Safari goes Metro

          Uncertainty in the metaverse - think that's gonna stop us? No Way! Nara Malone and Zetamex's Timothy Rogers have very kindly made us a temporary home in Metropolis while the OSGrid Raid problems continue.

But there is no reason to be fainthearted... I even found a replacement top hat for Mal Burns, when he joins us next. How long will it take to get OSGrid back? Nara pointed out that when Metropolis had some technical unpleasantness some time ago, they were offline for a month. OSGrid is well into its second week, but it will be back. And Han Held reminded us, in the safari after party, that one should always make a backup.
Han Held: You should make an IAR of your region.
Fuschia Nightfire: What's that?
Han Held: It's your Inventory Archive. http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Inventory_Archives. I downloaded mine before I butted heads with the admins of OSGrid.
Han is smart. Sadly, much like a parachute, the backup only works if you get yours organized before the grid goes into free fall. And since my disk drive and even my precious external hard drive have both begun giving me gip, it probably wouldn't have helped me that much.
Fuschia Nightfire: I have used Second Inventory to move my stuff to other grids. It made me realize how much third party stuff I use. Scripts, sculptmaps, textures.
It's true; open sim is a fantastic engine to get you creating your own content from scratch, whether it's getting into Blender, making textures for clothes and buildings, or learning scripting. And there are so many people out there willing to help - there are Blender classes on Craft, Metropolis, and Littlefield Grid, the latter in English with Aaack Aardvark.
But let's start at the beginning.

If you have a non OSGrid avatar (for example, an avie based in Craft, Kitely, etc,) you can simply jump to Metropolis and find us on Outlands sim, a gorgeous foresty jungly region that Nara has made available to us for the duration. (that is hypergrid.org:8002:Outlands ) Obviously OSGrid avies will not work, so c'mon! make a second open sim avie on another grid, - yes, it is work, you're right, speaking as a person who has made 17 thirzas on 17 different grids, I feel your pain, but it's another form of backup, and we are working on putting together a good list of LMs for stores which will be in HG Safari Group Notices and also available on the sim in a couple of days.

This week we were invited to Pillars of Mist by Andress Renault. Staff member Vitazu Pegaird was there to welcome us. There was plenty to sit on here, I think Vitazu thought we had lost our marbles; luckily Lucy Afarensis showed some decorum, and ... OMG I just got her name!
How brilliantly safarian!
          This is a mystery grid, but the usual Safari Mystery "Where the heck is your hair?"  was mysteriously not a problem. Even PatriciaAnne still had hair, and Wizzy kept her clothes on! (That almost never happens.)
 We visited a Varregion called Willow, and checked out the mines. More sitting, but with tunnels.          Then on to the shops, where we found two different kinds of skates up for grabs.

          I love the way Art Blue pretended to look at menswear while really camming the lingerie on a nearby display. There was a nice police station too, and a bar.  Guess who found the booze first. (Lemme give you a hint: there was a lot of pink in there, and it wasn't gin.) Wizardoz Chrome would like it to be known she stuck to water and possibly a little cola. Protesting too much? You decide.

          Before leaving Pillars of Mist, we melted a few alcoholic calories with some dancing on the ruins. So now you have photographic evidence of what they mean by the expression 'dance your butt off'.

 Ferd Fredrix has set up his 'Yo Frankie' game on his grid Outworldz. You collect acorns, and a ram called Rambo kills you with surprising frequency. 

Me and Fuschia found our way to the lighthouse, but  with only about 20 acorns each, we didn't have the oaken wherewithal to actually complete the Yo Frankie task - so Fuschia lit it up with her cybercollar. Job done.

          Our last jump was to be to Wunderland. This was going to be the 'easy' jump of the night, since it is also right here in Metropolis, and I had been there moments before safari began, and had spoken to the lovely Brenda Geissen the artist and creator of a string of fantastic regions. But despite all preparations and care, the sims were unreachable when we'd finished Yo Franky-ing. There's one more mystery for the Pillars of Mist people.          
          We will keep it for our next adventure.