Kahruvel Forest > Chilbo November 4, 2009

Karoz attempts to get some shut eye in the tent and await the morning light for further exploration.

However, he couldn’t settle in, and quickly arose to look over the ruined tower base…

… and reexplore the airport itself more, with its nifty blue neon trim leading him through the various spaces.

Then it was back to lands further west, even beyond Rosedale this time to Georgean, the site of a Vehicle Sandbox according the land description. In fact, the sandbox and sim appear to be one and the same.

And over the mountain to the south is a “sandbox sandbox”, 4 adjacent sims worth, in fact. I remember Baker Blinker sitting on this high vantage point at times and viewing the various builds being executed. She also use to sit on a smaller, wooded ridge just north of the Cowell lighthouse and watch the flying vehicles coming and going from Abbotts Aerodrome. All this happened mainly before I started this blog about one month into my SL existence. By the time I started the blog, I had essentially left the forest behind to explore other areas of Sansara, and also beyond. But I’ll never forget finding Kahruvel — also a nighttime event. I was amazed, in flying west through sim after sim, that such a large, relatively natural area existed so close to the oldest, much more built up areas of Second Life just to the north. How could such a chunk of land remain protected all these years? Kudos, once more, to Mr. Jack and his immediate family for the idea of a Kahruvel trust.

But, as it turned out, Karoz quickly got homesick, and returned to Jeogeot even before dawn could arrive in Second Lyfe. What a home body; even worse than The Bakers! Below he sits on a bench in one of his favorite Chilbo parks, soaking in the warmer air, as Karoz later put it. Was it really warmer? Perhaps to him it was, and although SL has no defined equator that I know if, Jeogeot is considerably south of Sansara. Hmmm… have to think about that warmth issue more.

Big Sink > Kahruvel Forest November 4, 2009

Hopefully I’ll have more to say about Big Sink very soon. For now, I’ll leave you with this waterfall picture taken in Craggen Maw once more, but on what was clearly private property according to a prominently placed sign.

Moving on to a more recent night of exploration, then, this time through the eyes of my green friend Karoz Blogger. I believe this might be his first visit to the oldest SL continent, Sansara, but not sure of that. Oh… of course not… he’s visited the Healy gallery a number of times. But this is definitely — I think — his first teleport into the *older,* old continent, the Forest of Kahruvel in this case. He finds the location very, very attractive, and wonders why Baker Bloch doesn’t spend more time there. Just before he takes the below pictures, he wanders around Salazar Jack’s famous seaside village in Cowell. Nice to see Headburro still has his digs there.

Below is an overhead shot of the great waterfall in Rodeo (Rodeo Falls?), a 25 meter cascade originating from a spring about 25 meters further up the mountain. If you haven’t been to Rodeo during your Second Life existence, then you’ve been missing something. Don’t wait; go now!

I don’t remember this giant stone head being there when Baker Bloch and Baker Blinker use to visit. But as Baker Bloch is checking behind Karoz today (for a change), he finds that it is over 3 years old. Probably just missed it before.

On a nearby cliff overlooking the sea, Karoz clicks on an open book, which turns out to be a “linking book” taking him to another well known location in the forest: Phyneas Jack’s Lookout, also in Rodeo. Karoz is standing in front of Phyneas’ portrait below. More on his story here. That’s Salazar Jack’s great grandfather, in case you didn’t catch it, and the namesake of the trust that protects the forest, spreading out not only over Rodeo but neighboring sims such as Cowell, Stinson, Noyo, and even others.

On a whim, Karoz teleports over to the narrow strip of land marking the western boundary of Rosedale, one sim west of Stinson. He’s not in the great forest any longer, but he can dimly see the cliffs over the intervening sea. Admittedly the dark and jagged distant silhouettes in the two pictures below rather gave him the creeps, because he wasn’t sure what they were at first.

Karoz also took the time to visit Abbott’s Aerodrome, another famous site of the area. Again, this is not in the Forest of Kahruvel proper, but it’s just west, and the huge airport sits on the same mountain range running through the center of Kahruvel.

More on the Abbotts Aerodrome from the Second Life Wikia.

Very interesting that it’s supposedly built on top of an older airport now in ruins. In fact, it was an area around some of those very ruins that most attracted Karoz’s attention last night, in particular a camping site near of the base of a dilapidated tower, still in Abbotts but very near Kahruvel indeed now, a mere meters away.

The campsite included a tent w/ sleeping bag, a log fire, and also several stumps to sit yer rump on. What wonderful stories must have been told around this campfire down through the years now, he supposes. Could this make a good base from which to explore the forest and general area? Could Karoz actually spend a night or two or three away from his precious Jeogeot?

More Sansara Wanderings April 28, 2009

Baker Bloch walks from the Temple of TILE in Hibdon to the large, forested island next to Graduation Island explored last fall. Only forest on this particular island, though. And rock. Lots of trees and grass and ferns and rock.

A little while back, Baker requested help from a detective agency based in Grignano concerning the “mysteries of Sansara”. Perhaps they thought the request was a little too broad or maybe a little too daft. Whatever, he hasn’t heard back from ‘em yet.

Another forest, this time a non-Linden one in the Pomponio sim. This one covers about fifth of a sim, and is densly packed with pines. A strangely out of place wood prim sits in a small, square clearing in its center.

More evidence that TILE is everywhere. All Things, as Hucka D. put it.

Albion Park, quite near the forest pictured above. Not extremely large but nice. On granite, and next to the Pomponio Volcano. In fact, I would assume, without checking, that both the forest with the wood prim at its center and Albion Park both share a border with this *smoking* Linden protected volcano parcel. According to the land description, they also apparently hold SL College classes here at times.

Then Baker Bloch popped over to the famous Forest of Kahruvel preserved by the Phyneas Jack Memorial Trust, specifically to check out the living quarters of Enja Mysterio, a long term resident of SL and apparently one of the few permanent residents of the forest. Turns out that I tied with Ms. Mysterio’s blog for the 94th most popular blog in SL, har har. What this means I’m not sure, but here’s the list in case you wanna check.

But in checking today more about Enjah another ahah! moment occurred. She and the detective I called up have one and the same user! Hmmmmm… well, that’s an interesting twist! Have to think about that more.

Baker Bloch also found another sim border fissure, perhaps as long or even longer than the one Wilsonia just found, but not as deep. Quite interesting; I wonder how many there are like this in SL? I know they have something to do with the much greater limits on terraforming that use to be in effect.

Such as we have an example of here! I don’t have time to send Wilsonia looking for these towering pointy peaks, but I can deduce from this snapshot they’ve got to be at least close to 100 meters high apiece.

Blochs’ also visits Wilsonia’s beloved Snow Region that night, taking this lovely twilight shot of ski slope with rocks, mountain, and moon.

A pop over to the Okinu sim, then…

… completed by a visit to Kissling. *More* weirdness here (as I found out a couple of days ago). A friend of *both* Ms Mysterio and my long time email friend Headburro Antfarm named Nish just posted about visiting this sim on her Big Orange One blog, as well as the Lusk sim. I’ll have more to say about that and Nish’s super-nifty Sansara explorings herself as soon as I have time. That’s all for now!

Third March 8, 2008

Baker Blinker:

Thanks for showing up Hucka D. Now let’s admit up front that after the humorous yet still disastrous meeting between Baker Bloch and myself, we’ve decided not to do this particular interview in SL “real time” shall we say. Instead it will be created as a Microsoft Works document at the home computer and retroactively plugged into our very short meeting on the dock here the other day, where I took several snapshots. These snapshots will merely serve as location shots now.

Hucka D.:

We’ve agreed.

Baker Blinker:

So let’s get this out of the way immediately. You’re not a small African American boy are you, or African in any way?

Hucka D.:

No, my color is black is all. I became small and condensed to fit into the eyeball avatar. All 3 of us decided it was the best thing to go through. I am the third “i”.

Baker Blinker:

Would you like to tell us about this transformation in Rodeo?

Hucka D.:

Well (walks a little closer to Baker Blinker on the deck they are standing on), we jointly know now that to get from Hucka D., the standard City Chic avatar provided by the Lindens, to Hucka D. the large purple custom designed avatar in the future, this transformation had to come about. Now it is a situation of connecting the lines to make a whole picture. We just knew that we had to start by drawing a line between point 1 and point 2, as it were.

Baker Blinker:

Why don’t we sit on the bench over here. You must be tired from your day of transformation. So this transformation happened in SL time only right before this interview?

Hucka D.:

Let’s say it happened several days ago. Although when you took the snapshots you will provide in this post, yes, the transformation just happened. Let’s treat real time as when the interview is actually being written, which is, well, now. Present time. I am able to step out of Hucka D. and view the letters on the screen being formed. That is when this is occuring.

Baker Blinker:

The transformation in the eyeball was prefigured by the collage I, Baker, and I suppose, we, Baker, created shortly before beginning this blog. I, we, tried to create something for Hucka D. to find in the future in the corner of the Rodeo sim, just in the gulch north of what we’ve been calling in spots the “Isle of Baker – Not”. Baker B. and Hucka D. went to this location before the blog. Another colleague called Booker T. did not make the trip, although he claims he did. He was there and not there at once. He also claims to have seen the eyeball in actuality, as a 3d object in SL that is, while I, baker b., only remember it retroactively through the collage I created, where I just stuck a cut out of an eyeball onto a screenshot of this location, this hot corner. Is this another place where time/space get mixed up, like the area around Enceladus-Tethys Falls perhaps?

Hucka D.:

Yes. That’s why I had to go back and finish the unfinished business. The eyeball had to be there. That was my responsibility. I am the third.

Baker Blinker:

When this occurred, you had, suddenly, knowledge of the future. Like Laura Dern’s character in INLAND EMPIRE.

Hucka D.:

Yes, a door opened.

Baker Blinker:

Well, this is why I’m interviewing you. We need you now, all 3 of us, to relay information about this future that you now have access to. I know it comes in bits and pieces, but we must start to tap.

Hucka D.:

Right. As we agreed. Let’s get up again and walk around the deck. I think better if I’m moving around.

Baker Blinker:

That’s fine. (both get up)

Hucka D.
(looking out at the bay surrounding the island they are on):

This place is special. More so, for us anyway, than other places in SL. This is where I will land my van. This is where I will show the Big Two. This is where it begins. In SL.

Baker Blinker:

By Big Two you mean Dark Side of the Rainbow and 2001-Echoes, or what Mike Johnston likes to call Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.

Hucka D.:

Yes. They will be shown here. Or, more precisely, a little ways around the island. In that clearing. (Hucka D. points to the clearing, the tip of which is just visible from the deck.)

Baker Blinker:

And you’ll have your yellow submarine van.

Hucka D.:

Yes, that will be created/rezzed shortly, just as in your Sandbox post.

Baker Blinker:

Are you the 4^th then as well?

(Hucka D. does not answer but keeps staring out at the water.)

Baker Blinker:

Well then, why is it so important to show the Big Two at this location?

Hucka D.:

Kansas City Life has already had a showing in the tree house in another part of the Sansara continent, to the south of us, considerably south. Kilometers and kilometers. That is also a special place. I am having some trouble triangulating between all the locations we have wanted to call home in this virtual reality so far. But Kansas City Life, in another way, is Second Life. Kansas City is the second city of Missouri — St. Louis being the first. Translated, that means “Second Life”, then. But the name, obviously, has nothing to do with Second Life causally. K.C. Life was created in 2002, I believe, before even the conception of Second Life, or at the very best around the same time. Interesting, perhaps.

Baker Blinker:

That would actually be 2001. Going on 7 years ago. Do you wish to talk about the relationship of Kansas City Life to Dark Side of the Rainbow?

Hucka D.:

That’s already been covered elsewhere mostly. K.C. Life is ½ of Dark Side of the Rainbow with an added hole or void. In this hole or void comes the possibility of two over and above one. Two movies. This begins the presence of the Second.

Baker Blinker:

Second Life, then.

Hucka D.:

Well, yeah, that too.

Baker Blinker:

Virtual reality.

Hucka D.:

In the future, as you’ve already guessed, Virtual Reality and what we call Reality itself will blend more seamlessly together. This is just the beginning. The synchronicities are strong even now. This is the pull of the future. Future possibilities. Future realities.

Baker Blinker:

This is information we need from you. This future version of Second Life.

Hucka D.:

It will not be called such. But it will also not be a game. We have excellent footing here. This is where it all begins. Second Life should not be forgotten. That’s your responsibility; that’s the responsibility of others. Second Life, like the Centerville of the *second source* of Kansas City Life, is a contrast of high and low, like your underwater peak that is claimed by the Ancient Ones to be the highest of the low peaks of this reality. 17.56 meters high — remember those numbers. It is also 57.61 feet high. This is a symbol of Second Life itself as seen by these Ancients. Now right next to the Hilo Peak is a much higher peak that the Ancients considered an abomination or basically worthless in comparison despite its greater height. You should insert a picture of that peak into your blog. It is called by the Ancients the Split Mound, even though it is not fractured in the way normally thought of. It is fractured because it is partly underwater and partly above. The surfacing of this mountain above water begins the life of Second Life beyond Ancient times. This begins the rule of the Lindens, the people of Lime. Lyme. I’m breaking down.

Baker Blinker:

I believe there’s a pitcher of water in the house here if you need refreshment. You’ve already talked quite a bit in this, um, interview. Interesting information.

Hucka D.:

I was also going to talk about Baker Bloch, and why Mr. Low had to meet him exactly 199 seconds after Bloch first manifested in Second Life. Now, Baker was one second late, which greatly irritated Mr. Low. Mr. Low is an Ancient. 200 seconds represents the second itself. There is a two minute hole in Kansas City Life that represents the city of Centerville, the very center of it all. This is virtual reality, but also virtual reality fitted seamlessly into reality reality. You will not be able to tell the difference between the two. *I* cannot tell the difference. In the end it doesn’t really matter. All realities are virtual.

Baker Blinker:

Something else will be shown here, won’t it?

Hucka D.:

Yes. A Strange movie. Dark Side of the Rainbow and 2001-Echoes are not movies themselves. To create a movie, you must have multiple movies.

Baker Blinker:

How’s that?

(Hucka D. does not answer, again.)

Baker Blinker:

Are you tired? Should we end here?

Hucka D.:

You need to ask more about Mr. Low and the Ancients.

Baker Blinker:

Ok, I’m asking. What’s the relationship?

Hucka D.:

The Ancients were trapped underwater, or their civilization sank in olden times, something like your Atlantis…

Baker Blinker:

Oh, I remember. I was going to ask about Baker’s Island! Ok, so I *went* to Baker’s Island, in reality, which is actually a small planet on the limit of the SL solar system, as it were. But it is also the moon of SL itself. But I was there. However, I was also merged with a shake creature, a cup formation, to create Shake ‘N Bake. You remember that post with the snapshots… it was waiting for me in the [delete name] sim. I now know this is connected to the entity that likes to call itself Shakenstein.

Hucka D.:

You will shortly meet Shakenstein again. He claims to have written The Bible plus all of Shakespeare’s plays at once. He fits angels on the head of a pin.

Baker Blinker:

I have no memory of actually getting free of this shake creature, though. The first memory I have again is of creating the art seen in the Mooniplutonianites post here.

Hucka D.:

Why do you think that is?

Baker Blinker:

I don’t know!

Hucka D.:

There’s a specific reason. Although I do know important bits and pieces of the future, I cannot actually tell you much. It is up to you to remember.

Baker Blinker:

I’m trying!

Hucka D.:

There were two pairs.

Baker Blinker:

Vague memories. Two… circles and squares. No, cubes and spheres.

Hucka D.:

Baker Bloch is the last pea in the pod.

END OF PART ONE.

Stargate March 3, 2008

Several days ago, I realized that there is an active stargate on the little island in the ne corner of the Rodeo sim. Elsewhere I’ve called this island “Isle of Baker – Not.” Baker Blinker discovered that the artifact was a stargate, actually. Upon finding this fact out, my mind automatically thought of placing the same at the resonating spot on Isle of Baker, which we know from the Isle of Baker/ Magic Bench of the Pod Peaple post below has some kind of direct resonance with this Rodeo isle. Well, as it turned out, just today the real owner of Isle of Baker created stairs down to the ruins of the temple that I’ve used as a backdrop for several posts already, and *at the very spot* that I would have otherwise installed the stargate to match the resonating place on Isle of Baker – Not’s own stargate. So I, of course, took this as a sign that the stargate should *not* be installed on Isle of Baker. Instead the stargate at Rodeo should be used for whatever plans I come up with for such activity.

Queer how fate works that way. I think synchronicities like this tend to be actualized more quickly in Second Life for whatever reasons… not sure yet.

Someone has to go through this stargate, and I don’t think it should be, me, Baker Bloch, and I don’t think it should be the 1st SL Baker either, Baker Blinker. The third “i” is the key in this, instead: Hucka D. I’m sure I’ll come up with a plan soon.

Baker Bloch, 3/2/08.

The Answer Is Here And Not Here February 21, 2008

Yep, moving on. Bye bye!

To Back Up A Bit… February 21, 2008

Shortly after being reborn into Second Life, I found myself naturally drawn to the quite vast Forest of Kahruvel mentioned in previous posts. It seems like many, many months since I first flew along the northern line of this park at night, following the paved road for part of the way, and the coast the rest of the way. Yet it has only been about 3 weeks, probably. It didn’t make a huge impression upon me the first time, admittedly, but then I found myself coming back again and again. A closer study of Salazar Jack’s blog made me appreciate the relatively deep mythology behind the forest, and the name change involved. HeadBurro AntFarm’s blog about the exploration of Cowell after his transformation into half-man, half-antelope prompted me to reexplore the same. The builders’ fascination with the number 8 through repeated use of the octagon in designs, in retrospect especially (see posts above this), added another inviting aesthetic and intellectual coloring to the increasingly rich picture. What *was* the meaning of all this? Like several before me, apparently, I was also attracted to the obelisk on the island in the corner of the Rodeo sim.

One day, not long after conducting my first experiments with building in SL in the same spot, I came across this very curious find, which connected to another story in a quite different part of Sansara, not too awfully far from the woods I decided to use as cinemagraphic backdrop for the Baker’s Island storyline. And, yes, this is another collage, because I wanted to build this eye, but simply didn’t have the necessary skill set, you see. So I relied on old talents.

The eye was then taken back to a treehouse in the unnamed forest (that’s the 3rd forest mentioned here, in case you’re counting), where I knew, or at least someone knew that the thing could be opened there safely. The thing, is, all this really happened in reverse: the eye was opened first, then closed, then placed in the Rodeo sim corner. And so it’s not surprising that there were time and space distortions involved, loss of memory, the usual stuff.

Yeah, it’s best to start here, then. The eye was opened, then closed, then stashed in the sim corner for me to find but which I’d already found. Obviously we must move on from this for further clarification (I’ll get to that involved map of AZ/NM again soon, I suspect).