Apr 16 2013

And the Winner IS….

Sunbeam Magic! YAY! whoa! we were shocked and thrilled. Thank you to Metropolis and everyone who voted for Sunbeam. She was moved to tears.

The first two weeks of April was quite exciting for Sunbeam with lots going on in many grids. First, Congratulations goes to the Metropolis grid celebrating their 5th Birthday (April 2nd thru the 6th 2013). Sunbeam joined the Birthday Build-Off (urged by Miney) where constestants were challenged to duplicate an image (image by_Zdzislaw_Beksinski_1978) via prims. Sunbeam met some wonderful builders at the contest. Sun so admires each immensely and will be to follow their works much more closely. Sunbeam enjoyed parties, readings, concerts and light shows (Torben Asp and Wordfromthe Wise) Excellent awesome fabulous celebration. One of the big highlights for Sun during the birthday celebration was exploring Cyberbohemia Art region! Galen Dreamrezzer, owner of this region, also did a great video (on youtube) of the fabulous celebrations. Well worth watching.

Sunbeam was pretty busy in rl so she didn’t get around to as many grids as she usually does. She continues to slowly work on her Fairy Castle on Tundra 3D and recently became a ‘Greeter’ for this beautiful grid. Sunbeam was also honored by Tundra when they chose her Steampunk Globe for the newly built Observatory by lucio Vallas grid owner.

Sunbeam added another resident to the fantasy free region, welcome Rowland Larkham!!! to Hidden Glenn Olantica. She worked more on the landscape and design at Hidden Glenn and showed her friend Mellow Merryman. Sunbeam roamed around in her Na’vi avatar while on Virtual Highway grid enjoying the beautiful landscape and flowers by Marianna Monentes creator. She also visited ‘Winners’ Trixie and Tendrik at their Steampunk region Port Lovelace.

She visited her friends on Island Oasis grid and especially enjoyed Judy Muircastle showing her the wonderful mansions and fountains Judy has been making and selling in IO. Her friend, Annallisia Ford, in Germany, was hospitalized and Get Well wishes along with some Pixie Dust was sent to Anna. We all miss her so much!

Sunbeam visited her heart~sis Minethere Always (on Metropolis grid) making a Chinese wall ruins for Miney’s latest FREE oar give away Chinese themed. She and Miney attended many of the celebrations held for Metropolis’s 5th Birthday together and had the BEST time! gesturing and throwing pixie dust!!!! BTW did I say it was due to Miney’s encouragement that Sunbeam joined in the Build=off contest. Thank you Miney… you always make me feel like a winner just being my friend!

And that folks about sums up Sunbeams first two weeks of this month. Sunbeam visited six (6) grids and took lots and lots of pictures once again. She did two more videos posted on her channel at youtube, Sunbeam Magic, and posted a new puzzle on SunbeamS Jig page. Hope you enjoy the following Sun as gridhops around the Metaverse. Until we meet again, Fly HIGH, seek peace and laugh daily. HUGGS

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Mar 16 2013

Marching On

The month of March found Sunbeam quite busy once again. She enjoyed some awesome musical concerts at different grids, Russell Eponym @ Metropolis, Melodee McDonnell @ Island Oasis, CelticMaiden Warrior @ Vitural Highway and Torben Asp’s 1000th Show @ Second Life. All were excellent! As far as building, Sun is working on her Fairytopia region @ Tundra 3D, her friend Jillytopaz Wasp gave her a welcome parrot she just loves! Sun is starting on a castle at Fairytopia now. Speaking of fantasy, Sun started a new fantasy region @ Olantica, called Hidden Glenn. Many friends have come to help like Judy Muircastle of famed HOBO Amusement Park. Judy set up a carousel and merry-go-round there. Thank you Judy! Minethere Always has done all the terraforming and donated many many wonderful items. Sun also imported AAcme “Dude” Fall’s Arcadia Asylm’s grunge truck that is redone in Steampunk. Textures were missing so Sun had to retexture before giving the truck to Miney for her Steampunk oar.

Sunbeam is setting up the party area @ Island Oasis on LadyK & Lions Horse World region for the big Barnyard Bash coming up March 19th. While @ IO Sun and her friend Kat Ewry visited the Steam Isles and had such fun, the maze was very very well done! Sunbeam also made some giant fantasy flowers and shared them with friends for free… always feels good to share!

Sun went on the @ Craft world grid and ‘went inside the belly of a live volcano’ (phrased coined by Virtual Christine) hehe. Sun then joined a new grid that is Aurorasim powered (she was a ruth for the first time in ages lol). Sun tried to take time out to clean up her an inventory, a big job considering how many grids she plays! Sad to say she barely made a dent in this work. Sun took a well deserved break at her home on 3rd Rock Grid and did some long overdue reading. Then right back to work!

All and all, the first part of March sees Sunbeam marching on trying new things and keeping the fast pace Virtual Worlds are known for. Sunbeam also started a new page on Facebook, called “Certified Gridhoppers” for all who also enjoy hopping from one grid to another calling many grids ‘home’. OH and Sunbeam designed a new logo for her virtual shops too! Hope to see you hopping around the metaverse real soon. Say Hello if you see this pixie flying around! Spring is almost here, our favaorite time of the year! Hop, hop, hop!

: Flower Power

: Made some lovely Unicorns today!

: Torben Asp 1000th Show Second LIfe

: DANCING with the Dude!

: Lovin’ how VW brings all countries TOGETHER

: Fun times on Metropolis at Russell’s concert

: More Disco Dancing with DJ Leslie

: Dancing Fools!

: The Maze on Steam Isle Brunel

: Amazing Maze on Brunel, Steam Isles Island Oasis

: Marianna show me Na’vi regions (six in all)

: Sun is in~Control now! woot!!!

: Headquarters of Na’vi regions on VH

: Pandoran Plains Virtual Highway

: New Fairy Home on OLANTICA

: Judy, Miney and I discussing Hidden Glenn Fantasies

: HOBO rides at Hidden Glenn OLANTiCA

: Virtual Christine highly recommended ‘VULCAN’ ty

: The lights spins and go in and out AWESOME!

: Creating new Firefly Lamp

: No surfboard around so Sun improvishes !

: Made myself a Windsurfer to enjoy the Waves @ Virtual Highway

: INVENTORY CLEAN UP UGH!!!

: Daisy and Tommy at Gyspy Camp with Sun

: Butterfly Fields on Fairytopia

: Thinking thinking thinking! What’s next Polly?

: Fairytopia on Tundra 3D coming along nicely!

: OOPS missing textures!

: Arcadia’s truck all redone 🙂

: Barnyard BASH coming … get those horses stabled!

: Beer Check Coffee Check Cakes Check … Party coming Check!

: House on a Cliff in 3rd Rock

: SunbeamS New Logo

Jan 18 2013

WHAT IN WORLD DO YOU DO?

Greetings! my first entry since ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’ day. Its been a rough eighteen days since the new year started. I caught the flu (+winter cold) presumably from our very own Christmas grandchild, four year old ‘Joy’. She’s precious. Dude caught it first, still has remnants symptoms and then I fell victim to the dreadful virus. A couple times I thought I was all better but “noooooo…..” After a nap or the following day I felt like a rag doll once again. UGH Still through it all and the mountains of kleenex I managed to log into the fantasy worlds I flutter around and have some fun.

Fun, to me, being busy in the Virtual World metaverse >>>>>>>>

Let’s see… in Olantic I took down all the Christmas objects from my shop there and began to put up for Valentines and miscellaneous (maybe a few pieces of furniture). Also, I’ve been the “Hostess with the Mostess” at the Silver Horses Pub along side marvelous DJ Leslie Kling and DJ Gary Kling, not at the same time! The each have own show lol. The English language is a bit confusing. Anyway, They are fantastic! We do some fancy dancy boot scooting twice a week. Gotta love that country music!

… in 3rg Rock I took down the Christmas shop I had on Vector, went to a couple DJ events and enjoyed some friends and music. Dawn Harbor who has the land where I am Estate and Mall Manager had already taken down the Holiday Skating pond I’d built early December on London Core with warm hot chocolate and free ice skates! Anyway… so there was a stark empty huge plaza just begging for some prims. I got right to work not even knowing what I was going to come up with, but knew it should be fun to walk around. Started with one of Dawn’s water fountain’s in the center and then it all just flowed and turned into a lovely garden with hedges and arbors surrounded by brick vine-covered walls nooks, a coffee area, a mixed bar and music area, plus a TP Directory Board for easy access to the shops.

… in Second Life I enjoyed some down time with my friend Judy Muircastle (who been a busy gal herself) at her amusement called HOBO Amusement Park. I laughed and relaxed and had the very best time… of course my favorite ride was the roller coaster (all my life I’ve loved rc’s). The Haunted House is great no matter what time of year and the bumper cars are a blast! Also visited my good friend Anan Eebus at her Art Gallery ‘Unveiled’ and had some tea :))

… Island Oasis I joined a Futuristic build theme contest and had the best time (2000 prims al

lowed whooooohooo) especially visiting the other great builder’s entries and being so inspired! Went horseback riding with friends Lion and Kat Ewry and Daisy Coronet and DJTommy Seetan, enjoyed some ice skating on Intoxicated, got to see and hear my old friend CECI Dover live and in avi! Huggable close as we crashed the stage area and ended on the sidewalks by the shops LOL VERY COZY~ a few days later when I popped in everyone was at the welcome center danciing on top of the IO Billboard… for what ever reason I had no idea but hopped right on and had a blast!

… WHAT i organized the Grand Opening Event asking my dear friend Torben Asp who puts on a marvelous light show to be our first guest! Poor Torben arrived as ‘mist’ but we all thought he fit right in with his particle show 😉 up next was Ichie Kamachi, a long time friend and excellent performer often singing in Dude and mine’s clubs and events over the year. She’s known as ‘The Voice’ singing blues, jazz, pop anything! My favorite part of Ichie is her cute little giggles. Love ya sis! After the Grand Opening the next day I cleaned up the empty beer cans, champage glasses and half eaten pieces of cake. The confetti was all over! Then I trotted over the park at Marvin and began setting up for WHAT’s first building contest. Love is in the air.

~PHEW~ you can see I’ve been busy and still there is lots to do in all my virtual grids. This year I really want to take more photos. Maybe even get into machinema 😉

Step in Sunshine, E-joy the worlds you’re in! Sunbeam

Dec 8 2012

WHAT’s IN A NAME?

In Virtual Worldz you get to pick any name you want! YAY! well in the beginning when Dude and I first started (Second Life ~ 4/2005) they gave you lists and lists of last names to choose from… but your first name that was your choice. My very first name was ‘Sunbeam Jewell’ and Dude was ‘Pocketbook Writer’ (a die hard Beatles fan lol). We really got into the ‘partying’ part of SL and being mature and married forever thought we could handle it. NOT! During our five years in SL we often decided VW was destroying our RL existence and would kill off our avatars and accounts and say”Never again!” . HA! within a couple months we made up new rules for us to follow and would create another avatar and try again.

Here are a few of the names I can remember just to show you how many we had: Sunbeam Jewell, Pocketbook Writer, Mimzy Runningbear, AAcme Skytower, Ruby Glaz, Samspade Atlas, Tootsie Hirsch, Slo Pokie, Tehrina Atlas, Ijust Stand, Gidget Pick, Kohana Schimmer, Cinnamon Nightfire, AAbbee Fall, AAcme Fall, Venus Moonshadow, Virtual Builder, Evvie Silverweb, Abel Lastchance, Sunbeam Magic, Duderz Lebowski… I know there were many others lol but 22 seems quite a lot to me 🙂 We’ve been human, dragons, mermaids, tinies, fairys, dogs, and just plain odd looking avatars like AAcme’s current one:

Some say you can tell the type of person an avatar is just by the name they choose. And now with Open Source grids many grids allow you to choose your last name too. The ‘Dark’ names (the ones I call Dark) are scary like “Monster Gonnakillya” or “Nyour Face” ) often are used just for roleplay in Vampire venues or the such. Many just want to shock you and enjoy griefing or harassing. Then there are the ‘Sex’ names like “Pussy Wet” or “Longjohn Dong” lol. You know what they are all about!

With so many VW grids now available, many are using the same name in each grid. So if you are new to Virtual Worldz my advice is choose a name you like and you feel enhances your personality. A name says a lot more than you may think!

Jul 15 2012

Twig the Fairy and my motto ….

Jul 14 2012

Weird Wacky Weather

Weather, it’s something every one can talk about but no body really knows what each day will hold. We have those who study the weather waves and patterns and predict what the weather will be but usually they are 90 % off the mark. Even using Doppler radar and such instruments especially made for weather information. Many have the “weather” dot com on their favorites or social pages and they feel like they got it hand and can plan their day accordingly. It’s child’s play to forecast the weather, yeah right!

My little corner of the world has been weird and wacky these last few days. My weather page said it would reach 103 degrees the other day. Wrong! It hit the top of the thermometer showing 114 degrees! HOT HOT HOT! The thermometer on my screened in porch had the needle past the 120 degrees (highest number on the face of my wise Owl thermometer) mark resting in the white space void with no numbers to read. Thank goodness for Air Conditioning! How did they survive the heat before the 19oo’s???

In 1906, Sturart Cramer was exploring ways to add moisture to the air in his textile mill. Cramer coined the term “air conditioning,” using it in a patent claim he filed that year. He combined moisture with ventilation to “condition” and change the air in the factories, controlling the humidity. Willis Carrier adopted the term and incorporated it into the name of his company. The evaporation of water in air, to provide a cooling effect, is now known as evaporative cooling. Evaporative cooling was the first real air-conditioning and shortly thereafter the first private home to have air conditioning (The Dubose House) was built in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The very day after our 114 degrees, the weather was predicted as “chance of showers”… well! The afternoon and evening brought us buckets of rain drops, sounds of thunder and a full scale rain storm to our home. The roof was plummeted with raindrops weighing less than a gram each, but sounding like a full herd of buffalo running in a raging stampede.

Weird Wacky Weather … my new www. 😉

Sunbeams and Safe Paths!

Jul 10 2012

Blogging

Blogging – it’s a tough nut to crack! Many times I’ve sat down at my computer to Blog, looked at the white space reserved expressly for my very own thoughts to be shared with the metaverse and then my mind goes blank! Before I sat down a 100 subjects bounced around in my brain, but the second I sat, nothing! Nothing seemed interesting enough to blog about. Out of 101 days, I only blogged 11. I feel so contrite.

I remember the first day I blogged, I had such high hopes of blogging ‘daily’. I felt so passionate about my first blog it just rolled out from the keyboard popping on to the white space as fast as my fingers could fly. I felt so right standing up for the community of InWorldz that was being misled by a fake death asking for money, to me this was pure and simple internet fraud. I was shocked and amazed when the founders didn’t see it that way. My mate had exposed the fraud with supporting facts and public links given each citizen the information to decide for themselves if a wrong had been done.

It seems most of my life when I have stood up for others (and in my mind, for a good cause) I am the one punished for my good intentions. Once, in Junior High, an arrogant teacher was harassing and intimidating a shy quiet student in my class and I stood up for her. Things did not go well for me then either. Although eventually this teacher was caught on numerous occasions and finally was stopped from ever teaching again. So in the end truth and justice won out.

I’ve heard from many friends that still play in InWorldz things have gone from bad to worse and the founders’ trigger happy ‘banning’ finger has once again pointed at a prominent honest caring citizen of this VW. Poof, you’re gone! Once again the founders of InWorldz did not look at all sides of the situation, they just immediately took their ‘friends’ side of the story and wielded their evil power, to hell with what’s right or wrong. They say its like a dark cloud hangs over the InWorldz kingdom.

In most VW grids the founders DO NOT get involved with citizens squabbles. Things happen so some VW have set up ‘grievance committees’ where the ‘drama’ is resolved by VW peers. A majority vote, after receiving and discussing as much information as is available from all sides, will determine which side is credible and the committee will offer solutions. I don’t see any reason to ever ban an avatar from a VW (unless child pornography or other crimes, perhaps fraud, is discovered). As more and more VW are becoming more and more stable I hope players will gravitate to the Virtual Worlds where having ‘FUN’ is still the number #1 goal. Words like greed and power should never be the goal, just like in real life. Virtual Worlds and Real Life really aren’t that much different, people are people even if they pretend to be a dragon or a fae or a tiny, the same feelings come out as you play with others. So Play NICE and have some FUN!

(Well… once I got going it’s wasn’t so hard afterall lol)

Jul 1 2012

Swimming through Life

While growing up in the North America States of Florida and California, my favorite thing to do was swim. It’s my very first and forever love of life. my Daddy taught me to how to swim and dive. Along with hundreds of other Navy bratz, as we were called, I did benefit from a few swim lessons offered on the Navy base. My Dad was a lifer. A Pearl Harbor survivor, but not from the nightmares and secrets he harbored, I’ve always thought of it like a Choctaw NdN sacred spirit running through our ancient blood. Surviving and Swimming, its what we best instinctively, those skills are surely are Salvation. With Summer Solstice passed its time to swim in the cool rivers, lakes, and oceans and soak up warm to get us through the upcoming Winter. The waterways are like the veins of our Earth snaking around the globe down to the tiniest trickle. Summer, a time to enjoy nature and the remnants Spring left us as colorful blooms bursting to mature. For as long as I can remember the Sun and the Heart have always been like my tokens, icons of my soul. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about swimming, and internal symbols of happiness since finish reading The Hunger Games. I saw so many layers in the storyline, reminding me of the metaverse. Reminding me of the stories my NdN grandmother use to tell us during our visits together. Grandmothers and Family, now that’s another story! Enjoy the Summer.

May 26 2012

RL vs. Metaverse

HELLLLLLLLLLLLO! I’m back …. sorry folks, my computer died a month ago (registry issues) and trying for two weeks to fix it myself I about gave up! ugh!!! I did have access to the Dude’s computer, but his is sooooooooooo different I felt like a foreigner who didn’t know the language struggling just to survive each moment and hoping I won’t fatally break something by hitting the wrong key. Talk about trepidation!

For the last six to seven years I have been a Metraverse Junkie! Its the first thing I do each morning with coffee. Email, FB, Poker, Games and Grids… and to believe this all started with ‘Pong’ LMAO! Anyway after getting hooked on grid games, starting with Second Life, and then when ‘open sim’ became available and you got free photo uploads, and imports, and could virtually ‘build and rezz for free’ I signed up with at least a dozen or more new worlds to explore. I must admit I was probably hopping these grids and sitting upright for 10+ hours per day. Yaaaa! A total genuine bona fide additive grid junkie! Sometimes working on a special project, such as the InWorldz Home and Residences Exposition 2011 I found myself staying up all night to work in the quiet wonder of the pixelated colors and objects glowing likes ghosts of the past and future escaping from my 22″ LED screen into my living room. My imagination went wild changing my avatar from being a mermaid one week and a pixie the next, or a Steampunk Lady, moving through the regions fluttering around like a butterfly ~ free.

With a broken wing, one can not fly so I learned to fill my real time with good old fashioned techniques of times past. Of course the first activity I drove into was reading (Recommend: Eragon series by Chritopher Paolini, four book series! Excellent!). I found myself staying up to 4 am in the morning (reminiscence of Grid Games) with my books. Still lost in the ‘fantasy’ escape, cheering on the Dragon and running through the fields in a different time zone. My mind interlinked with the characters and enjoying the moment.

Then came jigsaw puzzle working out in the sunbeams and sunshine, Vitamin D and warm feelings . A real rl mind game, jigsaw puzzles. A challenge with many benefits. And as I’m outside in the sunlight my neighbors come strolling bye and say “Hello”… real live people, no bubbles, no awkward stances or poses yep its the real thing. Your virtual friends of pixies, and mermaids, and Lady and Lords are just as real live too surrounded by imaginative creations built with virtual wood cubes… amazing!

I must say I’m happy to have my computer back, but at the same time I hope my self control will allow me to enjoy the metaverse in moderation. It was there when needed to fill time as the wait began for retirement days. I know I’ll always be a daily fix kind of gal who must turn on the love lights of the www basking a beautiful pale sheen on my cheek bones as I fly from site to site, soaking up knowledge and learning something everything. Then I remember, I must soak up the Sunbeams too to survive both worlds.

Apr 1 2012

More FUN in Virtual Worlds

Yesterday I talked about music and virtual worlds. Today let’s dance! Yes one can puppeteer their avatar to dance, alone or with a partner or with a group. In the beginning dances were done by clicking on a ‘pose ball’, pink for ladies and blue for the gentlemen. There are also large floating Dance Balls (allows 20 or more avatars to dance and holds 20 or more dances) and Dance Systems where you choose which dance you want from a menu and can change at will. You can also make your own HUD (Heads Up Display) where you program in your favorite dances.

Then there is the ‘chim’ which you wear, most popular place to wear is the hip. All the dances in the chim are choreographed in a sequence of your choice. The ‘chim’ is similar to the HUD except the dances loop and you do not choose which dance to activate. The chim is invisible and only your friends can click on your chim, or you can send them an invite to dance with you step by step.

Virtual worlds have many specialized dances too, like the River Dance which is very popular with the Irish members and the surfing community (another blog subject to come) or John Travolta’s Saturday Night Live dance or one of my favorites Michael Jackson’s Thriller dance.