bike – Ahuva’s Blog

Get on Your Bike and Ride

Some days I want to get in my car and drive and drive and drive – just leave everything and everyone behind me. That’s not always very practical, however. Gas costs a lot, time constraints, guilt, you know – the regular mish-mash of mature reality. But I don’t have to be mature or sensible in SL. In Secondlife, I can ditch some of the constraints that I’m forced to acknowledge in my corporeal existence. Tonight, feeling a bit frustrated in several directions, I needed to ride. Thank you black-Kat Choppers for my Grifter Bike. 🙂

I came inworld and changed quickly into appropriate attire. It was a gorgeous day today – nearly perfect weather. I really wanted to just wear jeans and a tank top but I knew the wind would sting. So jeans and my leather jacket, leather boots. and some glasses to protect my eyes. Tie my hair back, (don’t need no stinkin’ helmet in SL), a pair of gloves and I was ready to ride.

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I live near Rt. 12 – an easy hop over to the road. It took me a bit to remember the controls. Always helps to read the directions. 🙂 And I was off….. Ahhhhhhhhh……. Feel that motor purr……..

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Of course, no SL road is complete without one of Ann Marie Oleandar’s vehicles on the road. HAH!!! I had to return a crashed tank that was resting on my land, but I left THIS particular tank waaaaaaay behind. Eat my dust!!!! Or smoke, as the case may be.

I have to say that sim crossings have gotten MUCH better. Yes, I vanished through the road, or careened madly about in the air, but I always found myself righted and ready to ride on. And ride on I did. On and on and on and on. Lalo and I had driven quite aways along Rt 12, but we never made it as far as I went tonight.

Tonight I went to the end of the road and back. 🙂 Without any elves or goblins or hobbits. The road gets a bit bumpy there at the end, and there is a lot of low-hanging foliage. But there are some beautiful sights. There is even a visitors’ center. I may have to head on back there some time and check it out.

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The chopper did the trick. I had the purr of the engine, the sights of the scenery, the adventure to the end of the road. The frustrating situations are still there, I’m sure, but at least I escaped them for a bit and feel as though I’ve left them far far behind.

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As Scarlett would say, tomorrow is another day. Bring it on.
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Cobra Sims

Thanks to guest blogger Oura Scribe!

Who knew I could get into trouble building? Giggles, well not really trouble.

I’m minding my own business, building away, frustrated at sculpty stairs. I decided to put a question out on Builders Brewery Group Chat. A very smart and helpful group of people, I might add. Davido Chrome IM’d back and offered a tp. After falling off his mountain and getting lost in the observatory (great build), I finally found the balcony where he was hiding. David (I understand it is ok to drop the ‘o’), walked through several sets of sculpty stairs with me. We talked about spirals and ladders. Basically I think the proportions of what I am trying to do are out of whack. That is the technical term, I assure you. 🙂 I have yet to build the stairs because I got seriously sidetracked. But when I do get back to them, I am quite certain I will be much closer to having a set I can actually walk on.

The subject of sculpties led to sculpt studio and blender and then to a wonderfully unique parking spot that was made with Blender. David created a ‘hang over the cliff’ spot for bikes to park in. At first glance this collection of rough wooden boards did not look sturdy enough to hold the sign, but it indeed held a bike. I had not realized it, but I was on the Cobra sims, a collection of sims built with bikers in mind. What a treat! I did notice the tag “Sidewinder” but hadn’t given it too much thought. Tags can mean just about anything. At this point David rezzed a nice purple and gold bike to show me how well the parking spot works. He offered me a ride. In real life I cannot pass up a ride on the back of a bike. I guess I am the same in second life. Of course I tried to sit in the driver’s seat and was informed promptly that it was locked. Hmmph!!! He said try the back. 🙂 I hoped on and off we went. The trails winding down the mountain from the observatory were steep and narrow. David maneuvered them perfectly. I was very impressed. We went on tracks and over bridges, in tunnels, and even in an underwater maze.

The Cobra sims are 12 in total. There are off-road tracks, paved roads and natural beaches. I saw many shops, chalets, boats, and a great bike store. I am told (by good authority) that Bud is the man to see. He is very nice and has a great selection. There were lots of friendly people about and some very interesting avatars to boot.

It was a delightful ride, and I hated for it to end. I really do think I could have ridden all afternoon. Such a comfortable bike and I loved that I wasn’t fighting the sim crossings. Davido did a great job and I would recommend him for a tour anytime (although I do not know if he is officially a tour guide and I must warn you – I think he drives with no hands *laugh*).

Just goes to show you – that even when we try to concentrate and build and be ‘good’, we often get to wander (and wonder) off to another part of the world and experience all the best that SL has to offer.

Thank you, Davido, for a wonderful afternoon surprise!

If you get time, check out Cobra Sims!

– Oura Scribe

And thank YOU, Oura, for helping me out today with a guest post! 🙂

Look! Up in the Sky!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane!! It’s….. OMG – take cover – it’s Ahuva. And friends! *grin* A friend of mine gave me a folder of sky bikes back when I was going crazy on the landscaping in November. I did rez one of the bikes then and there and take it for a spin. I LOVED it. I zoomed above ground, through the water, all about. I had a blast. Sometimes sim boundaries are tough. *grin* But I learned that flying Dark Air.

I love my sky bikes (especially the RED one). *grin* I love fast cars. I took our wedding money and bought a sports car. We didn’t have a bed, but we had a sports car. Even before that, as a kid, I loved racing cars. I always drove too fast – would run the cars off the curves. One year my husband bought me TWO sets. We set them up on the floor, so when I’d run them off the curve they wouldn’t drop and crash, they’d just crash. LOL. The cats and the dog went crazy with the cars, and ultimately I needed to clean, so finally I re-boxed them. I think they are still stashed in the basement. sigh. And I make do with a 6 cylinder luxury car, but it’s not the same as my 5-on-the-floor Z.

But in SL – I don’t smash my cars (well, not too often *grin*). My back doesn’t hurt from sitting low to the ground. There aren’t any law enforcement officers lurking about the corners (pffft on speeding tickets). I really should fly my skybikes more. Maybe instead of morning sails I should go for morning zooms.

So after Honour and I had rezzed our Grifters (our wonderful motorcycles from the MM board at Black-Kat Choppers), we weren’t done playing. I remembered my sky bikes. I shared them with Honour and Dz, who came around about that time. We all rezzed the red sky bike – soooooooo COOL!!! We played tag and follow the leader all around Taylor Bay. Then Honour got out her attack helicopter. *grin* We all love toys. I switched to a purple 2-seater and Dz hopped on for a ride. We had a great time, swooping and soaring.

The truth is – girls just wanna have fun. On bikes – both ground and sky!

Black-Kat Choppers

December 14, 2009. The call went out in group chat: 32/80 MM ‘the Grifter’ @ Black-Kat Choppers http://slurl.com/secondlife/Quasar/25/246/64. As it happened, I was free, relaxing, you could even say “wasting time”. So I tp’d over to see what one finds at Black-Kat Choppers. BIKES!!!! OMG – it was a bike shop. I was thinking helicopters. Nope. Hogs. Choppers. Bikes. Oh yeah. I slapped THAT board for sure.

As the morning rolled on, I thought about that bike. So I mentioned to Honour that if she had the time, maybe she’d go and slap the board too. And I also mentioned it to Shenlei and Oura and Jonah. Next thing I knew the four of them were standing about at Black-Kat, tp’ing in their friends and discussing MOI. They were maligning my reputation and trying to figure out the name for my (new) motorcycle gang. I was ashamed that the four of them were working so hard to get me my bike. I wasn’t doing much – I was actually spending much of that morning crashing and rebooting my machine. One of THOSE days. I decided that if they were going to put so much effort into it, I needed to as well.

The store manager, angel Doomdale, was very friendly and helpful. I suppose some stores might be angry at people tp’ing in friends to lock the MM board. I don’t know. Maybe stores like that, maybe they hate it. But in any case, angel was completely friendly and helpful, explained the different bikes to us. She showed us the demo model out front, told us about other inventory. She was very helpful, good-natured and she knew her stuff. There was also the black cat itself. I LOVE the animated pets that are available in SL. Sigh – remember Frenis? I have seen several cats and a few dogs. There was an adorable black cat with white paws wandering about the store. This one had wonderful animations.

Well Shen and Honour had to move on to other efforts. I brought Bailey in and she pulled in other Midianites. I tp’d Panacea in. *grin* This was Pan’s first MM board. LOL. We explained the concept to her. She grasped the essence (FUN!!!) immediately and began tp’ing friends in. In no time it seemed we’d run that board up to 70/80. *grin* We decided to stop (even though we had more names we could have IM’d. Poor Chestnut!!! She was at work. By the time she got home and tried to slap the board – it was locked!!! 😦

Okay, this was unacceptable to me. If I am going to have a motorcycle gang – Frenis Freedom Riders or whatever – Chestnut is going to be part of it. But I knew she’d be all silly about me giving her a bike or giving her the money to BUY a bike. So I went to to the store to see if I could buy the bike and have the store deliver it to Ches, thereby forcing her to accept. *grin* I spoke to angel who told me they didn’t have that set-up, but she would contact the store owner, iozz Dreadlow, and ask him. angel IM’d me when iozz came inworld and I went back to chat. *grin* He thought I was crazy, but finally he agreed. I paid iozz for the Grifter and he dropped it on Chestnut. *grin* My gang would be complete. Again – iozz was friendly, helpful and good natured. If iozz and angel are this nice to a one-time shopper, imagine how great they must be if you are really looking for leather attire and choppers. This is not a shopping blog, but when I find stores and vendors and builders who are helpful – I want to tell you all about them. So for sure Black-Kat Choppers gets the Ahuva seal of approval. I’m looking for an excuse to go back and buy another bike….

Well, the original plans were that we’d all get on our bikes and pose – Ahuva’s gang. But things don’t always work out as planned. Oh we all got our bikes as I said – we locked that board. But I never had time to get hold of everyone for a group shot. We never even settled on a name for our gang, so I never made the group tee shirts as I promised. I DID rez my bike and try it once. *grin* I know Panacea rezzed her – she told me she was too short. Chestnut rezzed hers and blogged it.

But I put it aside until last night when I was visiting Honour. I don’t remember what got us started, but we decided it was time to rez the bikes. That of course required that I find appropriate black leather clothes and boots. I was totally surprised to find that I had a box of boots I’d never rezzed – and that they’d be perfect for the bike. Good thing I never cleaned my inventory as I planned. I was definitely too short for this bike. You can adjust your position by touching the rear fender. I moved forward, up, forward, up, forward, up. Finally my arms reached the handlebars. But my tush was WAY above the seat. *grin* Never Fear. I AM A BUILDER. I added a pillow. Just like atomic life. LOL.

Honour couldn’t be bothered with adjusting the seat. She simply added her own pose ball. *grin* We all have our own way of solving problems. But we both did ultimately get on our bikes and RIDE!!! *grin*

Now all that we need is a gang name. And a group picture in our gang tee-shirts, on our bikes. 🙂