I’m what some people call a “super-wheeler” or if you’re a member of the physically challenged community you could call me a “super-crip”. Since I earned a university degree and had a successful career as a professional staff member of an investigative organization. Then after I took early retirement and designed my own house. All while being in a wheelchair.

Now that I have time for myself I am a learning gourmet cook, an accomplished photographer, and spend a lot of time in a virtual world called Second Life.

I started seriously cooking in February of 2017. I may be just learning but I think I’ve prepared some interesting dishes. All those years watching the food channel haven’t been wasted. On the left is my Asparagus and Arugula Pesto Pizza with Pink Lemon Ricotta. I also designed an accommodating kitchen for myself. I’ll add a page later about that later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lately except food photography of my own dishes most of my work takes place in Second Life. If you look at my Flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tarotgrove you can see some of my work. If you look far enough in the site you’ll find some of my real-life images also.  I’ve also branched out into making video or machinima of Second Life. While a few of those videos are on Flickr here is one of my early efforts at making a music video with a Second Life theme. https://adobe.ly/2oJvxqv No copyright infringement was intended but I think  the lyrics need to be shown from a Second Life perspective. The photography on the left is a still image I made in Second Life.

I spend a lot of time in the virtual world of Second Life. Some may call it just a trivial and inconsequential game but it is a lot more than that. Here is a link to a video I made in 2015. https://adobe.ly/2oq362a Our appearance is out of date but most of the reasons haven’t changed. What you get out of Second Life is depends on how much you put into it and a lot of people including me put a lot into this virtual world. As you can see from my video there a lot to do in this virtual world. A lot of people including me put a lot of effort into this virtual world.

I know it is considered bad literary form to repeat the words or phrases in writing but it is deliberate because a lot describes many things in Second Life. Most people don’t realize it the but the population of Second Life is approximately nine hundred thousand. That is a lot. That is larger than some countries. In mid-2017 the number of concurrent user’s peaks at over fifty thousand people a day. And those people are from around the world. Want to get to know someone from India well this is a place. BTW that is couple more of a lots.

Charity is a big activity in this virtual world since 2005 the Relay for Life of Second Life has raised over three million US dollars for cancer research and patient care. That is another a lot.

I mentioned in the video that some people make their real-life living in Second Life. It’s estimated that they take around sixty million dollars out of this “trivial game”. That is another a lot. 

The picture is how my partner and I looked in 2017. Second Life keeps developing. This virtual world is mostly user designed and build so a lot is going on.

Willow is also in the virtual worlds of Kitely and Inworldz. I’m not in those worlds as much as Second Life.

Kitely Home

While Kitely is technically interesting and may be the future of virtual worlds it is a little too “geeky” for me. I spent a couple of decades working professionally with computer systems and I don’t want to spend my time trying to figure out how something technically works. I’m also not fond of the its every sim is its own world data setup that is only loaded when someone accesses it.

Inworldz Home

The Inworldz world is almost the same as Second Life but without the exorbitant land prices.

Inworldz Home Interior

In my opinion Kitely and Inworldz are hindered by not having enough population. Since I’m in virtual for social reasons so that is a problem.

Since Sansar may eventually supplant Second Life; I know LL says it won’t but with the haphazard way they do thing who really knows. So, it may be a good idea to keep your options open if it doesn’t cost too much.