Snowy Hoobinoo's not at home, welcome Snowy Hoobinoo

2009 ended...in a way I didn't expect, SL and RL disasters and emergencies all piled up in the last few weeks and pushed me the edge of a burnout, also being let down by people in/out world did not help.

So, how to make a new start to 2010? by breaking away from it all of course :) and making some drastic decisions:

Epistems is gone, really gone, the lands rented for a few more weeks and ALL my plants/tree's etc are in a freebie box for anyone to grab. It was taking up too much time trying to play at business in SL and paying rent/keeping people happy etc was really becoming tedious. The quick realisation that I could just say behind at RL work for half an hour and earn the same amount with dare I say it more pleasure, just killed it dead. Incidentally just after the announcement by the Lab to crack down on errant items on xstreet my sales were decimated.

I had been working on several contracts for people in SL/VW's with RL pay towards the end of the year and was feeling good, almost to the point of allowing myself to dream of maybe one day taking this off as a career path. Then it started to hit, constant harassment, miscommunication, non payment etc and all the other pitfalls of working freelance, again sitting back and thinking hard about what I was doing I realised that a lot of those in VW's, no matter how far up the tree or how many sims they own, don't know the first thing about business and in a RL situation I would of written these of as flakes a long time ago. Hey....a RL situation? where real money changes hands, yep, took me FAR to long to get there and so, gone, unless a decent contract or spec is drawn up beforehand i'm not interested.

My inventory, gone, 6000 items now down to under 2500, keeping my textures etc but the rest is history, backed up onto a drive but in 6 months time, if i've not needed it, gone too.

Snowy Hoobinoo, plant creator and plant avatar, gone.

Snowy hoobinoo, metamorphosis of stupidity/fun and goodwill, arrived.

Free from constraints and commitments has really helped me to enjoy SL again in the past week, I could of created an alt but deep down I know, Snowy really is a part of who I am even to the extent of the name sticking to me in RL. Changes like this to me are more akin to buying a new set of clothes, something not quite you but more a step towards what you'd like to be, same here too, changing slowly, trying to find a path/place in an emerging world.

Still exploring, Blue Mars and Caledon are a step in the right direction, i've not met many people there yet but it looks like the devs are listening . Ignore the buzz and just see it for what it is, content creation is a little fiddly but becomes routine easily enough. Not too keen on having to learn yet another tool in Google Sketchup so i'm waiting till blender support is fully integrated.

Took a look at the opening offers for stores in Caledon, great incentives and I bet there are a few queuing up to make the most of the initial rush for content once the monetary system is in place.

But good things for the future, creative fires are burning, art show booked for March which if I can pull it off should be something very different for me. Building a series of alternatives to Linden Homes and amassing a new persona for myself, hoping to get more involved in the community as a whole and to make a difference , perhaps i'll stop being such a hermit.....:)