August 2003 Brings Big Changes in My Life

I went to a lot of Trivia events hosted by various Mentors. This picture is of Cal Rogers (he was a newbie) and me at at Disney trivia in the old Clara Amphitheater.






Fey Brightwillow and Tinker Bell at the same Clara Amphitheater.








Garth joined the mentors in August also, he mostly mentored helping people with scripting but occasionally hosted a Show & Tell on Stage 4.







I expanded my holdings in Shipley by buying a large tract of land to my north and proceeded to spend a lot of time making my fishing dock and a Marina. I built a boardwalk around the hill with the intention of it going to my garden/pool spot, but it didn't quite get there due to the height difference. I struggled with all the different angles. A great and fast builder I never was! I had great fun landscaping it also.

I didn't know how to terraform but the land had a couple of depressions and I filled them with prim water and had my ponds!





Hamlet Linden (who is now Hamlet Au or Wagner James Au) used my Marina for an interview for his New World Notes.








I also spent a lot of my time cruising around Second Life looking at the sights,here is a picture of Chip Slates's Lighthouse.












And a view of Bonecrusher Slate's Fanway Park in Blue. You can see a recreation of Bone's ballpark on FairChang Vista NE. Garth built it for Americana Redux some time ago.








A pics of me and Sinatra Cartier (as a Hot Dog) chatting.



















The first Burning Man.















Jack Orlowski who was Jessie's Warlord for a while.














Tweake Underhill's Lighthouse in Welsh (which is now a Treehouse).















My RL birthday is August 22nd and Garth gave me a copy of his first Helicopter. Not being very nimble in SL it took me quite a while to learn to fly it. A few days later I actually flew it across Second Life, from the Blue sim through to Morris and Ahern then to Shipley.



Coincidently the evening of the 22nd was the grand opening of Bonecrusher Slate's Chinese Theater in Americana (Blue Sim). It was a very gala event planned by the inimitable Baccara Rhodes. I think that was her first event in Second Life.

It was also Garth's and my first date. We ended up leaving the Gala early to allow more visitors into the region to attend the opening. A group of us went to Ramon Kothari's place in Shipley.




Garth and me on Ramon's deck.














Garth began IMing me after that first date and coming to visit me in Shipley. Then on the 31st he came to visit and we hung out with Oda and Sinatra on the beach, Sinatra at one point expessed concern that I didn't have a house and offered to let me live in his Hotel in Americana. Frankly I was quite happy with just hanging our on my Fishing Dock! Then Garth added, "Come be my flatmate"! Fatal words, hehe. He had an Apartment House in Americana that some of the people in the group lived in. I remember Jai Nomad was one of the residents.

Well not being shy, I said 'okey'. We made plans for me to move the next day.
He IMed me in the morning just to double check, and I said 'Sure, I am already to move."

I had told him I had furniture, cause his apartment (or flat as he called it) was empty except for a couple of pictures, But in reality all I possesed was a round table with 4 attached chairs.

When We First Met - July 2003

The gang at Americana (Blue region) threw a Fourth of July party,there was a hot dog cart, picnic tables, sparklers and American Flags to wave.

That is when that self described 'Cheeky Brit' came and stood next to me. I thought he was cute but he didn't say much. I found out much later that he chose to stand next to me as he thought I was the most 'comfortable' looking. What a fateful meeting that turned out to be!




That is Garth and me in the lower left of the picture. Bonecrusher Slate took this picture, he is the one in the baseball uniform. Fleabite Beach is the winged cat to the rear. Oda VonLenard is manning the Hot Dog cart.

I didn't see much of him till the middle of August, he was busy building and scripting for Americana and developing his first helicopter. He had excavated in Americana and made what he called "Area 51", and covered it with a prim lake top. He spent a lot of time down there working. He would come up when he heard me come to the sim, but he rarely said anything. He claims I made him tounge tied!

I am posting here some pictures of that era, I apologize again as I didn't know to take pictures to my hard drive and they are all in that old squashed .tga that I have since converted to ,jpg.

This is a picture of my land in Shipley. I planted some trees and made myself a lake bordered with rocks. Cristiano Midnight, who was a neighbor from Federal the next sim to the south, helped me with the pond textures. I think I ended up with a cool peaceful spot.

My neighbors in Shipley to the front were Sinatra Cartier and Catherine Omega, to one side was Oda VonLenard and to the other side was Johnathan VonLenard, Kathy Yamamoto and Sabre Titan.



Twins at the Pond!

A friend of mine and I donned my Avatar. It was really kind of spooky.

I decided to make an Asian Avatar in light of the fact that my SL surname was Chang. This is me flying around in Shipley, that is Catherine Omega's house in the background. Shipley in those days was one of the regions at the end of SL to the east. Our view was of the vast Linden ocean.









The world as we knew it then, the Linden's had added the 'Color' regions mid June. Shipley is the NE region in pink. Regions with the hatch marks are 'Mature' all the rest are rated 'PG'

Chat at you all later......Pituca