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!

Other Island (Future Portal To Geezer Grid?) October 3, 2008

Walked from Butler sim rental unit back to the deserted island next to Graduation Island, as I’m calling it. Came out of the water to this sight of meditating (?) avatar in mid-air. Perhaps a nature worshipper?

I really like this island, but I think it attracts other people as well for the same reason. Who can blame them — true wilderness such as this is hard to come by in SL, as I’m well aware of. Still I plan to visit now and then, especially in the middle of the night when less people are logged in.

Baker Bloch catches sight of the second (Graduation) island, although with this draw distance he can only make out one of the many trees on this island.

Shark!!! Blochs wonders how he’s going to get off Graduation Island now he’s on it, without “cheating” and teleporting elsewhere.

But he makes it around the shark somehow, which never breaks out of its circle to attack him. He continues toward what we now call the Ross Sea, and meets this sparkly complex near the strait connecting this sea and the Ross Sea further west.

Graduation Island October 2, 2008

This is a place I essentially missed in my initial explorations of Sansara last spring: two large islands in one of the central seas of this oldest continent. So I thought that since I was renting a house in Butler not too far away, it was time for a closer examination.

From my Butler rental I can quickly dive into this very same sea and walk underwater to the islands a couple of sims away. But the underwater views here are not as exciting as some I had visited, so I ended up flying to the far island first, saving the nearest and more deserted island for, um, dessert… wait, I suppose that would be the main course in my island pickings.

Both islands are around the same size, or, as I’m reexamining them again on the SL map, around 2 sims each, with the one I’m calling Graduation Island — for obvious reasons that I’ll get to in a moment — the slightly larger of the two, apparently.

Baker Bloch landed on the east end of the island at a large bay full of mysterious objects such as a dark twisy spiral thingie, a miniature burning battleship, a larger but still quite small pirate ship, and a ceiling fan hung in midair.

Moving inland a bit he stumbles upon what is apparently some sort of hideaway bunker. Appropriately it was quite hard to get into; Baker Bloch had to enter through the roof. Using the diabled camera control option he’s so fond of, Blochs also discovers this car in a hidden room of the “bunker”, otherwise inaccessible.

Here’s a snapshot depicting the spacial relationship between this bunker (dark structure) and the basically empty boathouse (light structure) beside the ceiling fan, etc. where Baker initial came ashore. Upon seeing this, Blochs pondered some kind of purposeful yin yang relationship between the two (?)

Moving eastward mainly along the shoreline Baker Bloch then comes across these Star Wars related objects…

… and then visits a lighthouse with three small alcoves inside, including this upper one complete with a writing table, and, um… is that soda pop?

But then some of the mystery is drained from the island as Baker Bloch wanders southward to discover this larger building, apparently built to hold celebrations for those graduating to the mature (main) grid from SL Teen Grid. Apparently the kids were now able to drink coffee as well for the first time as well. It’s a really nice space, though, and Blochs wonders how often it is actually used.

He leaves determined to come back very soon, but first he wants to explore the second island — the main course or perhaps just dessert now.*

* Sometime after leaving Bake Bloch also ponders the creation of a Senior Grid, kinda like the PGA has a senior circuit for those golfers over 50 years of age. It could be something like Teen Grid, with all the sex orientation toned down (since older people think less about sex) and perhaps more ads for cadillacs, retirement benefits, and, of course, geratol. Baker thinks up a catchy name as well: Geezer Grid. He thinks it could fly.