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Diesel-Powered

I got to all the places on the list and they were all pretty interesting – barring a few that were really empty so I really didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone.

A few places that were interesting were the temple in Jerusalem and the Tai Chi at Apollo. I thought it was interesting how they had animations of the men at the wailing wall and the waterfall in Apollo. I talked to a woman there and she said it really relaxed her. I didn’t see how but I digress.

I also enjoyed Zone Out, a rock dance club that I go to pretty often.

Other places that I went to that were interesting but were not occupied was Timbuck’s Coffee and Princeton. Timbucks had a fooseball table and the classrooms at Princeton were pretty high-tech.

The Haunted House…ehhh it was ok.

Here’s a few places I went:

Tai Chi

Jerusalem

Me rockin out at Zone Out

Toby’s Travels

My first stop was to St. Barbara Cathedral. This was a really cool looking cathedral, and whoever built it added a really cool lighting effect on the inside

My next stop was to the Jewish Temple. The owner was there, working on some sort of remodeling, so he wasn’t able to answer many of my questions. He did say that he gets quite alot of visitors to his creation.

Next, at the NonProfit Commons, I visited the Kiva booth. Kiva is an organization that accepts donations by people, and then offers small business loans to people in developing countries.

Doing Tai Chi in the Garden was a strange experience. I’m not exactly sure how relaxed it made me, if at all

RIT in SL was really boring. No one was around at all. There were some really cool reproductions of the artwork found on the RIT campus, though

The schizophrenic simuation was really creepy. I’ve told some friends I have in SL about it, and they agree with me thats its pretty spooky.

Then I went to have coffee at Tim Horton’s in SL

(Sorry, the pictures from my travels were saved in a format that this blog will not let me upload. They are available upon request, just ask!

SL Tour

So I may not have gotten to all the places on the trip but I did make an effort to get to 98% of them. My first stop was the Jewish temple. It was pretty low-key there but definitely something to check out. I met up with Sherry and Meaghan there and somehow we all got on a hover craft and drove around. I’m still waiting to see those pictures!

I also went and got coffee at Mill Pond. For some reason the conversation there got very XXX very quickly so I grabbed my coffee and sat in a corner and just looked at the cool pond and things for a while.

I also went to the haunted house. Nothing going on there except for the creepy nooses that are out front. I don’t like that they say “swing” on them. Last I checked you’re usually alive to swing. Sketchy.

Princeton was my favorite stop. They’ve got a cool set up there. RIT was really lame and some guy yelled at me for being from Fisher and being on RIT campus. Guess they’re not fond of us in Second Life either. Princeton was fun, it’s huge and I talked to a cool guy there about newspapers and the state of the publication industry as it stands today.

Fun trips, here’s a few pictures:

SL Assignment #2

I started my adventures by visiting Devi Sri, a Hindu Island. It was a nice place, although no one else was there. Here is a picture of me doing some meditation:

Here is a shot of the main temple at Devi Sri:

Next I visited The Sacred Garden, which is an interfaith area. I played the Bongos:

My next stop was the Non-profit Commons. I didn’t meet anyone there, but I did find this giant floating dog:

Then it was time for some Tai Chi. I wandered around for at least 20 minutes before finally finding a man named Asfalte Jewell. He helped me do some Tai Chi:

Next, I visited Princeton University. There wasn’t much going on, but I did find this sweet recreation center they have:

It has couches, pool tables, and a Mancala board.

After that I headed to Open Latte Coffee Shop. A few nice people got me a cup of coffee:

Finally, I stopped by Phat Cat’s jazz club. The place was hoppin’!

Second Life Assignment 2

The first place I visited was Kannonji Zen Retreat. I love it there. It was so beautiful and peaceful. I almost gave up on finding someone to talk to and then I finally ran into someone! The traffic thing said there were over 100 people there so I was confused as to why I couldn’t find anyone. But I don’t know. I was lucky enough to run into the owner of the place. We talked for a while. He was really cool. He showed me around and we talked for a while. He is a Buddhist in real life but does not really practice much I guess.

Here is a picture of the owner showing me the falls

The next place I visited was Terra Catholica. Again the traffic said it was in the 1000’s but I can’t find a single avatar anywhere! I’m so confused. Here I visited St. George church. I flew all around the area and there was literly not an avatar anywhere.

Here is a church I found there

I searched nonprofit commons and 2 things came up. I chose the place called aloft nonprofit commons.. I’m not sure if this is the place we were supposed to go but I went here. This world took a very long time to load, I don’t know why. Again, no one was here. But I did explore a bit and I learned of one of the non-profit organizations that is called NSW Animal Rescue Inc. This not for profit organization works to keep animals from being put down. There is a donation bucket in front of the building.

Here is a view of the whole place I took while flying

The next place I went was apollo harbour which is where I ended up when I searched for the lost gardens of apollo. Again no one to be found anywhere. I feel like I’m doing this wrong! I don’t know what is going on. I could not figure out how to do tai chi and there is no one here to ask! I came across 1 avatar and I tried to talk to her but she didn’t respond and then disapeared…

Next I went to Stanford. I actually found someone here! I tried to talk to her but she did not respond either. She at least didn’t run away, but I think she was idle. Her avator looked like she was sleeping. I took a picture of my avator trying to talk to her. She had a book in her hand and I couldn’t make out what was on it but it kind of resembled sheet music.

The girl I tried talking to..

Me attempting to fly whatever this thing was. It didn

Then I went to the virtual hallucinations place. It was pretty creepy! I kept hearing mumbling. And things kept appearing/dissappearing. At one point my hair was gone and I was bald. Then it just came back all of a sudden. I was about to take a picture but then it came back too fast. I found “someone” but I think it was a fake person.

Me right after my hair came back.. with a creepy statue in the background

The fake person I tried talking to

After trying to find a coffee shop, I realized that I am officially sl challenged. I could not find a coffee shop that actually had anyone there to save my life. Everything I found were just empty rooms. But fortunately I was somehow automatically given a free coffee and even figured out how to drink it!

Me drinking coffee in the empty coffee shop

Finally it was time for the dance club. Just for the fun of it I changed my clothes to obnoxiously skanky clothes.. or the best I could do. I still haven’t figured out how to actually find clothes, I only know how to make them. This was the only place that actually had a lot of people there! It was really exciting. Only when I got there people kept saying I was sitting down when I was really standing. And they kept telling me how to fix it but nothing was working. So I just gave up and called it a night.

Me talking to the guy who was trying to help me with the

Second Life Assignment

I made some visits for my second life assignment.  The religious places I visited were weird.  The temple I visited was kinda creepy and dark.  The church I visited was more like a garden of sorts, kind of similar to the Tai Chi place.  When I entered the church garden, there was a warning that came up that said that the conversations and actions may be monitored because it was a PG place.  However, I highly doubt that they enforce that very strictly judging by some of the things people were saying in there.  Then again, I gave Jenner Ashdene a freaky deaky makeover so I think she’s attracting some different attention in SL these days.  (Unfortunately, part of her new free clothes seem to come with voice over advertisements from the clothing designers.  I’m not sure how to turn off the advertisements other than to put my volume down on my computer.)  Overall, the church places were a lot different than what I expected.

The haunted house was fun, but on the creepy/scary scale, it was unfortunately equal to the temple I went to.  The non-profit I went to seems to be an organization that supports artists and advertises for other non-profits.  tried to buy coffee at Starbucks, and it appears that I did, only I cannot see the coffee cup in Jenner’s hand.  I tried to sit down at a lecture hall in Princeton, but she wouldn’t cooperate and do that either.  My avatar sucks!

Doing some Tai Chi

Where is my coffee??

Princeton

synagogue

In the garden o

non profit commons

Second Life Adventures

I visited the Jewish temple a couple of times to find no one else there. There were fake avatars praying and the sights were beautiful. The temple was very large. From there I visited the Holocaust Museum… there were some very real pictures there… this seems to serve as a memorial. Very sad. They also had artifacts.

I also was in the Islamic Center…I found men playing soccer in the yard and then asked one of them if they pray there. He took me to the mosk and showed me around. He then gave me a link to learn about their religion and we got to talking… he said that he is from Palestine. I turned the volume up and could hear him talk! He sounded very foreign and spoke broken English. I asked him what he thought about Barak Obama and him being President. He said that it seems to get worse every year but he wishes things will change. They are waiting to see this change. “We always see change… but is that change for better or for worse?” I then asked about their perceptions of americans. “They are people… we cannot judge all the people in one person.” “I think that Americans… try to think of themselves only… its doesnt matter to them if people are dying in Iraq or Afganistan… Americans want to live and dont care whats happening in the world. That is the big problem.”

We discussed war and government for almost 30 minutes. At times it was hard to understand but both individuals were very welcoming and open to discussion. To me, this was an amazing experience and I plan on going back.

Here I am in the nonprofit commons. I met the president of the New Scout Wales Animal Rescue in Austrailla. He told me that their mission is to rescue dogs that have special needs from pounds and shelters to provide them the proper care that they need. He uses SL to fundraise for the nonprofit.

Here I am in the gardens of appolo. I met here Tammy Lockjaw and a guy names Kye. Tammy was just sitting there… she likes this place because of the “peaceful scenery” and she “enjoys the people she meets.” Kye started hitting on me… told me I was pretty. I did some Tai with him and asked him why he was here… what the point of virtual tye was. He said he likes to start and end his second life sessions here.

One of the coolest things that happened to me on this adventure was when I was at Princeton. I found the library and I was able to “log on” to the computers there. Bascially if you clicked on the computer screens it would take you to the real life Princton University webpages to help you with your research. I then entered a room that was holding a small group session. One guy told me that he hailed from Clarkson Univeristy and we had a conversation about classes and my sport major. He then included me in his conversation… they were talking about distance learning and I gave my input and opinions on it.

The haunted house was creeppyyy. I had a ghost follow me around the whole time. I could even hang myself on the neuse outside of the house. Needless to say, I didnt spend much time here.

Here is me with my coffee. It took me a while to figure out how to get one because there wasn’t a bartender. I had to click on some circle and type that I needed a coffee. I looked odd drinking it at the night club.

Here the dance club… it was in the basement of the freebee world. Everyone was just dancing. I joined in. No one seemed like they wanted to chat… they were busy earning money by dancing. I did talk to Pico Baxton… hes from France and didn’t really speak English… or so he said. Also  Torres Gigamon but he was busy in real life and just was earning his pay while dancing. I chose a really revealing outfit for the club… I got a vampire to stalk me. So I was outta there and into a new outfit quick.

2nd Assignment for SL, Part Two

Here I am in the Lost Gardens of Apollo.  The scenery is beautiful.  I was unable to make a donation due to the fact that I have yet to earn any Linden dollars.  I did some Tai Chi along with several other avatars.  HOW COOL IS THAT?!

I also visited Princeton University where there were no avatars, just wildlife, like squirrels and bunnies.

I also visited Virtual Hallucinations, where I have to admit, I felt fairly stressed while walking around and trying out different exhibits.

2nd Assignment for SL

Here I am in the Holocaust Museum alongside Braelyn Braveheart.  At the time of my visit, there were no other avatars present.  I just walked around and looked at the amazing visual images.

Here I am kneeling in a traditional Buddhist pose at a Buddhist temple.  The gardens were breathtaking and I felt very serene here.  Out of respect, I decided it best to wear a jacket to cover up my avatar’s revealing attire.

I visited the Nonprofit Commons and went on a skydive using a device called a “Terra E-chute.”  Designed to save pilots from “unfortunate encounters with the ground,” the The Terra E-Chute is an emergency parachute. Its use is limited to auto-deploying when you free-fall below 100 meters.  Here is a photo of me in mid-fall: