Life On The Road

The day was winding down and I'd been riding my bike along this cobblestone road far too long. Fortunately, a truck stop appeared just when I needed the rest. Time to fill my tank and my bike's, too. It might also be good to grab some rack time before heading up Route 1 any further.

The prices at the pump are high even for this economy but if I don't put some prims in the tank I won't be going anywhere. By the looks of things, this area is pretty sketchy. Of all the lag joints in all the world, why did I have to ride through this one?

 

The shop is pretty sparse on road trip supplies – not that I can carry much on the bike, but still – and the magazine selection is very limited for a typical truck stop. Still, I should grab one to keep me occupied later when I get a room for the night. Maybe some toiletries, too. I'll have to ask the clerk why this text won't let me left-justify it, too. Like I said, sketchy.

Taking a pass on the Chili Con Molé, I opted instead for a a mystery prim sandwich and a banana shake. Typical diner fare, I suppose, as bland as the decor. Just some prim slapped between two prims and nothing fancy, but filling nonetheless. The shake was surprisingly good and I got another to take back to the room.

The room *sigh* The TV was broken, no better than just a blank prim. The bathroom. I won't – can't – think about it. And the bed was stiff as a prim. As tired as I was, though, I would have curled up with my milkshake and magazine if there had been curtains. When you ride a bike like mine with just a leather vest and no shirt underneath (yes, go look at the 2nd picture again ... like you haven't already) a girl can't claim to be too modest, but this is beyond the pale.

So tossing the keys back to the clerk and grabbing my refund, I headed back out to the long and lonely road, prepared to ride through the night. I hear that along the way there is a nice town called Bay City where a girl can return to traditional values, a wholesome lifestyle, and the sort of morals my father would have wanted for me. I'll have to get a map somewhere so I can steer well clear of that place, but this "Zindra" that I've heard of ...

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Pit's Truck Stop (SLurl) is a nice, basic LDPW build along Route 1 on the Mainland. It shows some of the typical Mole cheek we've come to expect from our fuzzy friends. I wish The Lab would do a better job of promoting their infrastructure. "If you build it, they will come" is a movie tag line, not an effective marketing strategy.

Get Well Soon, Hyper Mole!

Hyper Mole, a star at the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) has taken seriously ill in Real Life so as a great Friend of Bay City (and all SL, really), many folks are really sad about the news. Hyper is one of the builders behind the fun at Bay City and across The Grid so many of her friends have gotten together to make a Get Well video.


Many thanks to everyone who participated, especially Pyewacket Bellman of NITWACKET (go, sheep!).

(No, I'm not in the video. I was invited, but my RL intervened.)

Time to Think

A recent real life mishap gave me time this last week to lay in bed or on the couch, comforted by pillows, some pretty good pain killers, and a few bargain books. During that time I was able to pop into Second Life at times or sit and watch my brother log into SL often and build things in-world (as he needed to stay at home and assume some of my responsibilities he also got some leisure time).

Fortunately I was able to attend Marianne McCann's weekly fireworks party, a Summertime tradition.

All-in-all I started to wonder what I should do in-world now that the Isle of Lesbos is gone. Basically, I used to build things, landscape, and be somewhat helpful. In Bay City I have a shop to fill with wonderful horticultural creations (at my brother's suggestion – he put in a greenhouse/shop) but that doesn't strike me as something I wish to do right now and it would take more of a cash investment than I have at the time. More importantly, I can't think of what I could do that would be different from the hundreds (thousands?) of other green thumbs in Our World. Maybe another gardner isn't needed. But what can I do in-world that is unique enough to fill a needy niche?

I spent a fair amount of time at Hot Bay City Nights, a charity auto show, car wash, and gathering. Sometime today it was announced that the total amount raised was just over L$40,000 for Child's Play (Web).

I'd like to find a way to fit into Bay City, the mostly-planned mainland community with a late-mid-century American theme (give or take, more or less, you know how things in SL are, huh?). Yes, the garden shop could fit, but .. meh. I just am not cut out for retail. But what things are needed? There's a TV station that appears in Ever Dreamscape's MySL feed. Marianne McCann does a wonderful job keeping things organized. Several entrepreneurs have restaurants, bars, and other businesses.

So what skills do I have?

Dune buggy driving? No. Dune buggy crashing? Yes.

Basic building skills? Yes. I can bang prims together and make decent textures. Not sculpties or mesh, mind you, unless they come in kits. Five years ago I could have been a minor goddess with these skills, but not today.

Organizing? I suppose I could organize things, but I have to admit I don't enjoy parties or events in SL. I prefer sitting around rather than watch a script make my avatar move in ways my real life body is not certified to mimic.

Writing? Hopefully I write well enough that you have made it to this point without injury, otherwise I must either congratulate you on your tolerance or wonder what sort of judge would provide reading my blog as alternative sentencing.

Sitting around on tropical beaches and looking at pretty women? Probably my best skill at this point so I guess that settles the matter. Surf's up! See you in the sand.

Where's Uccie?

Mostly laying down since becoming one big bruise after heroically catching my mother as she fell. Taped up and drugged up (Dilauded is almost as good as morphine). Even the iPad is too heavy hold sometimes. Until I can blog lots again you might not hear from me much, but I am alive. And I'm looking at changing my blog to WordPress if I can figure out how it works. Until I'm back, here's a funny picture:

For about a week, Angela's wolf-pet Shadow would leap to my side anytime I was in the same region, even if I was in a canal on a boat. A very miraculous wolf, to be sure. We solved the problem without neutering either of us.

Best of MySL This Week

For a while now I've thought about a weekly post on this blog about my other "blog," the My Second Life (AKA MySL; Web) snapshot feed. Since there is no way that I know of to integrate the feed into any blog and one needs to log into the Second Life sites to see any feed, then manually posting some of the pix  might be the solution. So, in no particular order, here we go ...

I bought a few outfits at the retro style shop Artileri and this hair style. Yes, I'm wearing pink. Angela picked it out. But I'm not giving up my non-retro ePad. At least not until I can find a way to bring my actual iPad into Second Life. I'd love to be able to curl up on the couch in our house or on a nice beach and read or play games.

This is a project I've started, a gasoline station pattered roughly along the lines of the toy in the picture. The windows and doors are sculpties. Not happy with the front door proportions or those of the door inside between the waiting area/shop and the garage bay. Not pictured is a custom-made sculpted car lift. Not sure what to do for pumps yet. I found a really nice one in the Google Sketchup library, but to import it to SL would be some L$174 with a Land Impact of 17 prims. I'm in no hurry.

Snuggle kissin' at home with Angela. InstaWIN ever time.

Hot Bay City Nights (HBCN) started last week (see here). Ever Dreamscape, Pygar Bu, and Marianne McCann went overboard, as usual, but someone left the beer truck unattended. I had to sit there for hours to keep the kids away. It didn't occur to me to take the beer home ... for safe keeping.

The car wash was lots of fun at HBCN. We actually had a couple cars other than this late model Pachyderm. Since it was a G-Rated sim I had a bikini top on under my wet shirt. We got one tip that I saw, but I bet more skin might have helped. At least I got a "nice ass!" compliment. Since there were no donkeys around, I assumed he meant me.

A highlight of Saturday at HBCN was a bikini contest. A few of the entrants kept to a vintage theme and a few got really silly. I hope everyone had a good time. I was one of the judges. Pygar Bu did a great job as Master of Ceremonies.

My Angela was the winner. Since I scored most of the contestants pretty close I'm happy to think that the other judges picked my girl. That is a really, really retro outfit I found for her and she did great accessorizing with period hair and skin. that pink automobile behind her was the grand prize for becoming Miss Bay City.

Pretty busy week overall. I have no big plans for the coming week. Maybe I'll work on the garage a bit. It still needs an interior and a gas pump area. Maybe I'll just lay around and figure out how to import my iPad.