Safari goes Silent

 The final Safari of this first season of 2022, and we ended on a high note indeed! Two completely different, yet equally interesting destinations this week, as we visited the vast space installation by Ferd Frederix and Joe Builder, and then called in to see HG goddess Diva Canto, aka Crista Lopes. This is Part One, and deals with our visit to Outworldz. For information about our trip to Crista's grid, see the post 'Closing at Crista's'

Our host Ferd joined us at the Clubhouse in robot form yesterday, and brought a nice gift - it's a little

Francogrid : The Musical

 FrancoGrid, one of the oldest grids in Opensim, is down. That is sad news, indeed, for anyone who over the past 15+ years has enjoyed this grid as a visitor or resident.

FrancoGrid has always been known for the beauty of the builds - whether hyper realistic or abstract, it has celebrated literature, music, art and culture for the best part of twenty years, through events famous across the Metaverse, like Fest'Avi, to less flamboyant but equally intricate celebrations of art on dozens of lovely sims. So what is next? Is this the end? Or the end of the beginning...

Going Wyld

 Laissez les bons temps rouler 

Time had gotten away from us, and we were quite soon heading out to our next destination, on Wyldwood Bayou grid, where they had held over Mardi Gras just for our delight and entertainment.

The bright colors and lively music on Wyldwood Bayou are matched perfectly by the warm welcome on the Grid. The residents and regular visitors call themselves a Tribe, and immediately here, you know it's a family of like minded creative, musical people who are quick to make any stranger a friend.  Our guide was Harmony Beningborough, who explained a little about the grid, with help from the others.

Harmony Beningborough: I am Harmony and I am club manager here on Wyldwood! I'd like to introduce Wyldwood's owner, Kith (our awesome DJ for today and our RP leaders Fiteach (Fit) and Contessa (aka Tessa and Amara). The 4 of us and Maggie and Durham Redmond are Wyldwood Bayou's Admin team! There are freebies up here to your right by the stage!!

Nara Nook: I so need some Cajun spirit today :)

Kith Whitehawk: We got it for ya  Nara!!!

Nara Nook: I'm soaking it up

Xaria Aubrey: sorry if my tail feathers smack anyone around ;)

Lifted Pixel: yeah i clicked the freebies and they're finally showed up! Slapping all this stuff on, gunna be surprised when it loads lol

Wizardoz Chrome: I had an incredible desire to dance :)  Finally!

Lifted and Wizardoz

There was some lag, I can't lie, and we got this great effect of Lucy dancing by herself, and we were just all having a lovely time, camming around the region, and glad to be in such happy company, it was pure joy.

The New Orleans townscape is astonishing, with breathtaking attention to detail. Cam or go inside all the shops and houses, visit the Asylum, the river boat, pose on the balconies and do it all with the most amazingly appropriate soundtrack - good music played well!

 Harmony Beningborough: Wyldwood Bayou was created by Kira Wyldfire (Whitehawk) in Inworldz in 2011. It is a region based on New Orleans, Louisiana, and although Kira was never able to visit NOLA, she fell in love with the "Big Easy" and wanted to spend her virtual life there, sharing the blues music that she loved so much. When IW closed, she brought Wyldwood Bayou and her venues.... along with staff and many "Blues Tribe" members to open sim! Kira passed away a short time later and her partner, Kith, along with staff and friends, kept the venues going and in 2020, we moved to our own grid which we affectionately call "Our own dayum swamp"!

Harmony Beningborough

Kith Whitehawk: yessaahhh!!

Harmony Beningborough: Wyldwood Bayou grid is now home to the venues Rockin' the Blues, Hot Daddy's Dance Dock, The Bayou Belle and Lady Blue with some special event venues and two awesome Medi/Fantasy roleplay groups, Brigantia and Ravenquest!

Nebby Newman: awesome!!

Harmony Beningborough: We celebrate Mardi Gras every year as does NOLA and we think we do it better! We certainly have just as much fun! At the end of Bourbon Street, in front of a copy of the Bayou Belle Riverboat, who is berthed here for Mardi Gras, you will find Info boards with history, statistics, website links, landmarks and even recipes!  There are 36 regions on Wyldwood Bayou Grid that are mainly 4 x 4s, and all of our buildings in N'Awlins are based on prominent buildings and areas in New Orleans. We hope you will take our self-guided walking tour at your leisure and maybe you too will fall in love with this colorful city!

Kith Whitehawk: Every part of of the region has something special in it ...lots of bits of detail...   the Asylum is interesting and has RL pics

Fitheach Eun: We also have a new region called "Wyld Thangs Ride Park: where you can participate in many types of individual and group sports, attend musical events and go to the movies!! It's a great place to relax and play!

Rockin' The Blues

We made our way over to the beautiful music venue called Wyldwood Bayou Rockin' The Blues.

Nara Nook: loving the music

Thirza Ember: so what was it like for you guys, when you left Inworldz? Was it a shock or did you know it was coming to an end?

Kith Whitehawk: lol   well....  we had done a trial run in a grid that went down shortly after it went up  so we had a small inkling. We were not really prepared for IW to go down of course...

Nebby Newman: hey, a whole 4 days notice! it's good the Kira wasn't on vacation <sigh>

Kith Whitehawk: lots of rushing around to get the important stuff. Kira had made all the important builds, so... we were fortunate in that ....

Thirza Ember: you guys managed to stay together, that's not easy when a grid disappears

Kith Whitehawk: Anyway  :)   was a great surprise  but  we were fortunate and had a lot of Tribe around us and a lot of support. Tribe is an amazing group of people. We still get folks that come in that we haven't seen in years.... is like old home week - don't care if you come in once a year or are a regular... once you Tribe, you always Tribe :)))

The focus of Wyldwood Bayou is on being a destination for dancing and roleplay, leaving drama and real world problems outside, making it an oasis for anyone looking for a relief from the stress of day to day life. There are five weekly music events, two roleplay sessions, and of course, you can visit any time to enjoy the scenery and explore the cultural history of New Orleans. 

Sometimes you come across grids that, maybe out of concern for losing content, or members, or some other paranoia, are not big fans of hypergridding and the challenges and opportunities it offers. With their background on Inworldz, a closed grid, how quickly did they take to the crazy pastime of gridjumping?

Fitheach Eun: Well personally I found OS to be a wide and wonderful place and I love the hypergrid

Maggie Redmond: Agrees completely with Fit! There are so many people here willing to help with just about anything, quite unlike SL

Contessa Lacombe: I love the HG.  It took me just a little while to learn to navigate, but I'd never go back!  And I love that we are a Destination here at WWB!!!  We are your prime HG vacation spot!!!

Amara Uloran: Please everyone....on each side of the stage is a big box It's loaded with landmarks for N'Awlins, as well as our music venues, Wyld Thangs, and the WWB Roleplay HUB!!! We hope you will all come back for many visits!

HG Addresses: 

Downtown New Orleans  

wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Wyldwood Bayou N'Awlins

 Music Venue 'Rockin' the Blues'

wyldwoodbayou.com:8002:Wyldwood Bayou Rockin' The Blues

Books and the Bayou: a Cultural Safari

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of grim news in the world today that we all ought to be aware of, but it's good for mental health to take a short break from worrying about it.  And what better way than by taking in a nice 2 hours of culture, friendship, and beauty.  

But before we get to the eye candy, (supplied in this gif by Kith Whitehawk, check out the post 'Going Wyld'  for even more Wyldwood Bayou gorgeousness) there's an important new cultural hub on Craft Grid, that we visited as our first destination. Hosted on regions curated by Roxelo Babenco aka Rosanna Galvani whose Museo del Metaverso  has been a beacon of art in virtual worlds over 15 years. HG Addresses are, as always, at the end of this post.

Super Coopersville

 

Koshari Mahana: Welcome to Coopersville! It's so great to see you all here!

Koshari Mahana

Koshari Mahana: I'm Koshari and I am the creator and hostess of Coopersville. If you did not accept a welcome kit when you arrived, you can click the sign behind me and take one. There are a lot of goodies inside.  We have a lot of textures and prims here so you may want to turn your draw distance down depending on your computer. It will also help to turn off Advanced Lighting Model if you have it on. Our community is based on the Edwardian era which is roughly between 1900 and 1915. 

Koshari Mahana: Technically, it's the time after Queen Victoria died until King Edward died. We are flexible here though simply because it's not always easy to find Edwardian-era things in the hypergrid. Generally, anything from the Victorian era to the Roaring Twenties can be found here. We are not limited to the United Kingdom by any means.

 Koshari Mahana: The "feel" of the era was happening all over the western world. In the United States, it is often referred to as "The Progressive Era" because Teddy Roosevelt was president at this time. A fun fact is that the first transatlantic two-way radio call was between President Roosevelt and King Edward in 1903. Most of the world enjoyed the early years of the new century. This era was often referred to as the "Edwardian Spring". Even though it was short-lived, many people were feeling very hopeful about the future. Little did they know though that the Great War was right around the corner. But, like all eras, not everything was rosy for all people. In Coopersville we are more focused on the happier moments of the era.

Thirza Ember: we all need the rosier side of life, this week

Koshari Mahana: They also saw the invention of airplanes, moving picture nickelodeons, lively music like ragtime, and of course the suffragette movement, which we all know led to women earning the right to vote. Oh, and dare I say, women's ankles were beginning to show!

George Equus: Outrageous!

Roffellos Kisses: disgusting!

Unadecal Masala: personally, I am a sucker for wrists

We took a tram, which was a really great way to stay together as a group and still see a huge part of the main island. It is dotted with all kinds of houses that echo the period, and literally hundreds of small and exquisite details. You can enjoy a wide range of activities on this huge 64 region community, and even rent an island, if you wish.     

There are shops with items for sale, but also many free activities, like ballooning, vintage airplanes, and (courtesy of the great Kayaker Magic) plenty of watersports, from surfing through to sailing or sunbathing on the lovely beaches, with their cute bathing chairs, and simply enjoying the serene and lovely view. There's a vintage movie theater that plays films, places for dancing, and wherever you go, you can delight in the vintage music which really brings the atmosphere of one hundred years ago to life.

It would take many days to see the whole of Coopersville by foot, so if you don't have time for that, you can quickly and easily get to all the main points of interest with a very well thought out and decorative teleport board, which manages to blend in with the build without, as so often happens, being hard to distinguish from the rest.

At length, we arrived at the Funfair, which is enormous, and hugely photogenic, and after quite a remarkable walk, in which some of us got a bit lost looking at the palm reader, the acrobats, and the wild animals.

Koshari Mahana: Down the hill to the left is a swan boat ride that I'm still working on, it's not quite finished yet but can still be used.  Here I've sort of combined a circus, amusement park, and fairgrounds into one area. I'm still working on a large dance hall that is still being built ... so we won't go there. :)

 To our left is a beach for hanging out, sunbathing, or swimming, and over here are several arcade games to play, most give prizes too.

We finally ended up at the Dodgems, where as you may expect we managed to crash. A lot.

The very last part of the visit was the delightful summerhouse that evokes all kinds of thoughts of sleepy afternoons and the sound of cicadas and waves rolling over the shore.

Here, a band of NPCs was playing some great dance music, and we all jumped onto the dance floor and showed our ankles. And our wrists.

To learn more about Coopersville, do drop in on Kitely, and check out the dedicated website at https://coopersville.mystrikingly.com/

HG Address:  Coopersville by Kosari Mahana   grid.kitely.com:8002:Coopersville

Safari Jukes it Out

Unadecal Masala: personally, I am a sucker for wrists 

The Jukebox was invented by Louis Glass, and the first commercial use of this iconic music maker was in 1889, in the city of San Francisco.  An intriguing and beautiful invention, it brought together technology and art in one magical box, very much like the two builds we visited this week, in two completely different styles, but both pretty mindblowing!

Aphra Hendrix at Jukebox

 We visited Coopersville on Kitely, the enormous Edwardian region owned by Koshari Mahana, where you can enjoy a wide range of activities, from ballooning to old time movies to bumper cars, all in a perfect historical setting. You can read about that on the post after this one. Before that, we jumped over to Cherry Manga's brand new Jukebox installation, on CopyKat grid. Complete hypergrid addresses are, as always, at the end of this post.

Corn-o-graphy

 This week is Cornflakes Week, a festival of fun that is exclusively OpenSim. Only a handful of grids are  participating this year (we were up to 11 grids back in 2017) but maybe Cornflakes 2023 can prove to be BIG for original OpenSim silliness, if the world doesn't end up a cinder before then, 

Put it in your calendar just in case, February 22-28, 2023.

The idea of Cornflakes Week? It's not morbidly focused on one late lamented person. Goodness knows, so many dear companions, fine artists, and generous friends have left this virtual life and we miss them all. No, the idea of the week is that it's an open ended festival, in the sense that you can have your own home grown Corny party, it can be adapted to the style of any grid or region, it's not affiliated with the weather or time of day, or the local religious, cultural, social, or political goings on of any one corner of the planet. What the world needs now is more gentle silliness, more than ever, and Cornflakes Week is all about that in a uniquely OpenSim way. 

Just to show that the concept can be modded, brought forward from the aughts to the twenties, and from pure prim to magnificent mesh, Cherry Manga took a journey through the creations of Cornflakes and came up with her own take on gentle fun. The build is still visitable in the sky above our clubhouse on OSgrid, and guitarman Whirli Placebo agreed to sing for us. But before that, we popped over to see fireworks conjurer Wordofthe Wise, who kindly invited us to see a copy of the region where all the Corn fun began. 

As always, the addresses of the destinations are at the end of the post.

Vintage Portage

Our second destination this week is a special place because it bridges the gap between the virtual and the real and shows what a wonderful tool Opensim can be for academics and professionals. Located on the Science Circle Grid, it is reconstruction of Portage, an archeological site in Pennsylvania, built by Nova Saunders. 

At the side of a tranquil canal, Nova and fellow Science Circle member Quaezar Agnomen  were waiting for us, to explain the build and share the experience. You can read about the first part of this week's Safari in the post called 'The Folly of Phaedra'. As always the address of the destination is at the end of the post.

Nova and Quaesar welcome us to Portage

          The settlement of Portage, PA was established in 1830's during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, at a time when the United States was pushing Westwards with a passion. It was an era of fast moving technological revolution.           Portage is located about 70 miles due west of Pittsburgh, and while there is a town in the area, the original settlement is all but gone from the landscape.

           In the 60 years preceding the heyday of Portage, canal technology had been considered, especially in Europe,  the best way to move heavy and bulky goods from place to place. However, by 1820, a newfangled means of transport was beginning to be talked about, invested in, and dreamed of, first in England and then further afield - trains. So Portage found itself on the cusp of transition between the older, more organic form of transport, by water, and the bold and speedy new one - the steam train.

The Folly of Phaedra

Jeff Kelley:   how many avatars have we lost ?

Ernest Moncrieff:  I'm always lost

Nara Nook: thanks ... little bit lost

Ernest Moncrieff: are we in a Wormhole?

George Equus: I am still in one piece, even hat came along for the ride

This week's visits are split across two posts, because reasons. Why folly? Because if you don't go to see Phaedra for yourself you're nuts. Or maybe it's the folly of the Safari, thinking we could see more than a tiny part of this extraordinary build. 

It looks a bit like a folly, constructed in the form of a composite tower or Parnassus. Phaedra rises from the Ocean of Ignis Fatuus grid like a mountain surrounded by a solar wind. 

The first thing I heard on arriving on Phaedra with the group was Kelso, warning us about piranhas.  There had been a strange lag on the Safari clubhouse sim all day, so it seemed quite believable that around this strange towering installation, another brilliant creation by Max Hill, owner of Ignis Fatuus Grid, there might well be avatar eating fish.

It was going to be an epic Safari. This is part one of two great destinations and, as always, the addresses are at the end of this post.

It's Time to Fest Up...

OpensimFest 2022 is heading our way, and confess it, you're curious. 

The overall theme is 'Medieval/Fantasy' and the whole thing will be happening in July, but just what's going on and how can you take part? 

 I asked IMA guru Shelenn Ayres about it, from the origins of the event to the practical details, well, as many as are available at this early stage. 

But first up, what in the virtual world inspired her to take on this crazy project?

Fatal Attraction

Frank Gresham: Yay for opensim 

There is crazy good and crazy bad. We all know that. Second Life has been, for many of us, crazy Good, in its way. It was thus for Safari regular Loru Destiny and the three friends who, together with her, form the heart and soul of ArtDestiny grid, our first destination this week. It's a very attractive combination of so much art and beauty that for us to visit, it has to be fate. Addresses, as always, at the end of the post.

          

             We teleported over and arrived in a large, airy art gallery, everyone rezzing pretty quickly considering how many we were, and that it was not a great night for the internet. The whole visit was so well organized, it was pure pleasure to meet our hosts and take a tour around Spooky City.

Neverworld Underground

 For the second hour of our tour, we went on an underground trip on Neverworld Grid.  Our visit today was to a very special build called The Caves. It was a great contrast to AI Austin's build, and here we saw another face fo the incredibly diverse possibilities of using Opensim as a way to reflect our lives and creativity.

Andron Rae

It's beautiful and poignant and also interesting from a technical/aesthetic reason, because we all know that cams and tunnels do not really go together. Yet Andron Rae has made it work here, and in the most magnificent way. 

Arcanquest looking old school

Some of us couldn't directly jump from Space City to The Caves, I noticed this glitch all week, something going on in the intertubes between OSGrid and NVW, so I had added in the LM Pack a second LM to the Neverworld landing area, and that seemed to work for everyone who was unable to Verify Identity when they tried the direct tp.  A special shoutout goes to all those who have been trying to make an effort to lessen lag by having much less complex avatars. Here is Arcanquest Frank is a heroically retro avie,  although I'm honestly not sure how much we help or hurt with all our efforts.  

Govega (center) with Joshua and Lucy

Neverworld Grid owner Govega was totally unafraid of lag, her avie had a complexity of over 400,000 and indeed the region seemed to shrug us off.  There was a brief moment of crisis when all 25 of us arrived on The Caves, to be greeted by Govega, Joshua 7, Alba Wyrril, and Oliver Grashnar (not to mention Franco Thirza who got jammed in the corner by some barrels of what she hoped was brandy and, on reflection, was probably gunpowder).
Andron has prepared a walkthrough of the build, which is available on Youtube here.

The build involves following a trail and reading the notecards, but it's not a hunt as much as a meditation on life and love and beauty and creativity, a stream of consciousness accompanying you on your journey. Wherever you see a glowing spark, there you will find a notecard. 

Val finds a bright spark *reading*

One of the coolest parts of the build, that you may miss if your volume is low, are the sound effects, like the splash when you fall off a bridge into a rock pool. The route is pretty easy to follow, though being a big group who wanted to stick together as much as possible, there was a fair bit of TPing - thankfully point-to-point TPs are enabled here, and that saved us all a great deal of frustration. 

Whirli (foreground) with l. Nara and r. Alan

The heart of the build is a sort of cavern - or is it open to the sky? I don't think I checked - where you will find an incredibly beautiful ring of singing stones, set in a glade full of soft green foliage. Nearby a beautiful statue nestles in a watery corner. It is captivating, and had us all standing quietly, just enjoying the place and the moment.  The build is dedicated to the memory of the late Pasha Theas, who was one of the earliest members of Neverworld, and the partner of Andron Rae. She was a talented builder and her creations can still be seen in many parts of the grid, including the Welcome Center.

Apollo Star admiring the statue among the ferns.

Thirza Ember: there is a gift at the end, if you do not find it, let me know, I will pass it to you, Andron wanted all to have it

Alan Scot: got a "Conclusion" notecard but no gift, what was the gift ?

James uses his head to display the gift from 'The Caves'

Oliver Grashnar: that's an interesting structure, so much up and down I didn't know fully where I was going

Lifted Pixel: I met a ghost dog

From left to right Aphra, Jeff, George, Oliver, Truelie, Loru, Kelso, Govega, Nara, Thirza, James.
Congrats to all those who survived to the very end! 

Dabici Straulino: very nice, I love the sound installation - fountain and crystal. Thank you for the visit, this is a great work

Kelso Uxlay: Nice sounds

James Atlloud: So great to have audio effects in the experience!

George Equus: Very impressive build!

HG Address: 

A Packed Safari

 Safari people can fit a lot into a small space, whether it's time - a bare ninety minutes - or the narrow tunnels of the unusual Andron Rae build, 'The Caves', on Neverworld, our second destination this week = read about that on the next post.  But before the spelunking, there was the great leap forward, in terms of bag and baggage, as imagined by Ai Austin, who you may have come across on VUE grid, or (as happened to us) encountered him on Space Camp, a Gerry Anderson inspired region on OSGrid. 

Ai Austin at Venus' beach house on Space City

But before we went anywhere, everyone came to the Clubhouse, which is such a delight, as familiar faces and old friends and new pals all show up. Community organizer  Valibrarian Gregg joined us, I think for the first time, and Prax and Alexina, who were Safari regulars back in the early days came along, as did musician Whirli Placebo, who has played for the Safari many a time, and was this time in off-duty mode.   For the address of the places we visited, look at the end of this post, as usual.

Safari Glows

 It's all a question of perspective. Prims have been somewhat overlooked of late so it was a treat to revisit the medium, a sort of historical trip. But with plenty of fantasy thrown in. You learn something every time on Safari, about what works and what doesn't and sometimes something literary. Case in point: Beth Ghostraven found some chandeliers all green and glowy, like cavorite. I didn't even know what that was, but our host Cyberglo Cyberstar was immediately on her wavelength. It's that kind of a place.

The place?   We were visiting LoveGlo castle, a sort of poetic throwback to the beauty of building with prims. Cyberglo constructed the whole place in a day and filled it with legal freebies, hidden passages, caves, and all kinds of surprises. The proper address of the region is at the end of the post, as always.

Dream Trip

Virtual Discovery organizer, Vladimir Djannovic

 Every Tuesday, there is a hypergrid adventure with the Virtual Discovery group run by Vladimir Djannovic out of his grid, Virtual Dream. (Yes, there is a VD theme going on, you're not mistaken.) Show up on the Welcome region of VD, and join in the fun. For details about upcoming trips, the best thing is to look on opensimworld, or follow Vlad on Facebook, where he gives the heads up a couple of days before each trip.  This week, for the first time, I was lucky enough to join them for a little while. It's the best fun!  

This week the excursion was to the Zoo on Serenity Grid, the address at the end of the post.

Best Practices in Jumping

 Anyone can leap about in opensim, exploring regions by themselves or maybe with a friend. We've all done it, often finding pleasure in the big empty spaces of the hypergrid. But it is also fun to grid jump  with a crowd, to meet the grid owner, or sim builder, and spend some time laughing and dancing and learning more about the infinite variety of opensim. 

But traveling in a pack can create its own unique problems. So what makes for a successful hypergrid trip en masse? Our group is called Safari, because there's a good chance you won't survive to the end, and there are dangers lurking! I asked a bunch of Safari regulars who have joined our trips many times to give their advice for a successful and enjoyable trip around the metaverse.

Still Standing

The dance floor at HG safari clubhouse

Kelso Uxlay: Good idea to warm up safari goers before going.

          Dancing really does do it. This week, two animated destinations, a big crowd of avatars, and a roaring success for our hosts, Dorena Verne and Anachron Young on Dorena's World, and Karima Hoisan and the scriptastic Dale Innes on Kitely. 

Addresses of the destinations, as always, at the end of the post. 

It really helps if you come to the clubhouse on HG Safari, OSGrid and get the LMs before we depart at the top of the hour, and thanks to everyone who showed up, including Lux, Dabici and Kelso who entertained us by dancing so well. A good omen...

Open Season

 The first real Safari after a pause of over three years, and about thirty people showed up! Would we survive to the end? And not just because the first destination promised death by dinosaur - would lag or confusion defeat us? 

The answer was a resounding No! Thanks to all those who showed up for this Hunting and Fishing Safari, where we played, stepped in dino dodo, fished, got squashed, fished, crashed boats... and, most of all, thanks to Ange Menges and Royale Mobian, the hosts of the two hours of the Safari. As always, the addresses of the two destinations are at the end of the post.

Counter Tops

 Havoc Rau is an unmissable figure. Tall, with dark good looks and impeccable manners. He has his own city, and knows about mesh, heck, he makes the stuff (free for us opensimmers, for money to those unenlightennd types in SL who don't know about the Free Worlds). He is, to me, a hypergrid hero, a man who spans the gap between complicated role playing and HG Tourism. 

A couple of weeks back he came to save me from the Zombies on OSGrid, as you may have read in an earlier post. This week, he offered to show me his etchings, I mean his tarns, on CounterEarth. What could a girl say, except for 'yes please'?

CounterEarth, if you didn't know, is an amazingly beautiful grid that takes its theme from the novels by John Norman, who began writing them in the 1960s. (The grid address is at the end of this post.)Here is a pretty unbiased review of the first novel to give you an idea of what it is all about. The grid, on the other hand, has to be seen to be believed, and believe me, it's the tops.

Post Pre Safari Safari

 Just as a test, and to make sure we are all on the same page, we had a meet up on the new HG Safari region on Wednesday. The event was advertised in Facebook and Mewe and in the OGgrid and Craft HG Safari inworld groups. Thanks to all who attended, and those who IM'd saying they saw the event even if they couldn't make it this time.

It was a chance to catch up with old friends and to meet new Safari fans. Also, a learning opportunity for those unfamiliar with what '12 noon Grid time' (which is Pacific time, just like back in Second Life) calculates to where they live. Anyway, about 25 of us managed to navigate the time zones, and  cope with the fact that the Safari's main base is on OSGrid now. Oh, and there is a space between HG and Safari in the name of the new sim. Which is quite a lot to take in, if you think about it.