Plane To See October 15, 2010

In revisiting the Linden Memorial Island, Rookwood sim to be specific, I am reminded how a great Second Life forest should look like. Really nice blend of standard 1 prim Linden plants with higher prim vegetation, throw in some tasteful birds and butterflies and such here and there.

Back to the Corsica mainland, Baker bikes north of Asha, heading toward Ephant or general vicinity.

The beginning of the Ephant range just ahead.

Previously undiscovered hillock next to a rental unit in east central Chalmun, a sim caddycorner to Ephant to its southwest. Pretty soon I’ll attempt to make a list of all the mountains and hillocks around Asha, and perhaps the whole of Corsica.

Approx. 115 meter high Mount Ephant dead ahead, looking over top of a smaller granite hill in neighboring Klaatu.

Btb, I’m quite sure that the Ephant sim is named for yet another Star Wars character called Ephant Mon:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ephant_Mon

I wonder if this name is a play on “Elephant Man”? At the least, the character has a long trunk like an elephant. Trunk emphasis again. Klaatu itself also seems to be named for a minor Star Wars character with connections to the more famous Jabba The Hutt, like Ephant Mon himself.

Another granite peak, this time in the very interesting Dormillous sim with its many artificial ridges and valleys, courtesy of the imaginative people at Tomorro’w Surenity, a group which owns the great majority of this sim.

Some examples of aforementioned terraforming below.

This night Baker makes it all the way to one of his now many outposts on various mainland continents, this particular one located in Toeda, and with a great view of a double humped mountain just over the sim border in Fontaine to the south. This would be in the very heart of the Plane of Bill, as defined so far in this blog.

Sunklands, Brouwer 02 October 25, 2009

Let’s start with a picture of Karoz sitting in a tomb of Linden Memorial Park Island…

… moving quickly to Karoz in Chilbo. He’s not afraid, he’s not afraid. Why should he be afraid? Because this is the same thoroughfare at about the same location where he got blown up by a tank during his first visit to *current* Chilbo. He thinks it was just a freak accident though. No, not an accident. A *synchronicity*, designed by powers unknown to shock him into remembering this past Chilbo, and the differences between it and the present. For one thing, it was not called Chilbo but Chilbol or Chilbolton or Chilboltown. Hucka D. has indicated that the exclamation mark of the many “Chilbo!” banners around town are a “corrupted” version of the “l” that use to end the town’s name. Interesting theory anyway. More reminders: Hucka D. says that not only Karoz was from Chilbo*l*, but also he himself. He’s also indicated two houses or properties where he lived, one — further away from Chilbo proper — perhaps more valid that the second, closer and nicer one. The former property’s name is Cabron, perhaps, in turn, a corruption of “Cub Run”, as in Cub Run, Kentucky very near a Bee, Kentucky. Also has associations with the Cub sim of SL, where the Baker Famliy almost located their first art gallery in this virtual reality (“Just Call Me Ernie Banks”), and also where Hucka D.’s first “beehive” was built.

But back to the immediate point, Karoz does feel safer now. After all, Baker Bloch has now had conversations with many Chilbo notables, including founder Fleep Tuque. Through Baker, Karoz certainly feels more rooted in the modern community, with the present reality more stabilized and non-fluctuating.

I have more plans for Karoz and Chilbo (again, *without* the “l”!), which I’ll explain in another post coming up soon.

Baker Bloch watches the always changing scene in the center of the Aotearoa sink from the cottage on the edge of his property. Floating apple trees now — soon, however, they went the way of all else that has appeared in the sink since his move there 3 weeks ago now (and I renewed for another month!).

Then it’s back to the exploration of Big Sink, an ongoing project for Blochs. Here he examines a road sign not seen before, indicating that he’s on Route 1, and with the outline of the Jeogeot continent on it as well. Nicely done.*

Baker Bloch stands beside a cannon in Brouwer aimed toward Moa, whose western border begins a couple of meters to its front. Baker wonders: was there a struggle between the two sims for control of this part of Big Sink at one time? Anyway, something to log into the blog and move on from for now…

The cannon, as well as much of the Brouwer sim, by the way, is owned by the group Hammer of the Gods or its owner, specializing in jewelry making. They’ve left much of the sim as a kind of “natural park” — good for them. Cannon included.

Hey, wasn’t the real Mr. Plant featured in a Hammer of the Gods book. Yes, I remembered correctly! And also the name of a famous tribute band.

Another business located in Brouwer, a fence making enterprise.

Speaking of which, Blochs then finds a Tom Waits poster on a nearby fence. Strangely, just last night dreamt I met Tom Waits at some sort of golf charity event — or sumtin. Anyway, I distinctly remembered meeting him, and couldn’t wait to tell the wife (still in the dream), since she’s a *huge* fan of his.

A number of these “kitten toy balls” are located around the property. Hmmm… rainbow sphere.

Then I found kittens (!). These two were trying to get together for some fun, but for some reason couldn’t leap up to the pool tile separating them. In real life: no challenge for these two nimble felines, of course. Too bad; looks like they could make good friends. Perhaps they’re part of the same family, even?

*****

* But isn’t this suppose to be Route 10?

Ol’ Runn’n Baker… September 15, 2009

Interesting art gallery called “Scarpyland!” in the Pennyroyal sim of Gaeta. Baker briefly ponders renting land near this sim and its dominating, cool gallery, but quicky puts it out of his mind. Still, Pennyroyal is right in the center of the second (from the east) knobby region of Gaeta, and Baker likes to live in the center of things. But… no. A place to add as a landmark and that’s it. I think.

The next day Baker Bloch runs the entire circumference of the 9 sim Linden Memorial Park Island just north of Corsica Prime. If you haven’t been to this island yet, here’s a bit more info about it. Also this LDPW entry. Very accomplished landscaping here, especially in the northeast part, or, specifically, the Rookwood and Toowong sims. The Lindens call that particular area the Forest of the Past on their provided map.

Baker crosses a variety of bridges in his run around the island, each having unique qualities.

Blochs pauses at the end of his run to look at several birds flying overhead, as well as briefly visiting with a frog located on edge of the rock he’s standing upon. Only the very top part of the frog is visible in the photo below.

Abstract stream-scape taken underneath the water next to the rocks.

In uploading the pictures chosen for this particular post, I got the idea that Baker may have at least pretended to drown in that stream at the end of his run, only to surface, reborn, on Azure Islands once again, specifically a new archipelago composed of homestead sims that I’ve also talked about in other posts now. So perhaps pencil this in as a Karoz-Jeogeot/Maebaleia type switch between otherwise distance points on the Linden grid.

LMI; Korean Channel (Top) June 18, 2009

Karoz visits the Linden Memorial Island for the first time, and is impressed (!)

A cardinal in the Rookwood sim. Nice to see a number of birds flying around in the trees here…

… and the profusion of wildflowers.

Meanwhile, Baker Bloch is exploring the upper reaches of the 30 sim Korean Channel Karoz seems to have lost a bit of interest in lately.

Here Blochs is in Sacrelle at the very northwest corner of the channel, with its interesting cluster of elogated islands. Baker Bloch stands on the largest of these below, which also happens to be the one closest to the southeast corner of the sim.

Baker Bloch is counting about 7 total islands in the cluster, with a number of other peaks whose tops lie just underneath the water’s surface as well.

More Roamings, Misc. Stuff… May 7, 2009

The SL inspired abstract work of Bau Ur , who I met upon my first visit to Yapland. Very beautiful and moving. This is from Twilight’s Peace; her paintings are also found at the Palais du Gouverneur, Bourbon

Wilsonia was pleasantly surprised to find that the waterfall next to the Okinu sim was still there, with the inclusive parcel now providing a free inner tube ride that propels one over the end of a conveyer belt and directly into the waters of the Okinu sim some 30 meters below. Wilsonia quite enjoyed the ride!

Then she had to jump off at a certain point and take a gander at the glyphs she knew would confront her when reaching the bottom. Hmmmm… this one has an interesting sawtooth shaped jag to it.

Then it’s on to the Linden Memorial Island with Baker Bloch once again. I neglected to advertise in this blog that the island is now open to the public (!). More info can be found in this post from the official SL blog.

The same night, I believe, Baker Bloch visits some old stomping grounds in the Cecropia sim, namely the very green pool of water called the Grief Containment Pond, complete with a pipe that heads all the way south to ANWR. You can find out more about the latter here. Like ANWR, the Griefer Containment Pond is also listed as a Point of Interest for the Atoll Continent (Heterocera), but, as yet, doesn’t have any text on its particular page.

Anyway, back to Baker Bloch’s personal experiences with the pipeline that connects the two. Well, it does and it doesn’t. I’m pretty sure that Baker Bloch has walked in this pipe before, and I know Baker Blinker has. Before today, the Bakers were able to walk maybe a third of the way south toward ANWR before reaching a dead end. This day, Baker got stuck almost at the beginning. I’ll have to remember to send in the shorter Hucka Doobie to see how far he can now go. But at any rate, it seems that the pipe is narrowing, at least in places. More Sansara-Heterocera strangeness?

I don’t usually like to jump ahead of fellow explorers to areas they’ve advertised they wish to explore in the near future, especially to take pictures. But I did make this one exception. I’m sure fellow Sansara trekker Nish’s snapshots of the Fuchsia sim will be much nicer than mine, and the accompanying text will be much more journalistic.* However, I was struck by a *slight but perhaps still distinct* resemblance between this oddly shaped Linden created rook (chess rook, that is) structure near the western edge (left side of photo below) and my Darkside’s Temple of the Moon. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Fuschia before, but I don’t remember this object at all, nor the forest that covers the much of the western part of the sim next to it. Hopefully Nish’s promised blog post concerning the sim will provide more light on this “mystery”.

Maybe it’s just the same combination of looking up through a crack in gray matter toward a blue sky. More research needed, perhaps.

Then it’s on to the “Something to CHRO About” gallery in Healy, but not with Baker Bloch this time, nor any of the familar, extended family. No, this is someone different: it’s the highly anticipated snapshot debut of *Karoz* that Hucka D. and I have been chatting about recently. As you can see, he’s very green. More on him later. Hucka D. has said several times that Baker Bloch and Karoz will be best of buddies in SL.

“Hey, I have pink hair now!” (Great… another comic in the lair.)

Moving on yet again, this time to Nova Albion, although I don’t think Edward Manray will be able to help me much with my examination of Sansara continent mysteries (thanks anyway for the im, Edward!), I decided on a whim to visit his office in a Grignano brownstone apt. building. There I spotted this prettily framed photograph hanging beside the front door. Judging by the appearance, this must be an ancestor of Edward Manray himself — is this gentleman, in a kneeling position, perhaps proposing to the queerly expressioned woman in the photo? Why is she looking directly at the photographer with such an expression? Luv to know the story.

On second thought, maybe Mr. Manray can help me out in some way. After all, I do know that Myst may be involved.

* Yes, indeed! Read here.

Linden Memorial Island, 3 April 7, 2009

More shots from nearby. I believe this is still in the Rookwood sim, though.

Linden Memorial Island, 2

More shots from what I’m calling, for lack of a better word, the Linden Memorial Island. I’ll try to dig up some links on the subject tomorrow, if any yet exist.

Linden Memorial Island April 5, 2009

“It’s Up To Us Now.” (DRAFT!) March 11, 2009

NOTE: This was originally planned as Jasper 07, but has been usurped in this position within the Jasper series by another, newer collage of the same name. See here.

“Strange Jasper 07 work, perhaps, Hucka D.”

Hucka D.:

Yes. Queer. 5 of you.

bb:

Baker Blochs, you mean.

Hucka D.:

Yeah. Sorry.

bb:

Should we attempt an interpretation tonight?

Hucka D.:

Feeling groggy still.

bb:

Just 08, 09, and 10 to start from scratch now, Hucka D. And, actually, 10 will make an animation with 1.

Hucka D.:

The next one will go further with TILE. Beyond this one.

bb:

This one may be obviously about Rubi Forest and the relationship to that fairly similarly sized Corsica Island forest that has since been derezzed. Now I find the expanded version of Corsica Island has a Rookwood sim, the greenest sim of the lot now. We know now this may refer directly to the Newborough Warren, with the similarly closely packed corsican pines.

Hucka D.:

There is a relationship. (pause) I think you should wait on this one.

bb:

Thank you.

Rookwood (Corsica Island) March 2, 2009

Rookwood is one of the added sims to the new and enlarged Corsica Island on the north side of the Corsica continent. It’s grown over twice the size of its original version, the one I visited last fall and recorded in this post. The intentions seem to be to make at least part of it some sort of Linden memorial, but don’t know the details of that yet.

The name Rookwood for one of the new sims struck me, since in the latest collage, partially inspired by the BBC story covering a lost raven in the Newborough Forest/Warren, I inserted the image of a rook in this forest. Thus the forest in the collage is literally “rook-wood”, especially since this Jasper the Crow/Raven/Rook seems to be a guiding spirit for the same named series “Doorpick” is a part of.

Unfortunately, access to the island is currently blocked, but through the magic of the disable camera option, combined with a long draw distance, I was able to take a couple of photos of Rookwood anyway, which lay on the opposite side of the island (north) from where the restricted zone begins. It is also the greenest of the island sims now, but, to my disappointment, this was not because of the presence of a forest. Mere “grass”, instead.

But this struck me mainly because the Newborough Forest, the forest I just inserted a rook into in “Doorpick”, is primarily composed of thickly planted *Corsican* pine, the same type of tree density, actually, I’ve only found in SL on the *original Corsica Island*. You have to admit it is an interesting little tangle of “coincidences.” Anyway, I think personally this is my next lead for continuing the series beyond “Doorpick” and into the 3rd collage, which I’ve yet to really start. I believe, especially now, that the scene may once again be the Newborough Forest in Wales, as the rook leads me further into what might be the heart of these woods.

Below is the picture of the Rookwood sim (green square) as it stands today.

Here we have the only vegetation I could find presently on the island, at the corner of Rookwood, Toowong, Linden Memorial Park, and Monument.*

* Since the Rookwood sim is at least adjacent to the planned Linden Memorial Park, if not part of the park itself, I thought I’d mention that all the convoluted events within the then-popular 19th Century novel Rookwood by William Harrison Ainsworth, are set in motion by the fall of a *linden* tree branch (equals lime tree in US terms). Check here.