Marpil's Wonderland

Our second stop was a complete change from the first. We jumped to Alternate Metaverse Grid, to explore another side of an Opensim favorite, Tierra de Volcanes, often abbreviated to TdV. The sim is in the top 40 most visited, in the opensimworld classification based on the beacon system, so pretty much all of us had been here before, but the real treat was of course to get the full background story from the person behind the build, Marpil Grafenwalder.

Marpil Grafenwalder

Marpil Grafenwalder: Hi, welcome, hola a todos

Cherry Manga: Hey Marpilll

Lavia Lavine: Hi Marpil!

eva Nowicka: oh oh.. tierra de volcanes :)

Marpil Grafenwalder: please accept the translator

Thirza Ember: from East Coast USA, to the Canary Islands in one short jump!!!

Marpil Grafenwalder: hahhaha yea

eva Nowicka: son unas islas muy bonitas, recomiendo visitarlas en RL :)

Marpil Grafenwalder: Hola a todos y bienvenidos de nuevo a Tierra de Volcanes. El año pasado, durante el Safari, hablamos sobre los orígenes de esta región: las islas, los paisajes y la inspiración de las Islas Canarias.

Arrival point on Tierra de Volcanes

The translator kicked in, such a useful addition to Opensim. It took many hours of hard work scripting and debugging this addition to our inworld experience, and was generously given to the community for free

AMV-T:[es→en]: Hello everyone and welcome back to Tierra de Volcanoes.  Last year, during the Safari, we talked about the origins of this region: the islands, the landscapes and the inspiration of the Canary Islands.  Today I would like to show you a different facet of this project: how Tierra de Volcanes became a creative store and a playful community space.

Adventures at the Arcade

This week's first stop on Safari was Winxtropia where Bloom Peters continues to perfect her inworld arcade game, Primmy's Adventure. The giant retro Gameboy machines awaited our group, each one set up with places for two players. This was the first time so many people had come to the region to play, so it was not guaranteed that we'd all be able to play without drowning in lag... Safari is always an adventure! Even experienced Safari hosts have a little bit of butterflies in their stomachs when waiting for the crowd to arrive, and it's in those moments when you suddenly have a thought.... 

Bloom Peters: I am a criminal for not building the sim in the game style with the blocks!  HAHAHA... 

Thirza Ember: hehehe !!! the perfectionist...

Bloom Peters: yup!

Bloom Peters: welcome!

Forest Azure: hello bloom

Cherry Manga: aloha Bloom!

Nara Nook: Hey Bloom :)

Boujee GamerGirl: welcome everyone

Forest Azure: friend of yours, cherry?

Thirza Ember: lol cherry  has to pay for 2 tickets

Bloom Peters: haha nice avatar Cherry

Cherry Manga: Always dreamed about being a plumber going through pipes

Cherry showed up with a friend, dressed for the occasion

Bloom Peters: while you are here make sure to set max bandwidth, on your viewer - slide it all the way right... might not be required but it will help

Neverworld's Niagara

Fifty meters deep at its deepest, and 35 km wide at its widest, the Niagara River and its famous Falls are without doubt one of the great natural wonders of the world. Sacred to the Iroquois and forming the border between the USA and Canada, the Falls sprawl over the history of the continent, in so many fields - natural history, geology, engineering, spirituality, tourism, bravado, ecology, brewing, and so many more.

If, for you, the idea of traveling to see Niagara is kind of pie in the sky, then you can do the next best thing and experience them virtually by going over to Neverworld. The NWG team led by grid owner Govega Sachertorte have done a wonderful job in suggesting the nearby towns and giving a really wonderful sense of the vastness of the river and the drama of the two falls.

People are often tempted to ruin a rl build by throwing in a random Stonehenge or Eiffel tower just to zhuzh it up a bit, which of course it doesn't. Long before the rise of computers the best kind of AI - Authentic Intelligence - the intelligence to let the place speak for itself. The sounds and sights here will transport you right into the spray.

ISM's 20th

It's a common belief - you could even call it a truism - that pixel creations in virtual worlds don't last long. Builds come and go, as do the people who make them. This week we made a return visit to a sim on Kitely that has proved this is not always the case. It's the International Spaceflight Museum which these days is an 8x8 VAR region, having grown quite a bit since our group toured it in 2017. 

The HG Address is as always at the end of the post. 

The museum, called ISM for short, was founded just over twenty years ago in SL and moved to opensim in search of more ... space (no pun intended) for way less money. Also for the building opportunities that outperform SL every time. 

Rosa Alekseev

The trip was facilitated by Rosa Alekseev a longtime citizen of the hyperverse, Kitely resident, DJane extraordinaire, community organizer, and member of ISM. To meet us on the day was Kat Lemieux.

Kat Lemieux welcomes us all - with Max and (in the space suit) Forest 

Legendary Mobius

Our first stop this week was on an unforgettable region on Mobius Grid, one of the most unusual and colorful grids in Opensim, run by the unparalleled Royale Mobian. It's a great place to visit any time, by yourself, but to be there with Royale, standing in for the grid's creator, was a real treat. 

Not only is the storyline of the Legend of Zelda an epic, the video game's history is also of legendary proportions - beginning in the eighties, the game continues to be popular and has grown with the technology - the latest version is Hyrule Warriors, Age of Imprisonment. 

However for most of the Safarians on this trip, it's associated with early gaming, with their youth and the wonderful sense of adventure and agency that Zelda supplied. This post about the Zelda 'back in the day' captures the vibe.

Zelda has interesting parallel with opensim in that there are opportunities to go out exploring and do side quests within the game and if you do, you will often pick up useful items, or gain experience that will come in handy as you progress from level to level. Just like the HG, but with less hair loss, and more sword-and-shield action. 

The sim and majority of the model work is brought to us by Diana Dismantled, says the Notecard you get when you arrive, which also credits Meme Resident with some of the extra model work, with a nod to the resident builder, Geminai Resident. 

A large landing area awaited the crew of the Safari, and while waiting for them I can't lie, I played with the Chaos while waiting, they are just too cute.

A Night at the Museo

Our second stop was on the great grid Craft, one of Opensim's oldest grids. We visited the MdM, with owner Rosanna Galvani.
 Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum (Museo del Metaverso) is a virtual institution that replicates a real museum, featuring exclusive content and collections designed specifically for the Metaverse environment. It combines elements of virtual reality, interactivity and global accessibility, offering virtual exhibitions, art galleries, digital replicas of artworks and cultural objects, learning labs, event spaces and more.

Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum project was created in Second Life for the enhancement of the artwork present in that virtual world. It was founded on December 5, 2007.

 Over the years the Museo del Metaverso has been quite successful, creating permanent and temporary exhibitions. The Museum has participated in many valuable art/cultural events in the physical world, has helped many students of Fine Arts Academies who were coming to Second Life to make their theses and has collaborated with the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata, participating in several meetings, with the aim of presenting the project of the Metaverse Museum, which was very innovative for those years.

Rosanna Galvani: Today the main Museum resides in Craft-world (a virtual world based on OpenSimulator) and preserves and exhibits purely digital works, i.e., works made on computers, replicas of works made in the physical world, and most recently also images generated by programs using Artificial Intelligence. It continues to work on different platforms, Second Life, Craft-world and Spatial, organizing exhibitions , lectures and discussions. 

Tosha Tyran: but tell me Rosanna, what was the reason to transfer the Museum to Opensim/Craft?

Playing the Market

Our first visit this week was to Neverworld Grid and as usual the group assembled at the clubhouse on HG Safari to pick up the travel pack by clicking on the Giant Prim, which is super low tech and includes a very brief Notecard, and the necessary LMs. I love low tech, it rarely breaks.

People begin showing up about 10 minutes before Go time, (12 noon Pacific) and that gives them a chance to read the notecard and say hello to all. Many arrive last minute, oor even after we've started, so they just rush along to find us at Destination 1. It all works!  Anyone can join us, we are not an exclusive club, but I can't promise Forest won't gently tease you though.

Taarna Welles: Hello peeps

Tosha Tyran: hello, hello

Taarna Welles: Hoi Forest

Forest Azure: and yay, tosha! finally I get to tease you again!

Ange Menges: Bonsoir a tous

Forest Azure: hi Ange... wow, the tour this week includes a marketplace!

Thirza Ember: there will be a video explainer i think, and dancing... the first hour quite peaceful, the second will be more manic

Tosha Tyran: good, I love videos and have the popcorn ready here

Taarna Welles: Hi Nara

George Equus: Evening all

Tosha Tyran: uff... finished eating and hands free for typing again :)

Forest Azure: virtual life is tiring

Thirza Ember: It's 12:00 so when you're ready, TIME TO GO the Neverworld people are waiting for you

Tosha Tyran: oki, seems good

Dolma Dollinger: Hello Am I intruding?

Thirza Ember: of course not dolma you are always welcome!

Dings Digital: Hello, guten Abend

Tina Bey: Hola a Todos

Thirza Ember: OK we are all here

Craft's Sixteenth

 The Jubilee building on Craft is up and running and celebrating sixteen years of Opensim. It's an impressive achievement not only in technology but also in terms of community. 

The big party is on Tuesday, 27 January and the fun begins at 12 noon SLT, that's 9pm in most of Europe, on sim Jubilee, HG Address at the end of the post as always.

Craft owner Licu Rau is proud of his Sardinian stubbornness and credits that for some of the grid's success, but he's the first to say that it wouldn't be anything more than a private plaything without the residents.

That's why each year on sim Jubilee there is more than just a birthday party, there's also a fabulous display in the Expo Center, featuring work by people who have been here from the early days, and those who have called the grid home only for a couple of years. 

Safari Goes into Fantasia

Safine Mahoe's brand new sim Fantasia on Friends Grid is a magnificent new landscape and Safine very kingly offered the HG Safari group the first look. It's 16 regions of woodland, swamp, waterways and meadows, peppered with houses and creatures all of a fantastic kind, whether it's from folklore, literature, or her own imagination. All was perfectly planned for our trip as the second destination  of the week, when about 20 minutes before we were supposed to go there, it turned out that the region watn' letting people in. Very frustrating for Safine, since all had been fine just about an hour earlier when we had checked the LMs were working. 

Safine outdid herself by getting us to the region despite the glitch

There was no time to stand around asking ourselves why this had happened so Safine very rapidly got busy trying to stop the region telling people they were 'banned' - that was not at all what was happening! But as we all know, the standard messages of Opensim when something isn't working can be much ruder and less informative than desired! With swiftness and care, Safine quickly worked to make it possible for as many of us who were willing to power through the situation to get to her gorgeous new realm, and most of us did, including the newest Safarian, Neko Littlepaws who moments before had been accompanying us around the wonderful Exodus sim on Groovyverse - you can read about that tour here.

Our fairy guide, Safine Mahoe

Safine Mahoe: first off, thank you for coming......I am truly honored! I apologize for the access issue, it was fine two hours ago

Thirza Ember: yes that's opensim for ya

Tina Bey: lol

James Atlloud: yeah - we are used to it

Dorena Bree: a mystery wrapped inside a mystery

Forest Azure: those are the best

Dorena.Bree: I think so too

Clowning Around

 When it comes to detail-rich builds with an authentic feel of the real place and a quick rez, they aren't clowning around on Groovyverse which was our first stop for this week's Safari. The destination was sim Exodus, and about seven or eight of us joined the locals in a parking lot in central Nevada, which is a really good copy of a real life place in the town of Tonopah in Nevada, USA. It's called the Clown Motel - check out that link and you'll see how close this pixel version is - with a twist of its own!

The inworld version is part of a multi region build representing the desert lands east of California, and if those gloriously alien looking mountains in the distance remind you of a previous Safari it's because we came to this general area three years ago to learn about Burning Man, the virtual and the real celebrations. 

Doctor Dave at the Clown Motel

Much has happened since that memorable visit (people still talk about the amazing train ride!) and we were ready to be guided by Doctor Dave around the whole darn place and to learn a lot about a lot of stuff, including art, rl crossover, travel, ghosts, and of course, clowns. You can't be burning if you're not learning. 

Free Radek-als

 Vbinnia Radek is an Opensim legend. Her region Steam on OSGrid is one of those places that in the early days was a haven of fantastic assets when assets were like rare earths.

Arriving on the region can present a few small hiccups, you may end up at 128,128 which is the default landing on a regular sized sim, right in the middle. Steam was regular size but it's been improved into a VAR however opensim doesn't always remember that and will deposit you at the traditional landing spot which happens to be underwater. DOn't panic take a deep breath and cam up and out and you'll soon see the vast port and the industrial steampunk landscape behind it.

We met at an incongruously countrified spot on such a townie region, a little camp fire in a wood.

Vbinnia Radek: Hello every one :)

Forest Azure: hello vbinnia

Dorena Bree: Hi

Thirza Ember:  you have inspired so many of us, Vbinnia. This region - from forever - has been one of the best places in Opensim... i'm a fangirl LOL

Vbinnia Radek: chuckles! glad someone is... right now I need to inspire myself

Daydream Believers

Our second stop for week one of the new season of Safari was on Kitely.

'Synthetic Dreams' is the art event organized by Koshari Mahana, Kimm Starr and Cooper Swizzle. This is one of two Opensim 'pavilions' participating in The Wrong Biennale  the other was curated by Art Blue and featured heavily at the 2025 OSCC. For the HG Safari OSCC tour last December, we took a trip around Synthetic Dreams, which is on Kitely Expo Center, and there's a blog post about this place when it first opened, so for some of us this was a return visit, but because of the overwhelming nature of the sim - a whopping 15 artists with multiple, complex installations are here  - it was definitely the case to return and try to take in a bit more of what's going on.

Arriving at Synthetic Dreams

Kimm Starr: We want to thank Thirza for bringing the hypergrid Safari to Synthetic Dreams here in Kitely.  Synthetic Dreams is ½ of our Pavilion for the Wrong Biennale. The Wrong Biennale is a real world art show seen by millions of people world wide!  This years theme is AI in Art.  Please take a moment to landmark this Pavilion.   We will visit all of the represented exhibits to meet the artists and have a look at their work. Feel free to ask the Artists questions about their work.  Please come back and experience all of the exhibits at your leisure.  First up - Forest Azure, Enjoy the tour!

Forest Azure: this build symbolizes the struggle of man versus machine, which is my thing with AI and art. 

Light Entertainment

Getting back into the swing of things after the break for the holidays is always tough. I for example forgot to turn on 'Save Local Chat' at our first stop on this week, but the visit was unforgettable. 

A good sized crowd showed up to sample the joys of Luminaria a region on Littlefield grid that opens only for a few days a year. But before we got to the good bit... it was get the LMs time!

Calendar Views

To say that each year there is a HG Safari Calendar would be a big fat lie; some years there were two, and some years there was no calendar at all. 

They usually break down into two types, the landscape type and the landscape-with-Opensim-person. The latter always takes loads more time to prepare and is always rushed into the final weeks of the year, due to a lack of forethought which I promise every year to conquer. A minute of pre-festive stress  although it's a lot of fun. Come to think of it, it has created as a by-product some great photos of Safari friends  like Virtual Dreamz publisher Sunbeam Magic, musician Truelie Telling, hub-mistress Spike Sol, burlesque choreographer Jessie Campbell, painter Lucy Afarensis, and monarch of PBR, Luna Lunaria. Some choose to no longer come inworld for RL reasons, some are now occupying a place of glory in the AfterSim,

The much missed Safari regular and painter
Lucy Afarensis was our December pinup back in 2016

This year, since there has been so much else going on and time just ran out, the 2026 calendar is a straight up landscape offering, with lots of greyscale and hopefully one or two place you've either never visited, or have only explored a little bit, or forgotten - it's an invitation to get out and better know our hyperverse. 

Mal Burns was one of our Calendar models back in 2018. He passed away earlier this year.

The Calendar script was completely overhauled in 2024 by snowbody Cortes (no monthly fees or prompts required) with some elegant improvements in the blue menu including an Info button that gets you a Notecard. This contains a short description of the places in the pictures - most important this year, since the photos have no superscription - and it gives you a LM to boot.

The first HG Safari calendar came out in 2016 and the month part was a 'paper' version, part of the texture, so if there were any mistakes or additions as to events they couldn't be added except with a lot of fuss. But in a way they make better artefacts of a time now passed. You can see copies of all - or most - of the old calendars in the HG Safari archive building on the hill behind the clubhouse 'waiting room' on HG Safari region.

Today it's generally a dynamic calendar linked to HG Safari's public Google Calendar which (annoyingly for some) shows not the specific destinations for each week, but simply when there will be a Safari trip. The same applies, you will have noticed, for the publicity on Discord and FB.  

Why?

That's because there are often last minute changes and it makes more work for me to have to correct a lot of social media posts, far quicker for you just to come to the Clubhouse and be guaranteed to have the last minute correct info for each trip.

Since this is a purely inworld product, National and seasonal holidays don't appear. You'll find other things, like upcoming live shows of Inworld Review, the dates of the next HIE event, and the birth dates or anniversaries of many many opensim grids (although ore than a few will tell you their grids have had so many relaunches there is no 'true' birthday for their grid), so you can celebrate. It has the date of the first HG jump by Crista Lopes, it took a lot of persuading to get her to go back through her records and find out the exact day.

If you would like a copy of this year's calendar you can grab it at the HG Safari marketplace, just south of the landing point on the sim.

HG Address: grid.hgsafari.org:58002:HG Safari

Thanks Loru for pointing out there was an error in the grid address!!

The Charm of Draconia

 This, of course, is the season of getting stuff. But for those few who already have stuff and would like to get enchanted rather than stocked up, Opensim offers many opportunities in tune with the natural world. Generally nature with a Northern bias, since so many of us live up here, these months are the cold bit of the year.

Winter stirs all the fearful instincts innate in humans. It's the death of the year, of the productive cycle, and our ancestors were full of doubts. Will the sun return, will the food supply last, will the cold or sickness defeat the group; this is the stuff of legends. On the other hand, the changing landscape offers a paradox. In place of the dominant sun, other lights take over, and we see the world in a different way, or perhaps, we see another world that coexists with the bold daylight landscape, one that becomes visible only when the sun is in nadir. Then, we have time to reflect that there is more to this existence than meets the day-to-day eye.

Bink Draconia is one of the best artists working in Opensim and her regions on Pangea are beautiful, thoughtful, ingenious, and atmospheric to a point where you feel charmed when, in the shared environment (the mist is essential) you go for a wander...or do I mean wonder... around  Stella Polaris. 

The wedding zone, Stella Polaris

It's pure wonderland. In part it is a party destination, with a wedding area shown here, and a dance floor with a chessboard theme, and other tableaux gemming the woodland, under starlight. But that's only one aspect of it, the social side. 

Beyond that it's a wistful, misty forest where the ground sparkles with eerie lights in the air and water, and the meadowland is just a little underwater, enough to create that liminal sensation, between day and night, dry land and swamp, the spooky and the sweetly sentimental, with places for a romantic tete a tete or a solitary saunter.

Winterfair is Coming

Pirate and shipwright extraordinaire Trouble Ahead together with One Andonly and Cata Raven, the owners of Catronian Archipelago, have organized another event for the merchants of Kitely this winter. The address is as usual at the end of the post. Bear in mind, you can't just jump direct to the fair, you have to go through the Catronian Archipelago landing point, and it's on Kitely so as you well know, if nobody's on the sim, it'll take a sec until the region comes online.

Popping over ahead of the opening day which is 14 December, it was great to observe that the skybox with this event on it is already looking super seasonal. It's a positively chilly townscape with lots of snow and frozen (and skatable) canals, and of course a schooner. 

You may remember we voyaged here on Safari  back in May 2024. So many islands and sail related adventures to be had with this predominantly roleplaying group!

As regards Winterfair, you'll encounter quite a lot of brands and names you'll have heard of if you browse the Kitely website; most of the stalls push you onto Kitely Market rather than have buyable boxes, and that probably makes things easier for the vendors. 

To make the event even more festive, like the Christmas Market over on Bloonmoonpackgrid, there is even a prize for the best build to be announced during the opening party with DJ Melanie Auxifur.

Too Right

We all know that two wrongs don't make a right, but did you know that many rights make a wrong - when the 'rights' are well crafted art installations, and the 'wrong' is , well, The Wrong Biennial... but let's get Kimm Starr to explain what's going on, she's one of the curators of a fabulous art exhibition on Kitely.

Kimm Starr: The Wrong Biennale is a bi-annual show seen by millions of people worldwide. This edition of The Wrong is about AI and the artists' use of it in their work. Seems like an obvious choice for them to make, since AI is coming at us 90 miles an hour. We saw it as an opportunity to show the world that what we create in OpenSim is not only art, but an art medium in its own right. We made a pavilion called "Synthetic Dreams" which consists of two parts. One half is a dedicated website and the other half is an in-world gallery. The show opened on November 1st, 2025.

Thirza Ember: Tell us how you came to choose to do the show on Kitely.

AMV Six

Cataplexia Numbers: Hi Thirza! Welcome to the AMV Birthday region... this is Cafe Espresso and Town Meeting Stage. 

The grid's 6th birthday celebration is on December 6 and the fun starts at 6am SLT, you can find all the details on the AMV website front page. The region has various stages and meeting areas.

Cataplexia Numbers:This is where we will do Taffy's inauguration as mayor, and Desy's retirement, then on to the living stage. 

The Region address is (yes, you know before I say it) at the end of the post. If you're admiring the lovely setup on this region, it was made by Ted Junior and Chris McCracken. Both have made many fine regions in Opensim, for example, you may have seen Ted's build Creative Landform, a sort of tour of beautiful places around the world, and Chris is known for builds like Raceway Island, an automotive paradise. After the Mayoral ceremony from 9 to 10am Grid time, the Birthday bash will continue with three hours of music with  Clan Escotia, Cataplexia, and Icky Thump.

Thirza Ember: Do you remember what sims you first had on the grid when it opened back 6 years ago? are any of those originals intact?

Cataplexia Numbers: Yes. Cliff started out with two, there was not much on them. When I came I brought a dozen VARs I had on OS Grid...  Indigo, Wintervale (now Winterfest), Summervale, Koryphon to name a few ...

Thirza Ember: It is quite a leap of faith to pass your regions on to a person with a new grid - what was special about Cliff that made you sure you were doing the right thing?

Cataplexia.Numbers: Well I had met Cliff back in InWorldz. I had a very busy life there, I was the InWorldz events coordinator, and I had many clubs, and a school of enlightenment. Cliff and I were next door neighbors. I have known him 11 years now.  Its never been hard for me to trust Cliff, he's been so genuine with me since day one

Cat and Cliff

Cataplexia Numbers: When we got married on OSgrid, AMV was called V World... it was not really public yet, was just a few weeks old, and so we literally began it together.

Thirza Ember: you went from one of the shortest grid names to one of the longest!!

Clifford Hanger: yup

Cataplexia Numbers: we just changed the name because I had spend many years building that brand.

Inside one of the oldest buildings on sim Manipura

Cat and Cliff showed me one of those very early regions, still online, though in part, of course, rebuilt over the years. There's still a bit of the original construction, a prim building where they do the belly dancing. The vast ground floor space is dark and ornate like an ancient temple. Above, under the roof, is a densely decorated ballroom where Clan Escotia has been known to do a set in the past.

Thirza Ember: How many people joined you when you started? or was the idea just to have a place of your own.

Cataplexia Numbers: my renters mostly. I had 3 regions of rentals there for free, 66 renters - Marune Estates - so some came for the ride. Others just found the place and liked it, others still came from other places i lived, like InWorldz.

Clifford Hanger: they came from everywhere

Thirza Ember: your regions are very colorful and imaginative, I bet that drew them here... and so Cliff, when did you think, "this is really going to be something, it has taken off" ?

Clifford Hanger: yesterday lol ...no, seriously, it was during our 2nd year. At one point we couldn't create regions fast enough.

Thirza Ember: and did you learn from the mistakes you may have seen on other grids?

Clifford Hanger: on how not to do it yes... we wanted to be visible, we wanted lots of space, no residents next to each other.

 From one of the oldest sims on the grid, we moved over to a region that exemplifies today's Alternate Metaverse Grid, in the eyes of its owners. Metasea is a huge 12x12 VAR which is principally water, with lots of room for sailing, fishing and other water sports, as well as camping. The great indoors, indoors.

Cataplexia and Cliff are an affectionate team

Thirza Ember: Cliff, if you could give your younger self a bit of advice about getting the grid going, what would it be?

Clifford Hanger: automate things if you can! Also - When you start out with a grid of your own, you think you can borrow bits from other grids you've been involved with. But in reality every grid is different they all have their own special needs, so you have to make your setup fit our unique set of circumstances. On the whole, "Don't Panic!" would be my best advice. 

The AMV landing point sim contains information for finding your way around the grid.

Clifford Hanger: Be transparent with your residents when things go wrong, they will be patient, they know that sometimes things break... and cultivate good relationships with your service providers and tech people. For example,  the one time we were hacked, we were back up after five hours.  Another time the main grid server died on a Saturday afternoon. Thanks to the good business relationships and contacts we had developed, we were able to get someone to build an identical server, and in just four hours all was back up.

With affection, teamwork, and commitment to each other and to their residents, it's no wonder that AMV grid has grown and matured over the past six years. Here's wishing them many more to come.

HG Address: alternatemetaverse.com:8002:AMV Birthday

Where Eagles Dare

 Our second stop on this final Safari of the season was on Kitely, to see a build by Karima Hoisan and Dale Innes. A few problems, because Kitely blocks a whole lot of the smaller grids, which is a shame. It's also a shame that Karima's regions are some of the few on Kitely that are readily accessible to hypergrid art-lovers and explorers, but we make the most of the Hoisan-Innes generosity, talent, and style.

Karima Hoisan and Dale Innis

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Karima and Dale. Finally rezzed
James Atlloud: Hello
Karima Hoisan: Welcome to The Mountain, please take a nc, it has LMs of some places here

The group gradually arriving on Kitely

Thirza Ember: Karima we just need time to arrive and rez, we are not all here yet, and one or two of us are never all there... like myself
James Atlloud: some are signing the Kitely waiver... lol
Karima Hoisan: ohh boy haha
Dale Innis: haha no rush
Star Ravenhurst: I often have to go to the Welcome Center first on Kitely. Then I can go to where I want to go
Nara Nook: Neo tried welcome, think he is trying a different avatar on another grid now
Thirza Ember: on Kitely, it's a pain in the butt... if there is nobody on the sim, then you have to begin on Welcome, but if there are people on the region and the sim is spooled up, you can jump direct
Star Ravenhurst: There have been a few issues getting here lately
Nara Nook: Neo made it
Neo Nook: Weird, looks like Kitely does not like my home grid
Dale Innis: Glad you made it!
Star Ravenhurst: YAY!

Safari Gets Steamy

Lampi, Marlon, Tutz and Karsten

Mys Tigerpaw: thank you for all the clothes Lampi... it is all thanks to Lampi :0)

Marlon Wayne -> en: only karsten looks looooool as always 

Karsten Runningbear: oh i can change :)

Lampithaler Artist -> en: A warm welcome everyone, it’s great to see you. 

Karsten Runningbear: Hello all are welcome

Francisco Koolhoven: Hi everyone

Dings Digital: steampunk insects

Tutz Zabelin: Welcome everyone to  Steampunk sim at Pangea grid. I am always very happy when Safari comes to Pangea . The last time we met was on my The Waterfall Swamp sim. I am happy about the comments I received then, and I am grateful for them.

Dings Digital: it was a great sim