"Coming Home"

Dear Diary,

When I left, this house was just a base, and a project. Something to build and work on, but really only a ’safe place’ to log in and out from. Home was someplace that didn’t exactly exist. It was someplace between Momma’s house and mine, something we hadn’t yet built, or rebuilt. It was a memory and a wish.

But after all that went on this week, this house is all the home I’ve got.

Momma decided to IM me at this time, and kind of picked all the wrong words, basically making me feel worse about the fact that I was indeed coming home to an empty house, alone. I finally just had to tell her that she was making it worse for me.. But I somehow doubt it got through to her.

Ed came online, and we chatted via skype. Ed ran around my yard for a while and we joked around a bit. Sesen was online, and she came over for a nice little visit as well. We talked about Sesen’s impending trip to Las Vegas, and Ed’s old and frail cat who seems to be in his last days. Mari too came over for a little while, and we talked about everything and nothing.

I decided to order a pizza in RL, and Ed decided to buy me a pizza in SL that we shared. Coolest silly thing ever. One more great idea to add to my movie nights, if I can ever get anyone interested in that.

I worked on my mailbox a little bit, and mentioned to Ed that I wanted to get the Harry Potter movies to get myself out of “trivia avoidance hell”. We made loose plans to maybe get together tomorrow to go do that.

And then Ed was off to bed, and so I went and picked up the copyable version of the Ukulele, and then I decided to log off for bed myself.

Camp Day 9 - "The End"

Dear Diary,

The last day of camp, and so different from all the others.

I woke up a bit earlier than I’d planned, and found myself still with most of the campgrounds to myself. I picked my outfit for the day, and then headed up to the events board, to see what was still planned for the day. Not much.

While I was up there, an impromptu “group photo” of the Purple Tears group started. Of course, it was originally specified as “all campers”.. so I got in, only later to find it becoming a RFL thing.

Whatever.

After the group photo, I headed over to my cabin, to start thinking about taking my bunk apart, and picking up the few no-copy items I had rezzed out. I found Mari in there, doing a little “packing up to go home” picture, and it seemed like a good way to punctuate the photo series. When she logged off for RL for a bit, I decided to do one of my own.



I really did have a lot of things rezzed!

After the pic was done, I looked around and saw all the ‘gifts’ people were offering, rezzing “buy me” boxes in and around the various cabins for the campers in that cabin to pick up and take home with them. I’d had this idea of framing the camp “map” from the HUD, and decided to bash together a quick frame for just that purpose. It came out ok. I set copies of them in the various cabin colors, for sale (for free) on each of the porches of the cabins.

Finally, we got called in for the “Talent Show” which is basically just where various campers put on skits, or dance routines. Mari and Pygar did their “Flying Rosebuds” comedy routine, which was as corny as last time.

It was another ‘big’ event, which meant lots of lagging, and crashing, and avatar loading issues. But it was still fun to be there.

From there, the gathering switched to the big “Awards” ceremony, where the camp gives out various trophies for things we voted on.. “camper most likely to be a counselor next year” or “best bunk” or “most creative” etc. I didn’t win anything, but I don’t really care. The Trophies are primmy, and I wouldn’t have been able to rez them at home.

Our cabin hadn’t taken a “Cabin Photo” with all the kids in it who were in our cabin, so we asked Miss Jill (the camp director) if we could have a little time after the awards ceremony, to take a pic before they deleted the camp.

They were so tired from the RFL they decided not to delete the camp at all until Monday.

So we set up some pictures of those of us left from Cabin 1, and got photobombed by Miss Jill.



I’d had an idea halfway through the awards ceremony, that it would be nice to get a picture of me, Mari, Isley, Pygar, and Johnny sitting on the beach, watching the sun set. One last pic. Unfortunately that didn’t work into everyone’s plans. Johnny had to go, and Pygar and Mari both desperately needed a break from the computer.

They said they’d be back tho, so I used the time to stage a funny pic of me offering Isley a ride home from camp.. in my packed up boat. Mari showed up just as we were ready to take the pics, so now she’s in them too!



Then all too soon, it was time for serious pics. We gathered around the hot air balloon on the beach, and did our “getting on the balloon for home” pic.



We were a bit rushed for time, as Robin (Mari and Pygar’s Sister) had gotten online for their “welcome home” time, but Robin was feeling unwell. So we pushed the pics as fast as we could, and then they poofed away.

As I cleaned up my stuff, it was just me, Isley, “Tatty” (Wateru), and BobKitty still hanging out on the beach. I noticed there were four rezzed sun-chairs nearby, and we headed over to them and sat for a little while. Chatting about nothing and everything that had happened. And I watched the clock.

I knew I would drag out leaving til the very last moment.. And if left to my own devices, I’d stay til they deleted the camp the next day. But I also knew that it would hurt me to see that, as it hurt me last camp. I wanted to leave while camp was still ’a place’ in my memory, and not just a collection of rezzed things that could be deleted.

I manually set the sky to sunset, and decided that I’d stay just 15 minutes more. And I poked the time setting for the sun, so that every couple of minutes, the sun got lower and lower.



We chatted for a while, and then said our goodbyes. And then, it was simply ’time to go’, and I went.

Camp Day 8 - "Sadder Day"

Dear Diary,

I’m not a big one for Relay for Life.. Frankly I’m frustrated about some aspects of how much (or how little) of the donated money makes it to the actual cause. I’m also not a fan of being ‘guilted’ into donating, and they certainly do pour on the guilt at RFL.

So I spent most of the day around camp. I put in a few appearances at the RFL, to wave a flag and show my friends I cared about them. I certainly do that.

But mostly I spent the day bumming around camp. Took some pictures with Mari and Isley, more RFL, hung out with Mari and Pygar, more RFL.



The evening was spent mostly hanging out with Mari and/or Isley. I found a hang glider and made a mess of trying to fly over to Isley, rezzed a giant duck in the lake, then Mari, Isley and I started playing “Swan Boat Roulette” trying to get the princess crowns. Then once we found them, Mari drove the swan onto the land, and up the highest hill to the mess hall.






From there, Isley and I raided the kicten for every clickable food item we could find.

TWEENKY - hehe.

Then it was off to prank some more. One of the boys from cabin 3 started putting a Mohawk on the giant duck, and having an otter threaten him with a giant light saber. I was able to convince him towards something a touch more civilized.

Then I added moustaches to all the giant otters he had rezzed around camp.

Then, for-sale signs in front of all the cabins.

Camp Day 7 - "Friendship Night"

Dear Diary,

Friday brought a new slew of events, and a new batch of challenges.

I was able to attend a ballet class, but once again, the big kids were more of an afterthought, and while everyone else was RPIng being in a ballet class, I was struggling with animation offset positions in the barre. Still, it would have been an enjoyable experience and a fulfillment of a life's dream, if it hadn't been for technical issues.

I was still able to get a pic I rather enjoyed.



Events from earlier in the week had been rescheduled, and now a number of events were overlapping something fierce. For me, following the ballet thing, it came down to a choice between a game called “Krafties” and a game called “Mech War”.. and I chose the latter. Since the Krafties event was basically a Pokemon knock-off, I figured Mech War would be something different.

It was different.. But it didn’t get started til nearly half an hour after the specified time, so any hope of making it to the “Tug of war” event was lost. The event was fun tho, and a little complicated to figure out. Once we got a game plan going though, we did pretty well.

Following that, I attended a little event called “tugboat races”.. where we drove miniature tugboats. The race very quickly turned into a very cutthroat game with other players pushing each other outside the course to make them miss the finish line.. It kinda fell apart due to that, but I think everyone was having fun with it.

I was.

What followed next was some sort of crazy mega event.

The camp formal dance.. which wasn't terribly formal. Lots of just dancing and trying to get people to rez. Sadly, not everyone sees the same thing.



Following the formal dance, came friendship night.

Friendship night is difficult to explain. It’s just this big gathering where we all get together, and soak in the fact that camp is almost over, and we wish it would start again. It’s the time when all our wishes and fears get aired, all are newly formed friendships and renewed old ones are at their peak. It is very much the last “actual day” of camp, and the last time we’ll really be together as campers.

Some kids get up and talk to the group, about what camp means to them, how hard it will be to leave, etc etc.

It was different than last time, in almost every way possible. I got to sit with Mari.. And talked to her a little.. And I didn’t end up a useless twitching puddle of tears at the end. I even managed to get myself up on the stage and speak. I’m not sure what possessed me.

Okay so.. Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a prepared speech, and I don't type very fast.

Last winter was my first camp here.. and I have to be honest, I was really scared. I only knew one person in the whole camp.. though I'd been living vicariously through her pics for half a decade

I'm also really new at being a kid in general. and camp was really quite the crucible to test my metal

A lot of things went wrong for me that first camp.. and on friendship night.,., due to my own shyness.. I was alone.

And I know out there, someone out there is feeling alone. and it may hurt a lot.

But you're not alone. Even if I don't know you, even if you haven't reached out, or if that one friend isn't around.. we are all still here

If you need a hug, or someone to chat with, or whatever.. IM.. one of us, any one of us.

Because.. you're not alone.

I had to fight the people I care about to come to this camp, and some don't understand why this is important.

But it is important. To all of us, or we wouldn't keep coming here, families come and go.. but we.. all of us.. we're in this together.

This is our tribe. Our home.

And I'm grateful to Miss Jill and everyone else for keeping the doors open and the roof on.

Thank you so very much

There were so many technical issues that night, and afterwards came cabin wars. I honestly don’t remember much of the games from that night. Since it was the grand finale event, they but a good deal into the event itself, but only a very select number of people from each team could try the event, which left most of us bored in the grandstands, sitting out of draw distance, unable to hear or see what was going on.

After a while, I excused myself and went to find Mari and Isley, and we sat on the beach to take some pics and play our Ukuleles. Isley was having computer issues, so Mari and I took one together while we waited.





Afterwards, was the camp out night, where we set up sleeping bags and tents. I set mine up, as Mari and Isley logged off, It started hitting me that ‘this was it’.. the weekend would be owned by Relay for Life, there would be no events, and all too soon it would be over, and I didn’t want it to end.



Eventually I managed to get myself up, and go take some pics in the caves that I’d been wanting to take.







I’m really proud of this one.

Camp Day 6 - "Dear Anwenn"

Dear Diary,

I don’t really remember much of Thursday. Wednesday night, I spoke with Momma about some of the problems we’d had, and the impasse we seemed to have reached. As an adult avatar, she wants to explore the ‘adult’ side of Second Life, and as a child avatar, I can’t be around that stuff.

There are rules that have to be followed, as a child avatar, for what you’re allowed to be around, what furniture you can even sit on (regardless of what animations you run), and those rules are very open to interpretation by someone filing a complaint. Such complaints aren’t investigated, they’re simply acted on. There is only one punishment, expulsion from the service, and there is no appeal.

So I’m cautious. Perhaps moreso than many, but I don’t want to get anywhere near that kind of trouble in SL.

Momma on the other hand, wants to have an apartment in the city, a city where bad things might happen. Adult things, and bad things. Of course it’s all roleplay, and at it’s core, it’s all consensual, but these are roleplayed situations that a child avatar just can’t be around. Whether that applies to prim babies is another question.

I wrote my bit on yesterday’s blog post, about the Parent’s night dance, and how alone I felt during it. That opened up a topic of discussion between Momma and me, about the same old issue again.

Let me be perfectly clear. She’s an adult, she likes adult things. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. I’m an adult (in real life), but I play a child in SL, and there are rules. I don’t want her to give up the things she wants, just to make a G-Rated family RP for me.

At the same time, I’ve built a home of sorts, for myself. I’ve got great neighbors, but there’s no room (literally and figuratively) for an adult to live in my house.

But what this has created, is that my space has ‘no room’ for her, and her space isn’t safe for me. I could certainly tack on another bedroom to my house, but there’s so few prims, it wouldn’t be ‘fun’ for her to live there.

What does this all have to do with Thursday?

Thursday morning I awoke to find a “Dear Anwenn” letter in my inbox.

Reacting, and processing that letter emotionally, took up a large percentage of the day. Mari and Isley both put up with a lot of downer stuff from me that day.

I did manage to get one nice pic that day, tho.



We went to a fishing event, that was kind of fun, even though it felt a little rushed.




After that, I ended up attending a “Catching Fireflies” event that was kind of a non-starter. We attached some nets, jumped around in an animation for a while, then clicked the box to get our fireflies jar.





After that, after a little break, Mari, Isley, and I found ourselves on the beach again, flying some kites as the sun set on a long, and difficult day.

Camp Day 5 - "I'm gonna soak up the sun"

Musical Interlude:


"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got."

Dear Diary,

Today was Parents' day at camp. The day, allegedly in the middle of the week, where kids can see their parents they've been missing all week. The camp holds a dress-up dance where Parents can come for an hour or two, and spend time with their precious child. It's a great photo opportunity, and I'm sure that it's a beautiful occassion.

Unless you're one of the kids who doesn't have anyone coming to see them.

In that case, camp is dead for hours on Parents' day. The lag is intense, and sim crossings are nearly always fatal. The whole schedule of events goes into the toilet as the staff tries to appease those kids whose family members showed up late, crashed, etc etc.

The result if you're one of the kids without parents, is that any hopes you had for doing any event that sounded like fun, turns into a big gamble. When will it start? Will it be late, cut short, cancelled,rescheduled, or moved? Add to this the hours during the day where there's simply nothing scheduled aside from the Parent's events.

Today was beach day for the rest of us.



We have a lot of names for kids without parents in SL.. Orphans, Single Kids, Lost Boys (or Girls), etc. The problem really is that so many of those terms are emotionally loaded. I don't like the terms available, because what I am isn't so much "without a parent" or "without a family".. as it is just "there's a close friendship there, but it's just not working as a family anymore." I don't want to let go of it, and I'm not ready to try and replace it either.

I've spent a lot of time on this blog, talking about my family issues. So there's no need to delve too deep into the subject again here. Suffice it to say that last camp, I had a Mommy, and she came to Parents' night. My family didn't survive much beyond the last camp, and shows no real sign of recovering. Momma didn't come to the Parent's dance this time.

I woke up late, with a horrific headache, dizziness, difficulty reading, and so much pain. I got nowhere enough sleep, and had convoluted stress dreams involving Hugh Laurie. Thankfully I woke up and logged in in-time for Yoga.

Yoga ended too soon, and I quickly realized it was time for the mid-day Parent's Dance. I decided to make some breakfast in real life.. not just a quick bowl of cereal, but actual scrambled eggs and toast. It was a good decision.

When I got back, I made my way to the beach where Mari was setting up some more photos.





We had some fun, including discovering something in the water.



Others started showing up too.



At some point, the events started up again, and I decided I wanted to attend the Bingo game. I played a couple of rounds, and allegedly won when they went into the "we'll play til everyone gets a Bingo" mode.

The second Parents dance started at 6:00 PM.. which meant that nearly half the day was gone again. 2 more hours of deadsville, but some good news came.

A couple of kids had to quit camp for whatever their reasons might have been, and that meant that a few last minute slots opened up. One of the kids to get in was Mari's friend (who is a boy), Johnny. Johnny came in around the time of the dance, so Mari took off to go see him and help him get settled.

After a while of feeling sorry for myself, fishing alone, I decided to go find them, and bum around.

Unfortunately, when I found them, I found them setting up another photo shoot.

Not wanting to interrupt them, I decided to back up out of their shot. Problem was, I didn't know if I was in their shot or not! I also didn't want to make Mari feel rushed by my just standing there, waiting. I spied the "Warbugs" rezzer on the grass over to the side, and decided to rez up one of the mini planes. I figured, I'll take one of those, go for a little flight, and entertain myself. That way Mari won't feel rushed, and she can IM me when she's done.

I right clicked the plane and clicked "sit".

Did I mention the lag? What happened next was a tragic sequence of unplanned slapstick comedy, the likes of which, only people in infomercials who can't make a sandwich without setting their hair on fire, can contemplate.

Instead of getting out of Mari's shot, it turns out, I'd rezzed the airplane in the one place that was IN her shot. Not only that, but when I sat on the plane, SL lagged out on me. My avatar and camera view went to the underwater "<0,0,0>" coordinates, and the plane.. well..

The plane lunged to one side, so I'm told, and promptly exploded, registering a collision with the walking path as some kind of weapons fire hitting the plane. My computer locked up as the plane sat billowing a column of black smoke in the middle of Mari's shot.

I won the "You Tried" award today.


See that windsock over Mari's shoulder? That's the rezzer.

After the laughing stopped, and the Parent's dance ended, I made my way up to the Mess Hall, got a happy meal sort of thing, and then headed to the cabin for "Bedtime".. Once again, the counselors focused on the TD kids, and the "Big Kid" didn't get much of a nod yea or nay when she sat playing the Ukulele instead of going to bed.

That's a whole other issue, for a whole other blog post.

When the "bedtime" phase ended.. I had to skip out on the only really interesting event, "Harry Potter Trivia".. sounded like fun, but I still haven't seen all the movies, and I've never read the books. I didn't want the movies ruined for me any more than they already have been by jerks on the internet.

I made my way to an Archery event, which I'd promised the Counselor I'd try to attend. I ended up pretty much owning the system, because I understand the limitations of SL physics as it relates to weapons that fire from the HUD position. in other words, it wasn't hard because once I found the bullseye, I stopped moving the mouse.

Oh well. Not everything in videogames can simulate real life. It was still fun, and nice to have a target system that actually tabulated the scores based on collisions by arrows, rather than by the honor system.

I got my fix of difficulty and entertainment though, as I pulled out my plasma launcher and fired a few rounds at the targets to see what would happen. What happened is that one of the other kids pulled out a crazy blaster of their own, and we started shooting up the place, and each other, until one of her blasts sent me through the wall of the skybox and plummeting several thousand meters out of the sky.

After that, The depression from the Parent's night events returned, and I ended up needing to get offline for a while. Played some minecraft and (mostly) talked with a friend on Skype. When he went to bed, I returned to SL.

Momma had sent me a couple of 'care package' items from some store. They were neat.. various items of junk food, and some Harry Potter themed stuff. Kinda cute, I like the Hermione pillow.

I was able to talk with Mari a bit more, about the day's events, about just life in general. And then when she logged, Momma came online, and we talked for some time about how I was feeling, where things have been, where they went wrong, and where they are going, or seem to be going, versus where we wanted them to go. It's a complicated situation, and it's not something easily solved with one night's talk. Honestly it may not be solvable, regardless of how willing we both are.

But now that headache is back.. and I need to get some sleep. It's already almost 4am. I'm going to hurt so much tomorrow.

Camp Day 3 & 4 - "A rough row to hoe"

Dear Diary,

Monday and Tuesday were difficult days for both myself, and Mari. It's hard to explain precisely what went wrong, but we can start with one event on Sunday night.

An innocuous post by one of the big kids in the group photo turned into a bit oh "an issue" on Plurk. A little quip I'd made last year about the big kids, calling us "Toddleedon'ts" (intended as a humorous contrast to the littler kids using a product called "Toddleedoo").

Seems that some people took offense to the term (the little kids taking offense to the big kids making a name 'for themselves' I guess?) And when the one girl posted her pic from the session, using that term again, well it set off more controversy.

I think the whole thing set us off on a bad foot the next day.

--

Monday morning brought with it rain, and some severe technical issues. Thousands of particles per frame, a constant rain sound, and error upon error as our poor viewers (already struggling with the load of 'CAMP') began to fold under the pressure.



It was beautiful tho.

Mari bailed out on the day several times in frustration, leaving me with no one to shadow. That's not her fault tho.. it's how I am.. I have sidekick's disease or something.. I like having someone to follow.

I tried to get into things, but soon became frustrated that I wasn't finding the "badged" events. Some events at camp award collectable badges, some don't. If you don't do events, you can't earn badges.. but the ones that do aren't really advertized as such. One craft event might give a badge, one might not. Same with contest and action events. There's just no real way to know.

I ended up doing a few somewhat random crafting events.. being a builder, it's something I can do confidently, and I needed confidence boosting. I ended up taking a scuba diving event, and diving for pearls, then we went and made a necklace out of them (I'm not super thrilled with the result, but whatever). There was a fun event to decorate a sort of puny shaped plush animal, and I did it in photoshop. Unlike last year, this one wasn't a blatant MLP copy.

I missed a lot of events on Monday. The kind of day that Mari was having, I wanted to be available if she wanted to go do things. So I never got really IN to things. We ended up doing another picture frame crafting event. (I'm going to have so much overprimmed clutter when I get home).

Cabin Wars was some sort og "find the picture" game, ala "I Spy", and then we did a bonus round of "Bingo" much the same way. Find the relevant square on the board, and stand a player on it.

Prim dinner was served, and I had a bit of fun teasing Miss Jesie about her trying to kill me again (she had piloted our doomed balloon into camp). This time, her attempt at foul play was a dish full of strawberries. (I'm allergic to them in Real Life). After dinner, a storm came and went, and we wiled the time away with some ukulele playing in the cabin.

A late night session of Yoga came in somewhere there, but along the way, we picked up "the farters".. some of the TD babies think it's hillarious to trigger off loud farting gestures during yoga. the result? bunches of people were doing it, and then came the gasmasks, and they started passing around the gasmasks.

copybotted gasmasks.

I had to say something, and I did.. but it made me feel terrible on both sides of the issue. From the side of knowing the person who made that mask, andhow much it hurt her when it was ripped.. and from the side of not wanting to harsh on people who had no idea it was stolen.

If anything happened after that, I'm sorry to say that I really don't remember much of it. I know that Mari took me over to the place where I missed the "breedable sharks" presentation. I got the 'balloon mini game" thing and attached it for a while. But all too soon, the night was over, and it was time for bed.

--

Tuesday. I'd ended up staying up way too late on Monday night, and I overslept my alarm by several hours. By the time I was awake enough to make sense of the clock, I knew I was already missing events I'd wanted to attend. I logged in as fast as I could, and flew over to where Yoga had already started.

I cammed in and grabbed a free mat, trying to catch up with the class. I didn't get a good deal out of it for arriving so late, but I left in good spirits. Mari had talked about the Archery event, and I'd been considering it too, so I wandered over after Yoga.

To say it was "Frustrating" would be as much an understatement as calling World War II "a disagreement". Technical changes to the Second Life engine have really damaged how archery systems work. Nowadays it's possible for an arrow to stop "feet" from the target, while still registering a collision. Combining that with a system made more inaccurate due to heavy lag, and you've already got a recipe for frustration.

Now add in the fact that the rules for scoring were not adequately understood by yours truly. And stir in a big helping of "my questions being missed/not answered by the busy/distracted counselor running the event." And just for good measure, sprinkle in some of the other kids getting annoyed at me for my getting frustrated.

While other kids got scores of "34", mine was recorded as "6" because I didn't know how the scoring system worked. I certainly had done better than 6, but no one was paying attention to the fact I was scoring incorrectly (and I did ask several times).

Oh, and let's not forget to mention that we were competing for a prize.

Finally I just quit and walked away. Put on my swimsuit and swam across the lake, then grabbed one of the swan pedal boats. I drove it around for a while, then contacted the counselor and apologized for getting frustrated, and for leaving.

I took my boat to find Mari, and drove it out of the water onto the land, and when I found her at the Archery range setting up a pic, I decided just to keep on going. Drove the boat across the bridge, around the canyon, and across the camp to the beach where I buzzed a group at an event that was just ending. That got a few laughs.

Mari was finished with her pic, so I went and picked her, and Nara up in the swan. Then it was more offroading, and back to the beach, then we started picking up more kids, as we tried to make it up to the top of the hill to the Mess Hall. Unfortunately, halfway up the hill, Mari crashed out, and my computer froze up. And by the time I recovered, it was time for another "Cabin Wars" event.

This was another on of those "not planning for lag" problems. It used to be, when a sim lagged, all the timers would slow down. So if you had to jump on a platform that only lived 5 seconds normally, you might have 15 seconds in high lag. These days, the opposite happens. If you only have 5 seconds, the timer will only let you HAVE 5 seconds.. but in high lag, it may take the server 5 seconds to acknowledge that you've landed, and jumped again.

The event this time was designed like a beanstalk. Hop from leaf to leaf on a spiral staircase sort of thing, but the leaves break off after 5 seconds. The leaves breaking off worked perfectly. The jumping part, not so much.

Mari came on again, but she seemed to want a break. From me, or from anyone, I wasn't sure.. but I promised her and myself that I would honour it when she asked for it. I ended up doing some more fishing mostly. Then Mari and I both headed for a thing called "WarBugs".



Warbugs are tiny little cartoon airplanes that can shoot each other. They're cute, and simple, but very hard to steer. They were fun once we got them up in the air, but oh how I wished the controls were more intuitive. Oh well, you can't have everything I suppose.

I had a lot of fun once we started shooting each other, and I'd definitely consider buying one of these planes if I had some friends to battle with.

Warbugs ended just as the Cabin dance contest was nearing start time.

Our cabin got together for one final test, and I was called on to replace the cloudy sky backdrop with just minutes to spare. One of the problems we ran into, this year as last, was that the whole thing was laid out by the Little Kids, and hadn't fully accounted for the big kids. So at the very last minute, our poseballs were burying us in the floor, and even as they were calling us down to the event, we were still fixing the poseballs.

This is a part of a much larger problem with the TD community in general, they have to a large degree, forgotten that all kids are not TD's.

Last years cabin dance off, I was the only non-TD in the group, and had to make extreme last minute changes to mod the costume to TRY and make it fit me.

To her credit, Sila (who made our costumes) did put the effort in to get the big kids matching costumes to the rest, but like last year, it ws a last minute rush of trying to figure out an alpha mask, and making default clothing layers to patch over places where the avatar was poking through the mesh clothes. Thankfully we managed to pull it off in the nick of time.

but it belies the root of the Big Kid/TD schism in the community. "We still exist. we want to participate. Expect us."

The dance event was ok, but laggy as all heck. when our turn came, my fears about Puppeteer not working properly in the lag were assuaged. Tho the set's transformation got a bit of an early triggering, and would have had greater impact had it been held off, the system worked beautifully, and it really wowed the audience as the junkyard set collapsed around us revealing a beautiful windlight sky and a dragonfly soaring into the clouds.

After our set, I'm ashamed to admit, I bailed out for some quieter time. Mari was again frustrated at the camp schedule being a mess thanks to the Dance off running over. Events she'd wanted to attend had been jacked around several times on her, and she was frustrated.

We found that one of her events had been rescheduled, and she was ble to get to that. I tagged along purely out of boredom. While Mari made a cool decorated "Camp Plate", I turned the plate parts into a pizza. I put 8 and a half slices of pepperoni on it, then decided to give it to Mari, hoping it would make her smile.

I was very surprised when Mari gave me one of her plates! It's rilly cute, I need to take a pic of it.

After that, we headed over to the trivia game, which was fun. I got a lot of questions involving Star Trek, Princess Bride, Geometry, and Errol Flynn. The team I was on didn't win, but I didn't care, it was a fun game.

After Trivia, we headed for the beach. Mari had some beach poses she wanted to try out for possible pics I guess, but we never got around to it. We ran into Isley.

We started talking about this and that, and Mari wanted to find those poses, but then she relogged and was gone for a long time. Finally, Isley and I got in a little boat, and we spent some time fishing until Mari came back online.



When Mari came back, we got together again, only to quickly find ourselves in one of Mari's airplanes.



And then I crashed out on a region crossing. When I got back in, the plane flying was over, and both Isley and Mari were saying goodnights. Which suited me fine, as I was an hour and a half up later than I wanted.

But, tis camp. And what good is camp if you can't share good times with friends? Even if they come late in the day.

--

It's been a rough couple of days for me.. rougher than the above really explains. There have been a few tears shed already, and I know that things in my life will change again once camp is over. How it will change, remains to be seen.

I hope it's good changes.

Camp Day 2 - "Zen and the introverted child"

Dear Diary,

A brief recap of Day one after arrival is in order here.

I relogged, several times. Mari finally TP'ed me to our cabin, and when the white HUD finally cleared away, I stood in shock. Because my bunk.. was right above Mari's! nextdoor neighbors at home, AND at camp!

The things that happened next are, unfortunately a bit of a blur. There was a gathering of everyone together for a welcome assembly, there was some free time spent running around the camp. I spent a lot of time trying to orient myself versus the HUD map. The fact that Up isn't north, and that the compass rose printed on the map is also wrong, made it very hard to get a sense of how things fit together.

I set up my towels at the camp store, and then snagged a cabin pillow from Mari's vendors, and a set of flipflops which I keep forgetting to dig out.

Cabin wars came and went. It was a stressful event where we had to walk a twisty balance beam across a pool of water, to go 'paint' our cabin logo on a wall. It was frustrating because everyone who wanted to go next, and people who weren't going at all, were all standing around "wherever".. it was one of those times when I'm glad we kids don't USE voice.. because I was very impatient at times.

Mostly what I remember is a lot of crashing and relogging, and rebooting.

We explored some of the caves that night, by flashlight. The visuals with shadows enabled and projected light from the flashlights was nothing short of amazing. I want to try and take a video of the effect.

--

Day 2 is much clearer in my mind. I woke up in time to miss breakfast.

Morning brought cabin wars again, this time a sort of interpretation of "Twister".. with elements of "the floor is lava". Unfortunately lag and physics rarely go well together, and in all the bumping and overcorrecting that everyone was doing, I got pushed off one of the pillars. Apparrently we were allowed to get back up when that happened, but by the time I was made aware of it, the game had moved on without me.

The event left me in a bit of a dour mood, and I sat out the rest of the game.

Luckily, cabin wars ended just in time to make it to the yoga class. The classes this time are run by Miss Bella. She's certainly capable of guiding yoga.. but I still miss Miss Honey's yoga. The yoga class did a bit to resole away some of the poor mood I had, and when yoga was over, Mari was online and I decided to hunt the goose.

I'm going to try and explain the rules of "hunt the goose" here. This is a game I made up while looking for Mari one time, and being too shy to ask "hey, where are you at?" Instead, I made a game out of it, and it turned out to be a pretty fun way of looking for someone at camp.

This game is essentially hide and seek, or "hot and cold" using the SL Viewer's "People nearby" window. To play hunt the goose, you simply watch the list of people as you walk, fly, or drive around. when you're getting warmer, the name of the person you're hunting (the Goose) will move higher in the list. If you're getting colder their name will move down. You're allowed to look at the distance marker next to their name, and you can LOOK at the minimap.

However, you CAN'T hover your mouse over the dots on the map to see who is who, and you're also not allowed to select a name in the list to highlight their location on the map. The hunt ends when you can see the person you're looking for.. after which I usually run up and say "Goose!"

I found her.



Mari and I sat there on the docks for a long while, fishing and chatting about everything, and nothing.



We spent hours on the dock there, and others came and went while we talked. The conversation drifted several times, and we missed more than a few events. There was one or two I'd wanted to attend, but this 'beautiful zero' event had become much more important to me.



It was a perfect afternoon.

Eventually, it broke up, and Mari went off to her own things, and I went to mine. Eventually she called me up for a group photo of the other big kids from last camp's photo who had returned to this camp.



Afterwards, there was some time spent hanging out at the cabin, some time at a "U-Know" tournament (an SL implementation of a card game similar to "UNO"), and the ghost stories.

I'm an artist, and a frustrated musican. As a child, I never found an instrument I really connected with that my parents endorsed my taking up. So while many kids my age were learning instruments they wanted to play, I was often put on instruments I had little interest in (Hammond Organ, really?) I always wanted to play the flute or violin. I've talked a lot about wanting a playable flute or violin in SL, but when Mari showed up to camp with a playable Ukulele, I was hooked.

Made worse by the fact that her Uke has a very sweet sound, and has short catchy tunes built in.. and she kept going on and on about how awesome it was in 'duet mode'.. well..

I had my friend Ed go get one for me, since I couldn't leave camp. I'm glad I did.

What follows is hard to describe. The "Ghost stories" event ended, and somehow, Mari and I ended up on the beach by the dock. I pulled out my new Ukulele, and she showed me how the duet mode worked. We sat playing for a little while, and then two of the adults showed up, with Ukuleles of their own!

And the four of us sat on the dock as the sun set, playing.

Camp Day 1 "Hurry up"

Dear Diary,

Today was the first day of camp, and it was crazy. Let me see if I can recap.

The day started off earlier than usual. I stayed up a little later than I wanted to last night, and then I set my alarm clock an hour earlier. The camp "Breakfast" is at 7:30am.. and honestly I really enjoyed that last camp. It was a great start to the day, and usually got me off and ready for all the best events in the 9:00a-5:00p block of the day.

There'd been some last minute talk about a big-kids get together before camp, but I was far more concerned about the fact that I owned 2 mesh shirts and a mesh pair of shorts, so when I got inworld, my first order of business was to hit a few store in search of a few new tops and a pair of pants. I ended up with 4 new tops, and 2 other pairs of shorts, and a pair of yoga pants... and the Hogwarts uniform set that I've been eyeing for ages.

Hufflepuff.

After that, I had a brief visit with Sesen (the neighborhood kitten and occasional human lady) to say my goodbyes before camp. Then, I took a quick trip to look at the collection of "Bunk decorations" that I had and had made, and I decided that yes, I'd like a corkboard for 'pinning up' pictures and notes. I dashed off a quick model of one, and then I packed up the pile of things and headed to the sandbox.

There, I finally tried adding the bangs from my old hair, to my new hair, and decided I didn't like it. Then I sorted through the hairs in the new set, found one with a dark texture like the old one, and set up a similar 'dark brown' look like I used to have.

Then finally back home to set up a new "base" outfit (with the new hair, a new set of basic underwear (important under mesh clothes) and with the mesh feet included on the av by default.

While I was working on that, Pygar rattled the can on the string, and said 'hey we're taking our waiting-for-the-bus pics, grab your luggage and come on over'. So, I got dressed, and did that!



We hung out for a while, taking pics and trying to remain calm. Eventually we ended up getting our camp backpacks, and almost moments later they were calling Cabin 1! (Mari's and my's cabin)

Technical issues were the order of the day. Mari and I took turns crashing, not having things load properly, restarting, etc.

When we finally got to the 'departure point" where parents are invited to come say their goodbyes and see their kids off, NONE of the worn meshes around me would load. I had to relog. As a result, everything was grey for a long time once I got back. Unfortunately, everyone else in my group was ahead of me due to the relog, and because an alpha texture covered a doorway we were supposed to walk through, I stood around for several minutes trying to guess where people were supposed to go before the solid grey wall resolved into a doorway.

Now don't mistake this for complaining. Technical issues are more common than not in SL these days. So many things are made of mesh, so many outfits rely on alpha masks, rigging, and avatar skeleton distortions.. and every plant and wall seems to quickly be becoming made of mesh. The grid is straining under the work of delivering all that data, and my computer surely isn't the only one that's having trouble rendering it. Not to mention my switch to wifi several months ago, and my failing hardware.

Toss into this kettle the impact of 20-50 avatars all trying to get into the sim at once.. all loaded down with Ao's, huggers, yuus/nuu huds, life huds, camp HUDS, and so on; not to mention the huge numbers of meshes that everyone is wearing.

It's a rough task to ask any computer, and wifi, and dsl, and SL, to handle. So it's no surprise that my somewhat aging, crash-prone system was having trouble.

Thankfully, I was able to get most of the textures to load in time to get some pictures.

The departure point was dressed up a bit like midwestern farm from what I could tell. We entered a sort of barn (again not all the textures had loaded by then) and we were fed into a sort of teller window queue line. Like you'd expect at an airport or train station. Since we started out in something resembling farmland, it was a bit of a shock to find metal detectors and roped queue lines inside.



They took our tickets that they'd just given us before (I really wish they'd let us keep them long enough to get a really good look at them, I wish I'd had the presence of mind to screenshot it, but again.. even with the queues, I was lagging behind the group because I kept trying to take pictures.

When we left the 'station'.. the door opened into more farmland. I began wondering what sort of transportation we would find. Wagon train? Horseback riding? Some kind of mule caravan into a great canyon?



I wasn't expecting a balloon ride!



My inner oldbie is still blown away by the idea that you can have more than 1 person sitting on a 30 'prim' vehicle. There were so many of us on that gondola.

I want to be able to tell you that the trip was exciting. Unfortunately I'd been hit by the need to document. It really does seem to come down to a choice between Roleplay OR Photography.



They did a really lovely job with this transportation scene. If I had any complaint at all, it's just that it was too darn fast! Should have lasted 3x as long, minimum! Let us dawdle in the clouds and soak it in.

Speaking of soaking, it started to rain a little.



The screaming gestures of the toddlers didn't seem so bad this time, though maybe it's because we had fewer of them this trip.. or perhaps it's just because I had my camera outside, taking pictures.



Interesting note, the first camp, I rode the train to camp without camming outside. I actually didn't know we were moving, and had assumed that the 'ride' was just effects played against a stationary train car. It wasn't until the camp video was posted that I realized we'd been on a mobile train.

This time, there was no doubt, and the outside was coming inside!



Mari's version of this pic is much better.



But just as suddenly as it started, the storm cleared.





This is unfortunately where technical issues bit me in the butt. The camp HUD is a device that uses the new experience tools to do a force teleport at a certain point. The screen goes white, and then we're teleported to a landed version of the balloon. Unfortunately, in all the excitement of attaching our huds at the last minute, I missed the popup that asked for teleporting permission. So while I stared at an unchanging solid white screen, making jokes about having died and gone to heaven.. everyone else was enjoying the conclusion of their arrival at camp.



There's more to talk about, but it will have to wait til morning. As it is, I'm not going to get near enough sleep before the alarm goes off again.

Nini