Ballooning at the Blake Sea (Updated with SLurl)

The invention of the GPS (Global Positioning System) and its adaptation and application for civilian use have improved my quality of life with at least 5%. It has saved me countless of hours of being lost and searching for the correct direction to go and of making excuses for being late.

I actually like getting lost sometimes, because then I get to go places and meet people I wouldn't have encountered otherwise, but most of the time I simply want to get from point A to point B as fast and easily as possible. Of course I have used written directions earlier and sometimes even maps, but it is so much easier to find your way with a GPS.

My lacking of sense of direction has undoubtedly stopped me from certain activities in first life, and perhaps even in SecondLife. 

 After the party at Whim - Part Deux yesterday evening Tomais suggested that we and Guyke should go ballooning. I was a little hesitant, but allowed myself to go along with the idea. Afterall "Home" is only a teleport away in SecondLife.

First we went to buy some amazing balloons. They were sold for L$10 and parachutes for L$0 by a fabulous creator who had left SecondLife after being dejected and upset by some changes Linden Lab had made to Marketplace. You can get the balloon and parachute here Abbotts Aeronautics (SLurl).

We promptly unpacked the balloons and Tomais took us to a location at the Blake Sea to start our adventure. First we simply had to - of course -texturize our balloons, which was easy with the beautiful textures that Tomais provided and a texture-HUD. (In the middle of the trip I felt adventurous enough to change my balloons texture to the McMillan tartan and Guyke changed textures too, which is why you see our balloons with different textures in the pictures.) That being done, we were ready for take off.

Tomais was an excellent instructor and was completely calm the whole time, although he himself crashed and had to relog in the middle of it all. He found us easily and hitched a ride on my balloon for the remainder of the trip. I felt very safe with his voice in my ears telling us how to maneuver the vessels, what speed and height to set and which direction to fly. 

A cute ass I happened to see over the sea 

Ah, I knew I recognized it!

We had a fantastic time up there in the air, but at some point we would have to land and I was a little worried about that part. What if I made a total fool of myself and landed us in the middle of the sea? Tomais shared some misadventures that had occurred the first times he had tried it, no doubt to take away some of our worries of feeling like fools.

Le Petit Prince

I needn't have worried though, because I did a perfect landing on the small island that Tomais had chosen, well apart from dunking the two of us in water briefly before hitting the designated landing spot dead-center. I was jubilant and elated over my fantastic achievement, Guyke was thrilled too because he also had a safe landing, but not as wonderful as mine. (I will never confess to Guyke, but between us I believe I had some really good beginners luck going for me there.)