Welcome Area and Prelude

On or about December 9th of 2003,  the Lindens announced that Second Life tier was going to be paid for in US$.  Well that set off a large hue and cry from the populace.  We had only dealt in the ‘monopoly money’ of L$.  Fake,  fun to manipulate but in the final analysis didn’t cost us anything.  We were used to Stipends and paying taxes on our usage of prims and of course land.  But land was acquired at L$1 a 16m square.  When you wanted to move you just released it and it went “Public Land”  and the next fellow could buy for L$1 a 16m square……  I bought and abandoned all the time!  But now we were going to have to pay Linden Lab a monthly tier in US currency for the use of all lands.
There was a big protest in the Welcome Area located in Ahern.

That’s Philip Linden in the center.

Garth and I are in the front.  Off to the left is the ‘Hulk’ Bonecrusher Slate and next to him is Fleabite Beach.  Off to the right with the purple hair is Haney Linden.  Philip Linden is right in front of Garth and me.
The next day we visited Loki Pico, he was living in a cave in Oak Grove which was a region owned by the Lindens and not for public occupancy.  Loki set up there,  I don’t know how he managed but he lived there as a hobo for quite some time.

Sometime in October Garth had made an Alt to help him in testing his products.  One of the names on the list was Butler so he choose Jeeves!  Since Garth had a butler I decided I needed a housekeeper so on December 11, 2003 I acquired Prudence Greenacre.  I tried to think up an uptight Brit name and that was the best I could come up with given the choice of last names I had. 
I thought you might like to see the pictures I took of her in Prelude.  That is what it was called in those days………. Later it would be called Orientation Island.

Learning to chat with the Parrot.

Appearance changing area.

Learning to grab and move things.

Click on the green hand and get the heck out of there!  hehe
Notice the maps?  That is as big as the world was back then in December 2003.
Chat at you later!  Next time it is Monopoly and Christmas Trees.

Technorati Tags: FairChang,Ahern,Welcome Area,Prelude,Jeeves Butler,Prudence Greenacre,Bonecrusher Slate,Fleabite Beach,Philip Linden,Haney Linden, Loki Pico

Honeymoon and the Move to Olive. November 2003

Evie Fairchild owned her own region named Cayman Island,  she graciously gave us 24 hour use of it for our honeymoon.  We had a great time exploring Elysian, that was built by a wonderful team of builders she had put together.  I wish I remembered all their names,  I only recall Chip Midnight, Valfaroth Grimm, Mickey Roark and of course Evie.



There was a shipwreck to explore and sharks to dodge.

Avast me hearty!  We imagined that this is what is left of Bonecrusher Slade!
We received some wonderful wedding presents,  among them (beside the gift of using a private island for our honeymoon) were a party ship from Ananda Sandgrain and a lovely statue of Garth and me dancing at our wedding made by Lordfly Didgeridoo.  You can still see the statue in our Lighthouse Store.


Unfortunately I never used the party ship as I never was any good at controlling vehicles!
Then the Lindens converted the old sandbox of Olive into a regular region and instead of the usual way of buying land, which was to fly in an grab a chunk for L$1 a 16 meter square, they carved the parcels and auctioned them off.  One of the parcels that went begging was a quarter of Olive.  Garth decided he wanted to move there.  I resisted as I didn’t want to move to an M region and I loved my island on Clyde.  And Olive was a high plateau and had an ugly rocky texture.  He insisted that he could terraform it to my liking. 
The saturday following our wedding I spent time with my RL family and he dedicated himself to carving out a wonderful valley!  He was a true master terraformer.  Our home nestled in quite nicely.  He made a prim waterfall that cascaded down the the level of the region below it.  Above the house we placed the runway.

The following in a picture of when Fleabite Beach came to visit.

I am wearing the official Fairlight Flight tee shirt.  After our wedding we combined our names into FairChang (Fairlight + Chang).  Garth then made new Tees that are black with red logo. From then on the FairChang name was used on all of his creations.  Of course there was no way to change the official SL name as yet but we created groups for that.
It wasn’t until a little over two years later that the Lindens officially were able to change our name to FairChang.  It was quite an endeavor as our rez dates remained the same but the name had to be changed on all our objects and all the calling cards we had out in world.  And the land we owned!  It was quite a database change they did and to this day I still appreciate that gift they gave us on the occasion of our RL wedding in 2006.

Technorati Tags: FairChang,Cayman Island,Lordfly Didgeridoo,Ananda Sandgrain,Fleabite Beach,Linden Lab,Oldbie, Chip Midnight, Mickey Roark, Valfaroth Grimm, Evie FairChild

Married on the Runway!

After waiting almost an hour for the crashed Lime region to be fixed and brought back up,  we gave up and our wonderful friends marshaled and they went to our home and did a fabulous job of decorating our runway.  Valfalroth Grimm make an arbor in the wink of an eye,  Baccara set out the flowers,  and someone rolled out a red carpet.  Fey Brightwillow and Evie Fairchild were involved too, but I was too excited to really know who did what!

 

The guests perched all over,  one on the roof, one on top of the arbor, one on top of the Vote Machine!  They sat on the runway wall.  Clyde was full and some had to hang on the edge of Hawthorn looking in.

I am rushing down the aisle!  Garth can’t keep up.  His and his Best Man’s kilt were made by Fey Brightwillow. My gown was made by Frankie Beach.  You may notice that my bouquet is just attached to the front of me.  It was very difficult in those days to control one’s hands. My engagement and wedding ring was made by Torrid Midnight (I am still wearing it).

In front of the Altar

 

And now we are wed!  With us from left to right is fleabite Beach, Hikaru Yamamoto, Athos Murphy and Crowcatcher Valen.

Then came the news that Lime was back up,  and over we went for the reception that Baccara Rhodes had prepared for us.

That is all for the moment,  I will continue our saga soon.

Love to you all from Pituca.

Getting Ready for Our Wedding

Garth and I picked Thursday, November 22nd to get married in Second Life, we asked Athos Murphy to do the honors of officiating at our wedding.  He not only said yes, he immediately set to work building a fantastic church for us.  He modeled it on the National Cathedral of Washington DC.
 

St. Isidores nearing completion.
We rented the Lime region.  That was the first time the Lindens rented out one of their regions.  We felt quite honored.
We hired the inimitable Baccara Rhodes to be our wedding planner and she and her minions did a wonderful job.  There was a lot of excitement in the Second Life community about our impending nuptials.  Garth asked old buddy CrowCatcher Valen to be his best man.  My dear friend fleabite Beach was my maid of honor and long time friend Hikaru Yamamoto was to be my flower girl.
sidenote: Crow and flea served in the same roles in 2006 in our real life wedding!

Setting the church up for the wedding,  Colin Linden with the white hair, Baccara Rhodes and Fey Brightwillow.  I don’t who the fellow is in the top hat.

Remember this magnificent church was built long before megaprims and sculpties.  Built bit by bit with a normal prim.
Skrull (I don’t remember his last name) had a wonderful organ he had built and he donated it for our use that day.
 
Garth and I practicing walking down the aisle.  Not easy to walk side by side back then before animations!

Here we are grouping before the ceremony,  I am in the halter top,  Hikaru (my flower girl) is next to me.  Haney Linden is the fellow with the blue hair. Garth and Crow are standing at the back. 
We proceeded to get dressed for the ceremony,  I arrived at Lime with my entourage in a Limo Garth made for us.  I had no sooner landed that the dreaded happened!  A grefier attacked and brought the region to it’s knees and we were all knocked off line.
Here we are in our wedding finery waiting for Lime to rise.  But no such luck :-(

The rescue coming in the next post.

Coney and Luna

In September 2003 the Lindens created a two region area for an amusement park.  People were allowed their own square of land to recreate a fun ride for all of the Second Life residents to enjoy.
Garth was asked to script a Volcano Ride.

One would hop into a dragon when it came into the landing and it would take you around and through a volcano on a roller coaster ride.

Garth put a lot of work into that ride,  I wish I could remember who built it and commissioned him to script it. 

Linkin and Nyna Slate built this refreshing water ride.
 


In front of Sinatra Cartier’s Spook House (which is still around some place in SL) with some of our old Americana Group friends.  Garth is in the camo and to my right is Ironchef Cook and the green Hulk is Bonecrusher Slate.
I wish I could find the rest of my pictures.  There were lots of fun things to do,  bumper cars, roller coasters etc etc.  I don’t remember how long Coney and Luna were up,  but early on in 2004 Coney disappeared and Luna was made into a Linden sponsored shopping gallery.

More soon!  My next post will be about our Second Life Wedding on November 22. 2003

Love to you all from Pituca…………….

Of Revolutions, Cats and House Warmings

During this time also there was a revolution mounting in Americana led by fleabite Beach.  You can read about it in Hamet Au’s New Word News . He was known as Hamlet Linden then,  SL’s own embedded journalist.
 
Picture of fleabite and me is our revolutionary garb.

Garth (the Cheeky Brit) was stunning in his American Flag Tee shirt!

Unfortunately Americana closed in mid October of 2003, we just couldn’t afford the weekly taxes on a whole region anymore.  Remember this was before US$ were used and we all lived off stipends and what money we were able to earn selling things. This is Garth and me in front of the Memorial Spire that Ramon Kothari put up.  It is still there in the Blue region.
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An ad Garth made for his stunt helicopter.  This is before we combined our names after we were SL married.  That is my lighthouse on our Clyde property.

During that time Garth and our good friend CrowCatcher Valen hired Baccara Rhodes to help them throw a big inauguration of Fairlight Flight and Crow’s Music Store. 
 
It was held next to the Chrysler Building (which Crow built) in Americana (Blue region).  A large number of Avatars attended and oohed and aahed at the stunts Garth’s planes could perform.
 


You can still pick up this stunt plane at our Lighthouse Store in FairChang Calypso.  All free now!
We then hired Baccara to organize us a house warming for our new island home in Clyde.  We named the island “Las Brisas”.  Fey Brightwillow designed and made my dress as well as a a gift of a halter top for the ladies and a matching shirt for the men.

What a wonderful island it was and Bacca did a bang up job decorating it.  As you can see we had a marina and a sea water swimming pool on the lower level then the second level was our home.  Then stairs up to the runway and hangar.  The party was up on the runway.


That is CrowCatcher Valen to the left and Baccara Rhodes, but I don’t know who she is chatting with.  We had a wonderful time.

Remember when Linden Lab changed the sun and the moon for special days?  This is the moon over Taber on Hallowe`en.  Garth and I are hovering over the Apartment House he built.  We got some nice rents on them for a while.  The building was never full tho………….
Then someone built a cemetary in Clyde for Hallowe`en celebrations and put up these headstones!  hehehe

Well it has been a long time since I have blogged here, but time to get the few tidbits I remember down before I forget them all.  I am afraid that a lot is out of order but I am sure you will enjoy looking back with me.
Chat at you later!  Love from Pituca.