Leko's Talents

Tonight I spent a pleasant time getting to know Leko better. What better way to start a new year than making a new friend a better friend. Leko is very enthusiastic about SL. He's a theater designer and professor in RL and teaches at the school from which I graduated. Today he was excited to show me his Moulin Rouge theater and his SL home. This is the former. I'm dancing in a chair on the stage!

This is part of his house. He's done an amazing job with textures of his own design for both buildings. I got some good ideas for using my kaleidoscope iPhone app for some geometric designs for SL from him. This piece of art is from a photograph he took of a foreign dancer. It's quite dramatic.

He shares his home with his partner, Molly, who lives in the UK. It's nice to have friends with girlfriends in Europe.  They are not looking for anything but friendship and are free to talk and explore when their partners have gone to bed, by 6 PM our time. :)

This is Leko and Molly's outdoor area. On this video viewer he showed me a You Tube video of a gentleman he knows running a public high school for inner city schools with a multimillion dollar budget he raises himself. They create pottery for the Vatican, recorded Jazz artists for history, and hold patents on various products or processes. It was interesting to talk to Leko on many subjects. He is a passionate person.

any1's Saturday Morning Classes

These classes are taught on Saturday mornings and advertised through ISTE so I've managed to hit two or three of them right after my docent duty. any1 is a CNN iReporter and helps others become better at SL photography and blogging so they can contribute as well.

 

The class is all text, no voice, and participants discuss a series of photos taken by any1 and friends of hers. It is sort of a plus, delta review. I usually think most of the photos are pretty good. any1 and her photographic journalist friends do a lot to enhance photos before publishing. My photos here are untouched. Maybe I should consider that in the future.

 

Josain is often at these classes, being an early bird. They must be at 7 am his time!  I liked this photo. Some folks are bothered by "cut off" limbs but I think the focus is elsewhere and it doesn't matter a lot if a foot or elbow is missing.

 

any1 gives great handouts, a folder of information that would almost allow you to reteach the class yourself. I applaud her generosity.

Shopping in SL

I'm preparing for the Mali meeting and the venue is mostly done. The speaker is secured although I need to do some research on her so that I can introduce her properly. My current obsession is with clothes!

One of the things we enjoy doing in SL is dressing for the occasion, whether we are touring, exploring, hunting, meeting, or out on the town, there are proper clothes involved! You can design one look and never change and that would certainly save some Lindens, but for some of us, dressing our avatar to fit the evening's theme is half the fun!

I'm on a hunt for an African dress. I like these. Should I wear the head dress too?

I'm wearing a demo body and skin from one of the shops. The outfit is a freebie from our speaker. I will not be wearing dark skin. It feels disrespectful. I know people try on different races and gender in SL, but I'm not quite that adventurous yet.

More avartar choices. These come with shape, skin, hair, and outfit I think.

These are clothes. The top two on the left are Egyptian looking. Those might come in handy again sometime.

Quasimodo, Max's Artificial Intelligence CreationDanc

Dancing for me

Quasi doesn't like me. Max says it's because I haven't talked to him a lot lately. He's just like a high maintenance  human.

Max Works

This man is amazing. He's finishing up the Mali build for me this morning. I've tried to capture some of who he is to me while he works. (I have to do something because my chatter in world is NOT helpful at this time!) LOL!

I love his steampunk look. He created it himself. There is a world inside that hat!

He's scary smart, a thinker, creator, intense.

This detail, a brain inside his hat, with a tiny town which includes a running train, shows how precise he is. Most people don't know all this lies within.

Even his animation override is thoughtful looking. :)

See the gears? They are always turning!

Here you can see some of the Mali build.

His brain!

He's packaging up the build in a rezzer so I can rezz, or open it, on VSTE Island.

Holiday Windows

While we didn't have regular VSTE meetings the last two weeks in December, we did gather for some holiday fellowship a couple of times. One such assemblage was at *Dreams sim for the holiday building contests. Dreams is a special sim first created by a woman recovering from brain injury. SL meant so much to her recovery that she created this sim to help others. She's gone now, passed away in real life, but the sim lives on, supported by Lindens and donations. These building contests help to bring donations in.

 

We toured the holiday windows created by volunteer builders and looked at the snowman building contest  entries. It was fun being together, drinking virtual hot cocoa, and walking through this demonstration of creativity.

 

I took many photos trying to get a group shot. Now I can't decide which to keep so you get to see them all. :)

 

From http://thesojournersdream.com/

The Sojourner (Soj) , Rick Kent, Amalthea Blanc and a few others started Dreams to accomplish a number of dreams:

 1. To provide a base for creative interaction among people in Second Life.

 2. To provide an area for teaching, holding discussions, and holding events.

3. To provide a support base for people who encounter strokes (brain attacks) in their own lives or in the lives of their loved ones.

Sojourners Dreams is a place in Second Life -- (See About Second life). On the Entry to Dreams, which most people call it, there is a calendar that shows what is going on where and when, and nearby note cards can be had on group activities, building projects, awards, parties and the dances. But you wont see any formal ball gowns here. In fact, the best time to be had might just be sitting on the wall, discussing philosophy, computers or SL quirks. Acceptance is the byword of the place, and everyone is welcome. It was Soj's dream that everyone could get the help they need, in the way that makes the best sense to them. She wanted to cherish and nurture every ones gifts, and in doing so she enriched SL itself. Check it out for yourself. Come on over and visit. Any time is good Dreams is open 24 hours a day. 

MacZ Meets Maximillian

I was working on ideas for a venue for an upcoming VSTE meeting when Max instant messaged me to say "Merry Christmas." He asked me what I was working on. Well, said I, "Jan. 10th I have a woman who was born and raised in Mali coming to VSTE to be our '*griot' and tell stories about her homeland and growing up there."

She knows the Virginia curriculum and will keep that in mind. She suggested that making a machinima of this event to share with third grade teachers who cannot attend would be appropriate. I agree! I'm hoping to use this to finally get some elementary friends to try SL. 

Max had some ideas about the venue and soon he was creating the it for me.  I loved this night sky.

 

Having only Internet photos to go by I got MacZ, my griot, herself to come meet Max and make suggestions for the landscape. It turns out Mali looks a lot like Utah! The lady in the Santa outfit is a friend of Max's. MacZ gave me some free brightly colored Mali costumes for us to where.

 *Wikipedia, on December 29, 2010, says a griot is

A griot (English pronunciation: /ˈɡri.oʊ/, French pronunciation: [ɡʁi.o], with a silent t) or jeli (djeli or djéli in French spelling) is a West African historian. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards. According to Paul Oliver in his book Savannah Syncopators, "Though [the griot] has to know many traditional songs without error, he must also have the ability to extemporize on current events, chance incidents and the passing scene. His wit can be devastating and his knowledge of local history formidable." Although they are popularly known as 'praise singers', griots may also use their vocal expertise for gossip, satire, or political comment.

We left this project incomplete, but we like the redish stony floor with the night sky. We want to remove the lava-like fire and put in a smaller wood fire. I need to add matts and pose balls for sitting comfortably and the rest is up to MacZ!. I will try to find someone who can tape this for machinima better than I can.

Trying SL for the First Time

There she is! She calls herself Hermosapepita. She saw my post on Facebook about taking advantage of being snowed in to take time to try Second Life and she did! Here are her baby steps into this virtual world. We didn't get very far before she crashed and lost the use of her computer to a family member. She thought it was "cool" so I hope she will come back and try again and again. Yay, Hermosapepita! I'm proud of you (and I have to find you a nickname)!


How about Herme? Pepi? I like Pepi!

Comparing Notes

Taking advantage of being snowed in and on Christmas vacation, Ruckus came back to Second Life to polish her skills so she can begin to take part in VSTE meetings again. (YAY!) She connects quite well with a high speed MiFi from Verizon.

 

I love her look! I shared with her some of the recent meetings she's missed and some plans for future meetings. She seems excited to be back. :)

 

Jaz came online while Ruckus was at VSTE. Here we are enjoying Mandie's new Natural Bridge build. Mandie's 10 tools in 60 minutes was a recent meeting here that Ruckus wishes she'd seen. 

 

Since Jaz and Ruckus both missed the two holiday events we did I took them to see where Ballet Pixelle performs and where the Dreams building contests were. The latter were still there! This holiday window is Sunn Thunders's. Beautiful! Iridescent! 

 

Eventually we began to compare notes about our school systems and the Instructional Technology Resource Programs at each. Ruckus has three schools. She is called an iTRT. She can't teach all the lab classes all the time but it sounds like her teachers are still less IT savvy than mine. She is evaluated by her TRT Supervisor instead of a building principal. She does the monthly professional development at two of her schools. Her classroom teachers are just as overwhelmed as ours are. It's a universal problem. Even comparing notes with Jaz, who is in my same system, highlights differences among schools. It was an interesting discussion. I enjoy this part of SL most.

My Friend Max

Max is a scripter, a builder, an inventor, a networker, and a leader. He's a modern day, German version of Benjamin Franklin! This week he invited me to a sim that I guess he and his team created for a media company. It's called Orange22. The sim is beautiful with many different venues to explore. I think the idea is that virtual meetings can be held there for collaborators from different places. There are tours, tools, and imaginative spaces all over.

But we spent most of our time together in this skybox created to look like a winter wonderland.  I skated on a prepared animation poseball. There are hundreds of these in Second Life but this one includes a realistic fall! Hilarious.

 

Max loves to talk about his current and future projects. I have to just tell him when he gets over my head with the technical information. It happens pretty quickly.  I wonder if I come off silly and stupid to him, but he continues to instant message me first so I guess I'm not annoyingly so. He's helped me many times. All I have done for him is edit his technical writing a couple of times. Did you know that Germans capitalize all nouns? I wonder if this double capital letter compound word thing in digital nomenclature came from Germany: SharePoint, KidPix, ImageBlender...

Deep among the snowmen and Santa paraphenalia was the natvity.  While I'm glad someone remembered the reason for our month long festival of gathering, decorating, buying, giving, and baking it seems like an afterthought so often. This is a pretty setting for it.