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Hello friends whom I've not communited with for many months - Nay, I've not fallen of a cliff, rather, a bit of too much work at the Collective, and a falling inworld has takenmy spare time, hence I write a bit trady in wishing everyone the best these holidays have to offer, whether crhistmas, yule, those odd boxing days or just plain gatherings with friends and family to share oneself with each other.
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Just a fave photo from Jez's fab collection of FaerieWorld
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OMS (oh my stars) but am I sore this morning from the hours upon hours of dancing to great ground pounding, wing flitting, trance inducing music, having danced with the faeries this past weekend. Perhaps it was the SL faerie dances I've gone to, and, having read about Jez's ( kightp) decision to go to Faerie Worlds that, along with my desire to go, was little push that motivated me to drive for five hours down to Secret House.winery where convocation took place. Cute faeries everywhere, from the wee ones (oh soo cuuute) to the fresh and brash and gothtie urban ones, to the faerie queens, and to the ancient ones. All were radiant, all were beautiful, all were having a wonderful time.I came as a traveling dancing elf which blended quite nicely. We're cousins, so the Fae were nicely accomodating - no terrible pranks. I took few photos since all I had was my cameraphone but Jez and (
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O.M.G.! It was 100F in Renton, 97F in Redmond. Water, drink much water...
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It has been quite warm in these Seattle lands, 84F in Kirkland, and the plants are complaining - I just finish drenching all the potted plants and shrubs for the third day in a row to keep them from withering. On the other hand, the ground rooted plants are doing fine since there is plenty of water below. That does mean the blackberry vines are in takeover mode. Perhaps tonight, since we have decent daylight until almost 10PM, I will go out and thin out the most egregious vines and tangles. It is hotter in Redmond and with a bunch of nearby offices being converted into a lab, the air conditioning is not quite up to snuff, hence quite warm inside; dare I wear my kilt in to work? I think not - too many pranksters are around to flip it up. Tech boys can be quite immature when they see things socially off the mean. I now have two kilts: the Utilikilt in tan and a Freedom Kilt in charcoal. I bought the Freedom Kilt in Victoria and it was custom made, sized for me, so it wears extremely well. Since it is cut in a traditional Scottish kilt style with the flat unpleated apron, I usually wear the modern equivakent of a sporran: an REI waist pack. Kilts are also the best way to travel on airlines for many reasons, notably staying cool in those now too crowded airplanes and it seems to ease my way throuogh the security lines (no they don't have mirrors on the floor). Missing Selene - she's down in San Diego teaching and participating in a workshop. Then she's off to Kripalu for another couple of weeks, thus it's me and the two cats. SL has kept me quite occupied with its bardic circles, amazing dances and aesthetic construction classes. Now this is proving to be a good thing because it makes me write thoughtful prose and deliver it at least once a week. And now I am wending through the time consuming modeling and scripting phase to build an inventory of tools and subassemblies for my creations. This, I hope, will lead to artistic products which people will flock to and buy thus offsetting the cost of living there.
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Summer finally arrived in Seattle - well it did about a week ago with temps well above average and rainfall well below - and yet it is nice to have blue skies above and not a knotted mess of grey scudding northward to converge upon an equal mess of grey somewhere over Everett. The plants are not happy about this situation; though they like those photons, they thirst for water, and I haven't been keeping up with their watering as I have been distracted.
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FL: OMG, am I sore from this weekend's ride! That month long vacation Selene and I took, although wonderful and relaxing, left me with less cardio-vascular stamina. I started riding last week by going to the office and back. It was OK, though I'd get winded sooner, especially up the hills. Today I rode from Kirkland around the lower part of Lake Washington and then across the I-90 bridge, about 40 miles in total. Though I made it fine, albeit slower and more winded, I find myself quite sore this late evening. Tomorrow morning might prove 'interesting', :-). SL: I bought land several days ago, a blank slate of a hillside with splendid views of the virtual ocean to the west and not so pleasing views of a skyscraper to the south. There are no building codes in SL, so residential areas are freely intermixed with commercial real estate. There are, however, very tall trees, so I occluded the building with a bunch of giant blue spruces and then planted firs and other shorter trees in front of them. It's quite nice. I finished building a translucent foot bridge between Rowan and Kurt's land, added water beneath it along with water loving plants. It's my first attempt at prim building, so I need to clean up the rough spots - in time it will get better. Kat (my new friend in SL) called, so I showed her the grounds, introduced her to Rosmairta and Scarlotti. Later on she and I went dancing at heartland - it's pure country music, line dancing and much fun. Now off to sleep.
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LJ's scrapbook system truly sucks, and after having tried the different upload 'clients', I am not satisfied. Flickr, on the other hand, is easy to set up and the drag and drop clients are pretty good. So, here is the link to my SL gallery. My First Life vacation/holiday trip will also soon be uploaded to Flickr.
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Returning from my first life holiday, I had some time to go inworld and work on my avatar. I have a brief photo history of my time in SL here. It is interesting to view the skin changes starting with the default one given to a newcomer, then some heavier customization, and then getting higher quality skin. All this is using free skins so far, though the purchased skins are even better quality. Compare my first avatar... My first avatar was based on the default skin given to newcomers to Second Life. I chose the Haruguy form and then made minor customizations to it.
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I've just started in SecondLife, so I haven't had time to adjust my avatar. This is what I have so far... ...back to wine, cheese,...
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Well, my bags are not packed yet, but they soon will be with several changes of clothing, HABA, and other travel goodies to carry me through a much needed month long holiday; Selene and I will be heading out to SEATAC Sunday crack'o'dawn to Madrid Spain for almost a week to visit her sister and growing family. After that we fly to Torino Italy to se the temple at Damanhur and then spend two weeks working our way across Tuscany to Venicia, Florencia, (many stops along the way) ending at Pisa. After that we fly back for a one week whirlwind visiting family: New York for a wedding, Puerto Rico to visit my dad, Detroit to visit Mom and rest of family. We have our inexpensive GSM phone,have a SIM/TIM card for Italy. Viaggiamo avanti! Meanwhile, stopped the mail and newspaper delivery, arranged cat sitting for Beren and Fariell (who we hope will remember us after we return), photocopy a bunch of documents, deal with many details... Time to sleeep now...
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OMG, I have been in excrutiating pain in the last 24 hours while passing a kidney stone. If it weren't for a shot of Turbitol to ease the pain immediately or the Vicodin pills afterward, I'd be a puddle on the floor. As it tuend out, I waspretty much writhin in pain, nausia, and just plain confuzzled. This morning the stone passed - blessed relief.
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Well, it was either go inworld and travel the regions, perhaps stop off at Renaissance Island, or, go outworld an enjoy the fabulously sunny weekend in the Seattle area. Sun and warmth being a rare and precious experience this time of year, compelled me to go a-sojourning. On Saturday, Selene and I took a walk through the Mercer Slough just south of Bellevue. The lovely walk went through the swamps atop a winding planked boardwalk which led us through intensely green and fragrant plants, brilliant Fuschias and the weirdest variant of horsetails I've ever seen. We also circumnavigated a working blueberry farm, the plantings living off of the rich peat soil. That was a great day capped by watching a few episodes of Monarch of the Glen. Sunday I went riding on my bicycle, this time going widdershins from Kirkland east to Redmond then north on the Sammamish trail to Bothell, heading west across the top of the lake, stopping at Log Boom park for a break and snack. Then I rode south to Seattle, stopping off at Gas Works Park for my second break and snack. On my way out I met my friend, Rebecca, who is part of our vocal improv singing group. She too was cycling, albeit just around her neighborhood. Continuing south (and up the moderate Lake Washington Drive), I was shadow tailed by another cyclist who was impressed by my speed going up the grade on "just a hybrid." Feh! "Gosh why don't you buy a road bike?" said he. Well, this just got me to speed up a lot, though I was impressed he kept up too. We eventually got into a friendly banter and we rode most of the way together, exchanging the lead position to share the wind load. Having a pace line partner is wonderful because the person or people behind the lead rider get a 30% reduction in effort. We rode up to I-90, then blasted east across the bridge. Steve lives on Mercer Island so we departed ways at that point; I continued east to I-405 then north through Bellevue and up a steep series of hills back to Kirkland. Much later that evening I popped inworld to practice making a translucent bridge in preparation for a walkway to join the lands of Falkenrath and Talad Thiad. While practicing twisting things, I received an invite to join Pipp, my earlier friendly encounter. Well, he brought in another fella, Viper, who looked all tough and tatted, and he then proceeded to hand out weaponry. The machine gun worked very well, and Viper's plasma gun did a bunch of damage (all on their lands, mind you), but when he said shoot the dog, I reached my limit. Surprisingly, so did Viper - the dog lived, and we all learned innocents must never be killed. Ah the color - There's room for all sorts of folks in SL. I bid my farewell and teleported away before leaving the world.
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I've been wandering through a tiny slice of Second Life, which is vast world indeed. Many parts of it are astoundingly beautiful and well designed. Other parts reflect the maladies or obsessions of First Life, albeit amplified to strange heights. I've been at Orientation Island for a while getting my legs. It's a tiny place designed to contain the initial experience with SL. Eventually I learned how to teleport, and found myself in Help Island where I practiced (terribly) at creating objects. Getting a bout of virtual cabin fever, I decided to teleport at random to another place: Atis. Now that was strange since the teleHub (the common point of entry) was in someone's house. Or, perhaps, that house was a nice way to conceal a public port of entry. Interesting. I wandered about the grounds and ran into a no-entry barrier that surrounds a property. It is invisible until one gets within 10 feet or so of it, and at that point, thin red lines appear on its surface. One cannot get past it. In my wanderings I saw another person round the corner. He approached and we talked. The fine gentleman is Pipp McKinney, associated with the templars group, friendly and generous, he invited me to his castle nearby and we then hung out on his boat. He briefed me on the tougher parts of SL: the slavers, the griefers, the ease of spending a lot of real money if one is not careful. He became my friend and I now have a place to stay in the GurlyWood district, of all places :-) I finally met up with The next day I chose to strike off on my own again to travel through the world (albeit a teensy part of it since it is vast). Renaissance Island is a agreat place complete with free peasant clothes offerings. The Phat Kat Jazz club was great albeit a bit crowded. I was also a bit under dressed for that scene, so I wandered off to the Hobbit's store, which is sited in a tranquil place designed to encourage conversation. You get paid $L to sit in the tables and I picked up a free Celtic t-shirt. Nice. I decided to look at the land for sale to see how the Linden dollar economy is doing. First, I found a small parcel of available land right next to Rosmairta's garden. It is a gently sloping grassy area, probably cleaned up by the surrounding land owners to become a park like setting with a few Narnia lamps and trees. It is lovely and I might consider buying it. It could be a great place to tether the DragonsFlight zeppelin, once I create it. I opened the map HUD to view the surrounding landscape, and I then teleported to the larger for-sale properties. I was surprised to find many of those places are abandoned improved lots with operational but otherwise empty buildings. It's spooky to see the same pattern of failed businesses, vandalized structures, people wandering aimlessly through them. I soon realized the landless need someplace to go to stay out of trouble. Yes, trouble can find you in SL if you're in the open (more on that later). After completing my tour of available lands, I decided to go to some events. SL has many event spots ranging from educational to downright fun/party, so my wanderings took me into the Pharos Lighthouse, a huge casino and dance palace complete with expensive art, products, and services. I chose the free route and danced with fellow avatars, listened to the hot disco beat. One fringe benefit of the place is that the pads pay you to dance. I'll have to visit the place when its jammed with people, though I'll have to glitter up first. The sun set and it was getting dark, so I returned to an empty corner of Rosmairta's and Scarlotti's land to find a quiet place to sort through my inventory and get it organized. Since it was dark, I took out a torch I copied someplace else and set it down next to me for illumination and for practice. The torch instantly popped back into my lost&found inventory folder. I forgot their land (and nowadays, most lands) have auto-return objects enabled. So, I flew over to the vacant land and discovered I could leave objects on it. I practiced adjusting the shape and textures, and then I reivewed the animation scripts and the cool particle generator which animates the flame and smoke. It is remarkably compact. I usually leave the minimap display HUD up because it alerts me to nearby people. as I was engrossed with the object building practice, I did not notice the guy approach; he was dressed in fatigues, desert patterning, holding an assault rifle. He asked "what are you doing in the woods alone?" I responded "nothing much just relaxing. What are you doing here?" "Looking for Taleban. Where are you hiding Al Queda?" Crap, a griefer. Next thing I know he switches off the safety on his rifle and say "We'll have to take you to Gitmo". Thankfully, I was sitting down, which in SL prevents anyone from 'pushing' or shooting you all over the map. I had just enough time to mute him and then teleport directly to Rosmairta's garden safe from his harrassment. From that safe vantage, I watched the mini-map waiting for him to depart. Afterward I went back to the vacant land to pick up the objects I left behind. It's a rude act in SL to litter a place with prims. So Rowan, Kurt, Thank You!!!! Many hugs
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I recently received an update to the Video driver for the Inspiron 6000 laptop and it looks like it implements OpenGL correctly, at least with enough fidelity that SecondLife no longer crashes. It's been over a month since I created Balpien Hammerer, so I've missed out on all the freebies offered to new members. I am loitering at Orientation island presently getting ready to head to the 'mainland'.
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It is worrisome when the answer to "name a country whose name begins with the letter 'U'" is "uhhh... Utah?" The rest of the amazingly ignorant answers may be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBklo Oh, and a triangle either has four sides or it fundamentally has no sides too. I guess there really is no spoon.
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Wow, I haven't posted in a long while; too busy, too stressed, and just plain not into typing into a computer having been just about sunburned by myriad displays with the ones at the office, so it was time to get away from it all and have a quality long weekend in Victoria B.C. Selene and I left Kirkland Friday morning 8:30AM to catch our first 10AM ferry at Edmonds, crossing over to Kingston. We were early so we found a nice local (as in not Starbucks) coffee/chai shop, ordered a couple chai latte and just hung around watching the birds and police do their morning patrol. Though the Edmonds/Kingston crossing is faster than the Seattle/Bainbridge crossing, it tends to be homely; the two ports are fairly ordinary with no redeeming architecture. Add a deeply grey backdrop to this and it's well, boring. Once off, we drove for an hour and a half to Port Angeles, and though this town is designed to move containers and products, it is a livelier and established place. Once again we were early, mainly because the good ship M. V. Coho was nearly fully booked. Earlier, Selene noticed that while perusing the ferry WEB site and she managed to secure passage reservations. There were only two left after we got ours, and it helps to be at the head of the line because even reservations at the tail of the line can get bumped if their loading estimates are off. So, we had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant, an Ahi sandwich, pretty good fish but served on an ordinary hamburger bun. The crossing from Port Angeles to Victoria was eventful. The M. V. Coho is a big ship with a cargo maw three stories tall. It is one enormous door with steam driven piston actuators that hiss and gurgle for several minutes to move that massive chunk of steel. The hinge pins were easily two feet in diameter. Under the new security rules, once the boat is underway no one can go below decks to their cars. We hung out in the observation deck, and watched the ship pitch, roll, and yaw. Huge swells were causing the ships prow to lift up and down a good 30 feet above and below the horizon. It was difficult to walk inside. Outside, it was difficult to not get hurled onto the outboard deck rails. I looked behind to see heavy weather collecting on the backside of the Olympics. Big dark mammary clouds were headed our way. About that time the overspray was getting heavy, so I went back inside. After 90 minutes of this, the weather lightened. The protecting spit becalmed the waters and we entered Victoria's harbor. We plied quietly into the terminal and this time another two story steel door opened up near the bow on the starboard side. This was strange because side doors like that are usually on the port side, but because of harborage layout, this ship was custom built for a right docking. First in, first out and short jaunt to an uneventful immigrations and customs. We arrived Friday around 5PM giving us plenty of time for a stroll and shopping adventure. We thought we found the hemp store we visited last time but it turned out to be another one with a young woman running it who looked just like the young woman who ran the other one. I know, but I must say it, those Canadians look alike. Canadians are also taller and to Selene's delight she finally found both jeans and a top that fit her lanky frame *and* were long enough reach ankles and wrists. I've been looking for another kilt and I recall seeing a reference to a place that makes "Freedom Kilts". These kilts are also non-tartan but they have a more traditional pleating, unlike utilikilts (of which mine I do like much), but are made of light weight materials like poly-cotton blend. As I was mentioning this to Selene, we saw two men kitty corner from us standing in front of a pub having a pipe smoke in their splendid kilts. "Provenance", I wondered, so we went across and I asked the fellows whether they knew of the Freedom Kilt store. It turns out the older fellow is the proprietor and we discussed when I could visit. He graciously offered to open up the place Sunday, though it was usually closed that day. A lovely dinner at Camille's closed the day for us. Victoria is a lovely strolling friendly city. We walked for about ten minutes to the Embassy Inn. It's a nice older place, not nearly as fancy or expensive as the more modern hotels on the harbor. It is sited right across the street from the Government Building with its beautiful grounds, fountains, and grassy walkways. The Rhiannon singing workshop took place Saturday, 10AM to 5PM. It was pretty good but the exercises took longer, mainly because the experience level of the group varied widely. Still we managed to get in some nice 'round the circle trio sings - one person starts with a bass line, another person brings in counterpoint, and the third person solos. All three determine when to end it, and then the new trio becomes two original plus one new person. I think this was intended to go faster but it got stuck in a few places. I started a bass line, a simple well spaced funk-esque piece that I thought my trio mate would do well with counterpoint. Earlier I heard him doing the human beat box thing, pretty good rhythm, so my little swing laced funkadelic riff should have found a home with him. Rhythm he's got, vocal accuracy... not. Rhiannon worked with him to get that straightened out and I ended up hold that riff for several minutes non-stop. Now, I can hold a click track in my head or in my body for a goodly amount of time but this was getting difficult. And, the little riff wanted to evolve, grow wings, be alive, jump about, but I held it steady - that was the point of this exercise after all, to be a group and play off each other - one soloist with their insta-band. There were other splendid singers too. A young red-haired lass opened up and sang honey running down flowers, blossoms opening up to an ethereal morning, larks and wind, timeless haunting language. Wow! She told us, in her sweet Irish accented voice, that her 'day job' is as a busker. She just travels around the world and lives on a song. She reminds me of an upbeat 'Vas' sans the dark melancholy. We also spent time working on shape shifting. Rhiannon picked a few people to form the first group and after about a minute I noticed her motioning me to join the group. I think she was looking for voicing balance, so I entered with bass. The energy was good, most everyone played with each other and we all found the right places for our voices, sometimes harmonize with another person, other times a few others would sing in unison to bolster a pattern. Soloist darted in for a time, dropping out; the phrasing and emotion would shift. It reminded me of those massive clouds made up of birds - shifting shapes forming dissolving then reforming all the while the individual patterns contrasted deeply with the meta-forms. Mmmm! To other groups went up. Selene was in the third one. Several of us walked quietly around the group circle to listen to the point specific music. Other listeners piled up in the center to take on the wholeness. Afterward, we rushed off to the kilt store to look at his inventory. He is an excellent kilt maker ranging from traditional House tartans to modern camo-kilts to industrial workman's kilts. I choose a cargo style kilt, a somewhat modern version of the traditional kilt - wider pleats but with a full non-pleated front waist, charcoal poly-cotton. These are custom made; he took several measurements to ensure a perfect fit and I should have it in a month. Then we had to rush back to downtown to make it to the concert. As we entered the place, one of the people led Selene and I to the front row. We were selected along with four others to sing with Rhiannon onstage. She was great, channeling song and performance from Planet Improv. In the middle of it all, she called us up and there we were, looking at each other realizing we were about to do a shape shifting improv piece. It was fun, it was scary, we played with each other, and it worked. I was elated. People liked it, they showed their appreciation with applause. Oh yes! This brought on a flood of memories of my modern dance perforances in the Trilogy Dance Company. I had forgotten the sense of ecstasy in performance art. Programming, software architecture, and design is a money maker, but this was real, this was plain and simple joy - a deep resonance building up from within - cat's purr - flying on wings of song. Afterward, I basked in the glow of that joy. Selene was feeling it too. She has a lovely voice and I looked upon her joy. It was great. A bunch of us went to a common friend's house where several of the singers were staying, had a great impromptu dinner then off to head to sleep. Sunday, Selene and I found time to go to the British Museum for a long wander. We heard a docent speaking to a group of people about the first peoples of B.C., and that voice seemed awfully familiar; it was the kilt maker, a most interesting coincidence. We stopped to listen and he smiled at us when we left. Time marched ahead while we were stuck in the past, so we had to rush to get our car and drive off to the ferry terminal and line up for U.S. immigration, the crossing this time calm across the straits of Juan De Fuca to Port Angeles, a simple one question test at customs "are you carrying any illegal drugs or alcohol?" "No". "OK, have a nice day." A long drive to Kingston and then onto the Ferry of Near Death and Dismemberment to Edmonds. I could not believe how badly this thing was running. Its engine or propeller shaft was so out of balance that it shook the entire ferry violently all the way across, so much so that the windows were bouncing visibly in their stays; these are six feet high ten feet wide inch thick panes. When the ship began its glide to the terminal, the engine slowed to a stop and we all could feel the ship's deck heave up and down about six inches in unison with the revolutions. I was happy to get off that thing and drive home to Kirkland. We had a great weekend.
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I finally wandered inworld into Second Life. I had to use Selene's laptop which still runs XP, and it works very well. I tried loading a different video driver into my Vista laptop but the SecondLife app just does not work in that OS. It is a nice environment, well rendered and textured 3D, and reasonable speed of movement, though I noticed a few times when everything woould slow down - perhaps the server overloaded. Unfortunately, I simply could not edit the appearance of my avatar which remains, sadly, as a shadow of myself. Perhaps Rosmairta can help out soon.
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contemplative
creative
content
uncomfortable
cheerful
chipper
versus my latest one in the thumbnail above.
energetic
excited
exanimate
tired
curious
crushed
disappointed