Tag: Fricker Fraker

An Unexpected Gift

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, meaning it happens long after the fact. What do they say about gifts that appear long after the gifting? There must be some equally apt phrase. Maybe it’s “good things come to those who wait”.

fricker1I have finally decided to upgrade my blog from a free account to a paid account. I have no good reason. Or rather, I suspect the final straw is NOT something that will be handled by a paid account. The last week or so I’ve been getting trackbacks from spam sites. It was annoying. I’ve also used over 75% of my media storage. I thought I’d investigate and see what I’d learn.

I had a wonderful, informative, upbeat chat with the online chat support. Do you know that they are called “Happiness Engineers”? I think that is a GREAT title. The person with whom I was chatting was a fantastic representative of that concept. She gave me a discount code to give me 2 months free. I noticed something odd when I went to pay. The screen was showing me a $15 credit, bringing the bill to $33. When I put in the discount code, the amount was just over $39. ???? I asked my happiness engineer where the $15 credit originated. She said “The $15 credit is applying the value you have left in your current plan to the upgraded one.” Well that was odd. fricker 3My current plan was a FREE plan, I had never paid any money to WordPress. The HE agreed my plan was a free one and she investigated further. “I show $15 in gift credit from a user named “Fricker Fraker” back in 2009. Dear reader, I kid you not – tears came to my eyes.

Fricker – I don’t know where you are, or how you are, but thank you, thank you, thank you. What a sweet, generous gesture on your part. Which is exactly how I remember you.

Ahuva ❤ Fricker

Oh! You mean *I* was supposed to do that?

I state this freely and without coercion: I LIKE viewer 2.0. Yes, I understand all the reasons why it’s not as good for building, I don’t like that I can’t detach tabs, and all sorts of other things. But mostly – I LIKE it. I know most of you will stone me for this – but I actually DO find it intuitive. I never found v1.x intuitive. I realize this puts me on the pale of civilization, but it’s simply what it is.

Lately, however, I have been having problems logging on to v2. It seems to hang and I hold my breath while I hope that I make it to the promised land. On Monday it began failing at the office – I could not get in. Sigh. So I used v1.23. I got in, no problem. I figured it was a firewall issue or port or something. I logged in from home, no problem. Tuesday – same thing at work. Then at home – I could not log in again.

I have two laptops: my work laptop and my gaming computer. Sigh. I have bad karma. Something is not right with the SL settings on my Alienware and until I can take it to Zha so she can rid my hovercraft of eels, I have been using the Lenovo. It’s been fine. Until the last week or so. Slow, slower, not working at all.

So – here are the symptoms. You see if you can solve the mystery first, okay? You can see the pictures of the errors. The meter bar would get to downloading clothing and then I’d be logged out. Then it only got to downloading world (or whatever that message is) and I’d be logged out. Ready?
Ahuva/Lenovo/v2 = Fail
Ahuva/Alienware/v2 = Success
Ahuva/Lenovo/v1.23 = Success
Alt/Lenovo/v2 = Success
Alt/Alienware/v2 = Success

I have to thank Zha Ewry who patiently listened to all my testing, suggested other tests, read my log files, and helped me stay hopeful and sane through the hours (literally hours) that it took to deal with this. We both agreed that perhaps it was a scripting issue (which of course doesn’t explain why I could login on the Alienware. I logged in on the AW in v2 and stripped myself down to pants, a shirt, a skin and eyes. No hair (oh the pain), no AO, no scripts, no HUDs, no attachments. By the way – did you know that v2 does not know what you were wearing in v1.23 when you logged out, but v1.23 DOES know what you were wearing in v2 when you logged out? That also caused me some puzzlement as I tried to debug. Zha cleared that up for me. I thought maybe I had too much inventory, but Zha has twice as much as I do. I know many people who have much more inventory than I have.

Okay, I was now a newb. Ahuva/Lenovo/v2 = Fail. I uninstalled and reinstalled code. Fail. I did rmdir /s SecondLife. Fail. I reinstalled. Fail. I erased. Fail. I stared baffled at the screen. I shutdown the machine. Not restarted – shut it down. Came back up. Installed v2. Logged in Ahuva/Lenovo/v2. Crawl. Crawl. 60 seconds and counting on “downloading world”. Then – OMG!!!! I was logged in. I was there. I tp’d home. I noticed that my messages said 99+. I was still convinced that somewhere somehow we were dealing with a memory issue. What else could be different at that point?

Okay Sherlock – do you know the solution yet?????

I don’t know about you, but I don’t pay much attention to the myriad of notices I receive every session. I only open one if I missed seeing it as it flashed in and I knew I needed the information. Someone is sharing their dance HUD, or I want a slurl. Did you know that they don’t go away on their own after each login? I used to try to keep up with them and close them. But there were WAY too many. So I just started ignoring them. The blue boxes in v1.23 used to go away. *shrug* No big deal. Rut-roh. Way big deal. I do not think I have closed the messages since, oh, let’s say July. Maybe June. So I thought – let me close all as long as I’m trying everything else. Well. Everything kind of froze. You know – that old familiar hourglass. And then I was logged out. 😦

I took a deep breath and headed back in and…… got there. Fairly quickly even. *smile* I logged out (still a newb) and came back. FAST. *grin* I had a moment panic when I went to my outfits and nothing was there. But then all my inventory filled in. I put on my outfit: hair, skin, HUDS, scripts, AO. Yeah – I’m loaded. 🙂 I tp’d to my sky box. Logged out. Logged in!!!! Fast! Complete! *grin* I loaded up everything else on the Lenovo that I run during my typical day. Logged in. *grin* I was BACK!!!

I guess this means that I am now expected to clean up those unread messages. *grin* Fine, I can do a little housework now and then. Now comes Fricker Fraker time! Fricker is bidding farewell to summer and hello to autumn tonight!! Come join us all for a wonderful time at Piper Point! At 6pm SLT! Get there early for Crap Mariner’s storytime!!

Soothing Summer Solstice


I’m not sure why exactly, but I’ve been feeling a bit stressed and tense the last day or two. No good reason, really. I suspect it might be the humidity and heat. Except that I love hot weather, summer weather, hazy-hot-humid weather. But maybe I don’t? Not really sure. All I know is that by the end of the day, I’ve been feeling frazzled. (oh – do you think it has anything to do with lack of sleep?)

Fricker Fraker gave us all a gift this evening – his summer solstice concert. Yes, the solstice was actually yesterday, but so what. Stop being so picky. If Fricker is playing, I don’t care WHAT day he claims it is. *grin* Fricker’s music is wonderful. We all gathered at Edloe, thanks to Crap Mariner, who was hosting us all.

I sat down on the grass, sipped my wine, and lost myself in Fricker’s flute playing. I felt all my tension and stress slip away. Vanished. It was so relaxing. So peaceful. So soothing. Balm for the soul.

The only discordant note is that the summer solstice has come and gone. That means the days will be getting shorter. NO! Fricker is playing, and so all unhappiness is banished. We have the whole summer stretching before us. Ahhhhhh…….

Thank you Fricker. Thank you Crap.

The photos here are mine. Panacea Luminos took a photo of me that I think is simply lovely. Thank you Panacea! You are a wonderful photographer! Here are the photos that she posted.

Fricker Tonight!

okay – I may be coming back to SL. How can I not, when Fricker Fraker is playing?

Tonight: Saturday, Feb 20. 7pm SLT.
Find him here at the: Benefit Concert for Project Children

I expect to be there. Fricker’s music always soothes my soul. Hope to see you there.

If you like more information or details:

Benefit Concert for Project Children
The West of Ireland (WOI) Estate is owned by South Texas Celtic Music Association (STCMA) via the avatars Irish Westland and AliciaKay Kilara. AliciaKay is on the Board of Directors of STCMA and Irish represents STCMA within Second Life.
The West of Ireland’s mission is to advance Irish and Celtic culture in SL, raise awareness of and donations for Project Children, and to provide a friendly and entertaining environment for our guests. Information on Project Children can be found on the attached notecard and at the following web site: www.projectchildren.org

Festivities and Fashion

It’s winter – for real. It snowed in RL last night. It’s still there this morning. That makes it winter. We had several friends over for warm winter dinner. We sat and shmoozed and it was wonderful. I’m so fortunate to have wonderful RL and SL friends. My SL friends are also getting me into a happy winter mood. I’m usually a summer beach gal, so getting me to enjoy winter is an arduous undertaking. 🙂

First was Honour. She was making a wreath in response to a friend’s request. She sent it to me for any comments. Oh right, like I am the person to critique Honour’s work. LOL. SHE teaches ME, remember???? *grin* Anyway, I fell in love with the wreath. So simple, elegant, just a touch of color. (Please note – “color”, not “colour”. ) As many of you know, I tend to be very rococco and ornate when left to my own devices. Yet I do really love simple lines. This wreath made me smile and immediately made me think of decorating for the season.

I’m not very experienced in decorating for the winter season. I’m VERY good at fall and summer. *grin* And I’m SUPERB for Superbowl parties. But winter? Hmmm. So it was lucky that was also the day Fricker Fraker gave away his adorable candy cane reindeer!!! OMG!!! It is so cute! I’m in love. I went out and decorated. I suspect I’m “supposed” to have more than reindeer and a wreath, but that sounds so wonderfully alliterative, doesn’t it? Notice that there is still no snow at MY house. But I suppose Bamboo, Mallory, Drake, Bill and I need to think about a season’s greeting card. Sigh, alas, poor Frenis. By the way – Fricker has launched a very cool blog – SL stuff (clothes, gadgets, guy things) for men: “Man on the Grid“. Check it out. I am having envy – I may have to create a male alt. *grin*

It wouldn’t be winter without a winter fashion show. I am actually JUST posting this in time. I am one of the model’s for Missy Lavecchia’s fashion show on Monday, Dec. 7, at 4pm SLT. As always, go to Michele’s blog for all the REAL details. But Missy has created some beautiful gowns. I got a sneak preview of the build last week. While Shenlei and Missy discussed details and such, I skated about the build, enjoying how easy and warm it is to skate in SL. *grin* I hope you come and see us all on Monday – the usual group of gorgeous, talented, fun models will be there. 🙂 Oh – and modest. *grin* We are modest as well. Missy’s gowns are gorgeous and I’m sure you have a few holiday parties on the calendar. Maybe we can convince Shen to leave the build up for a bit so we can all skate some more.