Meeting, meeting, winter warmer

No of meetings attended: 2 (good); No. of trees felled: 8 (good); No of trees planted: 7 (good); No. of times have tagged a blog entry with the word "chocolate": 0 until today (surprising: in RL would probably have to tag every day "chocolate")
Invigorated by RL train journey through Peak District (from Manchester to Sheffield; trees and snow look amazing) attended UK SL educators "Second Tuesday" meeting. There were what might be called Usual Suspects in attendance and chat was pleasing mix of banter (new year resolutions; cats; feather costumes; that kind of thing) and useful convo re education. UK educator meetings seems to have higher banter-to-Serious-Stuff ratio which is OK by me. Had not visited Bangor sim (the venue) before so that also interesting.

Couple of hours later was the SL educators roundtable, now renamed in 21st century fashion "Virtual Worlds Educators Roundtable", since meetings also take place in other virtual worlds. Was load of people there and lots of discussion (loosely) around points that one of the Linden's had made in a sort of "state of the grid" blog post. Did not make much contribution and at one point inadvertantly turned Voice Chat on (when checking to see whether someone else had an open microphone, ironic really) and AJ IMed me about it, which is shaming. However, did not have any microphone device plugged in so do not think will have been making much noise, unless laptop was providing own conversational contributions without my knowledge.

Following this checked up on some of my homes; renewing rent on Babylon 5 room, returning a suspicious looking item to its owner from my main home, and also having a look at the African sim where Graham is renting some land. All the African heat reminded me that was intending to make Infolit even more wintery, so tp-ed back, adjusted the ground textures a bit to get full snow in NE corner of Infolit iSchool, and changed trees around greenhouse to wintery ones. Also added an extra winter deer and suddenly remembered had Hot Chocolate Hut in inventory, and put that in too. If you click the cups or dispensor you get mug of warming chocolate with usual drinking animation that throws beverage in rough direction of face. Can then go and bother the deer. No dogs though, please.

Happy New Year

Took advantage of Belle Belle Piano with Poses (free to Belle Belle groupmembers instore) that Dimitrova had helpfully placed on the snowy mountaintop on Infolit iSchool. Belle Belle items are beautifully crafted, but some of them have ... very FRIENDLY couple poses, ahem, ... however thought this one was rather cute.

Lest auld acquaintance

No. of months without blogging: 1 (bad); No. of friends selling homes in SL: 1 (bad) (but good for friend, hopefully)

Have been v. lax on blogging front due to various things including Xmas and RL visit to snowy Moscow. Was also hampered by curious fact that whilst using mobile broadband dongle with Internet Explorer was able to view blogs, order books online, Google, play vids on Youtube, do SL etc. etc., but not LOG IN to blogger.

Whenever attempted it, got minutes of "contacting blogger.com" followed by that enigmatic error page that appears "user friendly" but in fact gives you no more clue than ye olde error 404 (which internet veterans will remember fondly). Was probably punishment for using IE browser, since when tried Firefox today, was no prob at all. Curious.

Anyway, first couple of pics show of winter wonderland that is Infolit iSchool. As usual, conference platform has been turned into skating rink (first pic), with snow emitter, Xmas trees, free skates, skating poseballs, tankards of warm punch, festive cake and so forth.
Woodland area near Farradane centre is also fully snowed in (see 2nd pic). By now can find lots of stuff in own inventory by searching for "frosty" "snow" or "christmas", indeed have whole seasonal folder bursting with cheer. However, but did indulge in a few extra items, mostly trees.

Had a couple of presentation sessions to finish off year on Infolit iSchool which may blog seprately. Ishbel came along and was able to have a chat with her. 3rd pic shows us on the Info Literate sky platform.

She is giving up her home, Windygates - when last looked her lot was cleared up and offered for sale. Felt quite nostalgic - remembering first days with her and Citril, when we all lived within flying distance of each other (see early months of this blog). She isn't giving up on SL altogether, but isn't spending recreational time here so is sensible really, but still felt a bit melancholy.

Last picture shows Ishbel's plot: actually can quite understand need to move as has Acid House night club at end of garden, never exactly no. 1 on the favourite neighbour category.