News From Dej's Family

Today I received an email from Dej's first life brother Andy.

"Hi [Bock],

I heard from the medical examiner and it turns out that [Dej] had bacterial pneumonia. It was a very bad infection that he probably had for some time and it went untreated. We are all very surprised that he didn't reach out to anyone including a doctor or hospital since antibiotics would probably have saved his life. We shall never know why he chose this path. I am so very glad he had a good friend in you for all those years. He struggled to get along with people so you must have been very special to him. Thanks for your friendship with my brother [Dej].

Andy"

This is my response to Andy.

"Hello Andy,

Thank you so much for the update!

Mike had an ugly cough for a long time, but for some reason, he refused to see a doctor about it - despite much nagging from me. It is sad to realize that something so simple as a cure of antibiotics most likely would have saved his life.

I am sending you the words I shared at the memorial we had for [Dej] and two of the many hundreds of pictures [Dej] has shared with me over the years. Both the pictures are several years old (SL avatars look much better these days). The one called “Mother of the Bride” is one [Dej] sent me when I was getting partnered, while the one called “Dej at his downfall” shows him standing at a place on the sim were I used to accuse him of ditching his husbands and “all” his lovers (I put lots of skeletons in the waters below to represent the “tons, and tons of men laying there” – a gross exaggeration, but we had fun about it anyway.)

As long as I remain in SecondLife and have the sim, Dej’s downfall will always remain. Dej will also share a memorial on the sim with my former partner Ars, who like his brother [Dej] also died of - untreated - double pneumonia in 2010. (What is it with Americans and health care?) 

Dej was very dear to me and it was a pleasure to have been a part of his life.

Thanks again for the information, Andy.

All my best wishes to you and the rest of Mike’s family in [first] life,[Bock]"

The pictures I attached to the response were these two.

"Mother of the Bride" (March 8, 2014)

"Dej at his downfall"

New Blog Header - Late Summer 2018

Bock in SecondLife's art director and my husband, Tomais Ashdene, has made a new header for the late summer season of 2018. There has been so much happening in our first lives and our SecondLife earlier this year, so we have not had much time to think about it before, and even less time to actually do it.

This header is already one of my favorites. Thank you so much, my darling!

Am I Heat-Crazed If I Feel That It's Much Cooler When The Temperature Drops From 32 °C To 28 °C?

Petrolicious Has Balls of Kevlar!

My friend Petr Hastings-Vanbeeck, whom I lovingly call Petrolicious since he started referring to me as Bockalicious, today accepted my challenge to post a picture of himself on social media wearing one of the beautiful garlands from LODE.

He did need a reminder, but that is quite understandable for avatars of our age. We have so many important things to do and to think about and so many priorities you younger folks cannot even dream of.

P.S. I originally misspelled poor Petr's last name, it's 1) Hastings with an "s", 2) Vanbeeck with a "c" and 3) a hyphen inbetween. *sigh*

I Love America & Americans!

I wanted to share this old photo with Y'all, out of my love for America and all my American friends! pic.twitter.com/Y2rleJZ2uu

— Bock McMillan™ (@BockMcMillan) July 29, 2018

Going For Shock Value

Imagine, the most fashion-forward person in your life, yup that's I, doing something of a never-heard-of-before magnitude to disturb your peace of mind and complacency.

Here you see the Much Honored Bock McMillan in the "Hiking Sandals" from Lenox. (Whoever heard of hiking sandals before?) Yes, I am  (for once) wearing socks with sandals.

Well, I look good and my legs look totes adorbs and lickable, wouldn't you agree?

Another Hero

"But here’s an unpopular opinion: Months ago, after all of the Cambridge Analytica scandal had broken, and we already knew about their role in the election and fake news, Mark Zuckerberg told us all that he planned on significantly increasing Facebook’s investment in security, and would add thousands of new employees to help that cause.

This is what he told the US Congress in April:
“I’ve directed our teams to invest so much insecurity — on top of the other investments we’re making — that it will significantly impact our profitability going forward.”

And then he added, for extra oomph.

“But I want to be clear about what our priority is: protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits.”

Many didn’t believe him. Many tweeted about all the times that he’s talked the talk, but not walked the walk. But yesterday, when Facebook faced the music and took $120 billion on the chin, the fact that Zuckerberg finally walked the walk was conveniently absent from the conversation.

Here is the unpopular reality:

Mark Zuckerberg told us all he would put our safety, and fixing the problems of Facebook ahead of profits. He did that. Wall Street may not have liked it, but there’s no way around it: the man held true to his word." (Alex Whitcomb, @medium.com. Read the full article here.)