SLife And Times: "Cleanup Week"

 

While starting up the Firestorm browser in the past few days, some residents might have noticed a "Cleanup Week" message. So just what is "Cleanup Week?" Well, fortunately there was a link to an entry in the Second Life wiki about it. 

Clean up your inventory sometime in Cleanup Week! Sometime during the first week in November, take 10 minutes to an hour cleaning up your inventory. Make sure that you purge that trash and put things in nice lil' folders!

 

According to the entry, the tradition was started in the Teen Grid by an Alpha Zaius. He suggested making the occasion a social event, "get together with friends and everyone call talk about the crap they have in their inventory." 

 

Personally, I take an occasional moment to clean things out a little, usually old notecards and landmarks. It can last from five minutes to five seconds as sometimes just as I think about my inventory and take a moment to clean up, I get messaged and forget about it.

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

Reader Submitted: Relay Track Clean-Up Crew

From Sandie Loxingly, taken on Monday, the day after the Relay Weekend, "Track clean-up crew is hard at work."

The Relay Track Comes Down

"All good things must come to an end." And so must the Relay Weekend track and it's camps. While the Fantasy Faire has risen in it's own right over the years, nothing has replaced the annual gathering of the Relay teams in a building of campsites and walking together, and raising funds

Sadly, we have to say goodbye to 2019 Relay Season. The sims will stay up until Thurs.  After that, all items left will go into the mystic with the sims. So please clean up before then. Thank you all for the most amazing Relay Season! We are here all season if you need anything! Stay tuned for awards notices and wrap up info too!

While a few builds had been taken down in the few days following the Relay Weekend, most stayed up until the Flood Party on Wednesday afternoon. After that, people started The Takedown. But not everything went down right away. In one case, a building was left half-sunken in the water.

A few teams, once taking down their camps, left a final message.

Team Sunbeamers would meet up one last time at the camp for a few team pictures. With over 400,000 Lindens raised and a campsite trophy under it's belt, it's been a good year for the team. But it might not be over yet. Word has it someone sent a large donation by mail to the RFL in SL in the team's name that once it clears will put the team well over 500,000, and Jade level status.

And so, the sun sets on another great Relay Weekend event. But the season's not over yet. A few teams have one more event. The season finally concludes on June 23 at 10AM with the "Relay Wrap-Up," in which the final awards for the year are given out. But the struggle against cancer won't stop until next year. In October is the "Making Strides" event that raises funds for breast cancer. And in December is the RFL spinoff event, the Christmas Expo.

For those wanting more pictures, you can check out

RFL in SL Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/groups/slrelayforlife/

Wildstar Beaumont: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wildstar_b/albums/72157708988008796

Ishtarkiss: https://www.flickr.com/groups/slrelayforlife/pool/ishtarskiss

Go Relay!

Bixyl Shuftan

RFL Camp Takedown Tomorrow, Flood Party Date and Time TBA

Today, Wednesday June 12 is the last full day you'll be able to see the Relay track sims. On Thursday June 13, the Relay teams will be asked to take down the campsites. So by Friday, pretty much all that will be left will be the roads. It is advised to drop by sooner rather than later today as already, people whom presumably will be out of town tomorrow have already been cleaning up.

Sometime today or tomorrow is a Relay tradition that's become a farewell to the sims, the "Flood Party" in which one of the sims gets filled with water, and the residents gather, usually in swimsuits and inner tubes. People in the Relay for Life Volunteer group are advised to keep checking notices for the time and place.

Update on Montecito Bay: The Holographic Tower

When I took a close look at the site of the UFO crash in Montecito Bay late last month, I expected the flying saucer and what appeared to be either a mannequin or a body that had somehow avoided decay to be taken away soon. And checking the place last weekend, as expected they were gone. But what I didn't expect was finding the site completely repaired and with a new tower that looked like it might have been made by someone not of this Earth.

The top of the structure was surrounded by what looked like a red holographic globe. Besides the structure was some bizarre-looking sculpture and unearthly-looking plants that had glowing leaves. Just beneath the top was a circular band that went around the tower, full of the same kind of symbols that were in club schedule updates prior to the Groundhog Day incident.

There didn't seem to be an obvious way up. I did see a pad that looked a little like those transporter pads in science-fiction shows. A way to the top of the tower? I hesitated to find out.

Another thing I noticed, or rather didn't notice, were the "street circles" in the pattern of crop circles that had been on town intersections for months. They were now all gone.

So what does this all mean? I had a few words with town mayor Lem Aiko (LemonPledge Resident), who told me that "Official statement, it was swamp gas," and wasn't in a position to say more. But he did get me in touch with someone who was willing to speak under a condition of anonymity, saying that they had been told to say nothing by the Feds, "I know what I know, and you saw what you saw. It was indeed E.T. but this time they waged war on our city. I was there when they shot the city up in their UFO's. why would they do that if it wasn't an act of war? We still don't know why the UFO went down, or even why they were here in the first place." Someone with him thought the saucer probably went down due to pilot error, though it was a guess. A second person joked, "I think they were going for the irresistible hot dog cart and totally missed, but that's just me."

Of the strange tower that suddenly went up, "The crazy guy who I made mention of before says the building was a peace offering. He was right last time, I would believe him about that. I just hope they don't do it again. It cost the city millions. That is also why we are redeveloping the area that was bombed. the UFO attack so severely damaged the infrastructure in that part of the city, it's cheaper to completely scrap the design and move on to something new."

So is this the last we'll hear about flying saucers around here? With that strange tower, I hesitate to say. Even so, Montecito Bay never seems to be quiet for very long. Something strange usually happens just after things begin to settle in a routine. There's already reports of strange small creatures that speak with a lisp and have a craving for clams and other shellfish. And of course, there's what will be going up in place of the torn town buildings, whatever it is.

Montecity Bay, signing off, for now.

Note: There was no actual alien attack, just people having some fun.

Bixyl Shuftan

Montecito Bay Update

Since my last look at Montecito Bay's damaged corner a week and a half ago, work has continued on the cleanups and repairs. The severely damaged buildings have been torn down. Although some of the area remains fenced off, a road and sidewalk now goes through what used to be rubble. While much remains to be done, much progress has been made.

But Montecito Bay being Montecito Bay, it didn't long for me to find some kind of weirdness. I noticed what looked like a severed horse's head in a burning bonfire. Was some mafia don wannabe trying to make an offer the town couldn't refuse? Or perhaps someone got the place confused with Nags head North Carolina? Since I didn't see who put it there, or who lit the fire, no idea, at least for now.

Running into Moff (MoffettMephit Resident), he did tell me there was an update on the "UFO crash site." "The Galleria site is cleaned up," he told me, "and the authorities are about to remove that thing." They still won't let the townsfolk what it is, "officially, we don't know what's going on at that site. But thankfully they seem to be finishing up and, we are hoping we'll have that part of our town back soon." As for their reaction to press coverage, "They did rough up Lem, tho, trying to figure out how the press got in (grin). Cuz, ya know, he's also the Mayor." He then backtracked a bit, "I'm sure it was just a thorough questioning with an order to never discuss what was said."

Stay tuned for more when additional information is available.

Note: The sim wasn't really griefed, or were any authorities for real involved. Just the people behind the sim having a little fun.

Bixyl Shuftan

Update on Montecito Bay Cleanup

Montecito Bay experiences no shortage of weirdness. But lately things have been getting weird and destructive. A few weeks ago, the southwest corner of the city was wrecked. Thankfully no one was hurt, and cleanup soon started. A few weeks later, the city is just about ready to rebuild. But the cleanup has also exposed some possible evidence of a previous incident, the crash of a strange craft in December.

Read the story in Places.

Cleanup in Montecito Bay Begins

It was a week and a half ago on February 2 that Montecito Bay experienced a number of buildings in the southwest corner of it's sim getting demolished. As everyone was partying in their newly opened Magnum Opus Lounge at the time, no one saw who or what caused the damage, though there was a picture taken of what looked like a flying saucer in the distance. After some going through the rubble by investigators, the cleanup and rebuilding has begun.

The crop-circle patterns on the streets are still glowing. Curiously, a new one has appeared at the sim's entry point, also glowing. As with the original patterns, no one knows how it came to be.

Some strange red stains that look suspiciously like blood splatters remain up. Presumably, investigations are continuing on what it really is and how long it's been up. No investigation findings of either the massive wreckage or the mystery spots have been made public.Neither has a date been given on when the cleanup and repairs are expected to be finished. One date that has been given is for the notices for the club events to be printed in color again instead of the basic black and white pictures they've been for the past two weeks, on February 18. Montecito Bay official Emorald told the Newser that the print shop normally used to make the notices was among those wrecked on Groundhog Day. It wasn't stated though whether or not they'd continue to have the strange hieroglyphic-like symbols on them that had been appearing for weeks.

Addition: Talking to Moff later today, he remarked, "... the cleanup is continuing. We have the Crux Construction Company working 'round the clock to at least get the place cleaned up. It might not get rebuilt right away, because there's all kinds of issues involved with rezoning. But at least we won't look like a junkyard for too much longer."

Stay tuned for more details.

Bixyl Shuftan

Note: The preceding is a fun article based on goings-on by the people of Montecito Bay themselves and not the actions of any griefer.

The Relay Track Comes Down

"All good things must come to an end." And so, the camps and track for last weekend's Relay Walk came down yesterday, Thursday July 23.

Just a reminder tomorrow is the day your builds should be torn down to prepare for the region return to Linden Labs. It is our practice to return items to builders by 9pm slt to ensure you don't lose your objects because when the regions are taken back, so are any remaining items! Lindens don't return them to you! Try to set aside time to gather up what you're most concerned about losing, if not all of your objects.  We are not responsible for lost  or missing items.

Camps had been coming down as soon as the night before. Throughout Thursday, the camps were taken down, and by early evening most were gone. Sections of track were taken up as well, with only the luminaria, and the occasional team sign of kiosk, to mark where they had been.

 Across the track, some people were still around, looking at what was left, or recollecting the fun and activity the sims had held earlier, now a part of the Relay's past.

Not all was somber though. There was one bit of last minute fun when someone replaced the T1 Radio sign with the "Team Stinky" one from previous Relays when "Stinky the Skunk" was a motivation to raise more cash.

Someone else passed around a kind of wheeled duck, which people rode upon across part of the grounds.(picture by Screaming Violet)

The one sim that in the end wasn't desolate was the American Cancer Society sim, part of the track  during the event, now returning to normal.

In the Relay chat were a number of comments, people looking back at the fun they had and looking forward to the future.

Thank you for making my first go as full captain of a team so awesome, everyone was so helpful and just plain out awesome!  Let's make the off-season and 2016 just as incredible.  Cancer knows no season--neither should we!

And so, one of Second Life's biggest yearly events truly comes to a close, with hundreds of participants. It's not the end of the Relay, the official close being Sunday August 16. And there will still be a few smaller Relay events in between, such as the Shadowmoon Dance tonight. But the Relay Walk was the high point of the season, with nothing quite like it.

For the Newser, it's also been an especially busy time, with our Fifth Anniversary, followed by the Second Life Birthday, and now the Relay. The busy time isn't over as there's still the Relay Walk article or two to do, along with a few other things that got postponed due to the event. The news never ends.

Bixyl Shuftan