Some thoughts.....

I have not been writing since a long, long time now, but had suddenly the need to write something after reading Summer’s thoughts. It is not an answer to her article, nor is it a claim of wisdom. It is just what I feel, while being on the grid for more then three years now.

While some people try to compare life with beaches and waves (article of Summer W.), which are coming and going, life is most of all an experience of successive events. Good and bad ones.

Although life seems to be a stacking of negative experiences, these events should be turned into positive experiences which could be used in future events.

In Second Life, events are following each other at high speed, even not realistic in normal RL, and people are emotionally involved, because it is not the avatar who is responding but the person behind the keyboard. It is sometimes very difficult to even process all these happenings, and at the end, people have the tendency to get a moment of depressiveness, where , originally, they started in SL to step out of their RL and have fun in another, virtual, life. Meeting other cultures, other nationalities were the challenges of the new world, but are also increasing the chances of being misunderstood, due to misinterpretations, which can cause frustrations.

These frustrations are the result of trying to communicate in a different language, which, although you can have a great skill, been written with certain proverbs, and not understood properly.

It is the truth that, once something is written, the other person will read it and understand it with his knowledge of the language, which is not always his mother language, and in most cases, even not of the writer either. And there you are…..left with some words, no expression of the face, no gesture language, just words, written in a moment of unknown mood.

The art is, trying to comprehend the other person, not to upset anybody, reacting as a mature person and relativate all events in SL.

Sometimes, the best way to find a solution is on your own, not involving third parties, because other minds, other thoughts can make it all worse instead of better.

Role Magazine's first photo contest!!

ROLE Magazine is hosting it's very first flickr photo contest!

ROLE Magazine Flickr Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/rolemagazine/

Contest Theme: Reading ROLE Magazine

Contest Dates: December 14th - January 15th

*Winner to be announced / displayed in the February issue of ROLE Magazine, on or about February 1st 2009.

What we want you to do:

Show us where and how you read ROLE Magazine. In bed? Under a tree? On the beach? However you do it, we wanna see!

Prize: 10,000L$

**As a special thank you to all of our in-world kiosk locations, for displaying a ROLE Magazine kiosk; we will be randomly drawing for 2 FREE full page ads for the February issue.** (If you would like to display a ROLE Magazine Kiosk, and be automatically entered to win the free ad, you can get you kiosk at onrez - - http://shop.onrez.com/item/839353, or in world at Role Magazine, Concetta .

RULES:

1. In the description of your entry include:

Your Second Life avatar name:

Model:

Photographer:

2. Post processing is allowed and encouraged.

3. ROLE Magazine must be visible in image (opened or closed).

4. Submit all your pictures to the ROLE Magazine flickr group. (http://www.flickr.com/groups/rolemagazine/)

In joining this group, you agree to all the terms and conditions listed in the rules. The committee has picture veto power if the photo is inappropriate in any way. ROLE Magazine has the right to reproduce, edit and use submitted images.

KIOSK LOCATIONS: To get a copy of ROLE Magazine, please teleport to one of the in-world ROLE Magazine kiosk locations. List of locations - http://www.role-magazine.com/index.php/links.html

For any questions drop a notecard in the mailbox next to the entrance at ROLE Magazine HQ and we will get back to you.

Role Magazine, Concetta

Photoshop......it is a continuous process of learning.

I started in January 2007 on the grid, and was looking for some challenges. As I was already, from my younger days, an amateur photographer, it was obvious that I would be a photographer in the virtual world too.
Only this kind of photographing was totally different. The compositions stay the same, but the possibilities to move your camera are enormous. The only thing, at the beginning is, to figure out how all these tricks work.
Slowly I managed to learn the tricks on the grid, but saw that colleagues photographers could make their pictures so much more beautiful, with a little touch of post processing.
Although I must admit, that taking pictures without post processing can also be amazing, as you, as a photographer, have the eye to compose your picture in such a way, that it won't need any additional work.
Now I was interested in that post processing. I worked at the time with Paint Shop pro 7 and knew that program pretty well, but saw that there were limits. By surfing on the web I discovered that many people were talking about Photoshop, which was totally new to me. I did not know it before, only that it could not be that different from PSP.
That was my next step and challenge, to start learning to work with Photoshop, as the most tutorials I found were about Photoshop. Little by little, after buying the product, I learned many tricks and tips in PS. Growing each day a little more, I tried it over and over again, on a new picture, but still not realizing, those days, what PS really could do.
Today I may say that I will never know everything about PS. There are just no limits. For me there are still so many tools unknown, that I realize that I will never be able to learn them all. But I am still trying, and succeeding, to learn, every day again, that new trick, new tool, new tutorial that brings me one step ahead, and makes my picture just that little bit more, what the picture needs.
So, I can say, that through the virtual world, I was able to achieve some progress in my skills of making the pictures a little bit more looking like an artwork, which makes my being in this unreal world worthy.

China girl

I took the opportunity to blog with some pictures if mine, because I was not able to make some new ones inworld due to several business trips that I had lately.

I will be back at the end of the week, maybe earlier, with some new ones..or old ones which I did not posted yet.;)
So keep an eye on my flickr stream...;))

A new brand logo for Second Life®

Don't panic yet, but Linden Lab has a new brand logo to promote your involvement in the Second Life world with the inSL logo.
It seems a bit confusing and complicated, but it should not be. The new logo is to help outsiders understand that you are working inworld with a product or business. But what is more, with the logo you have guidelines, what you can do and what you can not.
It is not my intention to write about every possibility, but there are some you may find interesting. And I am wondering how some blogs will change their names, or stop their activities after reading all the guidelines referring to the trademarks.

The good news comes first of course when to use the logo: you can use the logo when you have marketing services in SL, you teach an architecture course, your profile page on your social networking page shows your name, you've released on cd an album of your piano performances inworld, you publish a blog about scripting in the Second Life environment. These are some examples given by Linden Lab.
Do read the guidelines though, to know when to use the new logo properly.

But when going through all the terms and guidelines I also found this:
Unauthorized uses of Linden Lab's Trademarks
under the paragraph "No use in Second-Level Domain names" there is a list of examples which are not allowed.

"This is NOT OK:
secondlife.net
secondlife.de
2ndlife.com
secondlife-grid.com
chinasecondlife.com
secondlifesoftware.com
secondlifetutorials.com
lindenworld.com"

and further under "No Adaptation or Registration", which explains never to modify, imitate, or register any Linden Lab trademark, including but not limited to the Second Life brand name, the Second Life Eye-in-Hand logo, and the tagline "Your World. Your Imagination.", including a list:

"This is NOT OK:
2nd Life (can't shorten "Second Life")
2Life (no "Second Life" abbreviations)
Second-Life (can't hyphenate "Second Life")
Segunda Vida (no Spanish equivalent of "Second Life")
Zweites Leben (can't make a German equivalent)
第二生命 (no Chinese equivalent)
第二の人生 (no Japanese equivalent)
Your World. Your Voice. (can't imitate our tagline "Your World. Your Imagination.")"

I know and understand that there have to be rules and guidelines, but I wonder how the names that already exists for quiet some time, should change and how they will communicate this .
Also we, bloggers, will have to be prudent how to use the names and logos.
Although we only report about that virtual world, I don't see why we can not use the names and logos if it is justified.
I will now write about my third life, and I am glad that my name is Looker Lumet and not LL, or would that be a problem too?;)

Second Life® and Linden Lab® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Linden Research, Inc. All rights reserved. No infringement is intended

Last week at Portucalis

If you have not seen my exhibition at Portucalis yet, then you will have just a few days left to visit it. Indeed, until the end of the month my pictures will be shown at the gallery.

In the meanwhile, I have my pictures inworld at Crescent, in the ArtProject'08 gallery from Lily's world. Also at Belgium finest, you are able to see some of my works.
Unfortunately the sim of Magma Art has been closed, so there will be no artists there anymore, but I will have my pictures soon at other galleries. I will keep you posted on that of course.

There is still the exhibition of Daequix Scarborough till the end of this month in the Avatrait gallery, another gallery where my pictures are shown, although these are still from my early days...;)

CosmoGIRL, There and Marketing in Virtual Worlds

From Metanomics:

This Monday, March 24th, 2008, at 11:00AM-12:00PM SLT (2:00-3:00PM EST), Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will broadcast from There.com to discuss CosmoGIRL. We will be joined by:

- Morgan Brooks, Associate Promotion Manager, CosmoGirl! (CG_Host_Morgan)
- Michael Wilson, CEO, There.com
- Mary Ellen Gordon, Managing Director of Market Truths Ltd.

This esteemed panel will be moderated by Accounting Professor Robert Bloomfield of Cornell University Business School and will discuss:

- CosmoGIRL's plans in There, their vision for success
- CosmoGIRL's upcoming 'virtual prom'
- How There provides support for ComsoGIRL
- Marketing in virtual worlds: demographics & psychographics
- Personnel changes at Linden Labs
- Effect of Wall Street financial crisis on investment in the virtual world industry

Monday's event will take place in There.com, at the CosmoGIRL stage. It will also be broadcast in Second Life on the 4-Sim CMP Amphitheatre on CMP Island as well as by our event partners, and filmed and streamed live on SLCN.tv.

One of the event partner locations:

Venue: MetaPartners Conference Area
Host: Frans Tomsen
Notes: MetaPartners is a Belgian communications company, specialised in the B2B integration of virtual and real world communication tools
SLUrl: http://tinyurl.com/2w4ctx

Clear your inventory items at work!

A month ago I posted an article about Ajaxlife, the web based viewer for Second Life. Back then there was the release 01.1, and I promised to keep an eye on it, which I have done.
Katharine now introduces Ajaxlife 0.3.0 with some remarkable new features.
Are you bored at your work, you don't really know how to make yourself useful? Now you can delete items from your inventory, clear your trash, rename items without logging in to Second Life. You can see some screenshots here.
Please don't tell your boss that I told you to clear your Second Life crap from behind your desk.;)
If you still want to check it out, you can do it here.
More and more it seems that this web based viewer can become valuable to some of us, as we sometimes have some moments that we have nothing to do (not me!!) and can use this time to check out and have our inventory up to date, without the need of downloading the Second Life viewer, when your not at home, and don't have Second Life installed on the PC you are working on.

About things....in Second life

You have probably noticed…my articles are not as frequently as they used to be. Well, the reason for that is that I am more active in RL lately, and I don’t find the time to go through all the different blogs to find interesting stuff to write about.

What I have been reading lately are more romantic related articles on different blogs, and although those articles are mostly personal, sometimes you will find some true stories about feelings in Second Life. On the other hand, you can read articles about new words, new meanings, like “polyamory”. It is ofcourse always interesting to find out about new directions, new terrains, where we did not even know about.
Well, we did already know, that for every action we do, new words are coming with it. Read all about it on Cyndy Kesey’s blog.

Some of us are or were going through difficult times in SL relationships, and found it necessary to tell the whole world about their feelings and experiences, but when all good things come to an end, those feelings remain on the internet. They are only aware of this after a while, but then realize that they had perhaps better not wrote these articles on their blog.

It is always risky to write on your blog like you would do in a diary. The diary remains secret, as long as you want to, the blog…..is public domain, and will remain on the net for always, even if you delete your blog, as pieces will always stay somewhere between this byte and the other.

Finally, Zippora wrote an article , related to all the above ones, but being rational, although realizing that she is walking on the edge, but still knowing that RL is more important and SL is more living in our brains and minds.
As long as you don’t loose that perspective, there is nothing wrong, I think.

What is frightened is a story, which I missed on television, about a mother of four, married, living in the States, being for 18 hours a day on the grid, and now leaving her husband and kids, for her virtual love in the UK. I did not see the program, but can only imagine how the husband , and certainly the children, must feel.
But as we already know, only the bad things are worth a program on television, that is why I deliberately missed it.

I apologize for this article, as it is again about romantic stuff in SL, and everybody is writing about these things already, but I still am intrigued by reading which different experiences we all have in the virtual world, and which conclusions we are about to take.

I always try to give an objective look on the different subjects on this blog, but will keep the really personal things to myself, besides experiences or events of course, as I believe it does not belong here on my blog.

My friends in SL are able to read sometimes between the lines, which I think is more than enough…;))

Will Second Life change?

Is Second Life changing? Do we have to fear for our cozy situation? Or is it for the best?Are we now going to see the real progress in virtual world?

All these questions can be asked after the step down of CEO Philip Rosedale. Linden Lab will now look for a new CEO with more operational and management expertise. And I think it is all for the best being of Second Life. It will come out much stronger and more functional with a new CEO. Not that Philip did a bad job, not at all…..but it is a normal step for a founder of a company like SL to step down at a certain point, taking over the chairmanship of the Linden board, and leave the daily work to more operations-focused craftsmen.

We have seen it coming, didn’t we? After Cory Ondrejka left the company, we all knew something was happening. The step down of Philip Rosedale as CEO is typical for technology start-ups and the search can begin for a more operations-focused CEO.

Philip Linden will not leave the company, let that be clear. He will be full-time on Second Life working on product development and strategy.

As I already wrote in previous articles, 2008 is becoming very, very important to Second Life. Things are changing, decisions are being made, and the search for a new CEO has begun.
It will not be easy to find a replacement for Philip.

“Legally, the board hires and fires CEOs,” Mitch Kapor, former chairman of the board, said in an interview to Reuters “Process-wise, this is going to have be someone Philip is incredibly enthusiastic about".

Second Life will never be the same again, but it is too early to say in which direction it will go, as the competition is also very much alive. But after we have seen what happened to the virtual world in 2007, I must admit that this step down, does not necessarily means that Second Life is going down the drain, on the contrary, it can and will come out stronger than before, as long as they find in time the right CEO.

The artist's shit

I have been asked to write for a new upcoming SL magazine, and was thinking about what I should write. It is obvious that my interest is not really in scripting, building but more in Art. Art related in SL, whether this is RL Art or SL Art, whether this is Art or not.
There was lately a lot of fuzz going on about the term SL Art, but this is not the place, nor the time to discuss this issue. I would rather talk about whether and where Art is to be found inworld.
My friend Raul Crimson, wrote an interesting piece about art, and if we can say that art exists in SL.
He took a really good example out of RL, “Merda d’Artista”, with other words, the Artist’s shit. Not that I would buy such art, but that is not to the point.

1/ “In May 1961, Manzoni collected his own feces in 90 numbered cans, which contain 30 grams of feces each. He labeled them as '100% pure artist's shit' in Italian, English, French, and German, and sold them for the price of their weight in gold. Their current estimated value stands at approximately EUR30,500 (US$25,000–35,000). On May 23 2007, an exemplar has been sold for EUR124,000 at Sotheby's.^{[1]” (from wikipedia)}

Another example:

2/ “The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that he selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art". By simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, and titling and signing it, the object became art. It was the the least amount of interaction between artist and art, the most extreme form of minimalism, and at least in abstract idealism, the precursor to punk. (from wikipedia)

So, the real questions are, does art exists in SL and, are there artists in SL?
I think the answers to these questions are more a personal answer than a general, common well thought answer by any writer of an article. I think you can say that if Art sells, it is supposed to be art, and the person who made it is an artist.
I have seen a lot of things in SL, that is called art, but is nothing more than a picture with a beautiful background. I have seen photographs, which are wonderful photoshopped into a piece of art, which is not even called art.
Are people, who have the skills of post processing artists, and other are not?
I think those people will have an advantage to make some beautiful works, and will have more chances that their post processing is called art. But I am convinced, that people, who does not have those skills, can also be artists.
I also think that contests of SL are not relative to call what is art and what not.
Art is something that you make of it. When you think a piece is beautiful enough to put in your living room, and you would pay money for that, if it is RL or SL, that would be art.
Don’t ask me for a definition of art, you can do so much better. You, the avatar, the person, can define art much better than anybody else, as art is what you see as art.

But, that is ofcourse, just my two pence.

There are definitely artists in Sl, and there is certainly art in SL…..

And that is where my articles in that magazine would be about.

The one million dollar idea!! Dedric Mauriac into the finals!

On December the 20th I posted a press release from OSRAM, who had introduced a contest for a one million dollar idea. The special feature of the contest was that the best idea will not only receive a prize, but will also be turned into an actual product in real world. The lucky winner will receive a million Linden dollars for the development.
One of the first readers who reacted on my blog was Dedric Mauriac, a colleague blogger, and he participated the contest.

I received a short message from him, just a while ago, that he was given 75.000 L$ by OSRAM, and that he made it to the finals!!

Congratulations Dedric!! And good luck in the finals!

A glowing star

article on bloghud:

"Assembling my pieces together, I created a large star as a lawn ornament in my million dollar linden idea. I even created a chunk of grass patched with dirt under it to demonstrate how the support piece is inserted into the grass for more stability. This has got to be one of the most prim-heavy models I have ever made. I had to work with micro-prims to get all the the LED's small enough to size down to the products actual size. When I was originally working with the star, I had different pieces for each angle. In the end, I made one piece that as adjustable to fit any angle. This made the star easier to assemble. A cord that powers the star can be seen behind it running along to the wall."

SL Educators have a new resource!

Okay, it might not be the latest news, but interesting enough to mention it here.
There is now a SLED blog for Second Life Educators. It seems that this community has grown over 4.700 members.
The blog, announced on the official blog, will feature and highlight EDU-oriented events, tools, bright ideas, awesome groups and locations, expert opinions, pointers to tutorials and papers, and insider views on life in Teen Second Life.
The Lindens have asked a RL university instructor to edit the blog, so we can expect some high educational information to be posted.
The first article I stumbled upon was about a bright idea, coming out of the new feature of the SL candidate viewer.
Torley made a video tutorial about how to play movies, webpages and more. Watch it here.
Now, you would also have the ability to view multiple images without having to pay for and upload each image. This would give us more capabilities for showing our images, without having to pay 10L$ for every single picture that we need to upload, but with the only exception that you would show them in a presentation, which would be nice and money saving for students, teachers etc. for showing reports or so. You can read it here.
But the good thing is, that we constantly see progress in the development of our precious Second Life

Back on track

One week, one whole week did it get me...... I did not know that it could take so long. And still I am not 100%, but enough is enough, I will not give in on it, it has to go away now. Yes, I had the flu over these past days. And when I thought it was over, the next morning it started all over again. I hope now that the worst is over and that I can move on again.
I noticed that several of my colleague bloggers have visited my first exhibition, and not only that, they told about it even on their blogs! Great! Thank you Winter, Tym and Joonie!
And now I know how reporters are. They ask you for an interview, they ask you for pictures, and what gets to be published....not much, and a sentence that is totally out of its context. But....I am in it, in the newest edition of "The Avastar"nr.64.


So, really, I don't have much to tell you, as I did not do any research for a couple of days, but I sure hope that I can be back in business from now on.

Looker's first exhibition.

As I already mentioned earlier, I had my first solo exhibition yesterday evening. And what I did not expected, because there were other exhibitions too, it was a success.
It was really great to hear how much everybody enjoyed my works.
Thanks to Winter Wardhani, who invited me to do this show, I was able to show more than just a few pictures inworld.
Although there were other events that I wanted to attend, I could not miss my own exhibition, could I?;)
So the evening started with a visit to the Avatrait Gallery, where Daequix Scarborough had her exhibition opening. And I was morally obligated to be present there, and saw that it was pretty crowded with beautiful pictures of Dae. After 45 min. I had to leave for my own presentation, but nevertheless, I had the opportunity to talk to several residents/artists, before I tp'd myself to Portucalis.

I did not expect to see so many people at my show, but was very pleased that they all liked my pictures. Winter told me in the afternoon, that she had a little surprise planned, Orangelife was going to perform at the opening!Orangelife is a Portuguese performer who covered some great songs from well known RL artists.
At the end, some three and a half hours later, I wanted to visit another party, the rezzday of Timothy Lilliehook, but unfortunately, he was already offline at that time.;((
But, the least I can say was, that my weekend was superb, thanks to Winter, Summer, Orangelife and their Portuguese friends, and not to forget my friends , who visited the event!!
Thank you all!!

For those who still want to see the exhibition, it is still possible, until the end of March. And if you want to buy a copy of one of my pictures, feel free to do so.;))

Dinosaurs extincted in Second Life

I was witness of a great spectacle on the Liberty Sim last Thursday!
The Dino's were going to be extincted, and was announced in all Rezzable media. So, I had to be there, but there was a small problem...I could not get there.
I visited instead the Toxic Garden, which is a great place, but did not really visited it yet, because there was something bigger going on at the moment.

Once out in the garden, I tried to move my camera over the trees to the neighbor sim, where the dinosaurs had a wonderful life, until now. They had to be eliminated in a way: meteor showers, acid rain a colored space mothership crashing between the skeletons.
Nothing seen something like it in Second Life before.


It was great to experience that my camera could go as far as that sim. I could even make close ups of the avatars who were watching the event from the different stake outs.
Unfortunately I arrived a little bit late, and before I realized what was going on, and set up my camera for all those different things, although it was repeated several times, the show was over.
It was not easy to move the camera as I wanted, not everything was rezzed in time to take the shots, but I managed to make some wonderful memorable pictures from an already milestone in the history of Second Life.
More of my pictures can be seen on the flickr stream or also on the Rezzable flickr stream.

Education in Second Life.

I was talking to my friend, Dan Yapungku, the professor, yesterday and asking him how the presentation of Second Life went in his class a week ago.
Apart for having the well known SL issue’s, just when it does not is suppose to happen, and when everything was checked in front, it was okay, he said.
It seems that everyone was thinking (is thinking) that Second Life is a too much invest of time for being interesting. I acknowledged it by saying that we are spending too much time on Second Life, but that I was very happy by the things I have learned through the past year.
So, he said, it was no waste of time, but worth the investment.
He even suggested teaching mine and his wife, to have more comprehension about our “waste of time” in Second Life.;)

There are several universities all over the world present in SL, and even teaching in SL, so do you really think it is a waste of time?
From a study in Holland, it is even proofed that virtual surroundings can be a valuable
supplement on education. They continue to experiment with this project, by giving the teachers guidelines how to implement the presence of a virtual world into their educational program.

Again, we see a perfect adaptation of the technical progress in our society, being implemented in our daily life.

From one side we see companies having the virtual world as a medium for their employees, having meetings inworld etc..., and from the other side we see universities teaching students through the virtual environment.

What do you think, is being present, playing around in Second Life useful to you or is it a waste of time? Do you improve your skills of building, scripting or something else?

Are you happy with your second life? Or is it the same old crap as in RL?

What is your opinion about the virtual world?

Exhibition Galleria LX at Portucalis

I am honoured to be invited for an exhibition at the sim of Portucalis, for the whole month of March.
Although my works are already seen on different places in SL, it is for me the first time I have been asked to have a show completely dedicated to my pictures.
Thanks to my Portuguese friends, this is a real opportunity for me to show some of my works.
Feel free to drop by, and who knows, you will be able to have a conversation with me.;)) I would certainly like that idea.;)

The Hospital of the Future in Second Life

“Virtual Palomar West in Second Life, an architectural and conceptual visualization of The Hospital of the Future opening in 2011. Powered by a Cisco Medical-Grade Network that converges information and communications technology along with clinical and building automation systems onto a single network, Palomar West will transform the future of healthcare as we know it. Palomar West is a showcase of architectural and medical technology innovations driven by flexibility for efficiency, environmental conservation, and patient and staff comfort. Experience The Hospital of the Future— today!”

The design of the hospital is modern, and the Second Life version of the hospital is a model of the physical campus that will be built (by the year 2011) in San Diego, California, packed with the medical-grade Cisco technology.
A collaborative Connected Health community uses Cisco Medical-Grade Network solutions to help improve caregiver efficiencies and enhance the patient experience.

Watch the video to see what they are planning to build in RL.

It is another piece of excellence with what they have accomplished in Second Life. And besides this application in healthcare, it could also be an opportunity for architects to visit the virtual building they have created on paper before having it built.

Looker Lumet's first experiences in SL

For over a year I am on the grid now, and was looking back to the first experiences, how I felt that time, when I logged in.

I remember reading an article in the newspaper about Second Life, and thought that it would be interesting to see with my own eyes what you could do in a virtual environment. As I am never too old to learn, I was convinced that this Second Life, could be something more than just a game, because gaming is not directly my thing.
I still remember logging in on a spot, not at all like it is now, but it was something like a hill. I looked around, figuring out what to do next. I saw some other avatars doing exactly the same, although I could not know whether they all were newbies too.
In the bar, below on my screen, I saw a button “Fly”, and I had to try that out, because the place was getting a bit overpopulated. I flew over that hill, flying further away, finding it a tremendous experience, until I could not fly any further. I was clicking my arrows, but my avatar did not move at all, and then……..yes indeed……I crashed. That was the first time that I logged in, and could not realize at that time, that the future would be exactly the same.;))
The second time I logged in, right behind the first one, I entered a different place, an orientation island, a place where a lot of people were moving, and I remember meeting a German woman, who was telling me pieces of what I could do on the grid. Unfortunately, in the middle of our conversation, she was tp’d by a friend, and she left. And there I was, all by myself, missed the introduction of Second Life, nobody to help me, as I knew nobody and remembered a blog, where there was a URL mentioned.The URL was a Belgian place ,where some avatars gathered once and a while and talked about all good and bad things on SL. It was on that spot that I was told about all the beautiful things you could do in SL, and how to do it. There were two female avatars who helped me coming through my first days, Tzeetje Grot and Deidre Flamand, the owner of the place. I still have them both in my friend list, and see them coming on line, from time to time. But more than “Hello” is not being said anymore, unfortunately.
After some days I discovered the “Humo Park”, a place created by a Belgian magazine “Humo”, and this place would become my spot to log in and out every day for a long time, as there was always someone to talk too. That was also the beginning of the group “Doornroosje”, where most of the members were visitors of the “Humo Park”.
The story about “Doornroosje” is already known, through some previous articles posted here in the past.
From being a member of “Doornroosje”, I was introduced to another Belgian, Coolz0r Courier, and I could not know by then, that he would become very important to me in the near future.
I was used to go camping for my first Lindens, and did that right after work, or during the weekends.
One day, I was with Coolz0r, owner of the Strawberry beach, and Flok, and by meaning of a little game and some joking, he gave me my first “big” Lindens. To him it were probably just a few Lindens, to me it was if I was suddenly rich. He never knew that those Lindens were really my first steps to a more comfortable life on SL. I could participate in sploder games and increase my savings. I never would have to camp anymore, w00t!!
Coolz0r changed his beach to another SIM, and that is also where my home is now located for more than 6 months.
From the friends at “Doornroosje”, only a few are left, and we see each other from time to time.
Where, at that time, I was more in contact with Belgian friends, my relationships are now more international orientated, and that is also why I started a blog in the English language, back in May. And I never regretted that…;)
The most peculiar thing that has happened to me in SL, is that I met Freggeltje Food for the first time on that Belgian place, which I mentioned I this article. She instantly offered her friendship, which I accepted. We only met once, that must have been in February or March 2007, until last August, where she asked me to do a photoshoot.

And from that time……well, that is a whole different story…;))