Meet Bilbo

This is Bilbo, who - if all goes well - hopefully, will be my companion and flatmate in first life from September 21, 2019.

Bilbo in the hands of my brother-in-law

Bilbo was born on July 27, 2019, and is a feisty little French Bulldog puppy. We are already the best of friends and I hope it will continue that way.

18 Years Ago

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at around 2 PM local time, I was in bed and taking a nap. The day before I had returned back home after being in a hospital for a week and receiving five bags of blood. In a routine physical check-up, it was discovered that my blood count was dangerously low.

I was awoken by a telephone call from my father, who told me to turn on the television because "there are things going on in New York". I thought of going back to sleep, but my curiosity got the better of me so I turned on the TV and started watching the eerie live broadcast from New York City where the North Tower of the World Trade Center was burning.

About ten minutes after I started watching the broadcast the events of the picture started to unfold. A plane was seen flying closer and it became clear that it was aiming for the South Tower. It struck the tower at 3:03PM my time, 9:03AM New York Time, and a big ball of fire erupted from the place of impact. Smoke was now billowing from both towers.

I was stunned, like the rest of civilization, by this vehement terrorist attack happening in broad daylight and playing out on color-TV.

I stayed close to the television all through the night. The other attempted attacks were reported. And the numbers of the people killed and wounded rose by the hour. 

The final count says 2,996 people were killed (including the 19 hijackers) and more than 6,000 others injured. Additionally, 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City. There were more people killed in places outside New York City.

Life for us, the lucky ones, continued but the world as we know it changed. We lost a kind of innocence that day with the over 3,000 deaths. Little by little, new agencies and lots of regulations and restrictions were put in place to try to prevent similar attacks from ever occurring again.

---

On a day like this, it is good to remember the past, the victims of terror whether killed, mutilated or hurt, and hope and work so that we may never experience anything as horrendous again. 

The LGBT+ Gateway to SecondLife Has Opened

It is with great pride I can now announce that the LGBT+ Gateway to SecondLife at SecondPride - after much delay - finally opened at the end of August 2019.

Newcomers who use that entryway will be dropped into the SL 101 learning area at Second Pride. The area is constructed as a building site that the new resident goes through to learn the basics of being a resident in SecondLife. The area was designed and built by Tomais Ashdene, my husband, and his daughter Kerowyn Kirke.

There is an entryway on the Second Pride website (url), but I will put one on this blog as well.

No Se Me Quita

Two Puerto Rican hotties join up with a bunch of hot Puerto Rican women and one of the men gets the kiss of life à la Baywatch, sadly not from the other guy... but that's just my opinion. 

Tenth Blogoversary

Bock in SecondLife was first started on August 25, 2009, so today is the blogs tenth anniversary. Here's a link to the first post ever (it's in Swedish).

Before moving on to the singing, cheering and toasting with champagne in crystal glasses lets summarize the blog's existence with a few numbers.

During the nine years, the blog has accumulated
992,670 pageviews (since June 1, 2010),
4,281 posts and
129 followers

Please, all rise and join me in singing to the blog.

For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog
For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny
Which nobody can deny, which nobody can deny
For it's a jolly good blog, for it's a jolly good blog
For it's a jolly good blog (pause for 4 beats), which nobody can deny!
Three cheers to Bock in SecondLife, Hip, hip!

Hooray!
Hooray!
Hooooraaaaaaaay!

Be Very Afraid

If @BorisJohnson gets elected to become the new British PM it would mean we would have two unhinged narcissists as leaders of two superpowers with nuclear capacity and a power-hungry megalomaniac Russian as leader of the third. Yikes, scary thought!#HowtheWorldEnds

— Bock McMillan™ (@BockMcMillan) July 23, 2019

Love Made in SecondLife

Draxtor Despres and SecondLife have a series of documentaries (five so far, but more to come) running on YouTube about how people meet and fall in love in SecondLife and carry that love over into first life.

Imagine being 71 y.o. living comfortably in the USA and then packing everything up to move to the UK after meeting the love of your life in SecondLife. Well, they had known each other for over ten years in SecondLife so it wasn't as if they were strangers.

You can find the YouTube playlist here: Love Made in SecondLife (url) (As always like, comment and share!)

Draxtor has told me that he is still looking for couples who want to share their stories with us. If you feel like it, you should drop a notecard on his profile in-world or better yet send him an email: drax@draxtor.com.