Change Keeps Coming

So, after some consideration I closed the sim for Lightbridge.  The most important thing is to maintain balance, and the stress of trying to grow it was not something I could really endure - I had to be honest with myself.

There are a lot of maybes of things that I could have done differently, but the bottom line is that it wasn't growing anymore.  It felt like I hit a limit and what I had wasn't satisfactory.  I had a profound sense of waste, being the only one in the sim and hearing again and again how it was just too hard to get into the rp.  I thought differently, but that's not something you can just change people's minds about.

So upon suggestion from a friend, instead of closing completely, I downsized and moved - there is a village but it's atop my new home on a half homestead, instead of having a full homestead and only a closet's worth of prims for a home away from the rp.  And I love my home:



Life rebalances itself, and in the end, I always come back to the water.

New Skin

I'm so excited about it I have to put it somewhere... I got this gorgeous new skin from :Genesis: by Ryker Beck. Candace, in Coconut skin tone.

Ryker's work is exquisite, and it is, so far, the best skin for this sailing gal's body. If you want to take pictures, this is definitely one to try. So far it comes in 8 makeups but Ryker has more fun and pretty makeups in the pipeline.

Sailing gives me an excuse to wear all those swimsuits I've bought, and I love that this skin will make the whole image even better.

Broken Habits

One of the things that surprised me about myself in Second Life is learning just how much of a girly-girl I am on the inside, and how much I like jewelry. It didn't take long to lose the noob fascination with bling, but I still love beautiful jewelry. But now that I've taken up sailing, my jewelry habit is broken.

How did that happen?

Well, one day when I was busy tempting myself at Jacqueline Trudeau's shipyard, I came across a gal who told me about my Avatar Rendering Cost, or ARC. It was well over 8000(!). Although some of that could be attributed to my hair, shoes, etc., it was primarily my jewelry - a rose quartz starflake set from Alienbear Designs.

The gal had an extremely low ARC, just 59. She was barefoot, with no jewelry or any attachments. She said that it helped in sim crossings to have less prims attached to my person, and that I should only wear the minimum amount necessary. Interesante.

Now me, I like to look pretty and look like a lady - so I normally wear a full gamut of stuff: prim hair, eyelashes, nails, jewelry, and some kind of shoe. I even have some animated eyes from Insolence that require prims. And of course, my other attachments - my hugger, Mystitool implant, etc.

All this stuff adds up.

So I boned up on what factors increase the avatar rendering cost by digging out the old blog post on it. For this blog entry, however, I have linked to the wiki, which is good enough.

As such, when sailing, I am now almost as bare as I can be, attachment-wise. I lose the nailpolish, take off the shoes, and use a standard set of eyes. Although I am vain enough to keep my eyelashes on... but no jewelry.

Sniffle.

Oh well, if it will reduce rubberbanding and getting left behind by my yacht, I'm all for it.