Proud of Cyrus

My friend, Cyrus, spoke at ISTE tonight about his work in Second Life setting up a classroom for university and professional college students. He did a good job of explaining the process for anyone who is interested and doesn't know where to begin. I was proud to see someone up on the stage that I know so well. I was really nervous for him and couldn't even listen the entire time! Silly me! I guess I know him so well and have known him so long I was overly empathetic, as though I were up there. I can't imagine ever being in that position. There must have been 40 or more avatars there at one point. For the first time that I can recall there were griefers, too. One female avatar drove her sports car right up on stage. Cyrus handled it very well. It was an SL moment, that is for sure!

Building

Al and I stand on the deck of the newly created Discovery, October 13. It's so exciting to see the ships being created. Al and Mandie have also been trying their hands at building. They have each created their own versions of fort walls.

Virtual Pioneers - Harlem Tour

Oronoque Westland, on her first SL presentation, took us on a tour of Virtual Harlem in Second Life. We saw the bookstore first and the classroom above it. The bookstore had displays of books on Harlem and they were directly linked to Amazon for purchase. In the classroom we could see a schedule and assignments and Oronoque gave us a brief history of the project beginning before SL days. The second stop was a brownstone, Caribbean House. There were four floors with an awesome authenticity to them. Inside were steel drums, piano, and a sitar. Then we went to the Lafayette Theater. Chat kind of broke down at this point. Like the rest of the tour the Lafayette Theater represented a real place in NYC. There were more stops after this but my connection was so laggy I left. Please Linden Labs, fix this latest version of the viewer!

Shipbuilders

Today Mandie and I met a couple of shipbuilders. We saw a ship in a store that we thought was similar to what we wanted for our project and I IMed the builder, Chase. He was very nice and interested in what we needed. After some discussion he introduced us to a master builder, Big, who was also interested. We learned a lot about ships in SL, for instance you can't really go all the way below deck because water would be in the lower deck at the same level it is outside the ship. There is no way to keep it out. Also, because avatars are about 6 to 7 feet tall, a scale model of a ship would be impossible to use inworld. Big has agreed to build us three ships for 20,000 Lindens. We will have full rights and be able to sell them to try to recoup some of our money.

Jamestown Trip

What does a Real Life trip to Jamestown have to do with SL? Hmm You will have to find out later. Al, Mandie, Jazmemo, my husband, Willoughby, and I all went to Jamestown, VA on October 4th and took about 500 photos. We got close ups, landscapes, portraits, and video of docents. It was so much fun. I bought two books to read and the others got various copies of artifacts. I love these people I'm living and working with in RL and SL! We are having so much fun meeting people, getting to know each other better, learning to build and edit.

ISTE Social October 2

We have so much fun at the ISTE socials, thanks to Louise and Corinne and Kittygloom and others. This week was a barn dance complete with line dancing, country music, horses and pumpkins. What a way to welcome fall.

Blog Guilt

Is there such a thing as blog guilt? I feel badly that I don't write more. I think I'm too busy living my Second Life to write about it. It's all pictures, all fluff and no substance. I'm disappointed in myself. The problem is I have to leave SL to talk about SL and I love it too much to do that! I do want a record of how my life in SL changes, and what I'm involved in; so I guess I have to continue and do the best I can.