Musings on my 3rd rezday

I don't know what exactly made me sign up on that 9th of October back in 2006. I knew of Second Life before, in fact followed coverage of it loosely on BoingBoing.net - I even downloaded the client a few times but never took the final step to register. Back then a credit card was mandatory even for free accounts, and while I had a CC (not typical in my spot of the world) I was reluctant to use it.

But on that day, I made all these steps, registered my account, gave my credit card details, chose my name and logged in, stumbled my way over orientation island, talked to the parrot, made my first clumsy moves with camera control to see the back of that test-panel, lifted a stone and practised my object moving skill and finally climbed to the temple, leaped into the air, and flew into my new life.

My first months in SL were not the best. In retrospect I consider them lost time. I met the wrong people, hung out in the wrong places, and spent an incredibly silly amount of time with camping. When I look at "people my age" (read: signed up in fall 2006) many have more or less directly shaped this world for themselves. I was on the brink of leaving when I found my first real friends, people who made me stay, who are intelligent, creative and who give soul to this place. I am blessed with the ongoing friendship of some of them. Cake Kidd, Caterin Semyorka (though she is barely on anymore), lorinz Gloucester.

My Second Life got some structure when I founded Babel Translations in summer 2007. Babel posed a great and exciting challenge, Babel provided wonderful successes, Babel provided financial independence. And in the process of building Babel, new friends came. Tina Lynch and Gina Glimmer, who became a friend, a soul mate, finally in January 2008 my partner - and a while later my lover.

Real drama and artificial drama found me in 2008. My beloved Gina was forced to leave SL. A friend turned enemy over false claims - I got blackmailed and threatened in the process. But also good things happened. I found one of my closest friends and now my SL-sister Trinity Dechou, who helped me through the loss of Gina, and with who I forged a strong band of friendship. I found a new love, and while it ultimately did not last, I enjoyed the time with her very much. I renewed the friendship with London Spengler. I met one of the most amazing talents in SL - Ivanova Shostakovich - and founded GREENE concept with her. I came across Rika Watanabe's blog and when I met her in-world for the first time it "clicked" and we formed a strong friendship as well and find exceptional fun in working on projects with each other. And two other close friendships formed in 2008 - with the wonderful Quaintly Tuqiri and with the equally wonderful Zippora Zabelin.

This year - 2009 - started with a bang. Having been partnered for only a few weeks after having been together for almost 9 months, my partner broke up with me. While I was confused and also hurt at that time, it was the beginning of a new chapter in my SL. Being dragged to an event by my friend Nadine Nozaki to "get some brooding thoughts out of my mind" I discovered the Blacklist, a club which showed me the whole beauty of Second Life and the liberties to be whoever we want to be there. The Blacklist has become my favourite hangout where I can be found typically several times a week. I made friends there too, especially Lectra Forte, but also Hyang Zhao, Shye Kidd, Jo Soosung, Yoshimi Yoshikawa and many others.

In many aspects 2009 was the best year so far. I found love from unexpected and unusual sides, finally admitting the mutual feelings with London, but also - carefully and constantly surprised - finding out that I can love more than one person at once. While being with London - and actually encouraged by her - I finally allowed romantic feelings for another person who I unfortunately still can not name publicly. And finally there is Nissa Nightfire. I met Nissa the year before doing PR for my former partner when I contacted her as fashion blogger. We had occasional contact, but in 2009 the contact intensified, and we became friends. And the contact intensified more, and over the course of months, of slowly getting to know each other, we became lovers - something neither of us expected, but something that is thrilling each day anew.

By the time of posting this, there will be a party at the Blacklist to honor me. Nissa secretly planned the party, and from what I have seen during this day, she must have worked her lovely butt off with everything she arranged. As a thank you for organizing that, I spent quite some time and thought on an outfit I hope no one ever expected from me - King Peter I. of Beachwood.

I am blessed to have great friends! Blessed to have their affection, blessed to have their respect. Blessed that they opened their hearts and souls to me. Blessed to have two wonderful lovers. Blessed to have a great sister. There are so many of you not explicitely mentioned, but all of you make my life special, make my SL rich.

Thank you, thank you everybody I met over the past three years who I can call friend.

Thank you!

It's my rezday and I cry if I want to

I have an issue with birthdays, since I feel significantly younger than my biological age is. So I always feel a bit anxious when one is around. As SL is special to me, I hoped to make my first rezday last year special as well, so weeks in advance, I put out clues and hints to my friends, and hoped I could celebrate with them - alas none showed up. So this year I decided for myself to not mention it to anybody, so the potential disappointment would be not as drastic.

The first to remember it was my friend Ivanova, who started the congratulations shortly after Midnight SLT time on Plurk, and a lot of friends joined in. Later my close friend and SL sister Trinity joined in, and I received a lot of congratulations over the course of the day. That made me feel good.

Admittedly I was a bit disappointed that my girlfriend Skinkie did not seem to remeber, but when I finally took the courage to tell her she said she's notoriously bad at remembering birthdays at all. However she arranged an impromptu rezday party at the Code Red Lounge, where a lot of friends came and danced and had fun. I'm not the party animal, but I loved that so many folks stopped by. Late in the day, I even did Moggs Oceanlane's "Poppins RezDay Challenge".

So what happened in this last year? Most notably, I met two amazing women. Gina Glimmer, with who I developed a close and closer friendship, until she made me the most happy man in SL by accepting to become my partner in January. Unfortunately we only were granted 3 happy months together, followed by 3 painful months as she was forced to leave SL due to RL obligations. Yet I am deeply grateful to her, and consider myself lucky to see her still around and still have a close friendship to her. And then there is Skinkie Winkler, my girlfriend of over 3 months now, an incredibly "present" woman, who manages to root me firmly on the ground, and with whom I am so much in synch it's wonderful.

With my translation company "Babel Translations" being a success beyond imagination, I was able to take over a competitor early this year. On the business side I also founded "GREENE concept" with my friend Ivanova, developing furniture, and a business company with Trinity. Also Skinkie offered me to become part of her company and take care of the Sales & Marketing side - and I am glad to say my help made a difference.

Another highlight of the past year was also my appearance as Post 6 Guy in the SL Herald, which - as I got told - marked a special event in the Herald's history as it was the first Post 6 that attracted almost no nasty comments. May of my friends were portrayed since then - Trinity, Moggs and Gina, and even the photographer - Bunny - became a friend through this. Hope it's Ivanova's turn soon :-)

What I value most about the last year is the intensification of existing friendships, and finding new friends. The closest person to me (apart of course Skinkie) is my SL sister Trinity, and I only met her early this year by pure chance. I can not imagine how it would be without her friendship. We share openly personal thoughts and insights, and it is eerie how similar we are in many things. Ivanova comes to mind as well - I met her in Januray as a friend of Gina, and now we are very close and even run a company together. Dandellion is the only person I talk about politics a lot. We don't meet that often, but when we talk it usually goes on for hours. Quaintly commented on my blog (I still don't recall how she found it), and she became a very good friend in short time. Tarissa, who speed TPed into my office one day, and from which a long and funny friendship developed. There are a few young friendships, which still need to develop, and I hope to write about them next year. Unfortunately, there are friendships who suffered as well, and time will tell if they can be mended again.

My RL situation is a very difficult one - even became more difficult recently - and I value all of these freindships highly. Even considering the more negative events of the past year, I would not want to miss it for anything. Thank you all who made my SLife an enriching experience!

Rez-Day

So it's been a year now? Feels like at least 2 years, if not more. Time in SL is very compressed, and very "dense". Well, time to see how I score so far.

• Made friends: an inner core of about 10, and many acquaintants
• Made enemies: maybe one or two, but I don't really know
• Lindens seen: Alexa, Bub, Benjamin, Cornelius
• Lindens talked to: Bub, Philip, Qarl
• Lindens met: Phillip
• Celebrities met: Nicholaz Beresford, Nobody Fugazi, Tao Takashi, Caterin Semyorka
• Celebrities talked to: Blaze Columbia, Pavig Lok, Prokofy Neva, Mystical Cookie, Mykael Goodman, Vint Falken - and probably a couple more of whom I simply not knew their celebrity status or forgot about them or neglected them poorly or whatever - so stop complaining about not being in the list, it's nothing personal :-)
  
• Found romance: twice
• Found betrayal: once
• Married: once
• Divorced: no
• Camped: yes
• Stopped camping: yes
• Gambled: yes (lost)
  
• Stopped gambling: what a silly question
• Got hired: lots of odd jobs as chatbug finder, scripter, tester
• Hired someone: I signed up a lot of freelance translators for my SL-company
• Started a business: yes
• Bought land: no
• Rented land: yes
• Cashed in: once, 15 EUR
• Cashed out: not yet
  
• Got scammed: only with minor sums

Puh, can't think of anything more right now.

Stindberg. Peter Stindberg.

Hello, my name is Stindberg. Peter Stindberg. I was born on October 9, 2006 - which makes me an old hand by Second Life standards - and spent a brief youth on Orientation Island before I roamed around Waterhead. For what I can tell, I am controlled by a 30-something Human from Central Europe, despite the Scandinavian name He selected for me.

Certain things in Second Life come easy to me: early on I discovered a talent for building and scripting, as well as for creating textures and animations. My Human (or Humatar - Humi) seems to have some background in that aspect, though I often feel some kind of frustration seeping over from His dimension whenever I built something. Also my Humi seems to have a talent for languages, since you instructed me to open a translation business some time ago.

On the other hand, my Human does not seem to be a good businessman, since I barely ever get decent payment for the work I do. So He still did not provide a place for me to live - my office hardly counts - and I am forced to hang out with the hobos. That is, if I am not with my friends, which I tend to be very often. Lovely and charming Chey, the Volcano Princess, with her partner Xubi. Lorinz, of which I still don't know what to think. Kinky Annie, evenly kinky Sonne with her great music club, Milky whom I haven't meat in a while, Angelika who took a rather surprising career move recently, and a few other who'd probably rightfully protest if I don't name them.

To start this blog was my idea. Proof of my existence so far was only in-world, and I felt that I had to reach out beyond this, that I had to start an attempt at touching the Dimension my Human resides an. Though I never will be physical, I now have a foothold in His world.

I intend to talk about my world on a regular basis. I'd love if I could get some feedback.