June 2009 – Ahuva’s Blog

It’s Almost TIME!!!!!!

Tomorrow!!! Tomorrow Honour unveils her new product line. It is fantastic, humerous, and, I believe, something new under the sun. My new friend Faust was doing last minute testing and let me watch. 🙂 Like I gave anyone a chance to keep me out of the testing process. I was literally screaming with laughter at some of it.

So be there bright and early tomorrow to get your own……. *grin*……. did you think I would slip NOW??? I’ve kept this secret for four months!!! Be sure to watch Honour’s blog for the big launch announcement on Wednesday, July 1!!

And be sure to catch the wonderful music by Von Johin – 2 shows: two concerts on Taylor Bay. The first from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm SLT and the second from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. LOL. Yeah, I am going to try to sneak in for that first show for sure. LOL. /me schedules a meeting on my work calendar for 11am SLT.

July 1st is Canada Day – also a good reason to party!!! 🙂 See you all there!!

Chestnut’s Magic Build

Chestnut transformed Thornbridge into a magical wonderland.

Chestnut made the most incredible build for my rez day party. Gorgeous. Magical. FULL of flowers (because I really like flowers). Beautiful trees too (Chestnut, unlike SOME of us (me) KNOWS how to make a tree). Colors and flowers and lights and flowers and a moon and more flowers. Did I mention

that there were lots of FLOWERS??? She turned Thornbridge into the sort of fantasy that makes SL so special. It was breathtakingly wonderful and happy and light-hearted and magical. I guess, really, the only word that truly describes it is “neat”. LOL. Okay – there is someone now reading this and blushing like crazy. The rest of us are laughing. Ches unveiled the build to a friend and asked for feedback. *grin* The verdict? “Neat.” /me rolls eyes and starts laughing again. Ah Chestnut – it was so far beyond neat – it was everything I could have hoped or wanted. I loved it. Every single prim. I don’t know how long you can leave Thornbridge like that, but we need to go back and picnic and meditate and chase butterflies and stretch out on a blanket and simply revel in the beauty.

My rez day party was fantastic. The build, as I said, was neat. 🙂 No – you will NEVER live that down. But Chestnut had the best possible music as well: Kyle Beltran. I LOVE Kyle. I have posted about him before here. He puts on a fantastic show. He sings, plays the piano, covers other people’s songs as well as his own compositions. Kyle is so witty and articulate and funny. We were laughing the entire time. I love Kyle’s shows; I was delighted at how many of my friends were IM’ing me to tell me that they, too thought he was great. That even though they really needed to log, they couldn’t because they didn’t want to stop listening to Kyle. If you’ve never heard Kyle – remedy that. He has CDs for sale, performs regularly in SL and is a wonderful talent. Thank you SO much, Kyle, for agreeing to perfom. I had a wonderful, wonderful time listening and laughing with you. *hugs*

Thank you to all my friends who were there to help make the party special. I was so touched and honored that you came. I love the work I do in virtual worlds. I love the mental stimulation, the challenges, throwing myself under the bus again and again. But mostly – I love you. I love laughing and talking and sharing our lives. I know that for so many of you it was an effort to be there. Natalya and Hell – you are amazing. Staying up til 2am your time to come party with me. You are wonderful. I know at least 2 of you were SUPPOSED to be working. *grin* So I won’t mention your names, but you know who you are and so do I. To all of you – thank you and thank you again. Seeing you and partying with you was the best rez day present I could have. *hugs* to you all.

I took a million pictures. Okay, about 60, I suppose I DO tend to exaggerate on occasion. *grin* They are up on Flickr, of course. I am including several of them here as well. This way you can see the gorgeous build, and my wonderful friends. Hell also took pictures. He has a wonderful one – imaginative angle, framing. Check it out. That is how SL photography SHOULD be done. Thank you, Hell!
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Chestnut – you are simply amazing. Thank you my dear dear friend. You went so far above and beyond anything that I expected. You created a magical SL wonderland. You found the best entertainment. You even put out food!!!! *grin* yummy! I think this may have been one of the most special, incredible things anyone has ever done for me. Thank you. It was perfect. I love it. I love you. I am so glad that we are friends.

I gave Oura a copy of my “dancing in my chains” ribbons and she did me the great compliment and honor of wearing them. And Calli, beautiful Calli. It was SUPPOSED to be all about ME. ME = Ahuva!!!!! LOL. Your dress was stupendous. Breathtaking. We all inspected the information and did a search on the creator. *grin* We will all be Calli-wannabees.

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Of course, after the party, I had to relax and go over the whole thing again. 🙂 So I stretched out on my carpet, pose courtesy of the talented Bailey Longcloth, wearing my new teddy bear slippers from zazek, and discussed the party, art, life and SL with Oura and Calli. All in all – a perfect perfect night.
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Beam Me Up!

Beam me down, too. And across! *grin* I woke up this morning thinking “teleport system”. I have been wanting one since I was at my friend’s house this winter and saw hers. She owns a whole sim, and could teleport all over. She modeled the device to resemble the physical layout of her sim. I was totally impressed and envious. I tried to hire someone to do the same for me. He left SL and has never returned. LOL. Sheesh – am I THAT difficult an employer?????

Anyway, this morning I woke up and I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted. I thought “I can DO this”. Dark and Honour and Shenlei and Hell have all taught me to torture and shape prims. I didn’t want anything complicated. I had a vision. I had a script I used for work. So I got up, logged in, headed to Frenis, the ducks and the beach and began shaping a prim. *grin* It was great. I did what I wanted. Learned a bit. Built my transporter. Chadd dropped in just as I finished and helped me test it. It works!!!! I did have one typo which I fixed. There is something I want to add to it as well, but that is a “bell and whistle” as the saying goes. I do have one question about something, but I think I KNOW the answer – I just need one of my script masters to come around so I can confirm my theory. Or learn the real answer.

Here is Ahuva’s teleporter. Each color takes you to a different location on my property: the pool, the beach, the back yard, the front door. There is a teleporter at each of those locations, although some are less easy to find than others. *grin* I have my reasons. But I did it. A great way to start my second year in SL. Building, scripting, doing it myself.

I am One

*GRIN* Happy Rez day to ME!!!! I am one. What a great year it’s been. But I have SO many ideas for this next year – LOOK OUT!!!! Classic paintings/metaphors revisited and revised. A GREAT party idea – check those inboxes for your invites! Mixing business and pleasure to profit both. Oh yeah – we will rock this year too!

Goodbye Down Under???

I wish this were a hoax. I really hope this will turn out to be a hoax. My Plurk buddies are all posting links to Australian news sources claiming that Australia will ban/block access to SL and other games. (Let’s not get side-tracked on the “other games” part of that sentence, okay??? That is the terminology the articles are using.)

This stinks. Big time. I chatted with a friend of mine who lived in Australia for 18 months on corporate assignment. He assures me that Aussies love their games as much as anyone. I asked if they would fight this. He said he thought it depended on how easy it was going to be to circumvent the blocks. But….. in matters such as these….. I think I would become a radical. Protest, write letters, march. Do whatever to get this overturned. Get your laws out of my personal PRIVATE behavior.

Taken from the online Sidney Morning Herald:

This means that even Australians who are aged above 15 and want to obtain the adult-level games online will be unable to do so. . It will undoubtedly raise the ire of gamers, the average age of which is 30 in Australia, according to research commissioned by the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia.

Taken from the online Inquisitor:

And this from the online Herald Sun:

AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.

The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.

The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.

Getting Comfy

Oh, yeah, Opensim is starting to feel more like home. *grin* Major hugs and thanks to Natalya! And to Dz too!

Crown And Pearl Redux

Perhaps “redux” is unfair. After all, CnP has been running quite merrily and successfully without me. (OMG – how can that BE????? Isn’t EVERYTHING all about ME?? Have I – gasp – been wrong????) But for me – I haven’t been there in so long. So when I found myself back there partying with friends twice in three days, I was so happy. There are not enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want to do. Not in SL. Not in RL.

I logged in one Thursday afternoon and saw that my good buddy HellSpawned was DJ’ing. To my great delight, I actually had time to head over there. Hell was DJ’ing, Natalya was there, plus Kumi, Kalthea, Dancien, Ryker, Dion, mainit, Eliza and more. It was wonderful. Even if Hell and I do NOT have the same taste in music. *grin* I love Kumi’s av. I don’t think I’ve ever written about it specifically, but whenever I see Kumi I smile. Don’t you?

Two days later I logged in and saw that Rrishanna was DJ’ing. Now I LOVE Rrish’s sets!!! She plays the best music. It was the weekend. I had new hair, new boots. (Does that summarize SL or what???) I had on my tattoo. I was psyched for partying and seeing friends. So I headed right over. So much of the “old” gang was there!!! Lucien, Prad, Bailey, Ryker, JohnR, Alann. More kept arriving. It was a blast. The same crazy chat, totally off-the-wall connections. Of course, being the CnP, there were sheep as well. *grin* The only problem with the “old” crowd is that so many of them are from a different, EARLIER time zone. So by the time Dale tp’d in to join us, they were all logging and going to sleep (party poopers!!!!). It was left to us USA’ers to close down the club – me, Dale and Rrish! What fun! I need to get back there more often. Come and join me – so that when the UK goes to bed, we can still rock the place!
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One Year Ago Today

It was one year ago today that I first heard of Second Life. One year ago that my coworkers “dared” me to go into SL and figure it all out. And tossed in the kicker: “Oh yeah – and blog about it as well.”

I’ve started this post so many times. Try for pithy? A summarization? My usual emotional self? I am truly at a loss for words. There is too much to say. I’ve said it before. I feel it intensely. So all I can think to post is this:

Continuing the tradition of the past year, I threw myself under that famous work bus yet again and volunteered to write something for our demo next week. I’ve never written a web page. I’ve not looked at any of that. Yes – I had help. My one coworker/friend sat with me to design the page (really simple, but meets the need). HellSpawned helped me turn it into HTML. Jonah helped teach me more html. I needed a graph engine to generate a vertical column chart. Another coworker/friend helped me find a nice simple graph engine out there, that I could use for receiving our data. Next we change that static data to dynamic feed. So I’ve learned yet another new skill today. These two pages are baby steps. But now I know that I can do this, too.

Nickelback: “You know it’s never too late to shoot for the stars, regardless of who you are”
(If Today Was Your Last Day)

I’m shooting for the stars. Thanks for listening.

Juxtaposition

Calli has a new show opening tonight. Another prolific friend. 🙂 But one who always has time for fun and teaching. I showed you Calli and I playing on her Stylish Carriage. I now have my OWN shopping cart. More to come on THAT. So I’m not really sure when Calli has time to take the insightful and provocative photos that I love so much, but I guess if you never sleep, you have time to work AND play. And teach friends about AOs. *grin* You are great, Calli! I will do my best to make that opening but oh my – that is LATE for me. Especially as I am writing this at 2am SLT.

Juxtaposed: verb -placed side by side, often for comparison

Juxtaposed – an exhibit of unretouched SL images by Callipygian Christensen and Bakersfield Kidd.

Two SL photographers using the same set of tools – the SL interface snapshot function and windlight graphics, with no post production. While one might expect similar results, one look at Calli’s rugged cliff face in Error, beside Baker’s rugged boxer’s face, with its bruises and cuts will dispell that notion. The two styles are very different, and juxtaposed they demonstrate the flexibility the SL graphics functions provide.

Bakersfield is an SL photographer, Live performer, Writer and Blogger.

” My style in photography is more of a Pulp/ Trash Art blend that is heavily influenced by cinema and comic books. Ive worked professionally, both as a writer and photographer for most of my adult life, its a passion that i try my best to transcend into my work here in SL. I shoot raw ‘in World’ captures. Everything you see in the pics is exactly how i see it on my screen when i shoot. I really suck at Photoshop, to be frank about it. So, I do my best to twist and tweak and accelerate the interface of SL, and the rest is just lighting and compostion that ive learned in real life. I get alot out of shooting this way both cause it suits my abilities naturally, but also i like showing people what is still available if you want to shoot raw, no photoshop’n and no post production.”

Callipygian has been shooting images in SL for almost 3 years.

“I’ve come full circle it seems. I started out with images using no post-production (Photoshop was not part of my vocabulary back then :), but I learned to use Photoshop to create windlight skies and skin tones long before they existed in SL. Now that windlight exists, I still use Photoshop to ‘cleanup’ a lot of my images- taking out the odd angles and sharp points created by SL poseballs and avatar mesh, tweaking the images for depth of colour and realism. Windlight has let me revisit unretouched images, and I am enjoying the exploration of what can be done to create glorious sunsets and lush landscapes within SL alone.”

Juxtaposed will be on exhibit at the Museum of SL Photography from June 19 through July 12.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Fashionista/189/99/21

An opening reception will be held on Friday, June 19 from 8 – 9.30 PM, SL time. Join us for live ‘lumpy’ jazz as Kyle Beltran plays his unique blend of original, classic and contemporary favourites, start some lively discussion and view some beautiful art.

Snapshots from Yesterday

This is NOT the post I intended for today. *grin* Now doesn’t that make me sound organized and thoughtful? As if I actually PLAN for my blog. 🙂 I really really want to post about the Crown and Pearl. I had so much fun there last week. But yesterday was a real treat for me in the way of seeing friends. So often we only get to wave at friends in IM. Then you look up and realize it has been days since you actually talked. That’s why today’s post is a snapshot of my stolen moments with friends.

zazek and I so rarely get time to play. We have hunted Easter eggs together, visited AM Radio’s The Red and The Wild together. But mostly we only exchange a few words in IM and then one of us has to run. Last night we actually had time to talk, catch up on life. 🙂 zazek is doing something that I can’t do. Even if I were capable of doing it – I probably would not be brave enough to do it. zazek began blogging a few weeks ago. “So?” you might ask. “Doesn’t EVERYONE blog these days?” Maybe. But zazek is not writing in her native language. I only know one language. I have a smattering of others but certainly no competency. Even if I KNEW another language well, I doubt I would be writing in it. So zazek has my great admiration and respect! Her blog is fun to read, too! *grin* Check it out for yourself.

Dark and I used to have time to dance and party and fly planes. Then somehow my schedule got totally out of control. We chatted periodically, but rarely ended up in the same SLURL. Yesterday we were chatting about building. I am still fairly intimidated by manipulating prims. I simply do not understand path cut and taper and shear. I know, I know – you all tell me to “try it, play, experiment”. I do not learn that way. I like having another human being nearby who can answer questions. Dark tp’d me to a sandbox to give me a quick introduction to torturing prims. *grin* I did my best – teasing a pink torus. But you can see that Dark REALLY knows how to torture prims. 🙂 It was a quick start, but he’s promised we can do it again. YAY!!! Thank you, Dark!

Oura got home yesterday. *hugs* Welcome back, Oura. I missed you. We started in immediately on girl talk, catching up on the week’s events for us both. I told her about my escapades at work, trying to move my AO and boots and hair over to opensim. We started inventory diving – looking for any fullperm boots and clothing. LOL. We tried on some pretty amazing outfits. I promised her I would NOT take pictures or blog, so you will simply have to imagine the wet T shirts that we found. Is that okay, Oura? Can they use their imaginations???? Oura also noticed that my bear either smokes or the room was excessively cold, causing breath condensation. 🙂 Being in a silly mood, we somehow decided that the bear was indulging in a post activity cigarette. *grin* Since none of the other bears were smoking, there is still some mystery here. We ended up standing on the bed, swapping freebie outfits, finally finishing the evening as twins.

I guess I haven’t mentioned work in the last few days. I’ve been involved with the usual building for the demos. We’ve been meeting with others trying to learn more about opensim and developing in virtual worlds. We’re making great progress, imho. We plan to begin demo’ing to folks next week. I’ve been attending meetings in a variety of virtual worlds. As you know, I really get tired of being “dweebie”. A friend wrote and gave me an AO that works in opensim, another friend taught me how to build my own AO in SL using the ZHAO. I bought poses and FINALLY understand (somewhat) what happens in my AO. Maybe I will finally have the courage to toss the 2 poses I dislike. 🙂 I have different hair as well. I have been learning to wheel and deal with builders and scripters. I’ve also been friending coworkers and enjoying all the cool lectures and such that are available. Have I mentioned recently how much I enjoy my job? And now I even have boots and hair.