by Depeche Mode)

I have been thinking a lot about Avatars in Second Life recently. Just doing a bit of introspective study of myself and others. I don't know if its just me, or human nature to try and categorize things, but I think I have come up with something.

There is always something dramatic happening around in Second Life. It either starts in Plurk and spills over onto the Grid, or visa versa. It's usually about something that somebody did, or said, or didn't say, etc etc etc. All this Avatar interaction, which is really just an extention of human interaction, is really just different types of people...misunderstanding each other in my humble opinion.

It seems to me, that there are 3 basic types of Avatars (and the people behind them) that are in Second Life.

Type 1. The very serious Avatar

This Avatar takes everything very seriously in Second Life. As serious as they take their Real Lives I would hope, but there is nothing funny, or light hearted about this Avatar at all. Everything these Avatars do and say are done and said with complete seriousness, just as if there were interacting with you in Real Life.

Type 2. The occasional serious but usually light hearted Avatar.

This Avatar takes some things very seriously in Second Life, but also knows that much of it is just for fun. Each Avatar in this catagory has some things they take seriously in Second Life. What does this Avatar take seriously? It could be anything really, but there is something or things they they take very seriously in Second Life, while the rest of it is all for fun, or just ignored.

Type 3. The complete lack of seriousness Avatar.

This Avatar is only interested in fun. Nothing about Second Life is taken seriously at all. They travel within the world of Second Life, and do anything they please, without any regard to anything really. These people can be griefers, although not all of them are. These Avatars can be judgemental, but always cover it by saying "oh, its all in fun". This Type of Avatar will usually move around the Grid in a group. Sometimes you hear them in voice, laughing at what they see, or hear. They may do different Role Plays, try different things out, but all of it is just "playing in the moment". After all, Second Life is "just a game".

(Each one of these "Types" have subcatagories, some of which are way to numerous to list. This is just a simple comparison list for pete's sake! :) )

The above catagories are not judgements, but an an attempt to illustrate a point. It would seem to me that where most of the problems that occur with Avatar interactions is when you get incompatible types of Avatars together. If you put a Type 1 Avatar together with a Type 3, I would predict that they would not get along well. Maybe for a short time...but eventually it will fall apart, usuallly involving drama of some sort. I have even seen two Type 2's have issues, because what each one took seriously was not the same thing.

Maybe the trick is to really identify what Type you are, and surround yourself with like Types?

It does remind me of the E-Harmony commercials you see on TV or hear on the radio. 39 levels of compatibility testing (or something like that) to find your perfect match, or your money back...yada yada yada.

Maybe once Linden Labs is finished moving all the "adult" stuff into a lock box (um...I mean..the ZINDRA SIM), they can come up with a way to indentify your "Type" of avatar, and then they can customize your Second Life experience THAT way too. Just a thought.

So I guess the next question is...what Type are you?

*runs

Time for a RANT! ...and a Game! (NSFW!)

2009-05-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Universe is full of opposition. Plus and minus, good and evil, coke and 7-up, etc etc etc. The universe is also full of things that are neutral. Because we humans are emotional creatures, we often times attach emotional value to "things", but in reality, they are just things.

Second Life is a "thing". It does things, allows things to happen. It's an enabler, a catalyst. I would say Second Life is like money. When you have either (or both, hopefully), you have "opportunities".

It is said that your "character" is defined by what you do when nobody is looking. Second Life is a HUGE character mill, because essentially, nobody is looking (from the outside that is). So, how do you treat people...and yourself...when nobody is looking?

Griefers are easy to define. Somebody who is unhappy, who goes out of their way, spends time and effort to make sure nobody else is happy. I get that. They are honest about it. I respect that.

What I am having trouble with recently is this. People who pretend to be happy. They pretend to be your friend, or lover, or business partner, etc. They manipulate you to where they want you, then they drop the hammer on you. They ask you to do things that you would not normally do, just for thier own entertainment purposes. Or they literally rob you, whether it be of Lindens, your friends, your business, or something else that you have placed value on.

I understand Roleplay. But in roleplay, all parties involved understand the rules, and have signed onto it. The above, is not roleplay.

I understand the desire to be social. We are social creatures. I honestly believe we are not designed to be alone. But I also do not believe we are designed to be with just ANYBODY. When we decide that anybody is better than nobody, we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. We allow people to manipulate us, or we end up manipulating someone else, because we don't want to be "alone".

What does that say about us? What is it about ourselves, that we do not like? Why can we not stand to be by ourselves?

For me, if I cannot stand to be by myself, why would anybody else want to be with me? It would seem logical that in order for people to want to be around me, I should be someone that someone would WANT to be around? How would being an ass, or a jerk, or just someone who is not pleasant, draw people into my life?

I know there are people who "pretend" to be happy, easy going, and fun. I give them credit for trying, but I feel sad for those who cannot seem to make it true in all parts of thier lives. I wonder how much these people are waiting for someone to "make" them happy.

I do not expect someone to "make" me happy. I "am" happy. I have people that enhance that happiness, every day. I want these people in my life, I let them know how much they mean to me, as often as possible.

I also have people that I wish were happy. I love them, and I pray for them everyday. I pray that they will wake up one day, and realize that its up to "them" to be as happy as they can be. I pray that they will have that "aha" moment, and truly become happy. Some have been there before, and lost it, others, are just looking. I think about these people everyday, to help the universe direct the right energy to them.

I rarely get mad. There are few things in life, that really piss me off. One of these things is, however, when someone treats someone I care about, wrong. I don't know if its my protective nature (I am a Leo) or what....but I get REALLY angry, when someone treats another human being, with such a lack of basic respect, that it makes that you wonder what type of person they really are.

There is something to be said for the anonymity of Second Life that is freeing. I have known, and know, several people that have had VERY positive life changing things happen to them because of Second Life. I also know people, that seem to think that Second Life gives them a license to just be the biggest ass they can, for reasons I cannot understand. It would seem to me, that given the freedom of Second Life to be ANYTHING you want...why would you be something you are not proud of...in any world?

We have the ability to choose the type of person we want to be, in both worlds. Second Life is a perfect opportunity to test out a new outlook, maybe even a new life...to see how it works, before moving these new ideas into the real world. I see soo many people just wasting this fabulous opportunity, it really makes me sad.

The point of all this? Outside of this being a way from me to vent my frustration and anger, I hope that the idea I put forth, will spark something in somebody...to wake up, and really begin to think about what you have gotten yourself into, and at what expense. Is it really worth it?

Ok...rant over.

And now..for a brand new thing I am starting. I have been having SOOOO much fun recently, I want to give a bit back.

But before I do, let me say this. The people that have come into my Second Life, some recently, some not so recent, have been so amazingly nice, and make me laugh so hard, every single day. I cannot thank them enough, for just being them, and for letting me be part of THEIR lives.

So, here is my new little game, or contest if you will.

Its called, Name those Bewbs!

I will post a picture of a pair of bewbs on my blog, and on plurk. I will collect the names of the people who make a guess at the owner of the bewbs in question. At the end of 2 days, the actual owner, will pick a name out of the list of people who submitted a guess, and that person will get a $1,000 linden gift card, or its equivalent, to thier favorite store in SL.

The actual owner of the bewbs will not be revealed, unless the owner gives the ok..:)

So..here is our first official "Name those Bewbs" entry!

(I will give a hint..its NOT who you think it is!)

Now, all official guesses must be email to me at aldwynzanz@gmail.com, no later than 48 hours after this is posted.

One guess per person please, so make it count!

Ok everybody..let the guessing BEGIN!

*fires his starting gun!

Love Thursday!

2009-05-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get!

The only thing that never changes in life is that there will always be change.

Ok, enough of the “quotes”. Second Life, as in Real Life, is constantly changing whether we like it or not. Sometimes we accept the changes willingly, other times we fight them tooth and nail.

One of the biggest things to change is when people come into, or out of our lives. New people, or even just a change with someone you already know, is very exciting. It opens up that exciting realm of possibilities, and the excitement of a new journey.

It is especially hard though, when someone leaves your life. They leave for all sorts of reasons, some that you never fully understand, but you must accept that it’s for the best. You never want them to go, because they are a part of you, but you cannot force them to stay either. It has to be…something that they want, otherwise…nobody is happy.

I am a big believer that things happen for a reason. I believe the forces of the universe are always at work, and while it’s important to work hard to “make” things happen, there are also things that “just” happen, and in my experience, these “just happenings” are a very good thing.

I have friends, who are of the mindset that their lives are already laid out for them, and really don’t do much to “make” things happen, because it’s already done for them. I also have friends, some very good ones, which seem to say one thing, but do another. I accept this about them, because I love them, but I am not sure I understand it.

I have discovered that people who are not consistent with their words and their deeds, generally speaking are not very happy people. I think it has to do with the internal conflict inside, because they KNOW they are not consistent, but cannot seem to rectify it. I am guessing at this, because I know I am not happy when I cannot walk the walk. Granted things are rarely as simple as black and white, but I do try very hard, to be consistent in my word, and my deed.

Anyway, as stated above, change is inevitable. There have been some changes for me recently, some sad, some fun, some amazingly great! I have had very close friends, who have decided to fade out of my life, and I have had new friends enter, to my extreme benefit.

For the friends that have faded, I love you all, I miss you, and I hope you find all that you are looking for. I hope the universe finds it in their wisdom to bring you back around someday, just as they found the wisdom to bring you into my life in the first place. I will be here, as I always am.

As for the people that have recently been unwittingly added to my universe, welcome! Padded rooms are down the hall, cookies are on the table, and try not to make a mess, it’s hard enough to clean up after myself. Oh, and btw, if you ever need ANYTHING, do not hesitate to ask, you know how to reach me.

This is my Love Thursday contribution, because as hard as change can be, I love it, and would not have it any other way!

Do you know....

2009-04-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

...who you really are?

Do you have a vision of yourself? Do you run scenarios in your head such as "if this were to happen, how would I react"?

I do this a lot. I will look at what I will be doing on any particular day and let my head run through scenarios on how I will handle certain things, if they were to happen.

When I was younger, I would do this with school, girls, work, family, just about anything. I would have scenarios running through my head all the time. Was not alway great for the attention span, but I have this fear of being in a situation, and having NO idea what to do.

I think the fear of being helpless is probably one of my greatest fears, next to my fear of being misunderstood. I have never wanted to be in a situation where I would just...give up. I cannot even fathom that.

Before I joined Second Life, I had a pretty good idea about who I was. What type of person I was. One the things that just intrigued the hell out of me about our little world here is that I could try out different things that I had never tried before, see if I liked it. With all the role playing, and abilities to become anything I want, I did find it interesting to discover, that heck, I really like ME, I like who I am.

This experience has really reinforced the person that I am. I have found a world where the current rules of our societies do not exist in the same form. Many of the limitations of our Real Life existance do not exist in Second Life. What type of person would I be in that world?

How wierd is it to discover that the person I am is actually the person I would CHOOSE to be, give the opportunity to be ANYTHING, or ANYONE, I want?!

Now I will admit..there are times, where I see a result that someone gets, that I was not able to achieve, and think.."damn, I should look at how that was done, cause I would like some of that". But more often than not, I find that what that person did to achieve that goal, was not only not the type of person I am or wanted to be, but the results that I thought were attractive, was only temporary.

So I run scenarios. If I do this, what will the outcome be. Will it be temporary? or permanent. How much energy will be required to get said desired result. Is that result actually worth the energy? How much energy will be requried to maintain the desired result? Is it worth it?

This all makes for some very interesting conversations in my head. I ask myself questions. What does "this" really mean. Why did I react THAT way, in this particular circumstance. Why did that action make me (sad, mad, happy, etc). What was it about that, that really triggered that emotion.

Some might say that I think TOO much. There are times when I would agree with that. But most of the time, it's all of these thoughts, and conversations, and scenarios, that have helped me be who I am. Helped me be able to NOT react in certain ways, because I know, or at least have a pretty good idea, why I MIGHT react that way, and can look at myself, and say "hmm..well, that sucks, but...I can handle it".

I truly wonder, how much of a freak this all makes me. Do other people do this? Do other people...think about who they are? What kind of person they currently are, and what kind of person they truly want to be?

Do YOU know?

I Don't Get It!

2009-04-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

Why is it that people have such a hard time admitting they were wrong or made a mistake?

I have been dealing with customers all day long, and many of them are really just being wierd.

It is painfully obvious that they were completely wrong, or assumed something they should not have, but are getting angry at ME. I really want to ask them "if YOU made an incorrect assumption, why are you talking it out on me?"

This is something I have noticed over the years. I have really tried to understand this phenomena. I am still not there.

What is SOOOO bad about saying "man, was I wrong on that", or "boy, I sure made a wrong decision there, didn't I". Are people afraid of ridicule? When was the last time you ridiculed, outside of friendly ribbing, someone who admitted making a mistake?

I know I am not perfect, as I know nobody else is also. We learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes, so I would think that admitting to them, would be a something to not necessarily be afraid of.

But it seems that more often than not, people will stand by a decision, no matter HOW bad, just to keep from admitting that they were wrong. I guess I just don't see the reason being RIGHT is soo important that they will keep the bad decision going.

Why?

Do people think it will make them look weak? That they will lose respect if they admit to being wrong? Do they even THINK about it that much? or is it just a reaction, with no thought at all.

I know that if somebody comes to me with a problem, and they take responsibility for thier own mistake, or misunderstanding, and don't try and blame me for it, that I am more than happy to help them as much as I can. But if a person is getting angry with me, because of something THEY failed to do, I have zero modivation to do anything to help them, and I am usually tempted, to tell them what a compelete moron they are. But I never do because 1) they won't get it, and 2) it just brings me down to thier level, which I refuse to do.

So I let it go, but I am truly interested in understanding this mindset. Any hints? clues?

Please let me know.

Why is it...

2009-04-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

...that people can be soooo self absorbed?

I hesitate to share this story, but it brings forward a very important point I believe, so I am going to.

On my way to work in the morning, I usually stop at the local Gas & Sip (smirks) for a cup of coffee, and maybe a bearclaw. This particular stop is pretty busy in the morning, since most of the locals stop there.

There was a line for the coffee machine, which is not unusual. As a woman approached the machine, she discovered that the hot chocolate dispenser was not working right. So the gentleman behind her, who I happen to know a little (I live in a pretty small little bedroom community) steps up, and tries to help. He futzed with it for bout 2 minutes, pretty much making a mess, then gave up and left.

This woman thanked him for his attempt, then just stood there, obviously disappointed that she was not gonna be able to get her morning hot chocolate fix. Everybody else just kinda stood around, some were bitching, some were just, I don't know, in a daze.

Being a somewhat handy guy, I moved up and poked around a bit on the machine. When the other guy started, only the hot chocolate was broken. But now, all the dispensers were not working. So I opened it up, pulled the hot chocolate cartridge out, pulled all the parts off, inspected them, then washed them all in the sink right next to it.

I fiddled with all the parts, cleaned them, made sure there was no blockages, and carefully put it all back together. This took me all of about 5 minutes. After getting everything back into place, I closed the front panel, and all the lights showed it was ready to go again.

I took the womans cup, emptied it into the sink, and put it under the hot chocolate dispenser, and VIOLA! Hot chocolate began to pour out, just like it is supposed to.

What I didn't realize at this point, is that everybody in the place had gathered around to watch me work. When the hot chocolate started to pour, I got a huge round of applause. It actually scared the crap out of me, cause I was not paying any attention to anybody else, as I focused on this dispenser.

The woman thanked me profusely, which was very sweet. I got my coffee, and my bear claw (which I was given for free), and was on my way.

The moral of this story?

There are many things I try and teach my children, and I try to live myself. 1) Don't start something, unless you intend to finish it. A job half done, is not begun, as they say. and 2) If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

I was just getting soo pissed at all the people who were just standing around...bitching, complaining, and blaming others for their woes, waiting for someone ELSE to deal with the issue. I cannot be like that. If I see that I can do something, I will do it. If I cannot do anything, I will go on my merry way, and not be any worse for it.

The 2 people working at this place, are very nice and helpful people. It was very crowded, and they were dealing with customers on other issues as this all was happening. There really was no way either one of them could have made over there to deal with THIS issue, when there were so many other issues going on. When I tried to refuse the free coffee and bear claw, the shift leader was VERY insistent that I take them. Who was I to argue.

One other thing I try and teach my sons. Always leave a place better than how you found it. That actually applies to people too. I always try to leave any interactions with people, with them feeling better than when I found them.

I find the best way to teach, is to model. SHOW them how to be, and kids will learn.

Anyway...I hope ALL of you have a fantastic day!

This too...shall pass!

2009-04-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Everybody!

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I had a REALLY REALLY bad day yesterday, in RL. Nothing MAJOR, just a lot of things didn't go as expected, and a lot of people were being VERY dumb.

I have never been a very creative person. I love art, and all the different things that people create, but I have never really been able to "create" something that I felt was worth ANYTHING.

I recently have been playing in Photoshop, which has been an interesting. I love photography in RL, but have never gotten into "processing" photos, mostly because of lack of time, and with the digital camera's these days, most of my pictures turn out pretty good.

I have enjoyed doing photograph in SL also, but something about it has always come up short for me. I see what so many residents do with SL photography, and I am just in awe of them. I never even considered doing some of the stuff they do, because I really never knew how.

A couple of friends of mine, do some great things with SL photography, so I finally got brave enough to ask a few questions (I hate bothering people with stuff like that, I usually can figure things out on my own), and from what I learned from these wonderful people, I became a bit more comfortable with Photoshop and all the great tools that it has.

So why am I telling you all this? Well as I said, I had a really bad day yesterday. As I was driving home from work an old song came on the radio that I had not heard in a VERY long time, but I somehow connected with it when I was very young, in a weird way. I don't necessarily connect with all lyrics, but the general theme of the song I do connect with, or did connect with, and the song some has a special place in me.

While I was singing the song...um..LOUDLY..in my car, I had a vision. I picture formed in my head, which is not uncommon really, but this time was different. Not only did I have the picture, but I thought "Hmmm...I wonder if I could create this image in Photoshop".

With that thought, I got a bit excited. I would have to figure out a few things, but I LOVE learning new things, so I accepted the challenge! I got home, had dinner with my boys, who were all excited bout their new Wii game their grandmother got my son, and so I was left to my own devices.

What was so exciting about this idea is that all the way home, I was plotting how I was create this "image". I thought about if I would need to find a certain SIM for part, or what kind of clothes I would want to wear. All these aspects, are not hard to piece together in SL, so I started to work.

I did a quick search on Xstreet and found the clothes I felt would work pretty quickly. I then took a few shoots inworld, tried a few different angles, then set out into Photoshop.

The "image" morphed a little bit as I was working, but the general theme remained. I played with layers, had to figure out how to make a layer about 50% transparent (gotta just LOVE google search, and online Photoshop tutorials!), and had to cut out a few things, and then put them back.

I had a couple of false starts, but I learned long ago to save my work as I go, at different stages so it was easy to go back a few steps, and start over. It really started to come together about 11pm, which is about the time I start to get tired.

So, with all the layers done, I saved my work. I loaded up the final version and I was fairly pleased with it. I learned several new things with this one, which always makes me smile.

After all this, I posted it on Plurk and dropped it on my best friend. I felt kinda bad bout dropping it when I did, cause I was so exhausted, that I just dropped it said goodnight, and logged out. I could not even keep my eyes open long enough to know if my friend even GOT it.

Anyway, I told you all of that, to tell you this. Once again, Second Life...and this time...Photoshop...has given me an outlet, to process something that was happening in RL in a wonderful way. I LOVE this crazy world!

What is that? You want to see the picture? Oh...yeah...sorry. I posted it on Plurk here Plurk Post. By the way, if you don't know what Plurk is, you should check it out HERE. And if you join, friend me HERE.

I also posted it in Flickr here

I really enjoyed the process, and it did come out pretty close to my "image" I had in my head. Not only did creating this help elevate my mood, but it showed me something very important.

Being creative is not just about creating something beautiful, it's creating something that says something, even if that something is only temporary. like my mood was.

OK, enough babbling. I hope you have a fantastic day, and that YOU have some way, of expressing your moods, that helps you process through them!

Til next time!

It's that time again!

2009-04-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

The April issue of ROLE Magazine is OUT!

Everybody has done such a fantastic job on this issue!

And don't forget to check out the AMAZING giveaway!

btw, I am on page 74..:)

*waves

Life can be.....

2009-03-30T21:26:00.001-07:00

...anything you want it to be.

I was having a conversation with an old old RL friend the other night (who found me on facebook, which is a WHOLE different topic), and something came out of my mouth, that I had not planned on saying, but I found very interesting.

We were talking about our lives (have known this person for 20 years, lost touch bout 10 years ago, and his daughter found me on facebook), and how we got to where we are. It dawned on me, that my life..is exactly where I want it to be, for the most part.

How is that possible, I wondered. What I concluded was, that because I always had an "image" of what I wanted my life to be like, and I kept that image in my mind, thinking about it probably daily, that image became my reality.

So I started thinking, is that really "all" it takes? An image..focused on long enough...to make it happen? Since I love to delve into things like this, I really starting to examine it...taking it to extremes, which is always an interesting mental journey.

I started to notice (as often happens when you starting thinking about something...you see that "something" everywhere) that all of the "stuff" around me...at least the "man-made" stuff, all had one thing in common. Every single thing, from my car, to the buildings, to my new cell phone, all started as an IDEA.

And that idea...got focus, got energy, to make it become a reality. Somebody kept that "image" in their head, and focused energy into it. That focus, turned into action, which then made that item...a reality.

Then, of course, I started to think about Second Life. Just as we can create things in Real Life, Second Life also allows us to build our own stuff, and our own lives.

It does beg the question: How much of our lives, both of them, are actually the product of our own thoughts? And how much of our actions, are determined by our thoughts?

Is the pycho-babble that says, we are what we think...actually true? Is the defining attribute for a happy, or an unhappy life...based on our attitude? And if so, you would think..that having a happy Second Life, would actually be a bit easier, or at least take less energy, than a happy Real Life, given that we can do virtually (pun intended) anything we want in this crazy little world.

I don't know the answer, but it IS an interesting question...isn't it?

Walking on sunshine...

2009-03-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, I am a pretty upbeat guy.

I have a darn good life. Both Real Life and Second Life are very good to me.

There are times however, that I find myself feeling guilty about it. Why should I be so happy when many around me don't seem to be?

I even find myself wondering if I could do something, to help someone I care about, be happier. On occasion, I have even become sad that someone I care about was not as happy as I hope they would be.

But that feeling of helplessness doesn't usually last to long, because I always do what I can to just be a good friend, and if someone I care about asks for help, I am always there.

Funny thing is, whenever I get into one of those moods, I always remember the instructions I get whenever I fly on an airplane. "If the oxygen masks should happen to deploy, always put yours on first, then help the people around you if they need it".

That..to me...means the best thing I can do for anybody around me, is take care of myself first. Because if I am not doing well, then how can I help anybody else!

So I always try and take care of me first. It sounds selfish when I say it like that, but to me, it's truly the best way I can help the people that I love in my life.

And when I see people not feeling well, or having a bad day, I don't rub it in that I am having a great day, but I don't let them bring me down either.

I also try not to NOT express how great I am feeling, just because somebody else is NOT having a great day.

They say misery loves company. That maybe so, but I find the best way to destroy misery, is to cancel it out, with happiness!

So, if I see you are not having a great day, don't be surprised if I pounce you, and tickle you, till I see at least a smile!

POP Quiz!

2009-02-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

What does EVERYBODY do in SL, from the newest noob to the longest resident in this crazy world of ours?

Think about it. You do it...every time you are inworld.

*Jeopardy theme playing in the background*

Give up? or ready to see if you were right?

Here is the answer (and you don't even have to put it in the form of a question).

Everybody in SL, and I mean everybody, teleports!

It is just a basic part of existence in our world here. We teleport to events, clubs, stores, we even teleport from one floor to the next in our own homes. We teleport ALL THE TIME!.

Now, we all have our inventory of Landmarks we use to get around, or search, even SURL's from the web. But what about teleporting around your space? Many of us have large multi-story houses here (because we can!...:)), or we have several different spots we set up in our private spaces that are not easy accessable (nor do we want them to be). So we need to be able to teleport to these locations quickly and easily.

Most houses you buy that have more than one level will come with a built in teleport system. These systems are varied, but they all basically do the same thing. Some are nicer than others, but they all basically work.

Now, if you are someone that likes to do things THIER way, or need a teleport system for your own places, I have found a VERY useful tool just for you!

These tools are called Beam-Me Teleporters. I found them when I was helping some friends who wanted to have a quick and easy way to move between several different locations on thier land.

If you search for teleporters both in-world or on XSTREET, you will find a ton of them. Most of them work, some are not able to handing anything above 700 meters, even though the SL viewer now supports destinations up to 4096meters. Some only work within 300 meters. It really depends on which method of teleport they use (this gets into a whole realm of different teleport methods that I really don't think is necessary to get into honestly).

After looking at many different systems (and I mean MANY), I feel I have found one that just about covers EVERY teleport need out there. The system is called Beam-Me.

The Beam-Me system has 7 different models. Each one solves a particular need, and does it VERY well.

The different models are:

Beam-Me-Up: This is the simplist model of them all. This version acts much like an elevator..meaning it only moves an avatar straight up from the current location. This model supports 10 locations and is limited to a 300 meter distance for teleport,

Beam-Me-To: This model is just like the Beam-Me-Up, except it allows you to teleport not just up, but around. So for example you could use this model to teleport from inside your house to your wonderful little garden cuddle spot you love so much. This version also has a 10 location ability, and the 300 meter limitation.

Beam-Me-One: This model will move you to any part of your sim, but only supports one destination. This is great for moving up to a skybox, or just to the second floor. This one is also just a click teleporter, no menus, or right clicking for this model! It will also work up to 4096 meters!

Beam-Me-@: This one is similair to the Beam-Me-To model, but can go anywhere in your sim, even up to the 4096 meter height limit!. It supports up to 19 different destinations.

Beam-Me-$: This model is just like the Beam-Me-@ model above, but has the option to allow you to restrict use of the teleporter to people who pay.

Beam-Me-Anywhere: This model uses the SL Mapping technology to allow people to teleport ANYWHERE in SL. Great for a multi-sim owner, to allow people to move around your sims. This model supports up to 100 destinations (10 groups of 10)

and finally...

Beam-Me-HUD: This is just like the Beam-Me-Anywhere system, but instead of a prim that anyone can access, its a HUD for your personal use. So if you have a group of places you go to a lot, this is a fantastic way to move around your own personal SL quickly. This also supports 100 destinations (10 groups of 10).

As I said before, there are literally hundreds of different teleporters available in SL. I have liked this particular system for two main reasons:

1). VERY easy to set up. You can set up the destinations for these system either by dropping a LM into the prim, or editing a notecard. Everybody knows how to create LM's, so just copying them into a prim is VERY easy.

2). You are not restricted on how your teleporter looks. Most of these models are easy to put into any prim you want. Don't want a teleporter to your private playplace visible for all to see? Put it into a lamp...or a picture. All these models come in a modifiable prim that you can make into anything you want. Or, if you are a bit more sophisticated in your prim knowledge, you can copy the contents of that prim into something you already own and VOILA! your own secret private teleporter!

Not only can you make the prim anything you want using the normal prim editing methods, but there is also a setup menu that gives you many different options on altering the prim including transparency, rotation, shapes, textures and colors! There is even an option to make a BEAM visible (some people are SOO visual..:) ).

And the security options are very extensive also. You can allow anyone to use the teleporter, only a specific group, only people listed on the notecard inside, a group PLUS the notecard (a very nice feature), or just the owner.

I have used this system in a couple of places myself, and also helped several friends set them up. They are soo simple and easy to set up, I have done a 5 location setup with a friend in like 10 minutes!

The Beam-Me teleporters were created by Monica Balut, and are available both inworld at MVD Inc. and on XSTREETSL. Costs range from $99 lindens to $799 lindens depending on which model you buy. Most models are also available in a No Copy Trans and Copy No Trans versions!

Now, go out there an TELEPORT! (like you don't already..:) )

Till next time...

Ask, and ye shall....

2009-02-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

...get more than you expected!

A very dear friend of mine recently asked me to help her find a way to easily access a every growing list of poses she has in her inventory. She told me that she wanted to sort her poses in certain ways, and was there a simple way for her to do this.

Being the ever helpful guy and gadget junkie, I set out to see if I could find such a tool. I had in the back of my mind a way to do it myself (I am getting better and better at scripting), but wanted to see what others had done in this area first.

I was not searching long, when I came across a VERY useful tool, that fit the bill perfectly. The tool I found is not new, and if you have been around SL for any length of time, you have probably heard the name of this tool before. I had also heard it before, but never really looked at it closely. Boy am I glad did!

Care to make a guess? You sure?

Ok ok, I will tell you what it is (I know you were VERY scared I was not gonna tell you...admit it!). I am talking about the HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe.

As part of my search process, I was thinking about how would "I" use one of these devices. Do I need one, and if so, why? I started to think about what I do in SL, and how would such a device benefit me. Well, a couple thoughts did come to mind.

First of all, when I am at a party or an event, and there is dancing (and just about EVERY party or event has dancing in SL), I have never been fond of the dances that most places have in thier dance balls. Outside of the fact that I hate looking like everybody else, I find that most dance balls have dances that look MUCH better when women dance with them...not men. Given that, I spent an afternoon over at Sine Wave and then over at AKEYO to put together a nice little set of dances that didn't detract from my masculine mystic that I worked so hard to create.

(alright...you can stop laughing at ANY time now).

Also, I have put together some nice poses for basic photography that I have been doing, so I had a list of those poses also. Now, you can sort things by folder, as I do a LOT of, but the more I looked into the HUDDLES HUD, I realized how nice it would be to have all of these things right at my finger tips!

I really started to dig into the HUDDLES, and the more I dug, the more I found. And the more I found, the more I liked it. This gadget has some REALLY nice features that have really made my life inworld simpler, which is always a BIG plus for me!

What features did I like? I am soooo glad you asked that.

The first thing that caught my attention was that you can set up notecards that list animations that you load into the HUD, so you can sort them any way you want, and just load them up at the click of a mouse. That in itself was huge for what I was looking for, not only for my friend, but for me as well.

I started off with a dances notecard and a poses notecard, and played around a bit. I then divided up the poses into "standing" "leaning" "sitting" notecards. I was clicking around changing things left and right, all from the very well laid out HUD. I was having a blast!

After my afternoon of dance shopping, I only came away with a total of 3 actual dances that I liked, but also had a couple of fun "swaying" animations that I like to use at live music events and such. So my next task, was to create a "dances" and "listening" notecards.

I suppose I should talk about the notecards here for a moment. The notecards, especially the animation notecards, is just a list of the animation names that you want to have loaded when you pick that particular notecard. There is a button to list available notecards, and when you select the one you want, it loads up that group of animations. There is even a function to list all the animation IN the HUD, so you can copy and paste the output into a notecard, and edit away!

Once the animations are loaded, you can either just let the HUDDLES play them in order, randomly, or just pick each one yourself. This allows you to either relax and enjoy the atmosphere of where you are, or if you want to impress people, you can pick your dances to fit your mood, or the song, or both...:)

Ok, so...sounds pretty good so far right? Well, it gets better.

Another one of the very cool features of this gadget, is that it also has a built in AO. Now, if you read my article in Role Magazine (*cough, page 78), I talk about AO's quite a bit. One of the issues when going out dancing is that your AO can interfere with the dance animations you might want to use. This usually means you have to deactivate your AO before starting to dance. Not so with the HUDDLES.

As I talked about in my Role Magazine article (yes, I AM gonna keep saying that..:) ), I talked about how customizing your AO is not as difficult as it seems because most of the AO's out there are based on the ZHAO engine, and the HUDDLES is no different. What this MEANS..is that the odds are that you can copy the notecard out of your existing AO, and put it into the HUDDLES, along with the animations from your other AO, and have all your stuff in one place! ALSO...the HUDDLES will automatically turn OFF your AO, when you pick another animation to play, such as a dance! One less thing to worry about!

There are several other features of the HUDDLES that I am not gonna touch on, because I have not used all of them yet. For example, you can use it to invite others to share your dances (like a chim), you can use poofers, there is a flight assist, keep track of landmarks, hugger, build macros, emotes, object rezzing, etc etc etc.

Some might say this is a bit overkill, but I have to say it is nice to be able combine so many features in ONE HUD attachment. Talk about simplifying your screen!

OK, so lets get some details here. The HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe was made by Keiki Lemieux. There are several versions available, some with VERY specific functions, which might be a bit more to your liking, but most of those versions are combined into the DELUXE model.

The DELUXE version, which is what I have is available both inworld at

HUDDLES Main Store

and on XSTREETSL

HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe on XSTREETSL

(which was recently acquired by Linden Labs).

The HUDDLES EZ Animator Deluxe sells for $1499 at both inworld and out. I consider it money VERY well spent!

Before I go, let me give you a sampling of what the HUDDLES EZ Animator actually looks like..

and

If you want to see me dancing...you will have to wait till the next party!

Till next time!

Time flys..when you are having fun!

2009-02-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

Hello again everybody!

January has been an absolutly crazy month for me..both in SL and in RL. I would have to say it has been a good month though.

Part of that craziness...has to do with my previous blog post, specifically regarding ROLE magazine.

Shortly after the January issue was published, a call went out for new writers. I took and chance..and submitted my application. Fortune smiled on me, because they seemed to like my writing, and hired me on.

I was both excited and scared about this new challenge. I have written much over my life...mostly for myself, but some for other peoples reading.

So...for better or for worse..here it is.

I am on page 78

I have lots that I have been working on this last month, so be prepared for many more blog entries coming up.

In the meantime...go read the magazine!

Till next time.

OMG....OMG....OMG!

2009-01-01T23:13:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently asked me if I would help her out with a project. Being the helpful guy I am, of course I agreed.

The results are in. Check THIS out!

Especially Page 28!

The WHOLE magazine is really amazing!

Read it! That's an order!

Till next time!

Seems only fair...

2008-12-29T22:04:00.000-08:00

There is a small...um...challenge, contest, fun little game going around on many of the fashion blogs, bout "What's in your bag!". Given that I don't HAVE a bag, I kinda felt left out.

So, I decided to extend the fun, to a "What's in your pockets!" game.

So here is what is in MY pockets.

1) Two sets of keys...cause..I drive two cars.

2) Two Flash drives...cause I have more stuff than fits on one flash drive

3) Leatherman. Cause you never know what tool you will need.

4) Chewing gum.

5) Wallet that is soo old, that I will not even open it up to show you. I just hate shopping for wallets!

6) Sprint Wireless Cell card, for those times when I just cannot find a land ISP.

7) Pile of paperwork, receipts and notes that I REALLY need to go through, and probably will after I am done with this post.

Now, aren't you glad you know?

Who is next!

Rehash?...maybe

2008-12-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

I have been hearing and reading about how people that don't understand SL think its JUST a game.

For those of us who know better, I am not gonna rehash all of those discussions, because not only do I not want to be redundant, but for those of us who know, its like trying to explain love to someone who has never been in it, or sex to someone who has never had it. You just cannot explain it.

So, why am I writing all of this? Well, because there is one aspect of this "game" that I have touched on before, but always seems to get overlooked.

This "game" elicits REAL emotions in people. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes between. I cannot tell you how many times I have come into SL, and not been in the best of moods, but either something, or someone inworld, made me laugh, smile, and genuinely raised my spirits.

I am not saying that SL is the ONLY "game" that does this. Emotions are a big part of any game, usually to the players detriment (i.e. poker, if you show your emotions, you lose). But on the other hand, the rush of winning a game, is nothing to shake a stick at..(nudge nudge)

In its simplest terms, SL is enough of an environment to connect with our emotional selves. The visual, audio, textual inputs all touch us in many many ways. It can be as simple as playing with a SL pet, to make a RL smile appear on a otherwise frowny face.

So for all those people who don't "get" it, try not to worry about it. They might someday, but till then, you can take solice in the fact, that you know something they don't. And that in itself, should make you smile.

Now go out, RL or SL, and have some FUN!

Hell explained by a Chemistry Student

2008-12-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

(HAD to share this...made me laugh!)

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term.

The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's
Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Lazy/Buzy Times!

2008-12-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I seem to spend a lot of time, just standing around in SL.

I don't mean that in a bad way, but I talk to people...A LOT! Or I am doing something either in my inventory, with scripts, writing notecards to people offline, or working on something in RL that may PERTAIN to SL, but not really DOING anything in SL at that particular time.

For a while I was content with just standing around, because really...its NOT like my legs are gonna get tired, right?

Well, I got bored with that, so I decided to find some nice chairs for my place. That worked pretty well. But I am not always AT my place, when I have ...um...idle time?

So, I made sure I had some good SIT animations in my AO, so if I happen to be someplace else I could just grab a seat...and rest *grins.

That works out pretty well, but recently I have been kinda feeling a bit bored with just sitting. I have been feeling that I wanted something a bit more.

So, as I tend to do, I was browsing XSTREET and came across this GREAT little item. It's an attachment...that allows you to JUGGLE! Yes, thats right...JUGGLE! I am having such a BLAST with it! And you don't even have to worry bout REZ rights, cause...(drum roll please)..Its an attachment!

This little toy was created by Sway Dench. As I always do, I tracked down her shop, which was filled with some FABULOUS animations, and animated furniture. It really caught my eye, because there are some things there that I could totally see myself using...for those times, when I am not DOING anything in SL, but still want to be doing more than just standing around, or sitting in a chair.

I will let you discover the other great stuff she has over at her shop, which is located HERE.

You can find the juggling attachment there, and on XSTREET HERE..

btw, the juggling set, both balls and bowling pins, is only $150 lindens on XSTREET. Just a deal, for a little harmless fun!

Now go add a little MORE fun...to your SL!

P.S. btw...some GREAT gift ideas over at this shop, so before you give up...check out Sway's Shops!

You ever notice....

2008-12-03T10:33:00.000-08:00

...how a new haircut, can make you walk with a new spring in your step?

Doesn't have to be a haircut either...but something that makes you "feel" like you look good....which can actually translate, into "feeling" good.

Nobody likes to admit that looking good...makes you feel good. But, hate to break it too you all, especially you guys, it does! I don't seem to have that problem.

I LIKE looking good. And when I feel like I look good...I feel a bit more confident in my daily activities.

I know that for example...when I get my hair cut in RL...I feel a bit better...I know I look better than all shaggy...so I feel a bit better (not counting all the damn hair that ALWAYS gets into my shirt).

So maybe I should not be surprised...that if I change my avatar, or get a new shirt, jeans, or a cool pair of shoes inworld...that my avatar seems to walk with a bit of a stronger strut than normal.

(I am gonna tell you a secret...guys primp just as much as girls do. We just don't like to talk about it)

And you know what else? Other people notice also. Sometimes I wonder if its the new clothes, the new hair, the new shoes..OR..just that I am liking how I look..so my energy is different.

People that know me, will notice new hair...or even a new outfit...and women..god love'em...will notice new shoes...:)

But I think it mostly has to do with the energy. If you feel good...you put out good energy. So why not do something that makes you feel good, everyday!

I say, get some new hair, a new shirt, new jeans...or some new shoes. Hell, get a new gun, a new car, boat, plane..whatever turns you on! It's one of the wonderful things about his crazy little world. You can get stuff, for really not A LOT of currency, relative to RL....and trust me...you WILL get that same "Damn...I look GOOD!" feeling from a sharp looking avatar, as you do in RL.

Put a little more spring in your step today! Indulge yourself a little bit.

I will add a little note for the guys. New toys are great...but I would recommend...getting a woman who you know has good taste...to go shopping with you. You have to like HER taste in what she buys for herself, and also stay within a style YOU like, but ask for advice. I promise you...you will NOT be sorry. Put the ego away...the benefits...will be enormous!

Talk to you soon!

Build it...and they will come!

2008-11-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

I was playing around in a sandbox the other day (the SL kind..:) ), where I was throwing some home design ideas around. A friendly guy walked up to me, and asked me what I was doing. "Trying out some ideas" I responded. "What are those prims you are using?" he asked. So I told him.

For quite a long time now, I have been using Skidz Primz for all my building projects. I found them early on in my experience here, and just fell in love with them. What are Skidz Primz you ask? Let me tell YOU also!

Skidz Primz are enhanced prims, taking the ordinary SL prim to new heights. They are scripted, to make all your building projects fast and easy. You can read about them here.

When I first started building, I quickly realized how frustrating it can be, positioning prims to each other (cause EVERYTHING in SL is made of prims). Connecting prims to each other is the fundamental essence of building in SL. To make anything, you much connect prims together, and Skidz makes that SOO easy, its almost embarrassing.

Because Skidz makes things SOOO simple....I have found that I am able to try ideas out so quickly, and determine if it will be a feasible idea or not, without a lot of wasted time. I really hate getting bogged down in a bunch of math and manual positioning, just to try a quick idea out.

Skidz has much more than just the Skidz Primz, but that is the main tool I use. You can see all they have to offer over on their website

I did start to wonder though...given that I have been spending some time in sandboxes recently, why I had not seen anybody else using them. So I talked to a few builders I know...and the answers were interesting. Mostly it seemed that they had learned to build in a particular way, and were comfortable with that. Doing the math, manually moving prims, was just their WAY. One even said, without even trying Skidz out, that there was NO way that Skidz could do it better than his way. Not even sure how you respond to that...but...whatever floats your boat!

Building something, hopefully something that people want, is a great way to make money in SL. I guess I have just always been of the mindset that if a tool can makes something you do faster and easier, why not USE it! I guess people get set in their ways in SL as much as they do in RL.

Not only are Skidz Primz extremely easy to use, they have made some amazing tutorials that you can view on the web. I have watched them, and even though I use Skidz all the time, I still learn new things about what they are capable of doing.

Bottom line, if you are a builder, you owe it to yourself, to take a look at the Skidz line of tools. I promise you will not be sorry.

Skidz Primz are available on XStreetSL for $2650 lindens, or thier sim Snow Crash

On their website, you can find information about all the products, and even classed that are held, to demonstrate, and use this wonderful tool.

Now...Go out there and GET IT!

Till next time!

Keep it Simple, Stupid!

2008-10-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

It's funny how the simplest little things, can really make your life easier, Even in SL.

I was helping a friend put up a skybox the other day and as we were flying around trying to pick out a good spot, elevation wise, she asked me a question. "How do I know where my land borders are?"

I just floated there. I really didn't have an answer for her. Fortunately, another friend of ours did. He whips out this fantastically handy little gadget, called the "Skybuild Land Border Detector V2".

This is such a handy little tool, I had to ask him bout it. He sent me the link to where he bought it on SLExchange (which btw, is now called XStreetSL? whatever! :) ). Under either name, its still my favorite way to shop in SL!

Now, placing ANYTHING in the sky, can be somewhat of a challenge. I suggest that once you find an altitude you think you like, click the build button, and drop a prim out. This way, you can rez things like skybox rezzors, or land border detectors.

So, this is REALLY simple. You rez a prim, at your desired altitude. Then rez the "Skybuild Land Border Detector V2". It comes out as a green trangle. You just click on the triangle, and a menu pops up, and you click "Find Border". THAT'S IT!

This little tool will run off, and find the corners of your lot, then come right back to you. It puts a marker on each corner, glowing, so you can see it (going to midnight will help with this). ALSO, you can click the tool again, and tell it to put a 'string' between the corners, so you can actually SEE the lot lines, at ALL altitudes. It is VERY VERY cool.

Once we had that out, putting up the skybox was a breeze. Moving it so that it fit within the lot lines, was SOO easy.

"Skybuild Land Border Detector V2" was created by Christi Whetmore. Christi not only sells this fantastically handy little tool on XStreetSL , but also has a cute little shop, located in the Telea SIM.

I want to personally THANK Christi for this little tool. I cannot believe I have put so many things in the air, WITHOUT IT!

So the next time you are even THINKING about putting something in the air over your land, go see Christi first, you will not be disappointed.

OH! and the best part? its only $99 Lindens! WHAT A DEAL!

Go get it, RIGHT NOW. And get one for a friend while you are at it!

Show Me The Prims!

2008-10-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

For a long long time now, I have considered myself a prim whore. Its a title I have given myself, and wear it with pride.

My first skybox I ever rented, had I think 300 or so prims available. I really didn't know what that meant at the time, but it became clear pretty darn quickly.

As most of you know, "things" in SL are made of prims. EVERYTHING, or almost everything, is made of prims. When you look at renting a place, or buying some land, you will find that they list square meters (the area of the place), the tier (or rent), and the available prims, which is another way of saying how much STUFF you can have on your land.

I am sure there is a formula somewhere, on how they figure out the prims available, but after I learned what that really meant, I started to always use that prim count, as my gauge on what land I wanted.

Now, as I said...I have very expensive prim tastes...so after running out of prims on my first rental pretty quickly, I really started to look around more. That was when I found that there are some sims, that give you more prims than others.

There are double prim sims (my personal favorite), 1.5x sims, even 1.1x sims. I even created a spreadsheet, that instead of calculating lindens per sqm, which is how most people list land, showed me what I was paying per prim. It really helped me find the best land, for my tastes, at the best price.

What's interesting about all this, is that I get asked a lot about land, cause I talk to a LOT of people, and having the experience I do, they want to know what I know. When I talk about prim counts, I usually just get a glazed look, and that part gets passed over. I do try and stress it, but I think its that they have NO idea how important it is, till they experience a prim shortage on their land.

So I am talking to a friend last night, and she admitted to me, that when I first brought up the issue of prims, she thought I was kinda nuts. BUT..she has owned land since then, and I have watched her go to progressively larger lots, cause she wanted more prims. I didn't say anything, cause nobody likes a bragger, but I did laugh to myself quite a bit.

She calls me over last night, cause she lost some prims...and I am an ACE prim finder, and we are chatting along. She says "I know I teased you bout your thoughts on land and prims, and I want you to know...YOU WERE ABSOLUTELY right!" All I could do was smile..:)

Anyway, so here is my advise to you. If you are looking to rent a place, or buy some land, you might want to get a prim count on the house/furniture/toys you are gonna want to have there, and make sure whatever place you get, has enough prims. OTHERWISE, you are gonna be moving sooner than you think, so put that new hot tub in you have your eye on, or that helicopter you want to park on the roof!

It's ALL about the prims, baby!

Pay it forward!

2008-10-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

You know, when I first arrived in Second Life (SL), it was pretty overwhelming. Given that its different than most computer games, where there are defined levels, rules, and procedures, SL reminded me of the old west, were you came, and you staked your claim, and made a go of it.

I have mentioned before that I meet and talk to lots of people during my SL travels. A fairly large part of that group, are NEW people, avatars that have only been around a day or so, or even just a bit longer, but still learning the ropes.

I do like to talk to these new folks, cause I learn interesting things, such as how they found SL, what do they think so far, what have they liked, disliked, etc. I am always curious as to how different people view this amazing little world of ours.

Probably one of the more common questions I get, even from people just hours old, is "How do I get money in here?". I think its a valid question, I guess I am just surprised at how quickly that becomes an issue.

Not really sure why it is either. I know I spent quite a bit of time just looking around before I started to...um...WANT stuff. Maybe times have changed?

Anyway, from my experience, there are a couple of ways to "earn" lindens, so lets talk about each of them.

1. Camping - Basically someone pays you to stand/sit/dance in a spot. They do this, to build up their traffic numbers, so their little corner of SL, be it a club, a shop, or an entire mall will show up on a search higher (sort of like a google rating). I don't really know EXACTLY how that all works, but that is basic idea. I have seen lots of different amounts paid for each block of time, so you really just have to look around. Searching on "camping" should be a good place to start. I have even known long time residence, to create an alt, sometimes even several.

2. Begging - Not particularly in favor of this one, but I have had it happen to me. I have been hanging out with friends, and there would be someone in the group, usually a newbie, that would see that I have lots of toys, or a nice house, and ask me for some lindens, cause OBVIOUSLY, I have TONS. This would be like someone standing on a corner, begging for real money. I work hard for it in RL, so why would I give it to someone else, unless "I" decided to.

Now granted, I buy things for friends all the time, but it is MY choice. I like doing it, it makes me happy, but these friends never ASK for them. It is MY choice to do it, nobody else's.

(OK, breath....sorry :) )

3. Games - I would normally call this "gambling", but officially "gambling" is prohibited in SL, so its not referred to as "gaming". Lots of ways to "win" money in SL. Tringo, Zyngo, etc, seem to be all the rage right now. They are games of chance, but because of some technicality, they are not considered "gambling". Who knows.

4. Getting a job - Now, this is where things can get interesting. Having talked to a lot of people, it seems that men and women approach this task very differently. Almost all of the guys I talked to, did camping. A few, were trying to learn to build things, or write scripts, to sell, which is an admiral goal. Nothing wrong with camping mind you, I just like to see people exercising their creativity!

Now, as for the women I talked to: I dont know if its advise they are getting, but it seems a LOT of newbie women, end up trying to be dancers. And again, nothing wrong with that, I just find it interesting. Tips can be very good being a dancer, but its not a slam dunk, by any means. You have to be able to get hired at a busy club, you have to have a good looking avatar to even GET hired at a busy club, and you HAVE to know how to communicate with your clientele. Not every woman can do that, but it seems to be a popular starting point.

There are a number of women, that take it a step further, and become escorts. I have known a few escorts, that have done VERY well for themselves, but as I mentioned above, you have to have a knack for it. You have to know how to communicate with your clientele. You also have to BUILD that clientele, which is of course marketing. Not a quick cashflow job, but can turn into a nice recurring cash flow business, if you do it right.

What about Male escorts you ask? Well, I have only HEARD of a few, and I stress FEW, that have actually been able to make some good lindens at it. There are plenty of male dancers, and more and more women only clubs, with male dancers and such, popping up in SL, but from all the people I have talked to, its NOT an easy thing to do.

What does that say about the difference between men and woman in SL? Well, I think I will save that for ANOTHER entry...:)

So, that is a few ways to make some lindens. This VERY small list is by no means all the ways to earn Lindens, but some of the more common ways I have seen.

Want to hear how "I" do it? No? To bad, I am gonna tell you anyway.

I basically just buy lindens. While I do like to create things, I really am not in a place where I can build something, market it, and all that it takes to launch a product. I consider SL my hobby, so just as any other hobby, I spend RL money on it. That is my choice, and I do not look down on anybody that does NOT do that. Many people in SL, are not in a position to spend RL money inworld.

But, I do post this thought I occasionally have. On average, I think 250 lindens, cost bout 1 USD (it fluctuates, so that is a guess). So, for the price of a GOOD cup of coffee, you could build up your SL bank, pretty quickly. Is it just me that has this thought?

Now having said that, I will admit to something. When I first started SL, I did not spend money in here. I didn't think I would be inworld all that long. After being inworld longer and longer, I started to spend a little cash here and there. So, it was a progressive thing for me. I also had some very nice people, help me along the way, helping me get better skins, and clothes, spending THEIR lindens on me, cause they were very nice, and wanted me to fit in better. It was very sweet of them, and I thank them to this day for their help.

Which brings me to the "pay it forward" part of all this. I help newcomers all the time, it does make me smile to show someone what SL is capable of. I enjoy watching them grow in here, and have made some of my closest friends, from just helping a newbie. Not all of them stay, obviously, but the ones that do, I hope they will help someone else new, down the line.

Till next time!

As Promised!

2008-09-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody! :)

A couple of posts ago, I talked about the new, well, relatively new Showcase feature in Search. I also mentioned that I have been checking out some of these places, and have found some really cool places.

With life being so busy (both RL and SL), I made sure I made some notes about a place that I really liked. I have been keeping an eye on the list of places shown in the Showcase list, and it does seem to change quite frequently, so I am glad I kept my notes!

Anyway, one of the first places I visited is called Garden Of Dreams. Even the landing point was impressive!

So, I teleported up to the beach first (there were 5 destinations available from the landing point). I started at the beach. I just sat down for a bit, and just took it all in. The textures are just amazing! Take a look for yourself....

AND...

Remember my entry about Sculpties..and how they changed the look of of SL? This is a PERFECT example!

Everywhere you look, there is a beautiful site to see.

And, as an added bonus, there are places to dance with that special person in your SL! Each location seems to either a dance ball or two, or one of those wonderful dance machines...for couples! This is a GREAT date location!

This is just a small sample of the beauty I found at this SIM!

There is also a store at this location, which is pretty typical. But...this is not just a store of clothes and other things! At this shop all, or at least most, of the items you see on this SIM, all the things they used to create this wonderful place!

Which means...if you want to create your own little paradise, you can get all you need right here!

So, next time you are wondering what to do...or just looking for someplace new to explore, then stop by Garden of Dreams. And also keep using the Showcase feature, because I am still finding some cool places from that list!

Ok, a few more shots from my visit!

Have a great day everybody!

Go ahead....MAKE MY DAY!

2008-09-19T17:43:00.000-07:00

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I have been popping around the new Showcase list, looking at what was there. Have to say I saw some amazing places, which I will go into more detail in a later posting.

For THIS post, I wanted to talk about what happened at one of these places, and what I have done since then.

So, I was just walking around this very nice sim, and some griefer walks up to me, starts swearing at me...and attacks me. I just cannot begin to tell you how pissed off I was. How some people can do that, is just so far out of my realm, that I have to admit, I am at a loss to explain it.

BUT...I started thinking. What can the Average Guy,do to protect himself in the future? And thus a journey began.

So, I started thinking about it. I have used weapons in SL, with my friends, and they can be lots of fun. But, I don't really have a need for them ALL the time. And, to be quite honest, I don't want to be walking around with some weapon hanging off me, JUST in case. Seems like the griefers would win in that case, causing me to change my SL behavior. Can't let THAT happen. :)

So, I started looking into shields. I played with alot of different ones, to see, first if they would actually work for what I wanted, and second, how easy they would work. I have to say, it was a VERY interesting experiment/test.

Now, after all my experiments and testing, I think I have found a VERY effective tool to use in these situations.

Now, just so you understand my modivation here, I was looking for something that could be easily deployed, and basically thwart these juvenile avatars, who think they are SOO funny, when disturbing other people. I was not looking for a weapon, cause that just feeds into the whole thing. Just something to keep them from causing you, as in me, to much hassle.

Most of the sheilds I found are part of an overall weapon system, which was way overkill for what I had in mind. I really had no desire for offensive weapons at this point, for many reasons (I plan on talking about weapons at a later time, for one reason..:) ).

The testing was interesting. I would go to a public sandbox, and basically stand around. Every so often, some avatar would come by and shoot me, or try and drop something on me...weird stuff like that, for no real reason. Was not like I had a sign over my head or something. (I did later, but I will get to that), but that does not seem to be that unusual.

On top of that, people leave traps, and other things around...to annoy people I guess. I started to notice...that my shields were activating....even though I could not see what was activating them. Was kinda interesting.

Now, as I said before, I use Mystitools, and there is a feature in Mystitools that tells me when something has collided with me. I have grown accustomed to that feature, and it would be a nice feature in a shield. I did find one that reported what hit it, but it was not my final pick, so, maybe for future updates...:)

Despite being that curious about what was trying to get to me, I thought about it and realized that to me, the main purpose of the shield was just to keep me where I was, not let some 12 yr old in a basement somewhere disturb me and what I was doing. Does that seem like too tall an order?

I thought about it more, and it seemed there were two scenarios that are part of this. 1) I am just out exploring, and some immature little brat who thinks its fun to be an ass comes along and tries to put a cage around me, or bump me or something, OR 2) I am in a sandbox, working on something, and these same idiots are just out to cause mischeif. Either way, I just dont want to be disturbed.

So, with that in mind, I started sorting through the different sheilds I could find, no matter if there were part of a weapons package or not. I even had a few friends, use some of thier weapons on me, to get a good feel for what the shield might really be capable of. Have to tell you...that part was kinda FUN!

Anyway, going through each one, looking at all thier options, how they worked, how easy was it to use, blah blah blah, I was getting pretty discouraged. Not at the products themselves, cause they were doing what they were designed to do, which was be a tool for battle, just that it was really more than I wanted.

Then it happened. I was looking through a weapons package, and I noticed a object called "Full Shields". Seemed odd, but I put it on. No hud to wear, I even was watching transparent prims, and nothing appeared around me. That in itself was odd, cause most of the shielding seemed to work by puting up an invisible set of prims around you, all the time. At first, I thought something was wrong, since I didn't seem to have actually done anything.

I just kept on working, and was just standing in the middle of a sandbox, sorting my recent inventory into some appropriate folders (I DO try and keep things sorted, but have to say, thank GOD for search), when I noticed something on the screen behind my inventory window. When I minimized it, I saw what looked like a shield, suddenly rezzing between me and this ball that was rolling around me.

Now, I have to admit..this shield thingy looked very cool. But I had no idea what it was. I did a quick filter on my inventory, to see what I was wearing, and quickly discovered that I was still wearing the "Full Shields". As I was doing this, some putz walks up to me...and starts shooting me! That is when the show REALLY started.

I pulled back my camera, and just watched for about 2 minutes, as this .. this ...PERSON, tried to throw everything he had at me, and this shield just kept blocking it, everything was just bouncing off, and I was not moving a centimeter (or even an inch!).

I have to admit, I was impressed. So, I started going around to different sandboxes, to see what would happend (seems there is never a griefer around, when you NEED one, SHEESH!). I also started digging a bit more into this shield I had found. My results were pretty consistant in the sandboxes, even had a few of these guys try and cage me, with very little success. Plus, I have to admit, was kinda fun to see them try!

This particular shield, was part of a bigger package called "Punisher HUD", which I will talk about in a minute. It also had some items called "Interceptors", which is kinda like a shield, but is suppose to "intercept" objects that are moving towards you. I played with those a bit also, and they were kinda interesting, and again, were very simple to use, just wear, and forget!

The "Full Shield" however, seemed to combine the "shield" and the "interceptor" parts, in a very easy to use package. So easy to use, that I would have recommended that people get the whole "Punisher HUD", just for the shielding! I had even thought of sending the creator a note, asking if he would consider selling the shields separatly. Come to find out, however, that the shields, and the interceptors, are ALREADY available separatly! WOOHOO!

Now, I might be able to make a case to go for the whole package anyway, and I will explain that in a moment, but I want to talk about the different components first.

Without getting all technical and such, there are some different options on the interceptors that I found interesting. There is an object interceptor, with different visual options (lights, bling, etc), and there is a Avatar Interceptor, with the same options, but instead of just blocking objects, it blocks Avatars from bumping you.

Most of the time, I think that would just be a nusance, but in certain situations, like working in a sandbox, I can see where that would be VERY handy. And again, VERY easy, just wear and forget!

So, after all this searching, and quite honestly, was not expecting to find anything that was helpful for my original quest, I am THRILLED to say, I think I found another tool, that will find a permanent place in my arsenal!

Ok, so here are the details. There are three actual product packages available. All three of these products are made by Flew Voom, and sold on SLX and Inworld, by B00tsy Compton. According to B00tsy's profile, that is the business account for Flew Voom. So, I guess that means they are one and the same..:)

Here are the links for SLExchange:

The Punisher HUD

The Pulsar R3 Interceptors

AND

The Pulsar R2 Shielding System

All three products are also available inworld at *$*BK*$* Weapons Store & Hangout

Prices are as follows:

Punisher HUD - $1250 Lindens

Pulsar R3 Interceptors only - $525 Lindens

Pulsar R2 Shielding System Only - $525 Lindens

Now, if you want some cool weapons along with these awesome shields, I would highly recomment the full Punisher HUD. PLUS, there is a feature that you can share the shields with a friend...which is a VERY cool feature.

NOW...for some pictures..:)

Just me, out for a nice casual stroll

A nafarious character appears

for NO apparent reason, lobs a grenade at me

and its quickly and effectively blocked by my SHIELDS!..YAY!

Then, an attempt to shoot me....

Which you can see, just bounced off, and actually almost got my attacker!

So then, figuring his weapons were ineffective, he would try and bump me..BUT NO DICE THERE EITHER!...muaahahaha

He keeps trying....obviously frustrated!

Tries one last time....and our little encounter is over...

I am always looking for good tools, so please don't hesitate to let me know what YOU like using in SL!

Till next time.

If it's Tuesday, this must be....

2008-09-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have finally been able to spend some time in SL, as RL has begun to settle down a bit. SHEESH!

Anyway, I am sure many of you have seen the new "Showcase" tab in the Search button, Right?!!!

Well, I have been checking some of the sites out, and I have to say, I REALLY like this search feature.

There is critiera to get your site onto this list, and that can be found right here: Showcase FAQ

I have been bouncing around to different entries, and I have to say, I have been pretty impressed with many of them. People are creating some VERY amazing places!

Now, I have to warn you, I have had some interesting experiences also, which I will write about a bit later, cause they led me down an interesting path, but overall, its been a VERY fun little trip, down that Showcase list.

Anyway, if you are standing around, either by yourself, or with some friends, trying to figure out what to DO today..(remember those days? When you sat around with your friends, and tried to find something FUN to do?)..Take a walk down the Showcase list. I don't think you will be disappointed!

Till next time

Is anybody listening?

2008-09-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

MAN, does RL throw some interesting things at you at times!

I have been dying to get back to this blog, and write write write, cause I have SOO much I want to write about, but I cannot seem to get even 30 minutes of uninterrupted time, to sit down, and write. SHEESH

I have been making notes, on what I want to write about, so the material is there, but I just have to get the time to lay it all out, cause its not all just fun and games stuff.

Anyway, for the millions of viewers the look at this blog everyday (HA!), I have not forgotten you!

More is coming, I promise!

Till then.

Another rant?

2008-08-27T15:12:00.000-07:00

So, I decided to hang a bit at the welcome area, cause it has been so long since I had. I wanted to see what newbies are getting exposed to, when they are just starting out.

It really hasn't changed much...if at all actually, and there always seems to be a steady stream of people coming in and out. But a couple of things struck me though.

First of all...WHAT is up with unsolicited friend requests? This is analogous to somebody walking around, handing out their business card, to EVERYBODY they meet. Walking down the street, handing them to everybody. WHY WHY WHY would I accept one of these requests? To be nice? so I can just delete it later?

I often wonder, why people seem to think that social interactions that don't work in the Real World, would work in Second Life. I mean...yes...we are all avatars, but there is a real person BEHIND that avatar, typing at a keyboard....controlling that avatars speech, movements, etc. Is it just me that wonders these things?

Second, the unsolicited landmarks to clubs. Which, I guess, is like hiring some kid, to stand at the bus station, handing out flyers for some underground band at a club or something. I rarely take those in RL, so again....no so much in SL either.

but, I suppose the random Landmark would not be so bad to a newbie, looking for something to do, or some place to see. I remember going all over when I started, looking at everything I could find. So maybe I should not rant about THAT one..:)

Have to say though, there are some very helpful people on at the Welcome Area. There always seems to be a Mentor around, which I would imagine is VERY helpful. I did chat with a few, and they seemed to be very knowledgeable, and helpful to those who asked questions.

Since I am a HUGE people person, and an avid profile reader, its always entertaining to just sit down, and watch the goings on. Seeing how different people dress themselves, what they say about themselves in their profiles, how they interact with other avatars, etc. Makes for HOURS of entertainment....let me tell you.

It seems many people use the Welcome Area, as a home base. It allows you to set your home there, so when you log in, you are in a familiar spot, each time. And I would think, that if you hang there enough, you would make some friends, which is always good too. :)

So, I guess, what started out as a rant, really, is more of an endorsement? The Welcome Area is not ALL bad!....:) who woulda thought.

But...still want to point out...only request a friendship, from somebody you have at LEAST talked to a bit, and maybe have established some sort of rapport with. The random friend request, is RARELY accepted.

Just my $.02 lindens.

Till next time

A bit about Rocky!

2008-08-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, as promised in my previous post, I am gonna talk about my dog Rocky.

Rocky is a Second Life pet, created by Enrico Genosse, and can be found at the Virtual Kennel Club. These dogs are really amazing!

There are 11 breeds of dogs available as of this writing. German Shepard, Chow Chow, Doberman, Irish Wolfhound, Australian Shepard, Bloodhound, Labrador, Chihuahua, Bichon Frise, Rottweiler, and NewFoundland.

Now, as is pretty obvious from the previous post, Rocky is a German Shepard. How did I decide to pick a German Shepard? Well, I will tell ya.

I was walking around Turning Isle Dog Park, checking out all the different breeds. I was walking around, and I walked away from all the dogs, to check out some of the shops around there. As I started to walk back, the German Shepard broke from the pack, and ran across the lawn, over to me. I thought that was pretty cool! It was like he picked ME! How strange is that!??!!

Anyway, These dogs are completely trainable, and controllable. When Rocky and I were out last night, hanging out around a campfire, he was running around, sniffing everything, checking everything out, just as a real dog would do! He even went over to some other people who were at a campfire a ways away...and said hello! It was VERY funny. All I had to do was call him, or shout for him, cause he was a ways away, he came right back! (BTW, during my stay at the campfire, had a couple of woman wander by, and they all stopped, and asked about Rocky!...:) ).

I am able to give Rocky commands, and like any well trained dog, he follows them! I can tell him to sit, speak, down (lay down), sniff, beg, and many many more. It was fun to have him run up to someone walking by, and sniff them! Of course my favorite command is "bang", to which Rocky plays dead. It's a TON of fun!

There are also commands to keep your dog on YOUR parcel, if you happen to own land, or even keep them within a determined square area (i.e. 10 x 10). That way, even if you rent, or have a skybox, you can leave your dogs out, and they won't fall off your porch!

These dogs have LOTS of accessories avaiable also. Toys, water/food bowls, dog houses, etc..that they will actually USE! Its very interesting, to see your dog running around, then all of a sudden, go over to its food dish, and start eating! I would SWEAR you were watching a REAL dog!

Also, you can train your dog to do some pretty amazing things. There are commands to mark a spot, then another spot, so you could, for example, teach your dog, to patrol the border of your land, and use the command "rocky patrol" (lets see if anybody remembers what TV show that line came from!..:) ).

Rico has really done an amazing job with these dogs. You can really tell the amount of work that has gone into them, not only the structures (sculpties have really made these dogs look AMAZING), but also the scripting, and just the amount of love that has gone into them!

So, if you find yourself wanting a constant companion in Second Life, take a look over at the Virtual Kennel Club, and see if you any of these beauties....captures your heart!

OR, if you are looking for that VERY special gift...for that hard to buy for loved one...Check these out!

Ok, the important info!

You can visit all these dogs at Turing Isle, and make sure you walk around, and check out ALL the accessories that you can get for your NEW best friend!

The following breeds are available (with adoption costs, and pics!)

Bloodhound - $1,800 Lindens to adopt!

Irish wolfhound - $1,800 Lindens to adopt!

NewFoundland - $2,480 Lindens to adopt!

Australian Shepard - $2,500 Lindens to adopt!

Chow Chow - $4,240 Lindens to adopt!

Labrador - $4,880 Lindens to adopt!

Rottweiler - $6,880 Lindens to adopt!

Chihuahua - $6,920 Lindens to adopt!

Doberman - $7,100 Lindens to adopt!

German Shepard - $7,680 Lindens to adopt!

Bichon Frise - $7,820 Lindens to adopt!

Till next time!

Ya know what.....

2008-08-24T18:29:00.000-07:00

Ya know what just amazes me about Second Life?

Came home today, after a VERY busy weekend RL, and was just exhausted. Didn't really want to talk to anybody, or do much of anything. So I logged into Second Life, and just did a little bit of map jumping.

Was not really looking for anything, just kinda wandering. I did happen upon this nice little area, open to the public (I checked..:) ), which had some nice landscaping, and a campfire.

So I sat down, and was just vegging. Then, a thought crossed my mind. My dog Rocky would LOVE this place. So I pulled him out of inventory, and let him run around a bit.

Just so you know...this is Rocky

(I will be writing more about Rocky soon, cause he is just an AMAZING animal!)

Anyway, I just sat there, and watched Rocky run around, and check everything out. And it dawned on me...how relaxing it was...to just sit, and watch my dog explore! Now, I have done this Real Life also, and I have learned that Second Life can mimic Real Life in so many ways, but this was very interesting to me.

So, I just sat there, watching Rocky be ... well .. Rocky, and thinking about how extraordinary this world we are in really is.

It was soooo relaxing, to just sit by a virtual campfire, with my virtual avatar, and my virtual pet, and just be.

Just watching this, on my computer screen, actually helped me relax. I could imagine myself there. The sounds of the fire, and the woods around me. Just me and Rocky.

And THAT, is what is amazing to me. I was able to project myself into that place, and it was VERY nice! Talk about visualization!...:)

So, with that being said, I think I am gonna get BACK to that scene, and enjoy it a little bit more..before RL comes barging back!

Till next time!

OMG! I want MONO!

2008-08-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

Ok, this week has been completely crazy. I have been DYING to get back over here, and write more (yes, I am officially hooked on blogging!).

Had planned on writing today anyway...but this morning I was greeted by a note from Linden Labs, that MONO is FINALLY HERE! WOOHOOO!

You can read the official Linden Lab blog entry HERE.

Now, in a previous blog, I mentioned how I felt that scultpy's has changed the look of Second Life, in such a wonderful way. I feel the same way about MONO.

Not only will it make scripts run better and faster, it will lesson the load on the Servers, and that helps EVERYTHING!

The full impact of this announcement will not be realized for a bit, as programmers recompile their scripts, and come up with new devices, toys, etc, to take advantage of this new environment, and I for one CANNOT wait to see what people do!

Being a old programmer myself, I have been kinda holding off a bit, only learning a little of the LSL scripting...just dabbling really, but now...I MIGHT just be tempted to do a bit more...:)

ANYWAY, I think this upgrade, will be another milestone for Second Life, and I cannot wait to see the outcome!

More is coming...I PROMISE!

Till then!

My first RANT!

2008-08-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, I have to ask. What is it about Second Life that makes people think they can just go anywhere they want?

I was talking to a friend last night, and he told me that he logged into his house..and there was a couple having sex...on HIS bed! WTH!

I have to wonder, why do people think that is ok in Second Life? I truly doubt they would do that in Real Life, so what makes it ok here?

Is it because it's JUST a game? My friend actually talked to said couple, and asked what they thought they were doing.

The response was, "well, there was no security, so we thought it was a public place". WHAT? A public place?

So, lets see...My friend lives on a private island, and lives in a skybox....and this is a public place? PLEASE! And from what my friend tells me, these two ....people...were not newbies either....had been in game for at least 6 mos.

So, what is it? What makes somebody just think they can go ANYWHERE, without any regard to WHERE they might be?

I travel a lot around Second Life, and I admit ... I even do the random Map jump, just for fun from time to time. But I can ALWAYS tell, if its a public place or not, and if its not .... I don't go snooping! (well, ok, if I think the place is cool, I might camera around, to admire ... but THATS IT! .... swear! ...:) )

Does Linden Labs have a class on etiquette on Welcome Island? Since this avatar of mine is still kinda new, I did go through that process, but admittedly, did not hang around that place for long...maybe I should have.

Anyway, A good rule of thumb everybody, is treat property in Second Life as you would in Real Life. If its not yours....respect the owners rights!.

:).....OK...Rant Over!

Till next time!

Getting a bit risque....

2008-08-14T23:57:00.001-07:00

SO, as I mentioned earlier, I found a great shop, with some very cool clothes today.

As I was walking around the SIM that shop was in, I found another shop. This one had several sets of animation overrides (AO's) in it, plus a couple of photo poses. these types of poses are very popular with the photographers in SL, and there are some VERY good ones out there.

I glanced at them, and one in particular caught my eye. I mean REALLY caught my eye..:)

The name of the shop is TorridWear Animations, and its owned by Torrid Midnight.

There are lots of AO packs there, all for women. I just was checking things out, when I found this one photo pose...and HAD to have it.

Now, the pose itself, called *TorridWear* - Adore Pose Set 2, was only $150 lindens, and its COPY, so you COULD put them around your place, if you wanted.

There are a total of 5 photo poses in the shop, and you can get all of them for only $650 lindens, but I just wanted the one...:)

So, I was trying to figure out how to show this to ya'all, and lucky for me...*smirks...I was able to have a friend help me out.

SO, here is the pose...

Usually I don't like static poses...but this was good...:)

And guys....my friend REALLY liked it too! *smiles

Till next time!

So, lets talk about Sculptys!

2008-08-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

So, I am wandering around, doing my thing, and I see this woman, with a VERY cool leather jacket on. So I ask her about it...cause I love leather jackets.

She tells me its from a Shop called Cubic Effects. So I TP over there...and start looking.

Now, I am by NO means a fashion expert, but these clothes are pretty amazing. The creator is mirai Jun, and I have to say..I was impressed.

Now, I came there looking for a jacket...and I did find it. Ended up getting some pants, and about 3 jackets, cause they were just VERY cool looking. These jackets are sculpty prim based, mostly, and the texturing on them is JUST amazing. VERY nice job mirai!

Now, as I am curious kinda guy, I started walking around the store, cause the build itself was catching my eye. The walls are using sculpted prims also, and have a very real look to them...but from a sculpted layout, and the textures. So I start walking up ramps, looking around...and that place just went on FOREVER!...:)

I kept walking up, looking around....it was like this place never ended! I finally made it to the top, and looked around.

I kinda peeked at the build, and looks like mirai did THAT too! Again...mirai..NICE JOB!

Why am I talking about this? well, when sculpted prims first came out, I knew right away that they were gonna change how Second Life looked forever. It has taken some time, but I am seeing them more and more, and watching the amazing talent that exists in this world, take things to a whole new level. Its been just astounding to watch.

From vehicles, to clothes, to buildings and many many other things.....this world that we travel around in, is constantly changing, improving, and looking more and more like RL...every day!

So, go by Cubic Effects, take a look around. You might end up with some VERY nice clothes, and a very nice little climb up to the top of her build!..:)

Adios!

An awesome SIM (or 3) to see!

2008-08-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it, this blogging stuff is WAY to addicting! /me laughs...:)

So, I was reminded recently, of an awesome SIM I had visited a while ago, and at the time, it was only supposed to be around for a limited time, so I never gave it a second thought. But for some reason, when I was reminded of it, I decided to see if I could find it again.

So, after a few minutes of scrolling through WAY WAY to many landmarks, I FOUND IT! and went to check it out, again.

And...much to my surprise, it was still all there!

Now, you guys HAVE to go see this place.... It was done by AM Radio, and its amazing.

Here is a sample:

Now, this SIM part of a charitable fund raiser, for...um....*looks for his notes...grrr....Ah...there it is..ok...The Heifer International Charity. Details about it are at the SIM. They are selling some interesting stuff, to support this organization, so check that out too.

Now, after you have marveled over this SIM, there are some links to other SIMs up on the wall, that you should check out also. Here are some sample shots of THOSE:

(on the "The Quiet" SIM, you HAVE to check out INSIDE the house....such an amazing job on textures)

OK, so you all set to go? Here is how to get there.

Start here...

The Far Away

Then, if you can't find the links at the SIM, go to these SIM's next:

NMC Arts Lab

AND

The Quiet

HAPPY TPing!

How 'bout a NEW tool/toy?

2008-08-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Hi there.

Ok, so I have talked about a couple of tools that I have found to be indispensible, that have been around for a LONG time. Now I have one that I really like, that is NEW! WOOHOO!

So, recently, my freebie, or maybe not a freebie (I have had it so long, I don't even remember) hugger, finally stopped working. I think it was the havok 4 upgrade that finally did it in. When I went to hug someone, I just would keep walking, and walking and walking...not really want I envisioned when I went to hug said person...:)

So, I started looking around for a new hugger, and being the SLX maniac that I am, I started there.

I happen to see on the preferred links...a couples kiss/hug animator by Meike Heston. I am always one to try something new, so I purchased it, cause it had some great reviews, and in the description, had some intriguing things to say...:)

My first reaction? WOW!

This HUD, has some VERY impressive features. In the description on SLX, it boasts a height adjustment system, but I really did not get to put that through its paces, cause the people I tend to hug, are usually of pretty normal height (so far...:) ), but it does sound impressive.

The HUD layout is very simple, not to big, but not so small that its hard to navigate. You can hide it simply enough, with just a click of a button, but the overall HUD is small enough that when I am wearing it, I don't mind having it open.

Scrolling through the animations is simple also, and the names of the different animations are very clear, which is nice. Just makes finding the appropriate animation for different people, very straight forward.

Now, for a VERY cool feature. There is a "HOLD" button...so say you are in a very involved dip kiss, and you don't want to stop...JUST yet...:) Just click "HOLD", and you will stay in that spot...till you tell it otherwise. VERY VERY cool feature! Nice work on this one Meike!

That feature addresses one of my pet peeves with several animation systems within SL, about lack of control, but that is a whole 'nother blog entry...:)

Overall, this is a fantastic system. The animations are nice, the control you have is great, the interface is simple yet functional, and it WORKS!..:)

You still have the issue about lining up properly with the person you are trying to kiss/hug/etc, which I do hope somebody comes up with a solution to that someday. I know I know, I am a dreamer, but I also know we have some VERY smart people building things in Second Life, Meike proving that with this current system.

Ok, so lets see, what else do you need to know. The "*Meike TM* Hug & Kiss 2.0 Deluxe" is available both on SL Exchange and at his Shop in the Waterton SIM, and it only costs $800 Lindens at both places.

There is a V1.2 available also, with only about 5 animations in it, but 1/2 the cost, but I tend to go with top of the line stuff, but I am sure that version is just as good as this one.

Also, Meike Heston's Shop also sells the animations IN this HUD, individually, plus some clothes, and even a poofer thingy...:)

Anyway....nice to see some NEW stuff come out, that somebody really put some thought behind!

SEE YA!

And now...my 2nd tool!

2008-08-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

Ok, now, my second most used tool...is definitely one that is not as well known, but I fell in love with it many years ago, and have not found anything yet that comes close.

This little tool is called Tracker HUD V1. It is a radar (we will have to count how many radars I actually have running at some point), and it actually LOOKS like a radar, with spinning green line going around in a circle!...I think that is one reason I like it!

I have had this tool, for at least two years, and its still at V1, which actually is pretty amazing. It has continued to work through all the upgrade Second Life has thrown at it, which I think is a pretty good testament to the product.

But not only is it a radar, it shows you WHERE the avatars around you are, even indicates if they are above or below you...which can be VERY handy.

It has several other features also, like a flight assist, and a platform generator which I find myself using quite a bit actually. VERY helpful if you are trying to place something in the sky. You just fly up to the height you want, hit a button, and VOILA!, you have a building platform, that you can rez a skybox, or whatever it is you want...right there.

You can also add avatar names to a list...so if those avatars are within 96 meters of you...their dot will show up in red. Can be handy, to avoid those weird avatars that JUST WONT LEAVE YOU ALONE!...:)

It must be the latent aviator in me (more about THAT later...:) but I like seeing my little radar going around at the bottom right of my screen...*laughs

Here is a shot of how the HUD looks

Tracker HUD also has a object scanner, but I don't use that much. I just load this HUD every day, and it helps me keep track of what is going on around me. It can be VERY helpful when out at a club...or shopping with friends....to keep track of them...:)

Now, when I first found this tool, it was available on SL Exchange, but I cannot seem to find it there anymore.

The only place that it seems to be still available is at one shop inworld located at Galactic Mall, in the Shinda SIM for $1,500 lindens.

Now, I know that seems like a lot of lindens....but....for all that I use it for...it has been a great investment!

So, to recap:

Tracker HUD V1 - Available at Galactic Mall for $1500 Lindens.

Great little tool....one of my few real keepers!

LATER!

OK, my FIRST tool!

2008-08-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

Ok, as I previously blogged, as I have been creating this avatar, I was thinking about what I use in my Second Life every day. What do I have on my screen all the time...

I have a couple of tools that I use everyday, and the first one I am gonna talk about is called MystiTools.

MystiTools, is a very small HUD that I have running all the time. It is basically a set of tools and options, that have been put together by Mystical Cookie.

I put my MystiTool in my upper right hand corner of my screen. MystiTool has LOTS of features, but here are the ones I use daily.

1. Radar: MystiTools radar notifies me in local IM (not in the menus, but in chat) when an avatar comes into chat range (more on radars in a later blog post..:) ). Its pretty convenient when I am walking around....watching chat..and to see who is around.

2. Idle Set: This little feature is wonderful. I can set it, and walk away from my computer for a while...and it keeps Second Life from logging me out. Its great for when you know the grid is having trouble, and if you log out, you are screwed.

3. Teleport History: This is a great way for me to find that wonderful spot I found YESTERDAY, but forgot to Landmark it. Great when shopping too!

4. Land Commands: A great way to control access to your land, banning griefers, etc, right from the menu!

5. Landmarks: I drag my most used Landmarks to this tool, and they are just a mouse click away! LOVE this feature!

and lots lots more!

I don't intend this to be a comprehensive review, just my notes on WHY this tool has become indispensable for me.

Now, you can get MystiTool both from SLExchange for $423 Lindens

OR

from Mystical's cute little shop in the Avendale Sim for $396 Lindens

(btw, if you look at the SLX link, it will show you ALOT about the tool also, many of the features are listed there)

She has some other interesting items in her shop, which I will probably talk about at some point in the future.

The Avendale SIM, by the way...is actually a very nice little sim, with several shops around it, even a fishing hole. Here are some pictures of some of the things I found:

Gotta Love some of the vehicles you find around Second Life!

AND ... whats a fire truck ... without the fire DOG!

This HUGE Teddy Bear was walking around, looking around, and even breathing ... VERY CUTE!

I have NO idea what this is ... but it looks VERY cool!

Ok, here is the info again.

MystiTool is available in the following locations:

SL Exchange for $423 Lindens

OR

Mystical's Shop for $396 Lindens

Till next time!

Ok, some essential stuff...

2008-08-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as I am creating this new avatar, I began to think...what do I NEED to have, not what was fun to have in the past, that I rarely use, but what do I USE in my daily journeys, what have I allowed to take up my precious screen space when I am inworld.

First of all, I would say my number one resource I use in Second Life, is not actually IN Second Life. It's SL Exchange.

For those of you that don't know, SLExchange (or SLX for short), is an website, where you can shop for Second Life items, without being IN Second Life.

I have had conversations about SLX with many people, and while there is something to be said for being able to see something inworld, and somebody actually said to me once "I want to be able to see and touch it (huh?...:) ), I have found SLX to be a HUGE resource. You can search for items, send gifts to friends (IF, they have a SLX account also), or just browse the latest and greatest stuff!

I know there are a few other shopping sites, and I have browsed them, but I seem to always come back to SLX.

I have to say, when being invited to an event, that is a theme I have NOT outfitted myself for already, being able to search on SLX has been a godsend.

Also, I have found myself just watching the main page, and letting the items just scroll by, kinda like window shopping, without having to move..:) This is great fun for me, cause I like to see what people are making, and selling. I even do this when I am not inworld, and am a little bored....:)

So check out SLExchange if you have not already, if you are anything like me, you might find yourself a little hooked...:)

Oh, and by the way, SLX is FREE!

More on what I actually DO allow to take up my screen space...in a bit..:)

Just a bit obsessed!

2008-08-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I posted my first entry this morning, but I cannot get this idea out of my head.

What do I want to write about!....I have so many things that I want to get out, that I am beginning to feel overwhelmed with it...which is silly, cause its JUST a blog!..:)

Do I just start writing? Do I work on the LOOK of the blog? how much does the look matter? How much do I want to link my blog up to the blogosphere? How will I be received? if at all....

Anyway, I do know from my past experience, that actually writing down my thoughts...helps me process them, which is exactly what this blog is all about, a place for me to process stuff, and share a little of my experiences.

I don't necessarily want this blog to be just a personal diary, probably wont be MUCH of that anyway, but I have enjoyed Second Life for so long, and I have many many thoughts on it, and the things that are there, the places to be seen, the toys to play with, etc etc.

I just hope that its not TOOO boring to read!

Until next time (which may be 10 minutes, or may be a day...:) )

Say HI! to the blogger virgin!

2008-08-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well....HI THERE!

This is my first blog entry...EVER!

I have lots of plans for this blog, mostly cause I love to explore, and talk about Second Life, and have not had a place to really let it all out!

I plan on talking about ALL things Second Life, which will include places, toys, tools, vehicles, styles, ideas, thoughts, musings, rambles, and even the occasional tirade!..:)

Now, I know...this blog does not LOOK like much at the moment, but this also gives me an opportunity to practice and expand my html skills and such...so WOOHOO for me!

I might talk about me also, but not sure anybody really cares about that, or even if they will care to read this blog, but that is not the point, its a way for me to express my thoughts and ideas, and share what i find so fascinating about the incredible world called Second Life.

I am really looking forward to all this..:)

See you next time!