Carol H Tucker Passionate about knowledge management and organizational development, expert in loan servicing, virtual world denizen and community facilitator, and a DISNEY fan
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beladona Memorial Be warned:in this very rich environment where you can immerse yourself so completely, your emotions will become engaged -- and not everyone is cognizant of that. Among the many excellent features of SL, there is no auto-return on hearts, so be wary of where your's wanders...
San Diego is a great city -- wish I could've spent more time there! The user meeting was very good too -- worth the trip. And SW Airlines rocks. But it is always good to come home, neh?
A comment was made in passing about April being National Poetry Month. That startled me -- I didn't know that! Apparently it was designated such back in 1996 and was designed to emulate the success of Februray being National Black History month. Totally off my radar -- so I went out looking for a resource that would tell me what I should be looking for this month and found What's Happening at http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/4observing.html as well as the usual Wikipedia information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April and it would appear that in addition to hosting poetry, April is:
Sexual Assualt Awareness month -- that one was just added 04.01.10 so I don't feel as bad for not realizing that
Autism Awareness month -- the Autism Society claims to have been celebrating this since 1970; over forty years and I had never heard of it!
National Kite month -- this makes little sense, isn't March supposed to be the windy one?
National Frog month -- the frogs have their own day too! Please mark April 29th on your calendar and make sure that you schedule time to learn about this little critter...
National Garden month -- wouldn't this make more sense if it was May? "April showers bring May flowers" and all that... Who wants to go out and dig in the dirt in the rain?
Financial Literacy month -- now this one used to impact me because C&F [my old community bank where I worked for 12 years] used to encourage us to get involved with local schools , but I had forgotten it was April
California Earthquake Preparedness month
National Humor month
National Mathmatics Education month -- well I guess financial literacy does require a certain amount of mathematical expertise as well as common sense?
Zoo and Acquarium month
There are a LOT more -- mosey on over to http://www.brownielocks.com/april.html if you have time and take a look. I am often surprised when someone will say something about the day being special [well except for it being my unbirthday]. I am not the only one, so here are some things being celebrated on this 97th day of the year:
Ugadi -- happy New Year! After Holi, which I thought was a really fun celebration, I have decided that I seriously need to pay more attention to India
World Health Day -- declared by the World Health Organization and first celebrated back in 1950. Did you know each year had a theme? Me neither. This year's is Anti-microbial resistance: no action today, no cure tomorrow
ASPCA day and International Beaver day -- stealing the frog's limelight?
I have to admit that I really like the sound of No Housework day
Sometimes we just get caught up in the daily grind and we forget that life is what happens each minute, neh? There is a reason to celebrate each day when you come right down to it because the present is all we really have....
Another weekend spent mollycoddling myself, sitting at the computer and meandering around in world, or reading, or playing games, watching Superman movies or reading, and catching up on my sleep. Oh, and of course, Saturday was spent with Craig and Gem [see the previous post].... Still trying to cope with the concept of being OVER sixty.
My mother had told the story a couple of times when I was growing up, how she was in labor for 23 hours and I was born at 12:05. I always bragged about my timing -- missing April Fool's Day by five minutes. I drew up natal horoscopes in college showing my sun sign [fire], my moon sign [air] and my rising sign [fire] -- the latter two being dependent on the time of birth.
My mother knew all this of course.
When she moved in with me briefly in 2007, one of the things she told me with that shitty particularly nasty smirk and hateful look spiteful gleam in her eye, was that it was 12:05 PM not 12:05 AM and that I have been wrong all these years. Was this part of the dementia? Was this something that she knew all along and kept from me all those years, laughing at me? The joke is on me either way, neh?
I guess I could try and find the records from 1950 and find out, but I haven't.
Everyone loves to get flowers at work. Kit has sent me bouquets for my birthday every year for the past 25 years!
My friend Kit goes through TVs – she ends up getting a new one about very 2 ½ to 3 years for one reason or another. Her latest TV was a huge screen – well it looks huge to me at 29” – and it is almost as light as a computer monitor! It is high definition and the quality of the images are really outstanding. But when it comes to her PC, she has had the same desktop model for almost 10 years – a real workhorse of a Dell that has just kept chugging on and on and on. The difference is that she uses her TV almost constantly; there are weeks when she has been home and the TV has not been turned off. The PC on the other hand, is something she turns on for work and to check email and then turns back off again.
I have had the same two TVs for a very long time [knocking on wood], somewhere around 15 years or so. I have two because Frank liked to have one in the bedroom and one in the living room. They are pretty big pieces of hardware
and hard to move and set up. The screen sizes are about 25”, and I have worn out the remotes, but they both still have very good pictures and okay sound. Frank had the living room wired to go to speakers, but I didn’t bring the sound system with me when I moved from Randallstown back in 2007. All those records and tapes and a CD player and no speakers… but that is another story, neh? The point is that both televisions work good enough for me because I actually don’t watch TV all that often.
Now for me, I have been going through CPUs every couple of years. I am online a lot and they just seem to wear out! One reason is I have bought the wrong thing in the past only realizing I need a gaming PC with the advanced graphics card capacity this past purchase about 2 ½ years ago. Another is that I am a FFNT [fumble-fingered non-tech] and the idea of opening up the case and mucking around inside to upgrade what I have is daunting to say the least. I did it in the past, but with later advances? It has been almost more cost effective to buy a new one rather than pay someone to fix and/or upgrade the old one. I do have the hard drive from two units ago – haven’t tried to access it in a while so I hope I still can. These days I store everything online and Carbonite takes care of backing up my PC.
But I am starting to have problems with the graphics card and I am starting to think about getting a new desktop. Some people get new car fever -- I get new gadget fever. It isn't like I can really afford to be throwing money at hardware, but I keep looking and looking and muttering every time I have an issue with my Dell. And I dive into the world of tech armed only with the knowledge that I want a "good" desktop that can handle gaming [i.e. Second Life]. To me that means a robust graphics card and I prefer either Radeon or AMD because I had problems with Nideva in the past, but OMG, what does all this other jargon mean? Don't think I have to worry about overclocking, but for the rest I am really in the dark -- and I only have at most $1K+ to play around with. These are the desktops that I am starting to eye up.
iBUYPOWER Gamer Extreme 573D3 Phenom II X4 965(3.4GHz) 4GB DDR3 1TB HDD Capacity AMD Radeon HD 6850 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Looks like it is in my price range and I think it is what all I need
CyberPower Black Pearl looks really awesome -- if I can ever figure out what in the world all the choices mean
The thought has crossed my mind , especially since I will be traveling the second week in April, that maybe I should spring for an iPad2... Especially since I was approved for financing to buy from APPLE, the temptation is very very great.. And I really NEED a Navigator. And my contract is up and I reallly need to upgrade my iPhone, just waiting to see if that iPhone5 is really coming out this spring....
anyone got any suggestions? Think my old Dell XPS430 with the ATI Radeon HD 3650 is upgradable? Dell suggests either a ATI Radeon™ HD 4350 512MB DDR2 PCI Express or a GeForce 6200 256 MB DDR2 PCI Graphic Card -- but who would get it installed?
eh. You would think that I had all kinds of money!
One of the things I have always done, in every online community that I have been in -- from the Knowledge Ecology Network to MetaNet to BrainStorms to Facebook -- is had a way to share links with others. Where I am posting these today? If you look up at the top of the page, you will see a tab right there under Banking on Tomorrow that says Carol's Buzz.
Go on and click on it -- it will take you to the potpourri of things that I have shared recently....
How do I collect those links or decide what to share? I run across a lot of "stuff" through blogs that I follow, and then there are times when I am just wandering about online. Sometimes it is about a particular topic that is being discussed that I follow. Sometimes someone has sent me a link or I see a reference in an article or something comes up at work. The kinds of things that I am interested in and I am likely to share articles about [no particular order]:
relationships and how people interact with each other in different situations
history and archeology and anthropology
Second Life
knowledge management and organizational development
space -- the final frontier! astronomy, astrology.
technology
Tolkien, especially while the Hobbit is being filmed.
Star Trek, Star Wars and science fiction.
BDSM and D/s
how the mind works, dreams, learning, education
Any of these things peak your interest? Google's BUZZ is designed to help you share, comment and question -- come on over!
We had snow yesterday! It was only about an inch and it is gone now, but the fact of the matter is that it snowed. That miserable rodent .... OTOH, it would not be a good thing if that warm weather pattern stayed - 80 was much too high for this time of year and that warm of a spring would have signaled the start of a brutally hot summer. I am not that perturbed that the weather has turned colder, but I do think that we shouldn't have to worry about snow and ice this late in the year!
Okay, enough about the weather.
I took off on Friday and took Kit to get her hair colored and then shopping. It was a long day -- picked her up at work at 11AM and I didn't get home until around 8:30PM and I will admit that I was just worn out [I think she was too]. Getting the hair done was a mixed success, Kit liked the color but was not happy with the cut. She has had thick hair all her life and it is just now starting to think out; I don't think that she understands how to cope with thin hair, but then again? It is her hair and she should be happy with it. I told her to tell Amy [the hairdresser] when we go back the first Saturday in May. Shopping for a dress was not a good experience. There are two reasons for that: the first is that Kit does not like shopping and the second is that what she wants isn't always in the stores. The last dress she tried on looked great on her, but she didn't like the neckline, so it stayed there and I committed to another day taking her out.
The rest of the weekend? No household chores were done, not even laundry. I spent some time in SL, some time listening to a friend, some time reading, some time napping. What is with being ready to sleep your life away anyway? Seems like I am always ready to curl up and doze these days and I really resent it! Used to be that I was one of the jellicle cats and now I am spending too much time with my eyes shut! I have been working my way through different series where I have read some of the books but not all and not in order. The first one was the 16 books of the Dune series, this time I am working my way through the Foundation books and am up to the second Foundation trilogy. Can't say as I am impressed with the later works though....
And now it is Monday. Managed to make myself exercise again -- started that routine last Monday but didn't do it over the weekend -- and am patiently waiting for this burst of energy that exercising will supposedly give you.
In the past two posts, I laid the groundwork for looking at friendships in term of:
Level of association-- how close is s/he to me?
Depth of engagement-- how much do I know about her/him and how much does s/he know about me?
Sharing-- giving and receiving support, being present
And then I talked about “real life” and “online” friends, answering the same set of questions for both:
How many friends do you have?
How long do you stay friends?
How do you make friends?
And of those friends, how many do you actually know?
And the last question to answer for the online friends: What do you expect from your friends and what can they expect from you? And when I went to answer this question, I came to a dead stop – when you come right down to it, I expect the same things from the people I know online as I do from the people I have met throughout my life if we are what I consider “friends”.
Years ago, Frank used to call the people that I chatted to online my “imaginary friends”. He kept that up even after meeting Barbara Weaver-Smith and her husband in RL. But the people I have met online are very much real people to me, not avatars, not caricatures. Names come to mind: Denham. Ward. Lavinia. Nevyn. Jared. Coke. Richard. Baron. Merry These are people that I have argued with, talked to, shared emotional experiences, come to understand something of what makes them tick – and become known to them in turn. And there is the family: Lucius. Jax. Jhardin. Tarra. Then there are the partners that I have had in SL: Revilo, Sam and Searaven. Everyone of these people have taken a place in my life
There are layers of intimacy and intensity, neh? Last night I attended a talk in SL by Ericella Sixpence on how to establish and maintain a long distance relationship [LDR]. He focused on five key elements: Desire, Effort, Compromise, Understanding, and Commitment. If all of these are present, in whatever degree of intensity you are operating on, then you have a relationship that will grow and deepen – and I see no reason to differentiate from online and RL.
Today my boss asked us all to update our resumes so he could send them to the regulators in answer to one of their questions. The surprising thing to me was that I had not updated it since May 2009 when I was last looking for a job -- most atypical of this knowledge nomad!
I always choke a bit when it comes to getting into the what I see as the introductory part of the resume -- your objective and then your professional profile. When writing about the objective, I am always sorely tempted to just say: make money. But instead I write: Objective: To utilize my diverse skill set honed by working in organizations that weathered tough economic conditions to assist an organization in surviving now while creating the processes and procedures needed to implement strategies to achieve future goals, emphasizing knowledge sharing and creation as the source of employee value to the organization and the organization’s value to the customer and other stakeholders No one has really asked, but if they did, I would say that means I really want to be able to show how execution is truly the key to implementing a successful strategic plan and that I want to be part of doing that.
Now the professional profile -- the part that is your "elevator pitch" to the prospective employer, the "why hire me in 15 seconds or less".
Experienced project manager with extensive background requiring a high degree of knowledge management, accuracy, investigation, and deadline awareness.
Effective communicator coordinating with individuals from diversified backgrounds across all levels of management and departments.
Unique combination of sales experience coupled with a solid working familiarity of operational functions and issues
Again no one has asked, but if they did, I would tell them that having been in several organizations – and a couple of them troubled – I have a truly unusual POV that I can leverage in service of their organization.
It was what weekends are for, relaxing. Reading. I finished the Day Two of Rothfuss' The Kingkiller ChroniclesThe Wise Man's Fear. I really wish fantasy writers would break out of the trilogy mold but that is too much to hope for. I enjoyed reading both of the books so far and can recommend them.
There is a bit of excitement going on with the apartments where I live -- another management company has taken over, the third in as many years. The notice came out on Friday, informing us that all the leases and security deposits were the same, and giving us the slogan "your life simple". The previous company seemed to be doing rather well so I don't know what the problem is. The buildings are on the older side, but the units have been rennovated and mine is rather nice. There have been power problems which are more than a little annoying, but then again, that is a comment on PepCo rather than the Enclave. Living on the 20th floor means that when the power is out, I don't have any water and THAT is more than a little annoying! The elevators get jammed up and sometimes you have to wait when folks are moving in and out, but on the whole, I really like it here. But anyway, the previous management didn't seem to be doing so badly, so we will see what the new brooms will accomplish. The website and the Resident Portal are both down and emails to the office are bouncing, so I guess it is just a time of transition. They had offered to switch out my showerhead for me, and my balcony screen door is unaccountably refusing to close, and that is why I know you cannot reach service by email or online, so we will see how long it takes them to do these two things. At least the lights in the hall, which had been out since before Christmas, have been fixed
Spring is officially here -- and we are starting off the first full day of spring with a thunderstorm. The thunder actually woke me up -- well actually Kula did that. He really doesn't like storms and at 5AM he was being rather vocal about this one. Driving in to work I could see that lots of folks spent the weekend working in the yard! Bet the garbage collectors know when they will have bags and bags of stuff waiting for them by the curb... Don't remember what the trees are, I think they are oak, but right before the leaves peak out, these little red nibs fall all over the place. Saw a car that was literally covered with them! Bet those are going to be hard to clean off now that they are wet and sticking. Forsythia bushes are blooming and I saw some daffodils too....
The good news is that this will be another short week for me! I am taking off this coming Friday to run more errands.
I wake up to just another Saturday, 78th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 287 days remaining until the end of the year.
As usual, I pick out a quote of the day to be my status: "I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some." - Herbert Rappaport And as happens now and then, I have to go and find out who said that -- apparently he is either a live PHD who wrote a book about how we handle time or a dead Austrian-Soviet screenwriter and film director. I still like the quote.
Tonight we get to see the SuperMoon -- and it is a sight that won't be seen again for another 20 years.
While rummaging in my emails, and muttering about the number of messages from one of my communities [the only one that doesn't have a daily digest feature but sends each message separately], I run across a group message sent to Bela Enchanted: "Mashooka wishes everyone Happy Holi! and I have set up a dollarbie for everyone till tomorrow" She provides a Wikipedia link and I go look....
Holi! What a fun holiday that sounds to be -- the BBC has a great spread on it with pictures! Now I know that I am culturally western anglo-saxon, but I know folks from India and I have been in SL for 5 1/2 years -- how come I never heard of something like this before today? Holi has its own website and there are obviously extensive preparations to be made to make natural colors.
What else is going on today? Well there is no mention of Holi -- probably because like Easter, the holiday seems to move around a lot -- but Wikipedia does a pretty good job of pinpointing this day in historyhttp:="" target="_blank" wiki="">. iGoogle's "this day in history" [a gadget on my homepage that amuses me] finds something that Wikipedia misses and talks about the death of LaSalle happening back in 1687. I am reminded that it is the Feast of St. Joseph and in some countries it is Father's Day -- I assume that these two are connected. It is the third Saturday of the month, so it is National Quilting Day -- The National Quilting Association started National Quilting Day in 1991, but there aren't any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Likewise you won't find any official records for National CornDog Day, which coincides with the first Saturday of “the big men's college basketball tournament”, and that http:="" target="_blank" wiki="">is today apparently. You also won't find any official records of National Chocolate Caramel Day, nor any explanation of why it is today. I assume you are supposed to rush out and buy and eat. If you live in San Francisco, you can celebrate International Astrology Day and participate in their meet-up. And last but not least, the swallows of San Juan Capistrano are expected home....http:="" target="_blank" wiki=""> http:="" target="_blank" wiki="">
Whatever you are planning today, hope it is a good one!
Today I had to drive up to Lutherville -- north of Baltimore. It was rush hour and without thinking about it much, I took the back roads.
You see, I almost always travel the back roads around, avoiding that girdle of concrete known as the Beltway. Of course, there are hazards in taking the back ways -- most of them are only two lanes and they can get back up pretty quickly. School buses. Someone driving that sees no reason to drive any faster than the posted speed limit, or even five miles slower. Garbage trucks. Sometimes you have to stop for a train because the tracks go right across the road. Large trucks that are also trying to avoid traffic and strain to go up the hills. In bad weather? The roads are down right dangerous, often untreated. Once I had a buck run into the side of my car -- on the driver's side too and it scared me half to death. There aren't any street lights and at night they can get pretty lonely; you don't want to risk breaking down or getting a flat tire. You can't drive straight through -- there are stop lights and stop signs and whoever the genius is who put a traffic circle on York Road should be shot. And you pretty much have to know where you are going.
On the other hand, the Beltway and the main roads are pretty straightforward, without the twisty turns and steep hills. When you come right down to it? You probably get there about the same time from sitting in traffic as you do by driving the back roads.
But the scenery is a lot better on the back roads, even when the trees are still pretty bare. The landscape isn't "processed", there are no sound barriers. Fences and yards come right down to the tarmac. And there are bars and neighborhood stores and old houses and construction for new houses and schools and ..... Well there is just more to see than sitting on the main roads staring at the concrete sound barriers and the car in front of you. When I was communting, I got to see the seasons changing the landscape, and I watched whole communities of houses spring up too.
According to GOOGLE maps, it should've taken 55 minutes from door to door. Of course that doesn't take into account rush hour traffic, so you would have to add onto the trip for that. It took me about 1 1/2 hours by going the back way. I arrived on time -- and without feeling that I had to fight my way there.
Sometimes the most direct way of getting someplace isn't the best way.
Last post I established what I considered the components of "friendship"
level of association -- how close is s/he to me?
depth of engagement -- how much do I know about her/him and how much does s/he know about me?
sharing -- giving and receiving support, being present
But what about friending someone online?
Lets walk through the same questions about online friends that I did for RL friends:
How many friends do you have?
Right now I have 450+ friends in FaceBook -- many of them are people that I have met online, primarily from Second Life or from BrainStorms. About a dozen of the people from BrainStorms I have met in person, mostly those who live locally or came into town for a visit. From SL? many names became faces when I got to SLCC [I was able go to the ones in Chicago and Tampa]
In Second Life, beladona has different friends from kala or from Mira. Beladona's friends' list is ridiculously obscene huge, with some people still on it from when I first rezzed back in 2005. Many of the people are there from:
old podcasts -- when I first came in world my daughter was very actively promoting BUCKET. As a result of hanging around in Nowhereville, I came to know many other podcasters that are still on my friends' list
music venues -- one of the activities that I got into rather quickly was going to see Live Music in SL. As a result, there are many folks that I have friended over the years because they are there watching, or managers or performers.
old clubs and hang-outs -- the Silver Dollar was my first real hang-out other than BUCKET. And I still have many of my old neighbors in Lost Grounds on my list, people that I met while I was hosting, etc.
dragons, mers and furries -- self-explanatory really, neh?
friends of old partners -- just like being around someone in RL while you are dating, you end up hanging out with your partners' friends and friending them
lucky-chair hopping -- I think we all go through a phase where you do hunts and go for the lucky chairs! And you end up friending people so that when you have a letter on a chair, you can TP them in to grab it before it changes
time spent mentoring -- one of the first things that a newcomer wants to do is friend the person who has been helping them find their way around. I used to always accept their offer, then quietly remove them a couple weeks later, if I thought of it
working with Perfect World Productions -- guests and models end up friending me so that I can keep in touch with them while the preparations for the show are completed
kala's list isn't quite as long, but is very different from beladona's list. They do have a core of friends in common, of course! kala's friends come from role play [RP] and from exploration of the D/s lifestyle. Mira's friends are other children and Disney fans. The other alts really haven't developed much in the way of a friends' list.
Are all these people really "friends'? They friended me -- but for different reason than "me" if that makes sense?
How long do you stay friends?
Things move more quickly online than they do in RL. Once I was told that it is a factor of 4:1, that three months online equals a year in RL. I am not quite sure about that ratio, but there is no doubt that when you are in virtual reality [VR], the expectations of how quickly you expect a response are much more time-sensitive than in RL..
How do you make friends?
write
Seriously -- altho voice has come to SL, most of the time we are typing.
And of those friends, how many do you actually know?
Okay, pretty much everyone has heard the quip that no one knows you're a dog online. And we have all heard the horror stories about gender-bending and age-defying online identities -- you think you are talking to a teen-aged girl and really it is a pot-bellied old man. On the other hand? I find that when you go online, you are free from the misconceptions about people based on the roles acquired over a life time, that by taking what the person says OUT of the context of their environment, you actually can touch more of the real person.
All you have to go on when you talk to someone online is what they say, how they present themselves in profiles and with avatars.
But when you come right down to it, isn't that exactly what you have in RL to get to know someone? All you really have to go on to get to know them is what they say, how they present themselves?
The weekend just vanished, as they are wont to do these days
I made it out of bed and into the office this morning!
The second part of "Friend Me" is still pending -- I need to think about that comment I made saying friends spend time together! I have friends that are still close but that I only see or talk to now and then, but then again, we spent a lot of time together in the past to form that bond....
Went with Gem on Saturday to get dresses fitted -- she looked great! Here is me getting the MOB dress fitted... [if you look behind me you'll see Gem sitting -- she went first and was putting away some of the assessories she had brought]
One of the slippery notions of our online lives is that of friendship. When you come right down to it, it is slippery in what is euphemistically known as "real life" [RL], neh? But add the online component, mix in social networking, and you have a blurring of roles that can be tricky to navigate both socially and emotionally. There are those that you have very strong ties to and those that you have weak ties to -- and they in turn have strong ties and weak ties....
Lets start with RL:
How many friends do you have?
That isn't an easy question to answer is it?
Like many people, I have many folks that I have associated with through the years and in different roles -- neighbors, family friends, kids I went to school with, those that I met through church, club members, people I have worked with, those I met while speaking. etc etc and so forth. Some of them I know a lot about, some of them I recognize. There are a lot of people I am "friendly with" that I would not call "friends". I tend to be pretty chary about the label "friend" on the whole in RL, not counting the folks who's friendship is situational [eg those who are chummy when you are working with them but then not so much when you are not]. Right now? I know I have three people that I would definitely call friends in RL
How long do you stay friends?
This one is a bit of a puzzler to me. Once I trust someone to be a friend, why would I stop being that? But there have been people who have drifted out of my life that I thought were friends, and I don't know what to say to them anymore.
How do you make friends?
Beats me! I used to say that I found it easier to talk to men rather then women, but the only friends that have stuck through the years are female. And there are people that really interest me and I want to form a relationship with them and they don't seem to be interested in that level of engagement with me.
And of those friends, how many do you actually know?
Another tough question, neh? What do you want to know about the people you call friends and what do you want them to know about you?
I was told several years ago by a woman with whom I was becoming very friendly through work that I was a difficult person to be around, to be friendly with because when I was interested in them, it was almost as though the boundary between "them" and "me' got fuzzy -- I seemed to want to know everything! That is something I never forgot and it has actually hobbled me in a way because I discourage very easily, seeing rejection quickly and shutting down.
What do you expect from your friends and what can they expect from you?
Well I expect to know and be known.
I expect to be able to give support: used to call myself a "foul weather friend" but I don't think the current online definitions fit what that meant to me. Had a person tell me once that if she had an emergency, I was one of the first people she would think to call for help and I like that. I have been known as a person who gives support and encouragement when times are tough, but I seem to be around less when times get good.
I expect to be able to socialize with, hang out with, get invited to do things with my friends, getting and giving attention.
So, I have established a couple different criteria, neh? When it comes to "is this person my friend", I have talked in terms of:
level of association -- how close is s/he to me?
depth of engagement -- how much do I know about her/him and how much does s/he know about me?
sharing -- giving and receiving support, being present
Now how does this apply to those folks that I have only met online? Stay tuned!
Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday -- the end of Mardi Gras, a day to feast on pancakes. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and one of eight holy days of obligation and the signal that Easter Sunday is six weeks away.
There are plenty of resources available to check out for things to give up for Lent and for things to do during Lent. My friend Dannah is blogging about the seven deadly sins. Slubgrip is offering counseling. The Pope has a message for the faithful. Or you could get ready for Passover. There doesn't seem to be anything on the Islamic religious calendar after Mawlid al-Nabi (Muhammad's Birthday) last month. And the pagans are getting ready to celebrate Ostara and the vernal equinox. Daylight Savings Time starts this coming Sunday at 2AM [you know, spring forward], to be followed by National Napping Day since we lose an hour of sleep apparently. Some of us still undertstand that you must "beware the Ides of March" -- the big thing in high school was to wear a black band of mourning. March 19th is a super moon. And let us not forget, the first day of Spring is March 20th.
Winter is headed out and everyone is ready for warm weather and cleaning house
Spring is sprung, De grass is riz, I wonder where dem birdies is? De little birds is on de wing, Ain’t dat absurd? De little wing is on de bird!
To state that this is NOT my favorite time of year in an understatement.
Even going through school, the third term was always the one where my grades dipped down. In college, spring semester was always the toughest. all that budding and growing activates my allergies. And I hate housework -- wouldn't be so bad if you could do it once and that was it, but you have to do it again and again and again.
There are times that I have questioned why I get so down in the dumps in the spring. It is possible that I actually suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder -- in other words, I haz a SAD [google it for appropriate images]
"Banking on Tomorrow" is the tag that I used for my original blog -- and it is the tag I used for my scribbles and presentations as well. I chose it because I was a banker and in knowledge management and it just seemed appropriate. I did a search on the phrase; there were 1,390 results and some of them were my web tracks:
I found one of the images I liked to use in presentations showing the perils of NOT having a knowledge management program
I was a "Star" presenter for AOK and this was one of the pieces that I submitted on"Why Stealth KM?"
an echo of the past surfaces -- here is my CV on one of the old WIKI pages! Addresses and work email is way out of date. I love that little pop-up .git tho -- it was my online photo in many a conference
wow -- just found my very first presentation at a conference. This was done back in the spring of 2000 for executives interested in going online for business opportunities. I got to meet Tom Peters!
And another presentation, one I did a year or so later in Boston surfaces... I used to share my presentations with my online community. Apparently someone saved my work because these things have been posted in the last year or so
I played with SWIKI for a while... hey, that one is still active -- I can still log in and you can add it to your iGoogle as a widget too
The tag line was something that Grandmom Hughes used to say: "tomorrow is promised to no one". A quick GOOGLE search on the phrase gave back over 370K results and I leared that apparently Walter Payton is attributed with the quote. Grandmom said it first, I'm sure. I like the contrast between the thought that you are banking on tomorrow, followed by the realization that you are counting on something which may never come
Interestingly, this painting came up in the search as well
The name of the tab is "bleeding heart...".
Initially I had named it "bleeding heart liberal", but after a friend turned up her nose and scoffed, I was worried that it would be potentially seen as a politcal diatribe. The "bleeding heart" comes from the song by Jimi Hendrix. As for "liberal"? Well in a non-political sense, liberal means "a lot" and that fit in with what I was trying to say. In a politcal sense, I am well aware that to be called a bleeding heart liberal is not particularly complementary, but the play on words still amuses me and I do tend to be a liberal at times.
I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light. Delenn, Babylon 5
I was recently told to stop telling someone that I was happy for them because my congratulations were sounding insincere. I was very startled and asked for that to be expanded because in this case, I was not being just poite and really was happy for the other. I was told that the recipient could see that I "didn't really mean them". I had to pull back and think hard about what it was that I was saying and how it was coming across.
I pride myself on being sincere -- how could saying that I was happy for someone come across as ringing hollow?
The answer I came up with is that there are layers of reactions when one hears good news about another. First there is the surface emotion -- the "oh how nice" reactions. This is what most people see -- the flame of the candle
Then there is this darker part, the me I am not always proud of and reactions I seldom express. This is the part that hears of anothers' good fortunes and starts to wail "I never win... or good things like that never happen to me ... or why THEM and not ME... or it isn't fair" or any number of self-pitying reactions. This angst can be felt by someone who is sensitive even when I don't say a word. I don't like this part of myself. It makes me feel both small and mean, and I work very hard to keep it hidden away and rigidly contained -- the dark space between the candle and the flame. Not everything here is fit for public consumption! I am always afraid when someone sees this part of me because I am afraid it will disgust them and they will turn away from me, so I try to hide it and risk seeming a hypocrite.
Below is the part of me that I consider my core, where the real me lives -- not the surface reaction, not the ego-centric angst, but the heart-spring of my being. I take for granted that when people see me that they see the whole picture, candle In this particular case, I really AM very happy for the person. I would love to talk to them and hear their plans and even help if I can, but I no longer can be sure that I am projecting enough of myself to let them know that.
Before others can see past my flaws, I have to accept them.
I am grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light
One thing that seems to happen in Second Life on a very regular basis is the formation of more than one avatar. There are many reasons for this -- some good and some nefarious. Why do people form alts? The reasons of those that I have met boil down to:
multiple personalties -- each person requires a different account
each facet of your personality requires a different expression -- even though you can change your look completely, it takes time! And there are always factors with rezzing and lag when you try to switch no matter how carefully you have set up your appearance folders. Maybe you just don't want to constantly switch from the adorable hatchie dragon to the imposing mer to the human child to the party person to the robot to the fae to the.... you get the idea!
role play -- your RP persona has different friends and groups than your main account
business -- you need to have an alt that can build or socialize without being bothered by the responsibilities of your shop, for example
1] the one and only beladona Memorial 12.04.05 is the closest to being like the real me translated into pixels. You can also learn about her on this older profile -- but SLBuzz hasn't been updated for a while now but the pictures are still all there. The oldest picture is from November 2006.
2] kala 10.09.07, originally created specifically for my then partner in SL, Sam Holyoke, as elona Dayafter. Her name? well "alone" spelled backwards came out "enola" -- and that just sounded too much like a disease from the jungles, so I switched the consonants around and made it "elona". Dayafter was available at that time, and a name that said something about being alone the day after seemed apropos at the time. She became a kajira of Gor and it was through her that I met my third partner, Searaven Raymaker.
3] Ndlovukazi Noyes 10.15.07 was originally designed to help keep tabs on the alts of that same partner that elona was created for, but I immediately realized that wasn't a very trusting basis on which to keep our relaitonship going. Instead, she became a playful kitten, hanging out in different Neko havens. Her name? Noyes was the name of the street where I was living at the time. Ndlovukazi is Ndebele for "queen of the elephants" who must be treated with respect and caution My dear friend gave that to me as a nickname. Haven't met a person yet who can pronounce the name, which is why her group title says: Call me Kazi
4] bela Martian 10.10.08 is one of the evil Martian overlord’s minions. It was Razzup's rezz day ... oh, what is a rezz day? That is the day you first come in world and start exploring your 2nd life! The last name of "Martian" became available, and about 20 of us created alts for a special birthday bash for Razzup, who really was a little green man.
5] Mirabelle Mynx 02.08.10 – Mira's first name was chosen for no better reason than it sounded good with the last name that I liked. Why a kid avatar? because I like playing with the other kids. She actually spends most of her time in the different Disney sims and is a ward of the Order fo the FoxRose clan, but isn't quite tame.
6] Sahar Soulstar 02.10.10, Free Woman of Gor and daughter to Lucius Toxx, Chief Physician, twin sister to Rius. I love her name, but this one I didn't choose -- the avatar was actually created by Lucius for role play and given to me when I agreed to take on the role. We didn't get a chance to do much with it since the City of Venna closed.
7] Bela Enchanted 11.17.10 was an accident. I thought I was signing in to the browser based beta. I had been told a new identity was assumed rather than being able to log in as an existing avi, so I blithely went all through the formation process, grabbing the name "Enchanted" and suddenly was totally perplexed to find myself landing on Orientation Island. She is still forming her identity and her look and pretty much hasn't done anything but shop to date.
For several years we had a small D&D group that met one Sunday a month. It was a group I joined almost by accident -- my husband worked with a bunch that played D&D and mentioned that I too was interested and I started playing. We would sit for HOURS around the table, rolling dice, tracking points, telling elaborate stories -- we were really organized, had battle plans and truly stayed in character [i.e. if you said it you did it]. Bella Donna was chaotic good, not particularly brave and always very respectful of the warrior-types who she encouraged to barge on ahead so that the way would be clear for others. She was pretty talented in her chosen field, was very thorough at ferreting out traps, and when need be could wield the dagger she always carried well enough that the Dwarf rather suspected she had assassin training. He was right, but Bella Donna never admitted it.
We were serious gamers, very intense. When the East Coast gamers con came to Towson University back in 1985, we particiapted in the tournaments and did quite well. In fact, we place rather high in the ranks, thanks to a game called "Son of Pun Dungeon".... What kind of game was that? Son of Pun Dungeon was a game in which you had to create puns in order to do magic. The DM stopped keeping score on me after the first day and granted me minor diety status at the end of the tournament. What this says about my command of the English language, and my ability to annoy those around me is best left for silent reflection at this late date.
When I missed a session, and it was vital for the team to have a thief, I gave a member permission to play my character. We knew each other well enough that we would do that now and then... He had a forboding about this particular journey, however and Bella Donna acquired a twin sister -- Prima Donna. Not much is really known about Prima. The Elf's foreboding was correct and she was killed rather spectacularly after she thoroughly pissed off the Dwarf. Bella Donna never quite forgave the group for her demise. Finally, Bella Donna had maxed out her level and retired to a keep, where she ran a small merchant operation and stayed just this side of the law, indignently claiming that she was not a fence.
In the course of time I played many roles -- berserker, paladin, ranger, gnome -- but Bella Donna was my favorite. I stopped playing in the fall of 1985 when I left my husband and later heard that the group disbanded about a year later.
When I ventured online, your user name had to be 8 letters, no caps. For me it was easy and Bella Donna became beladona. That has been my online moniker in almost very community I have joined, ocassionally varied E.G. beladona_2000 or CHTbeladona. When I moved to Second Life, it was natural that beladona would be my name there -- and for years I was the one and only beladona about.
You can learn more about and see some of the pictures that beladona has taken in Second Life at SLProfiles.com
In the past I have had three blogs -- one professional and two personal -- and one WIKI. The professional blog, named Banking on Tomorrow, was hosted for about four years by a friend who was testing out a portal he was building. The WIKI was part of Denham Gray's extensive Knowledge WIKI and had about 45 pages of links to articles and websites that dealt with banking and financial services The personal blogs were tied to my intenet provider -- and I have to admit that I don't even remember what I called them.
All of them vanished without a trace.
Banking on Tomorrow was the victim of a server change -- both Garsett and I thought we had the blog backed up but it was completely wiped out. The WIKI evaporated when Denham's site went down, although I migrated some of the information to another WIKI platform briefly, then I abandoned it when that company crashed. The two personal blogs poofed when I changed internet providers -- again I thought I had backed them up, but unfortunately my PC died at the same time. Not even the company that I engaged to see if they could reconstruct the hard drive could piece the two blogs back together
So much was lost. The saga of "As the Bank Turns" as I chronicled the adventures of trying to work and progress in my career. The conversations about stealth KM. Explanations of the inner workings of dealings with the unholy triad of auditors, examiners and regulators. The dramatic story of two job searches -- as a knowledge nomad, my last act was to eliminate my own position having made it redundant. And on a personal level, the painful recitation of what it is like to deal with funeral homes and cemetaries when my husband died, then the long trip back from the edge of grief.
All.... gone.
And I lost the will to write. Think of it as constipation. I stayed in online communities [e.g. Howard Rheingold's BrainStorms] but slowly became inactive. I reserved http://www.bankingontomorrow.com five years ago but didn't actually do anthing with the site. I tried rather desultorily to journal at http://www.penzu.com but only two other people were able to read it. I became involved with FaceBook and started updating my status and posting links, but then social networking was blocked where I work. I started posting links to Google's BUZZ - you can click on the link at the top of the page that says "Carol's BUZZ"
http:="" profiles="" www.google.com=""> And now I have started this blog. Will I write regularly? Will I renew the website and actually do something with it? Will anyone read this? Will I explain the contradictory page title and tag line? Will the reason for the name of the blog become obvious?
CEOExpress
Holi! What a fun holiday that sounds to be -- the BBC has a great spread on it 
which coincides with the first Saturday of “the big men's college basketball tournament”, and that 
