Hot Air Ballon Ride

Hot Air Ballon Ride, originally uploaded by Jojamela Soon.

Last night Patrick took us for a hot air balloon ride across the Sailors Cove sims. Along for the ride were myself, Patrick, Fanci, Bent and Tasha. The sims are so beautiful covered with snow. Land is selling fast and we're very excited about all the wonderful things happening at Sailors Cove.

Vincent Merricks at Sailors Cove

Vincent Merricks, originally uploaded by Jojamela Soon.

Vincent has one of the sexiest voices. He's a regular at Sailors Cove, playing every Thursday evening at 5pm and has been since he first started performing in SL. Vince just recently partnered with my dear dear friend, Circe Broom. What a doll of a couple they make.

Congrats to the both of you!

Ice Skating at Sailors Cove

Ravishal Bentham created a wonderful video about the skating party at the new Stillwater Sim this weekend. Fanci Beebe coordinated the activities this weekend and set up a wonderful skating rink with special animations. During the Skating party, Ravi captured some video using Fraps and posted it to his YouTube account. The video is so good that it's being picked up all over the web.

Ice Castle at day

Ice Castle at day, originally uploaded by Jojamela Soon.

This weekend we had a bunch of festivities at Sailors Cove including an Ice Castle building competition. This was my entry and I won first place with it. The first place prize is a nice set of sails from Nautical Notions, Abella's sail making shop. Now I just need to go pick them up :) Prize was donated by Patrick Leavitt.... what a sweetie

Sting Rhode

Sting Rhode, originally uploaded by Jojamela Soon.

One of my favorite shows every week is Sting Rhode's show at the Cove. He has so much energy and is one of the sweetest performers I know. Just at the end of the set he hopped off his steel drums and joined us on the conga line.

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland, originally uploaded by Jojamela Soon.

Winter has arrived at Sailors Cove just in time for the holidays. I was wandering around the theater and caught a glimpse of a beautiful Trudeau Schooner sailing through the Fishers Island pass and had to snap this picture. What a beautiful sight to see. From what I hear it's going to be cold enough for the snow to remain on the ground until just after the first of the year... what a treat.

Update on earlier post

In a post I wrote on Sept 9th, I showed this picture that I took at a VanGogh exhibit. I was there because of a call from my friend Cecil who wanted to take a photo reproducing the painting.

Cecil has posted a new movie on his YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnLQ8ejL-qA, and it has the pictures that he took that day at the very end.

New Musicians, New Parties

The other night when I was visiting with Circe and Silas at Luxor, I had the opportunity to meet a new SL musician called NuScore Kidd. I was able to catch one of his shows over at the Sunset Jazz Club. OMG, the ladies are going to be drooling over this guy. NuScore is SL's version of Barry White. His vocals are deep and rich and his improv will have you fanning your face. His audience interaction is unique and personal and I'm working on getting him to Sailors Cove Theater asap!

After my visit to Sunset, I hopped over to Freestar Tammas' place for an open mic. My friend OwlandMoonGuy had IM'd me to let me know that he would also be playing. While there I caught Cypress Rosewood's set which was totally awesome.

At the same time, my friend Wishing Lane was holding an open mic party on her property. When I got there she had a good crowd. Wishing is a special lady with a love of music in league with my own.
And finally, Sting Rhode did is regular Sunday gig at Sailors Cove. We had everybody out on the floor dancing. I also spoke with Aisha after Sting's show and we're moving her show from Thursday evenings to Sunday afternoon's after Sting. I think it's a good move as it will relieve some of the pressure on her Thursdays and will help increase the crowd for her shows on Sundays.
I'm also getting more involved in two other projects. First is the Second Life Music Community Forum. It's an offshoot of the Music Development news group that Linden Labs started after the convention in Chicago. The group consists of musicians, DJ's, venue owners/managers and fans of music in SL, working together to raise the profile of the scene. I want to become actively involved in letting people know that there is something really fun and exciting to do in SL and took my first step last night by hanging around the Ahern welcome center with a flip title telling people to ask me about music in Second Life. It was probably not a good time to be working there, but I did speak with some folks. Right now I'm working on putting together a notecard with some preset instructions to help people find music.

The second has to do with Sailors Cove. Tasha and Iza have been loaded down with work
because of the addition of the new Anchor Cove sim. I've volunteered to help out by being the liaison between the new property owners and the theme committee. I'm working strictly in an administrative position, providing information to the committee on new build requests from all the new property owners coming into the community.

Last night Gospeed and I went to a Kaklick Martin concert at Luxor (thanks Go for the pic I snatched from your flickr page) Klick is a fantastic artist and has a very unique show. He's been around SL long enough to have created some really cool songs that exemplify the SL experience. His concerts are really fun and really hit home to anyone that has been in SL for any length of time.
Shortly before the end of the show Silas Scarborough arrived and after Kaklick was finished I stood around and chatted with the group of them until 3am. Silas is a riot and read to us an appeal from his friend Bubba for funds to take a trip to Aruba, it's the result of a situation that I won't get into here, but I laughed so hard and haven't had such a good time in an evening in a long time.

Today was interesting. It started out early this morning with a trip over to Circe's Sunset Jazz club with a pajama jazz session. From there I headed over to Sailors Cove for the Tako Cup races and hung out with friends for a while, until I received a group IM from my friend Cecil Hirvi. Cecil is a Second Life film maker and has some really wonderful videos posted on his YouTube page. Today's IM had to do with a photo he wanted to take to recreate a Van Gogh painting. Myself and several friends tp'd to the location of the shoot and were directed to seats. It really was fun and I look forward to the final product which is intended for a RL art exhibit.

After the photo shoot, I returned to Sailors Cove just in time to catch the end of the races. Everyone headed over to the club house (talk about a crowd) for the debriefing, when I got a RL phone call to help out a neighbor. I logged off and returned later just in time to catch the last half hour of NuScore Kidd's show at Sunset Jazz club.

OMG!!! This UK artist has one of the sexiest voices I've ever heard in SL. His audience interaction is fantastic and he improvised several songs directed to the ladies attending the show. If Barry White were in SL his name would be NuScore Kidd. I IM'd him after the show to see if he's interested in doing a performance at Sailors Cove Theater and am working on setting up a date. This guy is hot hot....

An evening of dancing

I decided to make last night a concert night, not at Sailors Cove, but traveling around and checking out other people's concerts. Starting out the evening I joined Gospeed at Paisley's concert at the Lift. I had to grab a snapshot of her gown, omg, it was incredible. The detail on the metallic flower pieces just blew my mind and I've got to find out who the designer is. Paisley as usual was just superb, singing some songs that I hadn't heard before, plus my favorite of all "Nature Boy"


After Paisley's show GoSpeed had to head to bed so I zipped over to catch Louis Volare. It's been ages since I've been able to attend one of his concerts and I'm so glad that I was able to go. It brought me back to my first few months in SL, when I first heard him play at Nantucket and reminded me once again what a beautiful thing live music in Second Life really is and why I fell in love with it.

At Louis' show I ran into my dear friend Tilinitchief. Chief was kind enough to dance with me during the show (so I wouldn't be a lonely wall flower) and afterwards I joined him at Pannies where Rosedrop Rust was performing. WOW. I'm speechless. Rusty is just awesome, I would love to have him at Sailors Cove and am working up the guts to ask :)

After Pannies, and because I was still wearing my gown from Paisley's show, Chief invited me to dance at Avilion Castle. This place has to be one of the most beautiful sim's in SL. I just wish it weren't so laggy. We danced a beautiful waltz under the stars with a waterfall backdrop. What a lovely evening.
Today we had Alisha Yao at Sailors Cove. I've been able to book Alisha as a regular now and she'll be performing every Thursday night at 6pm SLT. Tonight's show was fun. Alisha surprised us with a little quiz. She sang some tunes from TV sitcoms and whoever guessed received a free t-shirt. Unfortunately her biggest fan (so he claims) Random Torok didn't get the prize and as a jest took off his jacket to show everyone his shirtless situation. From what I understand, Aisha took pitty on him and gave him a T-shirt after the show. I also want to personally let Random know that we truly appreciate his support of Sailors Cove Theater!

Catch up time

I've been spending a lot of time lately flitting around from concert to concert in addition to working my own at Sailors Cove. Grabbed this shot of legendary Paisley Fan, Tay Runo about a week ago at her concert at sailors. Tay is known for his vast number of AV's and he didn't disappoint that week when he turned himself into the cutest little baby. Some people thought it was a bit creepy, but I thought he was just adorable waddling around.
I grabbed this shot at the ACA Sims after Abella Beck again won 2 out of three races. Surfwidow passed out some Sailors Cove advertisement boards and we all put them on and goofed off a bit. hmm.... maybe I should wear mine over at the welcome center to let ppl know about our beautiful home sims :)
For some reason, I've really be into tinies lately :). I was given several freebies by my friend Grizzy and already had my fox av, so I did a search on SLExchange and found a couple more. I picked up an adorable teddy bear, and this one, my favorite, a cute littly bunny.

Was visiting with my friends Epi, Beejee and Abella and they liked it so much they decided to pick up their own, whereupon we descended on a Sting Rhode concert and danced on stage. What fun!!!! I love walking around in my bunny, people are really nice and complimentary.
This is my friend Mermaid Shilova. In real life she's my neighbor from across the street and a very good friend. I showed what I was doing in SL and she got all excited about it and poof, here she is. I helped her set up her AV with some freebie hair and clothes and my good friend GoSpeed Racer was kind enough to give her a very pretty skin. She doesn't come online that often because she's really busy in RL but it's exciting to show her around when she does come onlin.
Here's Mermaid, me in my bunny suit and Abella relaxing in Abella's new garden that she and Jean built on top of their skybox. It's so pretty there. She's got some wonderful poses and has built a pretty little pool with Koi swimming around in it. Abella has a wonderful sense when it comes to textures and decorating and I'm real happy for them.

Exploring and contemplation

I've been doing a bit of exploring lately, what fun. It's one of the things I miss from my early days in SL. I've been pretty wrapped up in one place for a while, so when my friend GoSpeed invited me to check out a new place I jumped at the chance.


I don't know if I've posted a picture of myself yet in my new Silver Fox AV, but that's me sitting on the ground at the Straylight Sim. We stopped for a moment at this beautiful waterfall and chatted with some folks that appeared to be swimming. Over my shoulder I noticed a strange clump of rocks with a name bubble hanging over it. Turns out it was a brand new resident of SL who just for kicks attached a bunch of rocks all over his body.... talk about funny looking.

Here is a better shot of my new AV. I got it at the Werehouse, it's really awesome and comes with it's own AO, flexi tail and effects. I really like to wander around in it. Sometimes people don't realize that I'm an AV and say funny things about me. Bent's not crazy about it tho and refuses to be around me when I'm in Fox form..... ah well... maybe we'll have to get him his own critter AV so he'll be more comfortable.


Last night after Wendy Curtiss' show at the theater I went up to the house and sat on the porch. I love my little blue bird and snapped this picture of it flying off while I was sitting there. Now I just need to add some sound effects to make it just right.


Over my shoulder I saw the sun begin to set and slipped to the other side of the porch to watch. Couldn't resist taking this pic, I take them in RL all the time too, and even have one of my RL originals in the dining room of our cabin.


While I was sitting there I got an IM from another resident, Delinda. She invited me to visit the sim of a friend of hers. All I can say is OMG, everyone needs to visit the Twilight Gates Sim and explore the magnificent castles there.

All of the builds on the sim are for sale. The textures and layouts are just about the most incredible I've seen in SL..... definitely a place worth visiting.

Dancing with Bent

Bent and I are very excited! We went shopping day before yesterday and finally got him new skin, shape and hair. Oh my! He's looking sooooo good :). You won't believe the compliments that I've received in IM about his new look. Diana calls him King George of Bent (hehe) with his silver hair and beard he's looking more the statesman than the thug.

To celebrate, we dressed up and went to a Heath Elvehjem concert at Club Neptune and danced all evening..... boy, do I feel pretty next to him :)

And the beat goes on....

I resigned tonight as promoter for all of the artists I've been working for. I need to concentrate on some RL issues right now and just don't have the time required to do a good job.

I'm going to continue working at Sailors Cove Theater because of the commitment I've already made. Will have to see how things work out. Life is a little nuts right now.

Come On In

One of the cool things about living in a park on the side of a mountain is the visitors. I sit out on the porch and folks who are exploring pass by. If I see them approach on my radar I say hello. Some stop and chat, others pass on by either ignoring me, or missing my greeting. You meet some pretty nice people this way.

The park is looking better and better every day. Last night the horse and shed that was over on the Fisher's Island park popped up behind the mountain. Flowers are springing up all around and dances and cuddle poses are tucked away in sunny and secluded spots. I'm really looking forward to being here.

Just found this and that

I was cruising through my friend Ravishal Bentham's SLPics site and came across this picture that he posted:OMG... lol, I didn't think anyone kept a picture of that. As it happens, I was online when the new Sailors Cove sim first appeared just to the west of Fishers Island. I wasn't able to get there right away because it still belonged to the Linden gods but first thing that morning I went over and caught up with Patrick, Izabella and Ravi. I told them about seeing the island appear during the night and someone made the comment that the mountain should be called Mt. Saint Jo in my honor. As a joke, I threw together a sign and planted it atop the mountain.

Funny thing is, the mountain is still there, and to top it all off, Bent and I are living on it. Our cabin is high above the sim on the north side of the mountain. We have the most wonderful view from our front porch.

I really love this place and it's people.

Joja and Bent Moving!

Bent and I are finally making the plunge and moving to Sailors Cove. Actually it's not that much of a plunge since I cut a deal with the property owner... reduced rent in exchange for my help with the theater.

The Sailors Cove sims are my favorite in SL. I first visited them when there was only one- Fishers Island. I've become good friends with many of the residents and it's the sense of community that has drawn me there.

There are now seven sims with more one the way. A wonderful community and will grow and grow..... what fun watching it take off.

Heath Elvehjem in SL and RL

What can I say, Bent and I are pretty lucky. We've had the extreme pleasure of having Heath Elvehjem (Heath Vercher in RL) visiting with us this week in RL. We even had the opportunity to watch him stream his regular weekly Galveston Island Show right from the salon of our boat.

Rather than repeat everything again, you can read all about it, and see the pictures on our RL Ships Log :)

Friends

I have so many friends, some of them very close. One of my good friends is Diana Allandale, a writer in real life (Diana Hunter).

A few weeks ago I attended a reading at her shop in Nantucket. There I met a gentleman in the publishing business who was looking into SL and what Diana does there. As it turns out, he wrote in his blog about that meeting and quoted me...omg :)

Second Fantasy is home

I've fallen in love and found a home for Second Fantasy, my Trucordia Yawl. She's docked now at the Tradewinds Yacht Club at Fisher's Island in the Sailor's Cove Sims. In addition to great sailing, Sailor's Cove has a beautiful Park and Theatre for live music concerts. The people are all great and Bent and I have had a great time hanging out there dancing in the clubhouse and playing SL trivia with friends.

After parking Second Fantasy I decided to celebrate by taking my little Tako out for a moonlight sail.... what a beautiful sight it was....

Updating

I know, I've been really bad about updating this blog. I just seems that I've been doing so much that by the time I'm done I'm exhausted and too tired to post about it.... and then by the time I remember to post I can't remember all I did because it was so much!

Concerts, Concerts, Concerts.... that seems to be my main occupation in SL and sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming. I've met so many of our wonderful SL musicians and sometimes I feel obligated to attend all of their concerts.... don't get me wrong, I love the music, adore the music but sometimes I really want to take a break and do some fun stuff.

I haven't sailed in a while, and have decided to take some time out and get some sailing in. I still really want to participate in racing but need to learn the courses. I'm excited about the new Tradewinds Yacht Club and plan to learn the new course they're preparing for the grand opening so that I can participate in the regatta.

Last night was fun, I only stayed online for a few minutes to be introduced to roller skating by my friend Chief. LOL.... another past time to get involved in.

Where to start!

Oh my gosh, there has been so much happening lately I don't know if I can catch up!... Let's see, where to start:

Jeff Tully:
I'm not sure how long Jeff has been performing in Second Life, but I'm so glad I found him. Jeff is a Country Music singer from my home town!! Wow.... how exciting. Not only is it exciting to find someone that you feel you have a special connection with, but to top it all off he has a fantastic voice.The show was pretty early in the afternoon and there were mostly girls there.... but us girls had a great time, line dancing and swooning to his sexy tunes.....ahh.... what fun.

Circe Broom:

Circe Broom was at the concert (of course) and while there she told us that a story had been written about her in the Baltimore Sun paper. It's a great story and I'm glad that she's my friend.


Heath Elvehjem:


Bent and I headed over to Nantucket to listen to Heath play. We arrived early and found Heath there alone. He was goofing around with an invisibility script and I kept finding pieces of him (hair and shirt cuffs) floating in the air. Fortunately I was the only one that saw it. Then he put on this funny hat and went "away". Bent took a seat in the sand next to him to protect him from possible muggers....

I took advantage of the poor guy and grabbed this shot..... I kinda like the way it turned out and gave him a copy... he said he liked it to....lol...

Bent and I left the concert a bit early because the lag was driving him crazy. We decided to go exploring and I took him to Unity City, a place that I had accidentally found the day before. It's really a beautiful place and they have some interesting sights to see there.

Elegance and smooth sultry sounds

One of the most beautiful clubs in Second Life has to be Club Egret on Gammet Island. It's a huge venue built in an art deco style. It is elegant, exclusive and has a strict dress code that enables the owner to maintain the uniqueness of it's environment.

I was excited to be there, and even bought a new gown just for the occasion, a live concert by Paisley Beebe and George Bing. Paisley, (Leonie Smith) and George (George Golla)are renowned Jazz artists from Austrailia.

Paisley looked exquisite in her white satin gown. I arrived very early and was standing in the back greeting other concert goers as they arrived. The dance floor quickly filled up when the music began. So many of my friends came, some bringing other friends to listen and dance to Paisley's smooth vocals and George's expert guitar.

Rumor has it that at one point there were over 90 people in attendance..... a HUGE crowd, all dressed up in their best evening gowns, suits and tuxedos. And you should have heard them talk. The compliments were flowing all around about how wonderful Paisley sounded and when she asked for requests the messages started flowing. I was too excited when she sang Nature Boy from their music CD Never The Less, one of my favorite tunes, probably because it references going to sea, and I just love anything that involves sailing :)

Most exciting night!

Whew... I'm so excited I don't even know where to start. Bent and I went shopping today to buy him a new suit. We've been going to so many concerts I wanted him to have something else to wear other than his tux. We found a really nice 3 piece suit with matching shoes and a hat, but unfortunately he can't wear the hat because it occupies the same space as his hair. We'll have to figure that one out.

We hopped over to Nantucket for a Jazz concert by Paisley Beebe. All I can say is WOW! What a voice! Paisley is Leonie Smith from Australia and has a smooth jazzy sound that is soothing and relaxing. She has several songs on her MySpace page and I couldn't resist but add the song "Nature Boy" to my own MySpace page. More to come on this, will have to see :) Word is also getting out about her because I found another blog by Cylindrian talking about how great her sound is too.

I have some work cut out for me during the next week!

Home Sweet Home...

Bent and I spent hours last night working on our house in the sky. I received an IM from our landlady about the group I had started so that the two of us can share ownership. She set up the group as the land owner and now the both of us can call the place as home. It's so strange having so many prims to work with and I've decided that I need to pick up a new living room and bedroom suite to make things look better. Right now we're still using all of the old stuff that I had in our apartment. While we were there the neighbors showed up and Bent teleported to ground level to introduce himself but they were very busy working on their house and didn't stop to chat with him. There's so much to learn about building but I was successful in creating a stairway up to the second floor so that we don't have to try to jump up there (it's very hard to fly when you're that far up in the sky). It's so cool having a place that we can change around to our suiting. Now I really need to organize my inventory and clean it up, I've got so much junk in there that I picked up at freebie warehouses. Sometimes you can find a treasure, but most of the time it's all junk.

Land!

Bent and I went to a Luigi Volare concert last night at a beautiful jazz club. Unfortunately the lag was awful (either that our our internet connection) and we both crashed several times.

After he headed to bed I logged off and just cruised the web a while and then I decided to check back in real quick and remove the contents of my apartment so that it won't be auto returned to me tomorrow. When I logged in I had an IM from Pat. He and I spoke earlier for a while and I explained what was happening with our apartment and told him that I was looking for land to rent or buy. The IM said that a lot had just come available on his island so I teleported over and took a look. It's a great deal... cheaper than what I'm paying for my premium membership so I took the land and will not renew the membership (don't need a premium membership to own/rent land on a private sim).

It's a very pretty quiet place. I spoke with the landlord and she's very nice. I've decided to put a garden on the ground and a platform in the sky for our home so we can have a little bit of privacy. Now comes the fun part... picking out the house and furnishing it :)

Starlight in Hollywood

Boy, do I love to dance! Every chance I get I want to be out there on the dance floor, trying all of the different moves. Last night Bent and I went to 5 O'clock Somewhere beach and listened to some Beach Boys and Jimmy Buffett, we danced for a little while and explored some too. When he logged off I got an IM from Chief. We chatted a bit and since I had heard that there was a party in Hollywood I invited him over to dance a bit.

The music was Jazzy and we stayed there until I received a message from EAF that Jamey was doing a radio show so we hopped over and joined the crowd. Heath and Kori were there and so was Lehua. Bent came back online and joined us for a bit. Had fun chatting with everyone and dancing for a short while with Bent. Unfortunately I crashed twice and finally gave up and headed to bed.

There's good news on the NYC. Cory, Jane and Francois are taking over the club and it should be replaced shortly. We have assurances from the new land owner that we'll still be able to sail. Will be interesting to see how the land changes though.

Death of the NYC?

I received a horrible note last night that the Nantucket Yacht Club is being disbanded!! Oh no! This morning there was a posting by Cory Copeland on the SLSF website that didn't explain much but asked for input from the members. I put my two cents in but sure would like to know what's going on.

I do know that Barb Carson has sold much of the East End sims, but don't know what that means as far as the yacht club is concerned or the Mystic shops where Diana has her bookstore.... sure wish they would let us know what's going on.

What a night!

Made it back online just in time for Diana Allendale's book reading. Diana writes erotic romance in real life under the pen name Diana Hunter. It was great to hear her voice live and she answered a lot of questions from her fans in attendance. I wish I had thought to take a picture. At the end of the session she said that she would give a free e-book to the third person that IM'd her.... lol... I got it! WOW! I'm so excited! I've already read one of her books and look forward to getting the rest of them. Now I need to get Bent to read them... hehe

After the reading, Bent came online and wanted to see something different so I took him to the Pyramid in Cairo. It's a beautiful sim and we walked around a bit and explored. While we were there we ran into Circe who owns the sim. She was so nice to us, and took us up to see her latest project, a duplicate of the original jazz club in SL that she's building. She hopes to be open within the next couple of weeks.

After Bent headed to bed I joined a friend at his home for a visit and tour. He's a really sweet guy and is partnered with a beautiful girl. Hope to get to know both of them better in the future.

More Concerts...

The two things I find myself doing more than anything else is going to concerts in SL. The EAF crew are just wonderful and I love the way the music relaxes me. My plan is to buy everyone's CD's so I can listen to them all the time :)

Just like a true Heath fan, I was carrying my Lucky Charms during the entire concert.

I found out something very very cool about one of my friends last night. He works for a large RL corporation that is active in SL. As a developer for this corporation he actually works in SL sometimes.... what a great job to have! He shared some of his visions for the future of SL and I could see it.... the possibilities are unbelievable.

Dancing with Bent

Bent joined me last night for a Louis Volare concert. Ahh... what a handsome couple!

He is so gorgeous and I love him dearly.... silly man that he is. I'm just going to have to work a little harder in training him :)

Beach Party at Bougainville Strait

It all started out as noon Tako races in Nantucket..... everyone was gathering at the start line. Everyone got off to a great start.... I was riding along with Berjo (gosh, I hope I spelled your name right :)) because I'm still having a problem getting lost :shock:






Rounding one of the islands we had a close encounter with Francois:











Not sure who won the race but a discussion ensued at the finish line about some new open water sims that had just come online:






It was agreed that we would all sail out there to take a look.... from my perspective we kinda got off to a rough start:










For some reason we kept running into Francois :P















Finally we all ended up at Bougainville Strait and had a little chat:

The racing was just awesome! Lag wasn't too bad but I'm still having problems with the race course. As soon as I get a chance I'm going to print out the course maps so that I can have them right with me to look at.... sure will be nice when the Beta .5 course map is updated :)