A Pale Safari

Wonderful architecture this week on a rip roaring Safari. A number of new friends joined us on Teravus Plaza, OSGrid, where the Safari generally starts out. It's always hard to tell if they're just curious about our group, or actually want to gridjump with us.
 If you're new and shy and not sure if you're going to be able to make the jumps, please go ahead and IM Fuschia, Wizardoz, or me and we will make sure we get you to the first destination. It is extremely common to crash when you're new to hypergridding, so don't hesitate in asking someone to shadow you on your first few trips - that's what the event is really intended to do - help everyone get comfortable with hypergridding!
Also to mess about, obviously.

Anyhoo, there was some doubt whether our first destination could possible stand a lot of avies arriving all together. We never let that bother us, of course. Here is a diagram of what generally happens.
Sirin Peccable couldn't be there on the day on Atoll Lost, but Francogrid Femme fatale Praline B was on hand to welcome us and tell us a bit about his regions. (freebies! woot!)  As usual, the addresses for these destinations are at the end of the post.

Praline (right) welcomes us to Atoll Lost, Francogrid

Praline B: Sirin has a real life very busy and the key word to describe him is: volunteerism! He is very involved and a real activist for defense and promote universal accessibility and full citizenship for people with handicap. When he discovered Second Life in 2007, he immediately saw virtuality as a very powerful communication tool to help people. He decided to use OpenSimulator because of financial and open source aspects.For now he is the owner of the opensim grid SirinHGpole-Grid. This grid is dedicated to a project for developing immersive tools for people with mental handicap and autism. But Sirin who enjoy build too and take a pause from his real life, wants show with his builds how it's fun to build with OpenSimulator. To help new people to discover this pleasure, he gives the opportunity to have a land with a particular style and a house ready made.  Atoll Bahuu is an example of a tropical sim furnished. Here in fact it is the entry of the archipelago he is building right now. You may find his freebies shop at City White which is a monumental build, a must to see. Always this idea to push the limits of Opensimulator ;)  I invite you another time to visit City White, its a monumental build,  he built it just for his pleasue and to forget time to time his rl but also he is really involved to show how it is fun and easy to share here. 

Praline B: have a look to the Dragon ship if you can ! Sirin told me something I want share with you, .he has a little daughter, and when he is building she is the painter of his build. She comes and have a look to his build - all the colors you may see are from her. Sirin builds in white, and the daughter gives the colors.
Truelie Telling: the colors are so very joyous

This joyous grid was a tad too fragile for this many outrageous avies, and after we had all crashed about five or six times, we decided it might be just as well to go on to the next destination a bit earlier than planned. Sometimes that can be a problem, if we go too early, because sometimes the region owner waits until the last minute to restart their grid in readiness for our arrival. 

But this time, we were going to a home from home - Ivory City, a region on Sanctuary Grid. This construction is in memory of the late, great Lumiere Noir, and has been beautifully orchestrated by his partner Tosha Tyran.

Tosha Tyran

Thirza.Ember: kudos to the ladies all fressed in pale colors.... looking good!
Tosha Tyran: ah, most of you I see as unknown users - so forgive me for not saying names :)
Aime.Socrates: Fuschia's fault..we are all unknown since she's testing levitation
Fuschia Nightfire: i gave up on the levitation when i crashed the 2nd time
James.Atlloud: bit of work getting around today.
Alya VonZ: how many sims supports all these structures Tosha?
Tosha Tyran: 4 sims. 
Thirza.Ember: Tosha, what year did Lumiere discover SL? was Ivory tower the first building school in SL?
Tosha.Tyran: he came to SL in 2003 and SL had then about 300 residents :) and yes, I am quite sure, his was the first building school, and I think up to date various thousand noobs have passed for the tower and learned to build there
Lucy Afarensis: 1st place I went in 2007 - There were thousands by 2007
Alya VonZ: he builded Ivory Tower, awesome, thought this looked somewhat familiar - took my first lessons there:)
Tosha.Tyran: I learned all I know first in the tower and later from Lumi directly. He was a great teacher.

arriving on Ivory City

We moved over to Maison Noir, so we could all take a load off and read the interesting Notecard about Lumiere's life and work. 
Thirza.Ember: I think it's wonderful that we are able to still enjoy Lumiere's art ... it's such a rich way to remember him.
Tosha Tyran: sigh - I wished remembering would not be all, but it is great to go on with his work - it is sort of like communicating with him..
Lucy Afarensis: These places can be palaces of memory
James.Atlloud: The first Ivory tower brings back such memories.
Tosha Tyran: oh shucks yes, what a nut I was then, hehehe,  I spend my first weeks changing clothes and hair and going to parties, hahaha, hippy camp and money trees, and that gets boring pretty soon...

Patricia Ann in one of the Tutorials on Ivory City

                We can all relate to that. It's rare to meet anyone in open sim who doesn't like to build - and this new Ivory Tower complex on Sanctuary offers valuable help to anyone needing a few pointers. For this is not merely a monument, it's a living center for learning. Tutorials in a number of different languages are available, and we hope to see frequent events here - it's what Lumi would have enjoyed, learning, laughing and lots of creativity.

Telling Tales on OSGrid

             Our last stop was on Telling Tales, the sim of Truelie Telling who is a classic example of someone who in SL never got to grips with building, yet now she has a space in open sim, has taken to terraforming and immersive micro environments like a duck to water.
It's a humorous, warm and welcoming sim, and as always Tru sang a lovely set, including a number of new songs, reflecting her experiences in virtual worlds, both the highs and lows of this alternate existence. 

Next week, big party celebrating the contribution of Justin Clark- Casey to Open Simulator. Justin has moved on to a different field of work, but his hard work over many years, alongside the other great opensim core developers, has made our worlds possible. Looking forward to seeing you all there.
URIs HG Addresses
Sirin Peccable's region                       hg.francogrid.org:80:atoll lost
Tosha Tyran and Lumiere Noir           sanctuary.homelinux,org:8012:Ivory City 1
Truelie telling's sim                           hg.osgrid.org:80:telling tales