The Perils of Owning an Island in Second Life

I did my usual check on Taylor Bay this morning for litter and discarded prims and found an unexpected floating island. 637 m in the air was this grass lawn with a teleporter on it belonging to a complete stranger. This was not a newbie though, he's almost as old as I am and an ex mentor. Usually I just return things but I thought I'd find out if the person really thought they were going to live there.

[7:48] Honour McMillan: Good Morning! ( my time) So you decided to move onto my island? Any particular reason? :)

[7:49] Stranger: Hi :D

[7:49] Stranger: oO

[7:49] Stranger: What is the name of your island ?

[7:49] Honour McMillan: lol are you on more than one? Taylor Bay :)

[7:50] Stranger: Oh yeah Taylor bay x)

[7:50]Stranger: You can delete everything...I forget :/

[7:50] Honour McMillan: I'll return it to you

[7:50] Stranger: I juste needed an island for a few minutes and i found your island

[7:50] Stranger: I'm very sorry x)

[7:51] Honour McMillan: no problem - if you wish to use it in the future just let me know first :) I have a sandbox for some friends (also French) - we could make arrangements

[7:51] Stranger: Ok...Thank you :D But I don't think i will have to use your sandbox

[7:52] Honour McMillan: OK :)

[7:52] Stranger: It was just a qui ck solution for me

[7:52] Stranger: (and excuse me for my bad bad bad english :P)

[7:52] Honour McMillan: It's better than my french :)

[7:52] Stranger: haha :P

Not a nasty encounter - just one of those odd moments that happen in SL. :)

Some Days are SLFrustrating

I try very hard to ensure there is little or no lag on the island but the past few days have been frustrating. All the stats have been sinking into the mud and the only real change has been the snow I plunked all over the place (I've even been getting grey goo errors - I haven't seen those in a long time, didn't think they still happened). I tried reducing the snowfall from medium to light which doesn't look much different, however the stats haven't improved. I really like the snow particles but I think I'm going to have to go out tonight and find a more efficient system.

On a positive note - I went to the anniversary party at the Crown and Pearl yesterday. The highlight for me was a group of us doing a Thriller dance animation. It was one of those perfect moments you get in our SecondLife. :)

Ahuva took this photo of us which is a good thing, I was having way too much fun to think about the camera.

Only in SL - A fire critic :)

My friend Jon (who has the Mustang Trading Post on Taylor Bay) didn't like the "2003 blowtorch fire animated texture" I used for the bonfire and barrels. sigh

So he gave me some sculpty fire - I used it on the bonfire but I'm keeping the old school blaze in the barrels. I like it! I'd forgotten something from last year - it can be very hard to find your cursor when it's snowing. Just another winter hazard. :)

SLearly Winter is sticking around!

Taylor Bay got hit with some more cold weather over night. The main plaza is ice now. I decided to use some old rusty drums I found to keep the stairs and the plants in the garden warm and ice free.

I also decided a big bonfire would help keep the skaters warm on the Bay.

It's a good thing I did because the snow started up again and this time I don't think it's going to stop for a while.

It is kind of pretty I guess.

But I'm a temperate climate lover, so I'm very glad of those oil drums.

SLearly Winter Arrives!

Winter has come a little early this year to Taylor Bay. The first snowfall happened last night. As you can see it melted off the trees but luckily the Bay has remained frozen.

For those animals lovers out there the ducks have decided to stay put and so far are doing a good job of keeping their corner of the Bay clear.

I used my trusty terraformer to clear the snow and create a skating pond.

There are free skates for those who don't have them. I'm sure it'll snow again and keep right on snowing but in the meantime I'd better put up some greenhouses to protect the garden and find some appropriate music.

And just in case you were nervous - I tested the ice. It's safe!

Luckily I put a fireplace in the revised tower!

Productive Procrastination

I have all this work to do - in fact so much I don't know where to start. So I ignored it all and worked on the tower. I love the Wizard's Tower but it just didn't fit with the rest of the structures on the island. This is a little funky but it feels better somehow.

Chicken Drama?

There is Chicken Drama whirling around the interweb and Drama Dolls is here to help. :) If you drop by the store on Taylor Bay right now you'll find the Chicken Breeder:

and to be fair, the Chicken Farmer:

and the Chicken Reseller.

As always, these animated and interactive Dolls are designed to help you get closure on all that drama without having to resort to public scenes, trolling or violence. Enjoy!

Return of the Tower

I've been working away in my skybox workshop which is not a very comfortable place - imagine standing inside a white box and you'll get the idea. :) But it's a workshop not a home and I've explained before that I'm a nester. There isn't room on the island for my castle - unless I do a lot of terraforming and I like having all that water so I didn't want to do that. However, this is an opportunity to once again use my Wizard's Tower by Lux Zhukovsky. I really enjoy her work and if you haven't seen it go visit her store Darklings!

I have perfect spit of land for the tower and managed to get it setup. It took a few tries because I haven't rezzed one in over 18 months but once I recompiled the script in Mono it worked. :) Now I have a great view of the island: Aintree Gardens

Jon's Mustang Trading Post and, of course, Drama Dolls and their cute cousins the Doll Cozies.

I left the really high ground to the Planetarium by Rika Watanabe.

I have a lot of landscaping and furnishing to do but I think it looks pretty good on the island. :)

Refugee Duck?

The ducks have settled in just fine on Taylor Bay, however, a third duck seems to have migrated here. She claims to be from Edloe and wants refugee status because the previous owner kept reading duck recipes! I've offered her protection of course. Just nobody tell the Robot eh?

Somebody littered!

It's been a while since I've found litter on Taylor Bay. But honestly now - does this look like a good landing spot to you? Kids these days ............ :)

Well sh*t

It started out simply enough. I've been working hard on my new project - and had been doing most of it on the roof of the new building. Who knew that would become a tourist destination eh? Complete strangers keep popping up in front of me asking what I'm doing.

I'd finally had enough so I decided to use the skybox rezzer that came in the Designer Showcase Network drop the other day. Simple enough and it worked great.

Then I thought the simplest thing to do would be to "take" the stuff I was working on and then rezz it as a group in the skybox. I should have just "taken a copy". Seems I was overly aggressive when I highlighted the parts I wanted - but they didn't look highlighted, honest!

So fine I rezzed the huge group again and prepared to put it all back where it belonged. However. I don't seem to have modify permissions on these things anymore. sigh

So I'll take the dog for a walk. Come back and delete the stuff in the wrong place and start again.

Some days ...................

New Taylor Bay - 2nd Draft

Aintree Gardens has been rebuilt - now I can focus on the rest of the island. I do have to wonder though why, since my avatar was doing all the work, I'm this exhausted!

New Taylor Bay - 1st Draft

When I first opened Aintree Gardens on Taylor Bay it was absolutely flat and square with straight ashphalt roads bisecting it. Now at least there's a bay. :) I had done it really quickly so I wasn't too surprised that the new map showed all these bumps in the water. I spent some time this morning wandering the sea bed flattening them out as best I could.

I really like Jon's new store so I'm trying to keep the design and textures of the rest of the built up area at least complementary.

That means that, although the design is very similar, the rebuilt Aintree Gardens will look a little different. :)

Unpacking

I tried just picking up the garden and moving it but it didn't work - I crashed .......... way too many prims. So I decided to just start again and deleted it. Before building it though I had to do some terraforming and planning.

In the midst of getting started a nice woman tp'ed in looking for the garden. She wants trees. "Great!" says I, "I just have to put in a bay (the island IS called Taylor Bay after all) and build a square and then I'm going to redo the garden".

"Oh" replies she, "In that case I'll come back in a couple of hours".

sigh

Not everybody is a builder you know.

So I did almost nothing on the square - but I got the trees planted. Tomorrow I'll get more done. :)

I'm a land owner again!

I was feeling a little smug and satisfied with myself on Friday. Aintree was covering all my SL costs and I had time and room to work on a big project. Life was good! :)

Then I had a rather confusing conversation with my landlord. I finally worked out that he was selling Taylor Bay. He asked me if I wanted it and I said "no, I just got rid of some islands". Of course then I said "but I should probably ask you how much you want for it". When he told me I was shocked at how low the price was - so I bought it. We did the transaction and the support tickets and the transfer was official on Saturday.

The island isn't completely clear yet though. Jon's Mustang Trading Post will stay (yay!). I'll move the garden and do some terraforming and landscaping. I'll build a few more places that people could rent. But first I have to finish clearing the remnants of the mall and a couple of other shops. Unfortunately the owner of those items is sick so I'm trying to be patient. :)

I did return everything to the arms dealer - and he's not mad (whew). I don't want somebody with that many weapons pissed at me. :)

So I have to put the physics project aside for a while. I have an island to mess with first. :)