Welcome to RyconFox

Evening everyone. I never know the right way to start posts like these when given an open subject matter to talk about. This morning the wife and I attended a funeral of her uncle who'd passed the week before. He'd given his lift for the the Cicero Fire Dept and then later retired in Arizona where he eventually found himself battling diabetes. After passing, his body was donated to science, was cremated, and sent back here in a pine box because his sister said that's how he'd end up if he didn't get his diabetes under control. Now its been a few years since I've attended a funeral for anyone in my immediate or extended family. Standing there with my wife and her grandma I kept thinking in my mind that in the end I'm the one that's going to be attending everyone's funeral - from my dad right on down to my wife. It's a sad line of thinking but when you've married into a family of medial problems, there's alot to think about. My wife's father suffers from a failed fused neck. My wife has PCOS, a weak heart, Gulf War Syndrome and other mental conditions on top of Colitis. My dad also suffers from Gulf War Syndrome plus high cholesterol and blood pressure. My dad has always been my hero for the way he does things and the way things get done. He's approaching 70 and he's still doing things like he did in his 50s. I'm not complaining. Far from it, and wouldn't trade these people for anything. It just feels like in the end, I'll be the one attending everyone's funeral. Guess we'll see what my mental state is then. I've had alot of people contact me on the forum lately since I haven't been on in awhile. No, I haven't given up E-Waste scrapping and continue to believe in being an end of life processor, however, I'm still looking for resources for material and where to sell that isn't Ebay. Once my stock gets sold, I'll start up scrapping again. In the meantime I've teamed up with a couple of websites that sell video games so I fixed my add that I'm consigning 1/2 sales with anyone who sells video games on the forum. Just recently sold a copy of Battlefield 4 for the 360 through one contact because the other was too low. I'm also still buying baseball cards and can tabs for rates listed. I think I've talked everyone's ear off enough tonight, so until next post- Stay Frosty, Rycon

     Hello Internet, alot's happened since posting last. I created this blog with the intent of sharing with everyone my thoughts, feelings, and views on the world around ,me. I've been having nightmares on and off the past few months and they've intensified this past month. The subject matter never leaves me with enough to remember but my wife Nicole says that their usually in reaction to whatever's on the TV(wither it be youtube, netflix, etc..).

     This morning's nightmare was different. This morning's nightmare was about the aftermath of my wife passing away and how I coped with the loss. I love my wife to death. We've been together for seven years and been married 3 years on the 10th of this year. I knew when we met that she had alot of mental and physical issues including PCOS and a weak heart. As a first time married couple we feel we have something most couples don't: Love. There's something in most of these couple's brains that clicks which usualy end in divorce after a couple of years of being married. We still have this connection, this bond, that's unbreakable. Do we argue? You bet - unless you were married in the 50s or 60s any married couple that's never argued once in their marriage needs to be evaluated. I explain a bit more about my marriage and how much I love my wife because when I have nightmares like this one, it hurts. It's a physical pain that wakes me up out of sleep like something's been torn from my chest. With it getting closer to the winter season, Nicole's gotten sicker faster. In fact we'd just gotten home from the hospital because she had blood in her stool that wouldn't stop. ER doctors says it's colidis. Last week when we were there it was something else.

     I thankfully don't get this type of nightmare very often, but when I do, it makes me re-evaluate things. If for some reason Nicole really did pass away, how would I handle it? Would I go insane? Would I be calm as I have been before when I'm around people and secretly cry it out? Would I get severe separation anxiety? Would I attempt suicide just to be with her? These are just a sample of things that run through my head in a matter of minutes when this type of nightmare wakes me up. Thankfully when I do wake up Nicole's right there to comfort me, as I am for her when she's in the hospital. I dread the one time I do wake up and she isn't there. The last time I had such a nightmare was a few months ago when again, she was in the hospital because of something. That time it was when we were told Nicole had a weak heart. I explained everything above to my dr and she put me on blood pressure pills because the stress these nightmares gives me could give me a heart attack(then Nicole would experience everything I would've experienced and I don't wish that on anyone).

     There's no moral to the story but it makes me feel better to write how i'm feeling, wither it be on a blog or talking with Nicole about it. I'm tearing every few words just writing it. I also just got done loosing my Aunt Karen to MS last month. She taught me how to live a little and to live life to it's fullest as it's too short to be stuck up. She taught me the proper way to play poker and told me stories about how when she was younger she use to smoke punks in a stock Buick Riveria. Her mom passed away 10 years before that from a fall in the house, It didn't seem to effect her as much I guess because she was around my dad and me, and felt it was important to try and pass on things that were taught to her so that I didn't come off so stuck up. Honestly I think she did it to rattle my mom because my mom was born from the then rich area of the island.


Thanks for listening internet,
Rycon

     So I hear OsGrid was down this past weekend due to server issues. This got me thinking about things and recalled a conversation I had with a friend last week about what needed to be done to bring stability to Second Life like clones. As it stands there's currently 3 major players in this "let's make the best virtual grid ever" game. You have Second Life, OsGrid, and InWorldz. You also have smaller grids poping up all the time and are offline just as quickly as they came. People from these grids who think they can hack it and host their own sim get a rude awaking with setup - download the server, open ports in your router, add the exceptions to firewall software, and hope everything goes good. The problem is 90% of these people either own computers who can't handle running both a server and a client at the same time or have internet that lets them host a sim, but can't invite any friends to come visit. I admit I'm better off then most. I pay for 100/100 true fibre optic internet and almost all the computers in the house are either quad-core or octo-core.

     Back to the conversation with my friend. We were discussing what we thought needed  to be done about these smaller grids that keep poping up everywhere and how to effectively bring people to InWorldz and keep them there. Most that come to InWorldz end up leaving the first day or a few days after. Why? Some have said they were tricked into visiting because it was better then Second Life and more stable then OsGrid. Once there, they realize InWorldz feels exactly like a clone of Second Life. To an extend their right. InWorldz is largely based off of OsGrid, which uses Opensim,which is a release of the Second Life software. The major differences being Second Life and InWorldz are closed non-hypergrid systems where as OsGrid is open, allowing anyone and everyone who wants to start up a server connect without much issue. The problem with being out in the open however is anyone can hypergrid to your server, steal your content, and go back to their grid where your objects now show up as theirs.

     Back before I'd even heard of InWorldz I'd hosted a 2x2 off my quad-core laptop and another 2 sims on a dual-core laptop in OsGrid. I had the then idea to create a furry hang out spot but as time wore on, it was evident why most things don't work in OsGrid. It wasn't until I'd downgraded to a single sim did furs start to visit and they came from their own personal grids, not from within OsGrid itself. Just walking around the mainland mall showed evidence that no one goes there. There's shops everywhere because there's no money system so it's all free.. but in the hour and a half i spent there, no one visited or passed by me. No one was on radar, leading one to conclude that OsGrid's a dead grid. I admit part of InWorldz are the same however, there's structure here. I was able to find people here within five minutes of creating an account. There were close to 200 active people on grid for the 4th of July(bots in InWorldz are scripts, not alts).

     The ideal solution would be to see OsGrid and all of those smaller grids go. Let the big dogs play.
Ever since their major server crash a few years back that saw Kitely, InWorldz, and other grids lend them money to get back and running, they've become a liability. Running on borrowed time before the next major crash ends them permanantly. It was just last year that French grid New World Grid finally called it quits and they were more along then most grids.


It's time to clean house.
Matt

     Man oh man has it been a fun few weeks. After I became DJ for Kicking Country, the sim owner decided to change the layout of the sim(which I was cool with) putting down 24 shops people count rent. Then decided to remove the race track on Xanadu Lake and put down an additional 24 shops people could rent. In the midst of that, the sim owner put Kicking Country in the middle of Xanadu Lake and gave me the center of Xanadu Plaza where I put up a Furry/Neko Welcome center with an additional club upstairs.
     Scrapping wise I could swear the summer brings out everyone who wants to get rid of stuff but doesn't want to lift a finger to deliver it or work with you. That and everyone wants to get rid of their CDs. Was also recently told that Best Buy has decided to stop taking CRTs for free, which I knew would happen sooner or later as Best Buy's in the market to make money. Doesn't matter to me as I don't accept CRTs no matter how good, how bad, or how many of them you have. Was talking to Upstate Shredding's staff about things and found out that some big shot from Canada came down and underhandedly bought Metallico, even though Ben had the majority shares. A lawsuit against this company was launched and they settled that this company would stay owner of Metallico but Ben would be allowed to keep his shares. Either way it made the stock price jump to over $10/share.
     Also learned Roth Steele was purchased by the city of Syracuse this past week. Their going to spend the money required to cleanup the mess Roth left behind and use the land for the Destiny USA Project that was proposed 5 years ago. I personally would love to see the project completed, as the setup looks nice(saw an overview image once). Also this week a company stepped in to save Great Northern Mall(which is good) and their going to try and bring the mall back to it's former glory so the business partner from the previous company can get paid(something like 65mil).

Fun stuff.
Stay Frosty Everyone,
Matt

Yep I'm a DJ in InWorldz, and my in-world daughter Sage is my host. I'd give away who she is in real life but she'd kill me so enjoy this picture of the club instead. My set's will be every friday from 7-9pm PST and if you can't make it in-world, we'll be using the FOUSE Radio stream so you can take the stream on the go or listen on your pc.

-Matt

    Been thinking long and hard since coming to InWorldz about how to best transfer over what the Fur Valleys is and what it means. My interpretation of the valleys is a collection of sims named after a animal with the name valley after it to provide a place for furs to do what they do best. If you look back into the history of the valleys, it started with one sim in the Chung Estates of SL and became it's own sim after disagreements. Since renting a fairly large parcel from Calia Estates, I decided to wonder over to their main office and discovered the sim I rent on is apart of a set of sailable sims right off the mainland called The Crystal Sea. This is a collection of 55 sims right off the Eastern part of the Mainland. I see this as the opportunity the valleys has been looking for.

    The idea would be to raise enough IZ to buy up the sims but keep them in the Calia Estates and have then renamed after an animal, and thereby renaming The Crystal Sea to The Fur Valleys. This would look good on both parties because it would show that Calia Estates is Fur/Neko friendly, and would provide a home for the valleys. Now comes the fun part: raising IZ to make it happen. By looking at the rental boards, it would take 192,000IZ to rent out a sim per month(roughly $350/mo). The valleys would start on Jersey and once that sim is rented out and becomes sustainable, I'd move on to Glenan as Crystal Pass is non-livable but is sailable. I don't expect anyone to jump on board with this unless their willing to toss cash at this to create a community. I believe the road's been pained, -Matt

After a talk with the wife, we decided to put some money down on a parcel in InWorldz. For those that come from Second Life or grids like it, this is worth it. Parcel's a 16,368m2 w/11,239 prims for $20/mo. Even started work on a cabin(yes, that's a mesh cabin). Cabin weighs in at 51 LI which isn't that bad when you have 11,000+ prims to play with lol.
  

    Decided to stop by the Scrap Metal Forum and wee what everyone was up to and nothing's changed. A few new people, a yard sale or two, and a bunch learning from their mistakes(which is always good). It reminded me of a similar set of issues I ran into. The first was in January. Ebay had seperated from Paypal which was good because the Paypal service has gotten better in releasing tools and stuff for merchants. I had attempted to reopen my consignment shop after getting all my fees paid off and was presented with a kind message from Ebay that my account was suspended from a conflict of interest. When I called to find out what was up, the person who didn't sound like they knew what they were talking about to being with, said that they added a clause to their rules that forbid consignment shops that conflict with their own consignment service. I proceeded to explain that this clause wasn't in their rules anywhere and the person hung up on me. I was like wtf and called back only to be prompted with a "you're number has been blocked from Ebay support". I didn't think anyone could do that, but lo and behold, it happened so - my consignment business has been effectively been put out of business.

    The second part to this story was this past March I enlisted with Etsy to sell the guitar picks i'd upcycled since my folks sent me a pick punch for Christmas. Things were going good, people were buying the picks and fees were taken care of until I received a notice from Etsy that they were raising their fees and were now going to tax all sales coming and going(poor business model imo). So I took my store down and am no over on Bonanza(which is where I was to begin with). I think I'm going to stay there unless something else happens. I swear, it's like 2016's become a continuation of 2015 in terms of business' fucking customers over and becoming overly offended. I've been staying off Facebook because of that crap.

    In the meantime, how about this snow in April, ae? lol. Snow is the indicator to stay indoors and away from the idiots that don't know how to drive(like the asian that was in the right lane about to turn right and decided to veer over into my lane, almost bumping me off the road. I honked and he gave me a blank stair like "what are you honking at"). I haven't fully given up E-Scrapping. The office is still a mess with towers and boxes but haven't had a chance to get things in order or bring in new inventory. It'd be nice to get sold what i've got which is what Ebay was for, but at this rate I may have to make another Bonanza store and sell what I've got on there. I feel cheated doing it that way but I feel I have no other choice. There was another auction site that I was apart of that I might look back into that was similar to Ebay but not as stickish.

-Matt

    I got bored and Zootopia's sweeping through the USA like a plague still so I went over to E621 just to see what was what after a bunch was posted over twitter, and was both shocked and amazed that it took 3 pages of cutness before the stuff got slutty, which is where I found this image. To those of us who've been in the fandom the longest, this image holds a special meaning. The furry fandom really didn't take off per say until about 1979/1980-ish, even though some were holding partys before that. The major thing at that time was Disney's 1967 classic Robin Hood about an anthropomorphic fox who rescues another anthropomorphic fox while fighting off a lion, a bear, and a snake. That move started a trend in people.. I mean, Maid Marion >^,^<.

    Ahemm.. anywho, this move and Aristocats started what is today's modern furry fandom. Yes true you had other movies the helped like Rockadoodle, but those two movies is where it began. The image depicted is Robin Hood passing on the torch sort of speak to Nick Wilde. You have a movie that was 100% marketed to the fandom by a company that are full of furs themselves(though no one but Roy will admit it) which outbeat Frozen! Nick Wilde will do for this generation and generations to follow what Robin Hood did for the previous generations and that is most awesome. I might be reading into it too much but I'm not alone. If you haven't seen Zootopia yet, go see it. -Rycon

Since coming to InWorldz a friend of the wife and mine works real close with RFL. So much so he gave me a house so I have a place I can set a home point to(instead of the back of the Gashapon shop). Enjoy the pix. -Ry

New project on the board as I slowly buy up the open shops in Xanadu Plaza: Freelance Real Estate. This shop will be set up to have estate listings throughout InWorldz. To the best of my knowledge no one else does it and I don't believe it breaks any TOS or agreements. I figured it would give me something to do as I think of product to shove into my Gashapon machines. -Rycon

     Yeah I know what I said but after posting what I posted and thought about it some more, having the Gashapon shop on it's own blog helps me when it comes to posting about new products and the like. Speaking of which, I have 2 shop spaces open next to me I'm trying to decide what to do with em. I either want to put a real estate office in one which will feature plots of land up for rent throughout InWorldz, and another type of shop in the other or two different types of shops or something... reply here and tell me what should go in there. It's an effort to make the mall look full as it's currently empty HOWEVER the sim owner has not endored nor supports this move but I'm sure would appreciate it. -Rycon

    Yep, I did it: I finally went avatar hunting in InWorldz(had to ditch the starter bunny, the ao was driving me nuts) and came across someone who ported over the Wingless avatars so I'm a fox again(I feel like myself again lol). I've also gone ahead and moved the Gashapon SL/IW! blog over here so I can keep them updated without cluttering up my blogger window.

    I've considered InWorldz to be my second home with Second Life being my first. I have the eventual goal of bringing 3, maybe 4 regions online to kickstart The Fur Valleys: InWorldz! to do our valleys in SL proud. I believe if it can be started here, it can become a huge success. The sims would be set up how the original valleys were set up with Fox Valley being the HQ/Welcome Center/Rental Agency, and most of everything else was residential. The only catch this time is the regions are going to cost $75/ea vs $1,000/ea and the upkeep is going to be $75/mo vs $300/mo. I'll also have the option to either bring online a full 45,000 region or regions with less prims like how the openspaces were, so this is going to be a nice venture. Only thing standing in my way is, you guessed it: funding. I have a page set up on GoFundMe for $400. What exactly will $400 do? $400 will bring 5 regions online for a month or 2 regions online for 2 months. I probably could've planned it out to pay for 5 regions for at least 6mos but that's a tad pricy at $2,250. I've also had the idea of bringing in people to be beneficiaries however, no one wants anything to do with anything. I've also had the idea of starting with one region and expand once rent levels off but that's been trying also. For now the plan is to get product into the Gashapon store, get it open, and save up profits from that to either later buy an estate from someone or cash the Izzies in to bring the sims online as the rate coming and going right now is $5=2500iz, so using that as a guide, I'd need $400 or 200,000iz.

In the meantime, enjoy the pics of me in the Wingless and image of the shop.

    Good Morning everyone, I sit here this morning contemplating the valleys final project: my last contribution. To those that know me and my avatar Rycon Bamaisin, I dabble in opensim alot as it's an alternative to build and do whatever I want without issue. Recently I was brought aside by one of the folks I relay with in SL and told about another virtual world that has everything OsGrid has and most of what SL has. Those that really know me know I like to be thorough and won't jump at something just to do it, so I started comparing InWorldz to Second Life and the differences are staggering.

        1. In SL a full 256x256 region contains a max of 15,000 prims whereas in Inworldz, a full
            256x256 region contains a max of 45,000 prims.

        2. In SL a full region costs $1,000 to set up and $300/mo to run. In InWorldz a full region costs
            $0 to set up and $75/mo to run.

        3.The exchange rate in SL fluxuates depending on how cheap or forgiving LL wants to be. In
            Inworldz the exchange rate is stable.

        4. In SL there use to be a discount applied to sim owners if they were able to bring people in,
            then got rid of it. In InWorldz, this discount still exists.

        5. In SL all the official bodies are close-minded and not willing to help anyone just to help
            anyone. In InWorldz, everyone around you is helpful and full of information.

        6. In SL uploads cost L$10/ea and mesh price is calculated. In Inworlds all uploads are free.


        This is why my contribution to the fur valleys will be done in stages where each stage somehow fundraises $750 to bring 10 regions online(there were 37 in the origional lineup). This will also help jump start the furry fandom in InWorldz where a fandom has yet to exist or survive. In doing this I would also attempt to bring origional valley owners Mako, Wolphin, and Foxkin over to make them valley owners as the price of regions and amount of prims per region should be exciting enough, but you never know. I'd also like to point out that if anyone steps forward and pruchases a region(s) or has an existing region that wants to joint the valleys, there would be a set of rules everyone would have to follow. These rules would become the Fur Valley Rules and all regions that make up the valleys would have to follow them.

    In creating the valleys, each region owner would become a valley owner and admins would become valley admins to further create the community aspect. Valley Owners would come together weekly to discuss things going on the valleys much like how community elders would come together to discuss things going on in their community. I was teetering on wither or not the regions should have the closed off island look that use to be there or have a more communial look like Bay City. Either way the valleys would be home to furs and nekos only but anyone could come and visit(wither a fur or neko is a region owner or not).

    I foresee several creative minds going to work scripting, sculpting, and building. Fox Valley would become the HQ for the valleys and would contain a welcome center, rental agency, and beach club spot for FOUSE radio. It would also start a snake of commercial properties that would start at Fox Valley and go down into Rabbit Valley. Furry Park would once again become the sandbox for the valleys. Cub Conclave/Kit Estates would reestablish the Cubfur area that use to exist there and would include a rp school and adoption center.

    This is where I stand. It's obvious it will only be a matter of time till all the major groups leave SL and I don't want to be left without an out. InWorldz has so much to offer. Yes alot of things we would have to remake or rescript but since uploads are free, remaking stuff should be that much easier. If anyone wishes to help contribute, please let me know by sending donations to paypal logansryche at gmail dot com with the subject line of Fur Valleys IW Donation.

Thanks everyone, Matt

     Morning everyone, it's 6am here on the east coast as I'm about to head to bed. If anyone's been over to the Team Fox Star blog, you'll notice it's now the Fouse Radio blog along with a final straw post. What happened? Well it's a long story but to sum it up I went over to the RFL site to go register Team Fox Star thinking that things had improved and to my disappointment, they got worse. I was greeted with a notice that teams now must have a minimum of 5 members. This is very off-putting as Sage and I have ran Team Fox Star by ourselves since we started Team Fox Star in 2013. We usually run into people who feel that by joining a team they can get something monetary out of RFL and when they don't, leave us in the dust.

     The second thing that I was greeted with was that all teams have to be named something PG and be ran in a PG environment. That may not be as severe as the 5 team member minimum but there are some groups that will miss out on RFL because of how they conduct themselves. RFL hasn't even started yet and I can already tell there's going to be issues. If Dwen was still the chair this wouldn't be an issue but this person they put in charge for 2015, this Random Darrow... really doesn't have as open a mind as her predecessor did which lead to butting heads over event content(even though they were clearly marked adult and done on adult marked sims) and caused several large contributing teams leave RFL. By the end of RFL 2015, more then 15 teams left over a wide range of issues.

     I have to give Random credit though for stepping up to the plate and not backing down when teams barked over comparing how Dwen ran RFL, or issues with vendors, or the other long list of issues that continued to grow. That's about all I'm giving her credit for. Random came from running a First Life team where the dynamics are different. There are things that you can do on a First Life team that you can't do or just doesn't apply when it comes to Second Life and it didn't seem like the message was getting through. Yes you can apply your knowledge of running a First Life team to running a Second Life team but running a virtual extension of the American Cancer Society you need to have more business orientated experience. Do I think Dwen made a mistake by naming Random his sucessor? No. He saw what she had done with her First Life teams and thought she could handle it.

     For 2016 the wife and I have decided to join Oldesoul and his team. That guy and his team work their tails off for everything that they do and am proud to have us and Fouse Radio at their disposal. I look forward to seeing how a real relay team operates where everyone looks after each other and relays because they feel it's right or because they've had or have a loved one with cancer instead of for monetary purposes.

Go Relay,
Matt

    What is done can't be undone. Yes I'm still ragging about Black Label closing and I'm not 100% sure why. I mean, I was their webmaster - not an owner or even or co-owner. The blog will remain in case anyone's curious. Today was my good friend Omni's rez day in SL and had a 13 hour dance event. If there's one thing us furs know how to do, it's put on a dance event. It's like it's on our DNA or something. It was ten years ago today the Omni came to SL and became friends with everyone.

    I think I've been had and I'm not entirely sure how that would've benefited the other party. I posted a thing on the SL forum that I was looking for someone to come help me set up funding for the save the Fur Valley project. Everything looked legit and then the dude disappeared. Logged off and hasn't been on for three weeks now and both his site and the site he created for my cause is offline. No L$ exchanged so I really don't know what his end game was, but after apologising to Cait over it, we talked about what they were working on to help strengthen the estate and came to the conclusion that the checkerboard pattern works best because each sim has a suround to give it that island feel and I consider that to be one of several things keeping Foxkin Estates afloat. Northstar also said no but that's their loss.

    We also agreed that I could keep the twitter account going as it seems to help at least a little bit to get the word out that we're here and at least 3 furs who follows the account stopped by for Omni's party which was awesome. This leads me to my next point. For me personally, I'd like to attempt to raise money to bring 3 regions online to fill the hole that currently exists between Neko Valley, Serenity Woods, Crawler Prime, and Howling Valley. The sims would be owned by myself and let me partake in ownership in the valleys. I talk about it like it's the Holly Grail or something and in my mind, it is. It was the first place I came to when I came to SL in 2007 and a place I've continued to give my loyalty to even as others have jumped ship for whatever bullshit reason they pull out their ass.

    The setup would rely on having control of both parcels on Ryu Valley so one can be turned into Fouse Radio Beach and the other would start the commercial sector that use to exist here. The first sim brought online would be named Racoon Valley and be 100% shops, but be beach so it looks like it belongs there. The second sim brought online would be named Vixen Valley and feature shops plus a convention center. This center would be experimental in potentially bringing physical cons into SL to eliminate several real world problems(cost being the main one). The third sim brought online would be named Kitsune Valley and would either be 100% rentable or become a private sim that mimics Kitsune Sea. The smart way would be to raise money and bring each sim online one at a time but if somehow I had enough funding to bring all three online at once, I would do so.

    I've become leary to crowdfunding as there's a 60/40 chance your idea is going to flop if either you don't have a starting market or people don't find your idea attractive enough to fund. I've thought about asking convention owners to see if they can help but I'm leary about that also because this has become more of a personal endeavor then a community thing even though having a convention center could benefit both real life cons and second life events/cons. I supoose time will tell and everything comes down to wording.

    Moved the Gashapon shop out of the Zen Mall as I could no longer afford to pay the rent over there and branched it off the Neko Valley telehub. I'd like to see the shop flourish where others disappear but again, everything takes time and money. What I'd really like to see is a sim of nothing but Goshapon only shops like they have in Japan but that's again, wishful thinking. Stay frosty, Matt

    Decided to finally post-cook the Valentines roast that never got cooked due to the wife getting sick(found out she's allergic to Clindomiasin) - it'd been sitting in the fridge since Valentines due to not having enough prep/cook time as there was always someone to take to an appointment or someone had to go somewhere else.

    Word on the Fur Valleys project is there is no word on the Fur Valleys project. I'm taking a more aggressive/business approach to getting the valleys back together because no one else has the spine to attempt it this way. Still waiting to hear from Gray Grayson wither or not him and Prancer are moving Northstar & Polaris over to form the new HQ. They would sit right below Wolf Valley and if we moved Bliss Kingdom over that forms the downtown. These 3 sims would become the commercial area of the valleys and if there was a way to connect Ryu Valley plus a full-sim sandbox, moving the other sims can go by the wayside for the moment.

    I stay in contact with Foxkins admins as I'm on friendly terms with a couple of them and they have their own idea on how to reformulate their sims as that's what's checker-boarded right now. I believe my way will not only reform the valleys, recreate the community that's apparent on Makos end of the valleys(Red's a lost cause since he could care less), and help rebuild the furry community in Second Life. I had to stop and think: ok, we're rebuilding the valleys but why? Why start now, why the valleys, what end goal is there? Then it hit me: the ending goal should be to attempt to create the furry fandom in SL. This would solve several RL issues like money and location expenses. -Ry

    I've gone ahead and brought back my can tab redemption program permanently now. The goal is the same: collect 24,000,000 tabs to yield roughly $5,000 by July 2016 to take the wife back to Disney World in December with a friend(have to pre-order to get the best deals), and currently have 4,389 tabs saved up. The wife's grandma started saving some and then got a few on her floor to save and I'm sure if I give it time, everyone in Brighton Towers will be saving them for me.

    So I leave this up to you: my readers... my base. If you have unwanted can tabs and are willing to send them to me, message me over twitter and I'll give you my address. Only have one or two? Send one or two. Have a crap-ton? Send a crap-ton. I'm not going to impose a minimum amount to send. A lady a few weeks ago send me 10 taped to an index card. The most I've ever had sent to me taped to a card was 30. If somehow by July I manage to raise 25-30,000,000 tabs, I'll invite someone else along with us picked from my twitter.

Stay frosty, Matt

      Many of those who follow me either in SL or through twitter know that I was rescently let go of webmastering the in-world extreme metal club Black Label. The entire thing was a shock because I'd just been paid earlier that morning and by afternoon they made the announcement that they were closing everything down: the club, the groups, the land: everything. Tried getting the owners to reconsider or leave it in trusted hands and just by the way the main owner talked about it, I knew her mind was up. Said the reasoning was internal that the both of them were tired of the wining and the lateness of the staff, and other things.

      From my prospective I can see why they closed. When I came to work for them in 2014 I was already picking up where a previous webmaster had either left or was fired or dropped off the face of the earth and it was up to me to fix this mess of a website they'd left me, which was fine because it let me creativity shine through and the end result was the layout that was there until the site went offline(which I have a backup of). I want to say it was probably late 2015 which I noticed that something was going on - either djs were late, staff was never around, or there was someone trying to pull rank over the owners which lead them to being booted from the club/sim but I mean, they always found a dj or host to fill a spot so the end result must have been in im's then what was said in the groups.

      As many in SL know, I run Fouse Radio with my wife and SL Partner Sage and I know from doing stuff with ESO with my brother-in-law that in both instances, we'd fight like dogs to keep someone from trying to take control of what we worked hard to keep afloat. We went through a similar thing with COD: Ghosts. A player named KSI(not KSI_Gotbobo but someone else) thought they could run EPiC Nation better and tried to take it over by ordering Kyle to give it to him. If there's one thing I've learned it's you don't order anyone to do anything unless you have the power to do so. He was promply kicked from the clan and reported to Microsoft, and then later banned for using a JTag'd Xbox. My point was that I've been there with dealing with those that think hostilly taking over something is the best way to do things.

      I remember telling the owners numrious times that if they ever needed anything or wanted someone to let me know but no, they were through so Black Label is no more. I know many of you reading this are probably thinking to yourselves 'yeah but it was theirs and they can do to it whatever they want' and for the most part that's true. I guess I feel partially responsible for keeping Black Label going because without a webmaster to keep the site and social media going, no one out there on the net's going to find it(and there are those in SL who search the net instead of SL's fucked up search pages for this stuff). How did this impact me directly? Well I lost my land. Without a paycheck to keep the tier up, landlords don't care about the why, just that they get paid so they can pay Linden Labs to keep their sim going. It's a vicious chain. Thinking back on it, I don't think even if they gave a heads up I'd feel any different. I still would've lost my land, and I'd still be here blogging about it. That might come off as one-sided to alot of readers and that's fine(I'm not going to apologise for it). The point to get across was that the owners could've sought other ways to keep the club open. It's too late now though. It's over. My rant's over.

Hello everyone, welcome to my personal blog. Here I'll be sharing my own thoughts on all matters no matter what they are. I'll start by sharing that i'm a steampunk/jurassic park/fallout/Second Life nut and i'm not afraid to talk about matters that go on with them. I'm an avid 80s purist which gets me in hot water when I get into then/now/ways of thinking debates. At the time of this intro I'm married, have 2 cats and a dog, live with the wife & her father and recently took on her step-brother so he didn't become homeless. I don't suit, but I'm a furry(another topic that gets me in trouble) when not many in the fandom were foxes(I think there was maybe 3 or 4 of us that were, now their everywhere). I drive a 2010 HHR but only because I have to as my ideal vehicle is an '84 F150 4wd(none of that EFI computer bullshit). Now that I've spilled my life story in a non-standard run-on paragraph, if you care to follow my ramblings, make sure to click the follow button.

Welcome to my world,
Ry