Putting it All Back Together

About a month ago, Linden Labs made a mistake and seized my home parcel. I've been fighting with tickets and live concierge support trying to get this all straightened out and had given up on getting it all resolved. It took them 2 1/2 weeks to take action on my ticket, but they finally delivered my cherished retreat back to me. The only problem was that I would have to put everything back the way it was and all of it had been returned in clusters. I didn't know where anything was! What made things worse is that under normal circumstances everything in those clusters *should* be in the same position it was in when it was returned... it was all a scrambled mess. Lag can do strange things in Second Life and there are no hard "laws" of physics there. I began the tedious task of rezzing a little at a time, taking it back into my inventory piece by piece, and replacing everything where it was. Some of my stuff is still missing, but I did retrieve my bathroom sink that had managed to rez at 4000 meters above sea level and my Xcite bed that had ended up floating in the sky above a neighbor's house in the next sim. I've finally gotten everything back fairly close to where it was and I'm very happy to have my beautiful retreat back.

After working for 2 days on the parcel, I began to look at front lagoon (there are 2 lagoons on my property). It was very simple and not much had been done to it except for a waterfall and dock. This place needed work! My friend Neph found some waves and splashes in his inventory and he stirred up the water a bit and also placed a huge rock in the middle of the lagoon. I immediately took my mermaid form and got into the water!

I know in my first post I told you I was a vampire... but this is Second Life! I can be whatever I want to be! Natalia Zelmanov has written a wonderful blog, Mermaid Diaries, complete with tutorials and her adventures as a mermaid. She was my inspiration to become a part time mermaid and she has lots of cool stuff in her store, Sirena Hair (not just hair btw). She even has a tutorial on how to become a mermaid! Stop by and check her out!!! She has become one of my favorite bloggers as well as hair designers! That hair I'm wearing in the mermaid pic is one of hers :P

After putting in waves, rocks, and mermaid pose balls, I decided I needed some fun sea creatures to share my time in the lagoon with. I visited Animania. They have some of the coolest animals on the grid! I was greeted by a curious dragonfly and a sweet hummingbird on arrival! If you join the group you can even get a free gift! There are teleporters directly in front of the landing point that will take you straight to the animals that you are interested in. There are so many varieties of animals that do all sorts of things. All are animated and they have a very realistic look to them. I found "Sea Life" among the teleporters and began my shopping.

After my visit to Animania, and being quite a few Linden lighter in the purse (I managed to spend a couple thousand Linden), I headed back to New Tolmussen to introduce my new friends into their home. I purchased a bottle nose dolphin, a manta ray, a few fish, and some aquatic plants. The Orca in the background was from Animania as well, but I got her on a previous trip :P

The dolphin was easy to set up. All I had to do is drop him in the water and follow the blue menu answering questions about how far he was allowed to swim, how often to jump, and all the sorts of things that dolphins do. The manta ray was a little more difficult for me. He has to have a rock that tells him how far he can venture and my lagoon wasn't quite as large as he needed. I kept getting a message that his swim area was too close to the next sim and he could be lost... and he did end up getting lost. Animania does have a cool feature that will allow your animal to email you and let you know that he is lost and where to come and retrieve him though.

After adding in my new friends, It was time to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labor. My parcel was returned to me, *almost* all of my precious possessions were back in place, and I had a beautiful lagoon filled with gorgeous living creatures. What more can a vampire/mermaid ask for in a day's work?

Hmmmmm.... does that make me one of those evil sirens???