Warm Winter Nights

It has been almost a month since I posted here, but I have been really busy in RL and in SL between Hunts and preparing my first exhibition I haven’t had much time left for writing.

Now the hunts have calmed down, so inventory sorting is the next step *sigh

Anyhow, the pictures for the exhibition are now ready and I leave you here the invitation to drop by at the Opening.

This exhibition is born from a challenge made to me by rm Sirbu, after she saw some of my pictures in Flickr and Koinup. I was a bit reluctant at first. In my 2+ years of SL I haven’t been much on Mainland except for some shopping or to get material for blogging, and the idea I had of Mainland was probably the same as yours: lots of clutter and chaos.

I ended up taking the challenge and decided not to go to the recently rezzed sims like the Nautilus but, instead, explore the old Continent and glad I did it.

Starting walking down Route 8 I found gorgeous places along the way, which easily match any private island and I will try to show you some of those places in this exhibition.

The creativity of Second Life residents doesn’t stop to amaze me and I hope that, like me, you will go down the Linden Roads and let yourself be marvelled by lots of lovely spots that emerge at each curve of the way.

rm (Xaraz) and Timo (TD Realty) were kind enough to find me a place for the exhibition and thus the “Mainland Gallery” was born.

Leave you here the taxi and hope to see you there next Tuesday, Feb 24th at 02:00 PM PDT

I know I haven’t been writing much here and I apologize to my readers (yes, all three of you) but between preparing two exhibitions, doing research and taking pictures for Right Click Wear (did I tell you I hate shopping?), opening parties, exhibitions and rezz day parties, my SLife has been so busy I hardly have time to breath. Oh! and shall we not forget the good old inventory cleaning after the holidays *sigh

Anyhow yesterday me and Blue went to this place called Native Lands for her to take some pictures of native American outfits. There is a complete lack of good native American clothing in SL. Com’on dear designers start doing some good outfits. I bet lots of us would love to have those Indian costumes.

But I digress! The point of this post is to tell you that what started to be a “work night” ended up as an adventure. The Island is beautifully build, full of gorgeous Indian artifacts, some stores, lovely houses, some of them embedded in the Grand Canyon wall and – drum roll here – a rock climbing wall.

Blue decided to try it and, although I have fear of heights, I decided to tag along.

We started kind of well but then my foot just slipped and I had to hold on to Blue’s ankle and couldn’t hold on for long and there I went down the hill from I don’t know how many feet high right to the stone floor…

After all the Christmas goodies is time to go for a stroll to burn all those extra calories. I saw this gorgeous picture of my good friend Looker on Flickr and just had to visit Athan and explore the beauty you could foresee on his pictures.

The island is simply chin dropping. From the cathedral to the small medieval village, lots of nice corners to discover and even the shops are so well blended into the whole landscape and atmosphere, that shopping takes a new meaning.

Leave you with some of the pictures and you can see the rest of it on my Flickr set in high resolution.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And be sure to check under the sea at the bay… you’ll find some great surprises there.

A view of an alley in the medieval village

View of the chapel

View from the landing point

I was cleaning my inventory (seems there is nothing else I do the last few weeks *sigh) and came to the Landmark folder. Yes! That one! LMs just seem to pop up like mushrooms after a rainy night. Anyway I started to check my “Cool Places” folder and decided to teleport and see if they were still there. You never know after all the mess LL did with the OS policy.

The one on top of the list was Yggdrasil. Couldn’t remember if I had already been there or someone had given me the LM, so I tped and there I was in the middle of a beautiful forest, some paths showing from the landing point and a bunch of notecards offered to me. I read them and one of them stated as follows:

“Yggdrasil, the important ash, is a symbol for the whole creation: spacious, temporal and in content. It is the worldtree, because it is standing in the centre of the world and connecting all worlds. As a centreline of the world (axis mundi) she connects the three levels: sky, middleworld and underworld.
That was reason for us to build a fabulous sim, to put a spell on you and let you dream of mystic times. Discover the secrets of this sim and be captivated.”

So go ahead and discover the 12 hotspots there, fly, walk, teleport, as you wish. The place has lots of beautiful corners to be discovered. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Some more photos in my flickr page

The bridge from the Palace

One of the many nice little corners on the island

Like I have been posting, we are launching a short story contest every month at Owl’s Bay with the same theme as the Island for that month.

Last one was Once upon a time in a Fairy Tale – although one of my friends claimed it should be Furry tails hehe.  Anyway, leave you here the video for the cerimony, produced by BlueAngel Lungu, and hope that on next contest you can be one of the lucky winners. I will inform the new theme shortly, so that you can call the muses in time.

Better than any photo a movie gives us place to dream.

Carla made this beautiful machinima to introduce Owl’s Bay. Enjoy the travel and feel free to stop by and take a look for yourself.

Like  I said before, we at Owl’s Bay like to make you guys happy so we decided to have a Treasure Hunt for you all to enjoy.

There will be 14 Chinese hats spread all over the island, both outside and inside the buildings and even in places so obvious that they may pass unnoticed.

The prizes will range from tatoos to shoes, clothing, games and decorations. Some of them are originals and cannot be found for sale in SL (not yet, at least).

The hunt will start at 02:00 PM PDT here and will be on until October 12th, so that you will have time to get all of the hats and don’t need to do it all at once.

Leave you here a picture of the hat for you to know what you are looking for.

Happy hunting and if you need anything feel free to IM me inworld.

Like I posted some days ago here, Tymmerie Thorne opened a free hotel for SL residents under 90 days (teleport from here). If you are a new resident please read the note she dropped me bellow, if you are not, read all the same and take note to inform any new fellow you meet along your path.

Leave you also some pics for you to see the wonderful job she and Jerremy did. Enjoy and welcome to SL.

The Starting Point New Resident Dormitory is a free living space for residents under 90 days old.

Residents can live in their own private room for up to 8 weeks rent free. There are ten rooms, each furnished with a bed, pose stand, couch and chairs. Each resident may use up to 50 prims to personalize their space.

Please note that Starting Point is owned by private citizens and is not connected to Linden Labs. We pay the tier for this land. Additionally, members of the Starting Point Helper group are participating on a volunteer basis. We have all decided to do this as a way to give back to the greater Second Life community.

RULES:
We do have some guidelines that residents must follow in order to live in the community:
* All residents are expected to abide by the Second Life Community Standards. They can be found here: http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php
* We expect that all residents will treat each other and their neighbours in the sim with respect.
* We reserve the right to ban anyone for mistreatment of fellow SL residents, begging, sexual activity or nudity in a common area, spamming the group, or non-compliance with the Community Standards.
* No business or individual may advertise or sell items on any Starting Point land without our approval.

Starting Point has a variety of common areas where residents can mingle and invite guests, including a pool, outdoor fireplace, TV area, various seating areas and Moodle Arena, which we hope to use for educational and entertainment purposes. On Starting Point Island residents will find a tent, hammock and camp fire. The Starting Point Dock will allow residents to rez an air or water craft so that they may explore the surrounding sims. The dock is situated on open Linden waterways. Moodle Freebie Hill has a small selection of free objects that residents may find of use.
All common areas are open to the general Second Life population.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Residents of Starting Point will be members of the Starting Point Group. They may IM the group to ask questions and get help and assistance. (SPAM will not be tolerated.) However, the timeliness of an answer will depend on which group members are online and their availability to answer.

At the end of 60 days, residents in good standing may move into a vacant Darwin Condo (our rental properties) and receive half-off the first month’s rent. (Note: We cannot guarantee that there will be a vacancy at any particular time.)
IM us anytime with questions or to refer potential residents!
Yours,
Jerremy Darwin & Tymmerie Thorne

Some time ago I came across the Not Possible in RL blog and was immediately hooked by the places they blogged about. When I read this post, I decided to go to Templum ex Obscurum and see the new creation of Baron Grayson. I already had seen some of his work in Intempesta Nox sim on my earlier days in SL and he is IMHO one of the greatest artists in SL.

One of the last things I do before going to bed is to check Flickr for the latest photos published. Yesterday I had a surprise waiting for me. One of my pictures was chosen to be published in their blog (thank you guys!). Don’t know if I deserve it, cause I’m don’t understand a thing about post processing and I just try to take nice pics inworld with the resources available.

Anyway, I leave you here the picture and you can see some more on this set in my FLickr

I came across this post in “Not Possible in RL” blog and just had to check it out.

Chakryn Forest is one of the most beautiful installations I have seen, full of corners, caves and tunnels I didn’t have time to explore, but definitely a place to go back to.

The pictures don’t make it justice so go and see for yourself here. It is chin dropping and I assure it will be worth the visit.

You can find more pictures here and here

All the pictures I have taken are not post-processed and were taken with Torley presets.

Chakryn Forest

Swing amidst the trees

The sun coming through the trees