If you aren’t familiar with the poem by Robert Frost  I suggest reading it.  It’s really one of my favorite poems.  When I first logged in to SL, SL was the road not taken and as the last line in the poem says, *And I took the one less traveled by and it has made all the difference.*  For me SL was an unknown.  I saw it on TV and thought it looked cool so I logged in.  I picked up the basics of movement, flying, talking and changing my appearance fairly quickly.  I didn’t though know anything about this place, where I could go, what I could do.  I met some great people in the Welcome area who took me out shopping or dancing or just out for a wander but no one told me or even showed me that I could *DO* anything.  I had no idea that everything I saw was created by residents.  I had no idea that I had the same tools at my disposal that they did.  Perhaps I was just not paying attention.  Perhaps I wasn’t interested.  When I think back to those first few months, my focus was on people.  Meeting people.  People from all over the world that I would never have had a chance to meet or speak to otherwise.

Aribeth, my first and dearest friend, introduced me to a whole different world within this crazy world.  We crashed a wedding.  The after party was at the Three Lions Pub.  That one event sparked a year of making new friends, learning new things, exploring, love, loss, laughter, sadness, heartbreak, anger and above it all a sense of happiness and belonging.  These people came to be my family.  Many of them are gone or have wandered off on to other things but the ones I grew the closest too I still see and speak to every day.  They are family.

The Three Lions is gone but not forgotten.  In it’s place grew several pubs/bars/clubs.  A few remain and are still going strong.  New friends are made.  New memories made.  New experiences, trying new things.  We change, we grow, we learn and we are better for it.

I get IMs from people many times in world saying *I’m bored*.  Usually when I get these I’m at my busiest.  Either building something or DJing or talking to a resident.  Now there are times I log in and either don’t know what to do with myself or no one is around to talk to and I’ll feel *bored*.  That’s when I’ll either go look for places to take pictures, go shopping or just wander or even log back into RL.  What I use to entertain myself may not work for everyone but I learned long ago that SL is what you make of it.  If you don’t venture out of your comfort zone and try something new, you will eventually get bored.  Everytime I’ve started to get bored in SL i’ve learned something new.  Photoshop, making animations, torturing prims, and learning new building techniques and perfecting the ones I have.

I own 3 sims, a bar, a club, a Homeowner’s group that is growing every day, a fairly successful blog, I’m a decent photographer ;) and I’m planning all kinds of new stuff for the coming year. 

*Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by, …*

I plan to take the less traveled paths.  To forge my own path.

Happy Monday!  Can you just see the sarcasm dripping off that?  Good, just checking

I heard all of you out there laughing at me about photoshop.  Well, go look at my Flickr stream.  I went a bit nuts this weekend.   HUGE thanks to Praddles who spent some time with me this weekend running me thru the basics.    Thank you hon *muah* <3

I’ll be running all over the grid now taking snaps.  Have any recommendations for that perfect shot?  Let me know in the comments.  I’d love to hear your favorite spots for phototaking.

Around the grid…

Well, Southsea’s Will to Live is gone.  Taken down Saturday to be replaced by something equally stunning and thought provoking I’m sure.  I’ve tried to get a  hint, but that’s not happening.  I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.  I can’t wait to see who wins the photo contest.  All the entries were stunning.  It’s gonna be a tough decision, glad I’m not the one doing it.

The Reach is coming along.  I decided to forget about the pool and open up that area as a studio instead.  Well I needed someplace to feed my addiction didn’t I?  lol  So, the studio is up.  It’s likely where I’m going to be if you are looking for me.  At least for the forseeable future.

On the web…

Some bad news heard recently, the lovely ladies of Linden Lifestyles are packing up their virtual pencils and closing the site down.  I can’t tell you how sad that makes me.  I’ve leaned on them so many times for fashion advice.   You’ll be missed ladies!  Good luck to you both!

On your mind…

So.. the topic of ethics has come up a few times this weekend.  Some folks thinks it’s ok to copy another artists work as long as you are not selling it.  Others don’t think it’s ok to copy anything regardless of whether you will sell it or use for personal use. 

What do you think?  Personally, I’ve copied things I’ve seen in world simply to see if I could and to perfect my own skills.  I’m not sure I even have any of those items anymore come to think about it.  I’ve taken inspiration from what I’ve seen but I always try to make it my own idea that comes to life. 

So where is the ethical line?  As a creator/designer/builder how do you deal with it?  Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but when you see the very unique house you built being duplicated it can’t be easy to swallow.  So let me hear what you think about it.

What else is on your mind?  In November I will have been in SL for 2 years.  That’s a long time but  it’s only in the last 8 months that I think I’ve really begun to grow.  My building skills are better, I can do some basic edits in photoshop, I still can’t script my way out of a paper bag but we can’t have everything.   I’ve been thinking about what it was like when I was new and looked up to those folks who’d been in world for OMG 2 years.  lol    I learned a lot from them.  I hope that I can do the same for someone else.

Me… I’ll be in Photoshop later no doubt.   IM me though, I’ll answer ya eventually.

Cheers,

Bails