Joe Essid directs the Writing Center at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in writing and literature. He is a Richmond native who attended the University of Virginia and earned a Master's and PhD at Indiana University. His research interests include technology in the classroom and Southern literary humor. His academic writing has appeared in Computers and Humanities, The Writing Lab Newsletter, and anthologies about technology and writing. He is a contributor to Style Weekly and has appeared in Eighty One and RVA. Ignatius Onomatopoeia is the "avatar" who represents Joe in the game-world Second Life. Ignatius will be wandering the virtual terrain of Second Life while his creator writes here about what may be either "the next big thing" for the Internet or the latest darling of the cyber-hip... the reader can decide.
E-mail contact: jessid@mac.com | Web address: writing2.richmond.edu/jessid

Location: Bliss Gardens’ Callahan’s Isle

This time of year, when I’m not in as much of a rush to get to work in the morning, I slow down on my walk to the bus-stop or I take the long way on my bike.  I rarely drive in, as I might do in a rush during the academic year.  It becomes time to lounge over a cup of coffee and goof off a bit…I might even write a blog!

Likewise, my wandering in Bliss Gardens have little hurry or purpose, other than to showcase some of the best “builds” I have seen in Second Life®.  The only shortcoming so far I’ve found is the water…given how spectacular water can now look with the new SL graphics settings, it would be interesting to see Bliss again with different water-effects. I’ll double check this on the next leg of my journey. I’m using the latest “release candidate” version with graphics set to mid-range on my laptop.  That renders water in stunning detail in most places.

But it’s a minor gripe. The panoramas rival anything I’ve seen in real life, though, as Beeble Baxter is quick to remind me every time I look at his blog, one does not get a full sensory experience of “breeze on skin, coarse warm rocks & scent of loamy woods.”

Despite that, I continue to see Bliss and its kin as wonderfully conceived 3D artwork, through which I wander with my keyboard.

Beauty abounded. A hummingbird decided to check me out as I took a photo-break at a picnic area, just the sort of stop I’ve made along the 57 miles of the New River Trail State Park. There I meet other cyclists, walkers, and riders on horseback.  Of course, I get exercise, other than in my wrists and fingers, on that trail.

Then again, I cannot ride off a cliff and descend by parachute, as I did shortly after entering Callahan’s Isle.

I did not get a snap, but as I rode along an attractive woman (are their any others in this world?) came along in the Bliss tram-ride, a nice feature that Luna Bliss added to her paradise.  As I would on a real bike as a tram approached, I pedaled off the trail and we exchanged pleasantries.

Sure, in SL I could have “friended” her and we may have stayed in touch.  But it was more pleasant, and realistic, just to say “have a good tour!” as she glided by, a vision of unreal beauty in an equally unreal place.

Be sure to check the “In a Strange Land” Archive for old posts