Day Dreams & Clocks in Second Life

Daytime Dreams (moderate)

There is a building in Second Life situated on a white sandy beach surrounded by palm trees and topical grasses. This in itself is not unusual.  I don't spend much time at or talking about the beach but you and I know there are lots of them inworld.  In this case though, go outside and feel the sun on your back. Then, if you make your way down the beach a bit, you'll find a long pier with a wooden deck chair sitting on the end of it.  The view from the chair is anything but typical.

First you'll notice the blue water and occasional rare fish.  Then you'll notice some large blocks which seem to dance to the music you hear.  The landscape looks different over there - the ground is all black and white, not sand.

Daytime Dreams (moderate)

You have arrived in Daytime Dreams and Dolphin Aeghin, your host, has built something very special here.  It is a minimalist landscape but it's also romantic - when I arrived a couple was dancing and it made me smile.

If you're like me you'll find works by artists you know and love as well as creators you will now seek out.  The island brings you wonders by Sextan Shepherd, Bryn Oh, Akasha Wachmann and Madeliefste Oh - just to name a few of the talented designers included.  Dolphin contributes some of his own quirky creations as well.

Daytime Dreams (moderate)

There are clocks.  There are wonderous, fantastical glorious clocks. There are hats and tea cups, a giant working chess board and a talking parrot.  Bryn Oh's Mayflies are happy here.  Someday I might successfully take a photograph of them. :)

Think of Daytime Dreams as a steampunk/fantasy/romance set on a vast undulating chessboard in the sea.

Daytime Dreams (moderate)

You must go visit this homestead and discover what a quirky and talented person can achieve with limited prims and works from both their own imagination and by some of the grid's best artists.

But while you're there, don't forget I need your help with my SL8B project.  I'll put sunblock on your back for you!

Daytime Dreams (moderate)

Art & Grieving for Japan in Second Life

Strength & Prayer on Kick (moderate)

Photographer Sayoko Moonwall and Illustrator Yoyo Quartz are Japanese artists taking advantage of Second Life to express their grieving for the recent events and current recovery of their country and fellow citizens.  Their installation "Strength & Prayer" opened yesterday and I think it will touch you as it did me.

Strength & Prayer on Kick (moderate)

Yoyo's illustration of "Strength" becomes a 3d rotating Carp with floating banners and fading shadows when built inworld.  Sayoko's photographs representing "Prayer" and surrounded by burning candles (displayed primarily in the black room) appear and disappear reminding us how fragile our world and life really is.

Strength & Prayer on Kick (moderate)

I spent some time chatting with Sayoko and, in spite of the confusion caused by 3 translators simultaneously getting it wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting her and learning about their friendship and collaboration.

Strength & Prayer on Kick (moderate)

I was sufficiently intrigued that I went to visit their Gallery Sayopiyo on Kyoto Bakumatsu.  This is a gorgeous sim and deserves some exploration on its own.  Do go see their new exhibit and then check out their gallery.  Two very talented artists are sharing the results of a successful partnership with us and I, for one, am very grateful.

Gallery Sayopiyo (moderate)

The Diversity Hunt!

The Diversity Hunt starts tomorrow (August 8) and goes to September 9. I know this because Aintree Gardens and Drama Dolls are both included!

This will be a grid wide hunt but not an enormous one - and, as an interesting twist, there are five streams you can follow.

To quote Huntress Catteneo (who has done a huge amount of work setting this up):

• This hunt is designed so that you can go out and find the items you most want from our terrific vendors. Just pick the colour path that corresponds to what you seek and begin your journey along the rainbow.

• Don’t panic, you can walk down every path if you like, or you can stick to just one, the paths cross at some spots, so you can even change the one you are following if the whim takes you.

• The hunt runs from the 8th of August until the 9th of September, so you almost have a week to spend on each path if you want to follow them all. There is no cost to join this hunt.

The paths are as follows:

1. RED: Women’s fashion - clothes, hats, jewellery, basically anything you normally wear on an avatar
2. BLUE: Men’s, unisex, or general humanoid stuff (Neko, furries etc) - Fashion and accessories not specifically for women and including shoulder pets, wings, tails, etc
3. PURPLE: Furniture - all your normal household stuff, buildings, including such things as gazebos
4. GREEN: Plants/landscape – Plants (+ plant textures), fountains, outdoor furniture and bridges
5. ORANGE: Mystery – Textures, Art, and anything we can't categorize elsewhere

And in case it's not obvious :) Aintree will be on the Green path and Drama Dolls on the Orange. The hunt will start at: The Tiger Peak Shop You don't have to belong to a group to do the hunt but information will be shared in the Hunt2Hunt group and on the (still under construction) website. At the end of each path you get a cute wearable angel (I'm wearing the one from the Mystery Path). Each path's angel attaches in a different place so you could wear all five if you wanted. :)

It's surprisingly hard to decide what to put in the hunt object for gifts - I keep changing my mind. I think I'll wind up with two items. :) Now I just have to figure out where to put the angels for the hunters.

I'm looking forward to the Hunt and hope you'll all come join (and tell your friends)! :)

Aintree in the French Quarter

Even if you've only read my blog occasionally, you know how much I enjoy Von Johin! He added some more shops to his sim French Quarter - so I grabbed one. :)

Neighbours

Aintree's two closest neighbours provide a study in SL contrasts. My good friend Jon is next door and I'll profile his shop once we get the path between us installed. Across the street is the arms dealer I mentioned. I actually got a glimpse of him in the "flesh" (so to speak) today. Just as I took this picture he changed outfits and tp'ed away.

Guess he had people to go menace or something. :)

I haz sign :)

Cris pointed out that the support isn't exactly to engineering specs - but in SL it works. :)

New Aintree Gardens

Although nothing is ever really finished, the new Aintree Gardens is now open. The only major item left to take care of is a logo and sign. But everything else is done - well, until I change it of course. :)

Crap did this really cool new poster for the Tunes in SL project - it fits in like it was designed for the place. :)

The only niggling little problem with the location is the arms dealer across the road. He uses a gazillion scripts and so things get a little laggy. I'm hoping he'll leave eventually. He does get the most interesting customers - although I don't think they're the gardening type.

New Store Build

I lucked into some inexpensive land on Taylor Bay and decided to consolidate the two store fronts and add some more product. Once again I started a build without a plan and so I have no idea why it turned out like this. But I like it. :)

It will look different once all the plants and birds etc., are placed. But so far, building the bones has been fun!

Aintree Gardens Part Deux

People seriously nag in SecondLife - I kept getting im's asking about trees so I finally went and rented some land today and put them out. There isn't a lot of room but there are lots of prims so I think I'll add a sky platform and put out the flowers as well.

So welcome to the new Aintree Gardens! It's a purely functional nursery - no extra landscaping or anything. But it feels good to have the trees planted again. :)

Hunting Birds

I love to add birdsong to the forests and parks I build. But I have to collect all these birds before the islands disappear - no copy items are not automatically returned to my inventory. The problem, of course, is searching an island which looks like the one above .......

for bird houses which look like this and are hidden in the branches of the trees.

The solution is an object finder. If you own land and don't have one of these I strongly suggest you get one. I'm sure they all work, so just find something you like. It'll pay for itself over the years - really! :)

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. :)

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. :)

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. :)

New Project

This is my first equatorial sun dial - I have other designs in mind. It's nice to have a new project to get excited about. :)

Happy Boxing Day to you!!

I've watched a few times as people try to ride the sleds in tandem. It doesn't work well - the steering becomes really really wonky. However, this couple came up with a cool solution. :)

The spring version of the island will include a new vehicle type - I'll have to get somebody (hint hint) to help me figure out how to make tandem an option. :)

Happy Boxing Day to all - I hope it's quiet and lazy like mine. :)

Little boys are so much fun!

My old dog got me up early and when I checked my email, cause that's what I do, I had a message from inworld that somebody had left me a present. Found a giant snowball blocking one of the sliding tubes. And no, you couldn't get by it. The guy has been here since 2006, and seems otherwise respectable etc. from his profile. Maybe it was personal. banned his ass

A Holiday Gift

A visitor to my winter island added her own (beautiful) card to my collection! This is a major improvement to the stuff I found yesterday. And I'm really touched. :)

Morning Cleanup

I have to preface this post with a comment and an apology. Apparently some foreign power decided to spike something I ate with a toxin which forced my body to violently reject any and all food I've consumed in the past ........oh.......6 or 7 days.......... (at least that's what it seemed like). This exercise took most of the night and I'm cranky.

In addition, I have yet to remember to take photos before I deal with a situation. So, dear reader, you will have to use your imagination for part of what follows.

I have a routine in the morning where I walk around the various islands checking things out, sometimes tweaking things, planning changes, etc. Lately this has become more interesting because the winter island allows residents to rezz items (I thought people might want to bring their own winter sports equipment and was trying to make it user friendly). Of course, once they've rezzed something they can transport it to the other islands.

That bed of ruby thyme in the pic above had an unwelcome addition this morning. A big red pickup truck with a giant penis in the back aiming towards the sky like an anti-ballistic missile. (I told you that you would have to use your imagination!)

I returned this intruder to the owner and looked at his profile. Now if he was a newbie I would have just let it go - you know how they like to get freebies and tend to litter. This guy is over a year old though and by now should have figured out what is and isn't PG. So I banned him (told you I was cranky).

When I got to the winter island I discovered that the same guy had installed a 3 level house boat just off the coast. There was somebody on the roof rezzing boxes so I thought I'd go find out wtf they were thinking. When I arrived on the roof the guy said "Ciao, Italiano" and tp'ed away. So I banned him and returned the houseboat to the owner.

This couple is pictured here only because in the few lucid moments I had overnight I would come inworld to check things out. They were there 8 hours ago, 5 hours ago, and just now. Not in the same place mind you - they have done a bit of sightseeing. Guess they really like snow. :)

Saved again!

That's a pic of a happy visitor using one of the tube sleds to travel cross country. :) Dale Innis saved me again and sent me a revised rezzing script for the sleds - so now when somebody gets on and just sits there (I don't know, maybe they're waiting for the sled to drive itself) the new one doesn't rezz and send them flying sideways. And I don't have to go around resetting scripts and sleds all day. YAY!

More importantly of course, I don't have to worry that the people coming to see everything are disappointed in the sleds or prevented from doing the quasi bob sled thingie. I'll sleep better tonight. :)

/me Does a little dance!

I'm no AM Radio, and I'm certainly not as talented as those responsible for the Greenies, but LL have selected Aintree Willow to be included in the Winterfaire Tour. Yay!!

I'm not saying it's as beautiful as Wintermute or as cute as Winter on Raglan Shire but it's mine and I'm hoping people will have fun with it. :) One of the reasons I'm so pleased is that it's the first time I've actually been included in a community event. I've applied for many things but, prior to this, I couldn't even get accepted as a volunteer. Starts to wear on a person.

One of the results I was hoping for was that people would wander around the other islands as well - and they are. Somebody was playing chess on Oak and they found the hidden pose balls on the Common.

The only glitch I've discovered so far is in the sled script. It rezzes a new sled even if the person hasn't moved the old one - which causes the person to ride up in the air, or sideways, or flip as the new sled bumps them. Once that has happened the sled won't work for anybody else either until I reset the script. So I've tried changing the sign and adjusting the rezz time - but I'll still go around a few times a day and check on things.

It's a good day in SecondLife. :)