An Average Guy on Second Life

....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!

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!

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!

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!

...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!

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!

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.