Compulsive

OK yes I'm compulsive. But the rent was really reasonable - so I opened a little shop for the potted herbs and hanging baskets. Have to do some retail. :) It's not the name I intended to give it - but it'll do I guess.

Unpacking

It's getting there:) I'll keep fussing with the trees, and I really need to find some furniture for the place.

The ducks are happy - and their brief time in a suitcase doesn't seem to have bothered them.

It's pretty down by the water. :)

Moving Day

I'm a compulsive nester - so my first task was to find a new place to call home. I've got the castle in but I haven't planted any trees yet.

I've rented part of an island in a group that appears to be populated with ...... well let's say an "interesting" assortment" of people. I'm not used to having neighbours so it helps that they're very nice people. :)

They even flew Canadian flags just to make me feel welcome.:)

:)

Reality Bites (sometimes)

I've told LL that I'm abandoning all the islands in my estate. The first will disappear tomorrow. Aintree - the main island, will go the next day. I'm being realistic - I just can't justify paying all this tier right now. It's not the easiest thing I've done - but it's not the end of the world.

There are over 11,000 prims on Aintree - and I love every damn one of them. :) It's not world peace but it has been an enormous source of pride to walk around and see what I built.

The ducks and the cats and the dogs and the other animals will be fine. They'll just go to the farm for a while til I get a new place. Which I will - someday. :)

I'll have to spend tomorrow making sure I have a copy of everything in my inventory (it'll take a while to sort that mess out).

One of the hardest things has been telling my regular visitors - the ones who like riding around the islands. And there's a pack of wolves I have to notify.

I'll have more time now to do some real world projects. And I'll finally have more time to explore and spend with friends. So on to my next phase in SL. :)

Reality TV and SLebrity

There are so many things I want to say about the whole concept of SLebrity and the process by which people achieve it.... but I'll be good and stay quiet. Understand, I'm not passing judgment on people who want to be known and/or admired throughout SL. I would, however, suggest that they spend a little bit of time asking themselves what they want to be "known for". Do you want to be the Paris Hilton of SL (known for being known) or AM Radio substitute any of the really brilliant minds in SL (known for superb creations and charitable work). If it's the former you're liable to wind up just being the subject of derisive laughter. If it's the latter - you'll be admired for your skills and lasting contributions to the community. I know which I'd prefer. :)

In the meantime though - I would like to comment on the concept of an SL reality series which aims to give somebody the celebrity they seek. In addition to giving Wrath an excuse to be inworld on a regular basis, the series seems to give the contestants something I think most SLeb wannabe's don't have - something real to be "known for". From reading the description here, it seems the contestants actually have to learn skills and demonstrate ability. Developing something real that they can build on, improve, create with and then offer SL. I can't imagine wanting to go through the process but I can admire somebody willing to learn and earn. :)

More opportunity to build character!

I've been pondering what to do with all these islands - do I just abandon them? I finally decided to pick a middle ground. I'll abandon the last two - one full prim and one homestead. That means I'll still have 4 islands - not exactly leaving me impoverished in terms of land.

I'm keeping the first one - one of my main sources of income. Then the two homesteads with all the visitors - they like visiting, I like having them ...... so they stay. That leaves the seasonal island - which is fun, and gives me a major project every couple of months. I need that. :) I'll also need a place to put the castle. So that Homestead stays.

Moving the castle however, proved too difficult. So I'll rezz a brand new one and start changing textures etc. all over again.

Unfortunately, I discovered that if you take the mail subscription system you lose all the names in the folder. sigh Well, 99.9% of those names never bought anything anyway - so I'll just start again.

I'm going to make changes to Aintree and add the sun dials and armillary's. A little change will be good for that island I think.

So if I'm not posting a lot - it's cause I'm moving, renovating, puttering. :)

Well ... at least he said please.

SL was being a bit glitchy - I think he probably looks better than this when he's fully rezzed. :)

[8:07] New Guy: hello
[8:07] Honour McMillan: hello :) welcome to Aintree :)
[8:07] New Guy: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
[8:07] Honour McMillan: ?
[8:07] New Guy: you and beautifull
[8:08] Honour McMillan: lol thank you
[8:08] Honour McMillan: welcome to Second LIfe
[8:08] New Guy: love you
[8:08]Honour McMillan: no - no you don't
[8:08] New Guy: in game ok
[8:08] Honour McMillan: lol
[8:08] Honour McMillan: I don't role play :)
[8:08] Honour McMillan: and Second Life is not really a game
[8:09] New Guy: me and you family in game
[8:09] Honour McMillan: sorry - I don't role play :(
[8:09] New Guy: pllllleeeeeeessssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeee
[8:09] New Guy: me and you sexxxxx
[8:10] Honour McMillan: no - that's not going to happen
[8:10] Honour McMillan: you need to slow down
[8:10] New Guy: bye
[8:10] Honour McMillan: bye

And when he hadn't gone anywhere.

[8:12] Honour McMillan: if you're trying to teleport - clear your cache
[8:13] Honour McMillan: go to edit/preferences/web/clear now
[8:13] New Guy: pllllleeeeeesssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeee cafe you house ok pppppppppplllllllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
[8:13]Honour McMillan: no

Welcome Archimede :)

I went to visit Cris' gallery (which is terrific and deserves a visit) and noticed this cool build next door. Wound up buying Archimede - my new wizard's owl. I still need to explore all his functions (the documentation could be a little clearer) but I like him a lot. :)

Aintree Scientific

It sounds much more impressive than it is but, Aintree Scientific is now open. I have a lot of work left to do to landscape, and move the pieces around, but at least I've stopped fussing with those clocks. :)

Once I clear off a few more things on the todo list - I can start on some new instruments for the store. Right now though, I think I'll make it an early night. :)

Another day :)

I figured out the one little glitch remaining with the Armillary's - so you'll be relieved to know I'll stop posting about them. :)

I thought I'd share the obvious - we all have different definitions of snow attire.

Yay!!

They work!!! It's always possible that something will go wrong over night ...... but right now, they work. :)

New Week - Scratch Start

The island looks like a junkyard for armillarys. :) However, I'm really close to either making them work the way I want them to.............or abandoning the idea that they will be anything more than decorative. I've had some weird things happening where prims are rotating away from where I left them (and no, there's no script in them). I think what I have to do is move to another part of the island, start from scratch and build another base model. Once I've made sure all the prims are rotated in the correct direction and the cut lines start at the correct spot etc., I can make an improved dial texture. If the numbers on the dial are proportional it doesn't keep accurate time all day - so I'm going to have to spend time in the photo editor constructing one. :)

I'll just keep taking aspirin for the SL-bow. :)

SL-bow...... Are you kidding me?

OK so a lot of time spent editing photos for textures and even more time spent building and landscaping.........and as a result ......... SL-bow (and yes that's the correct medical term).

Olecranon bursitis can also occur over a longer period of time. People who constantly put their elbows on a hard surface as part of their activities or job can repeatedly injure the bursa. This repeated injury can lead to irritation and thickening of the bursa over time. The chronic irritation leads to the same condition in the end--olecranon bursitis.

So, does SecondLife have workers' comp?

Really, Officer... it was an accident!

Most of the past week has been spent working out some problems with the armillarys (there was a brief shopping trip, but I don't want to talk about that). The hard work has been done by a talented scripter - I won't name him or her for reasons which will become obvious.

We went through a number of iterations of the script - and most of the need to rewrite was a result of me being stupid. There was one little hiccup though for which I can't claim credit - it was one of those serendipitous moments that occasionally happen during the voyage of creation and discovery. You know, when you try to create a ploughshare and it turns out to be a gun?

Really Officer, I was trying to script a paperclip........the nuclear weapon just happened!

That genius of a scripter accidentally created a potential time bomb. I'm standing there yelling at the prim saying "you're supposed to be moving dammit" when unbeknownst to me (or that scripter) he or she had created something very different than intended. Just lucky it didn't kill me.

Now I have the script I need (thanks to that scripter who shall remain nameless). The only problems that remain are with prims, rotation, cut lines and non-proportional spacing. These are issues I'm willing to tackle - I will build important character by steadfastly refusing to quit. And it's much safer than yelling at script that might really want to disembowel me.

Very sweet :)

It's probably a manly, macho individual (given that it's a dragon). But to me he has all the qualities of a puppy or kitten. I just want to cuddle him. :)

Update: I think the little dragon is a "she". I still want to cuddle her. :)

It's a really good day!

You know how you meet somebody and you just know this is going to be a friend? Happened this morning. A new resident landed on the island as I was fighting with some script (it's getting there :)) - we started talking and he said he was an artist. He showed me one piece and then I went to look at his gallery space (here less than a month and already renting gallery space).

I enjoy all the amazing art I see in SL, but I'm a big fan of naive art - and I love his work. So much I bought 3 pieces right away. I framed two of them and put them on top of the mountain, the third I've put in my office.

So if you have some time to explore - go visit Mihai's gallery and take a look at his art. I think you'll be glad you did. :)

It's alive!

Well sort of - it tells time anyway. And since it tells accurate SL local time and I did the scripting - I'm very proud. :) I found an open source clock script (couldn't find it the normal way so I went looking for one of those jerks that resell free script and found it). The script would rotate a texture to real life time based on a 12 hour clock - so I changed it to sl local time, based on a 24 hour clock and added script so that it would adjust it every second. And voila! It works! A minor triumph I know, but I'll take what I can get. :)

This one still has issues but, with help of friends, I'm hoping I can convince it to also tell time.

Mostly I'd like to just go back to building and leave this script stuff to those (frankly weird) people who like it. :)

Back in business ........knock on wood!

I hesitate to post this in case I jinx something. I almost abandoned all my land last month and retired from SL. Not in protest of anything or because I don't like it - gawd knows how much I enjoy creating (and yes OK, you guys) etc. The problem was that ever since the Open Space debacle started my sales went pffffft. Literally dried up over night and vanished. Well think about it - who is going to worry about landscaping when they're too busy picketing (or listening to all the people saying "the sky is falling").

Understandable - but left me with a really large tier payment (cause I'm an idiot and I get bored and I buy islands).

The mature, responsible thing to do would be to remove myself and save my money. I decided at the last minute to give it another month - I'm just hooked you know? And I really think this was a necessary part of the growing pains and I want to stay around dammit. :)

Anyway - it looks like I made the right decision - everybody now.....knock on wood!

A combination of being in Winterfaire, getting past Christmas and looking forward to the New Year, the people who hung on to their land deciding to do something about it.........I don't know but, whatever it is, the sales are back. whew! :)

Getting this new product line up and for sale will help too. I'm hoping I'll be able to look back on this as a hiccup - not a death knell for my residency.

/me goes and finds more wood to knock!

FYI - small glitch

I haven't been checking the sleds like I used to - well I didn't need to, they work. I should have clued in though when LL said they'd be restarting the sims ..... but I didn't until one of my visitors sent me a message. You see when the island is restarted, by me or LL - the sled script adds another copy of the sled to the start area. This is problematic because when somebody sits on one the other one bumps it in the air. So, I have to go around and delete both of the sleds and then restart the script. Once I do that everything is fine - unless the island gets restarted again.

It's not the fault of the script - it's just a side effect of the restart.

So my apologies to everybody that had trouble with the sleds since the restart. They're fixed now. :)

ROI

I got a lot done last night and today. But there's a point at which you really need to decide you're not making progress - no matter how much effort you put in. I swear I've changed the textures on the base of this thing 87 gazillion times. I still don't like it. But I think it's time to leave it alone - I'll come back to it later. Maybe by then my brain will have restarted.