Running into the Boss

It's always nice to log into Second Life and find Flying Story wandering around. Last night Jazmemo and I nabbed him and took him to see Cafe 101, one of our favorite teacher hangouts. I was able to pull in Louise, Mandie, Cyrus, and a couple others joined by chance. Jaz couldn't stay connected, Louise got busy, and Cyrus had to leave to teach; but Mandie was able to pin Flying down a little about his vision for our project. It's so nice to have communication. (In the photo, left to right: Flying, Mandie, me, and Louise as Lily Muster for a Halloween party!) I've passed on three pages of notes, quotes really, to the team. We have our official meeting tonight at 7 PM our time, 4 PM SLT. Here are the key points: [16:45] Flying Story: i want the pieces connected [16:45] Flying Story: I don't want parts floating on their own [16:46] Flying Story: i want their to be some logic as one moves across the island [16:46] Flying Story: it seems there are things on [another educational sim] that are there because they could be rather than should be [16:47] Flying Story: i want the whole island to be a demonstration of the future for SL in Education. [16:55] Mandie Mimulus: we have 256X256 square meters [16:56] Mandie Mimulus: I had thought of dividing the island like the map [17:01] Flying Story: didn't i ramble enough on the island? do you have specific questions? [17:01] Mandie Mimulus: the existing building? [17:02] Mandie Mimulus: do you want it on the new island? [17:02] Flying Story: i want a building. I don't care if it is the existing. you guys were talking about redoing it [17:02] Thunder Insippo: We are thinking of two [17:02] Mandie Mimulus: Milosun is attached to it and we can't do much [17:02] Thunder Insippo: an HQ and a meeting place similar to this [17:02] Flying Story: he is supposed to be packaging it for us [17:03] Flying Story: but i don't care if you use it or not [17:03] Mandie Mimulus: we thought of moving the existing as a temporary [17:03] Flying Story: that is fine [17:03] Mandie Mimulus: but Thunder has wonderful plans for an open and airy space like this coffee house [17:03] Flying Story: that is great [17:03] Thunder Insippo: what we need is ideas for reasons to meet [17:04] Thunder Insippo: we are tossing that around [17:04] Flying Story: virginia vegetation? [17:04] Thunder Insippo: that would be nice [17:04] Mandie Mimulus: do you like this coffee house atmosphere? [17:04] Thunder Insippo: dogwood [17:04] Flying Story: i don't care about that level of detail. [17:04] Thunder Insippo: Mandie is awesome at designing spaces [17:04] Thunder Insippo: her island is beautiful [17:05] Mandie Mimulus: we also have a bit of money now [17:05] Flying Story: where does money come from that you all have some? [17:05] Flying Story: you aren't buying it are you? [17:05] Thunder Insippo: we were [17:05] Mandie Mimulus: no... it is a small grant I wrote

The Voyage Video

Someone teach me to do machinima! This was taken at my kitchen counter with my Flip camera! It looked so much more impressive on my computer screen. You just have to be there October 26th at 12 noon SLT to see it "in person!" (in avatar?)

The Cruise

Ahoy, Mates! She's seaworthy! Here we are taking the Susan Constant on her maiden voyage with Bigreal. It was fantastic! I had to wear a third of her. Big wore a third. the rest was few enough prims for the sails to pull. What an experience! I kept pulling friends into it to join us. Louise, Amethyst, Anibal, and I were all on deck. Big was below steering. I think all he had was a rudder. We went through a small squall and hit a few objects. Once the ship keeled over quite a bit. I didn't know that was possible! I don't know how Big linked and packed some of the prims for himself and me to wear them, but that's why he's a builder and I'm not! Added 10-27-08 - photo of me "wearing" 1/3 of the ship. Awesome! It was necessary for the sails to be able to pull the ship. We had to lighten her up quite a bit. The physics in SL are genius!

Ships Delivered!

OMG! as they say in Second Life! (Oh my goodness, for me) We purchased three ships from Bigreal Luik yesterday! They are awesome, especially the flagship!

Here you see Bigreal, Pocahontas, and Mandie. I was "in" Pocahontas for the Linden/ship exchange, but Mandie actually created her. We decided that we needed an avatar who was the agent for the project. We will form no attachment to her personally. She will hold the Lindens and own the objects in the build so that, should we leave or loose interest, we can pass her on to the next group of volunteers. She will eventually have appropriate Powhatan garb. What an exciting day this was! Thank you, Mandie, for the photo!

Multiple Intelligences Build

This weekend I went on a tour to this build, by Zotarah Shepherd, which is probably the first such place that I found any real personal connection with. It's about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. Basically he defines many areas of human understanding. The linguistic, mathematical logical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, spacial, naturalist, musical, and kinesthetic are the eight represented in this interactive site. I have heard of these for years and found it interesting to try to figure out which my children and I had to greater and lesser degrees. It's a fun place to play as well.

Close Up of Ride with Bigreal

There is a closer shot of the shipwreck as well...

A Ride with Bigreal

I have spent a lot of my freetime in SL this week watching Bigreal build. Saturday he took a break and gave me a ride on a couple of his personal ships. He rezzed this ship, unfurled the sails, I hopped onto the bow and we were off! He sailed around several sims in his area and ran aground briefly once. The sails actually propel the ship and the wind direction matters. It's amazing to me that the creators of this virtual world have actually included the physics of the natrual world. Along with sailing there are mermen and mermaids living in this water as are sea creatures of many kinds. There are often battles between ships and Bigreal tells me the damage is actual. Perhaps the captains can simply rez a new copy of the ships they lose, I don't know. You can see in the distance on this shot a partially sunked ship.