Lost in Space

Lost in Space
By DONNIE DONOVAN


I have left on a voyage to space in Second Life. I am traveling at a rate of nearly 200m per second.

Tools: X-Flight Carbon Rod for quick travel / Location Coordinate Finder

* 30,000-40,000 meters: I notice the map marker began to get larger and larger. Soon I was unable to see a map marker if placed in the sim below my location. If I placed the map marker in the sim in front of me it appeared very close to my avatar and very large.

This may be evidence that this world is round!

* 60,000-80,000 meters: My Avatar is beginning to become erratic, especially the name floating above my head. It looks as though it is boiling with black spots and is fluttering in waves... even when I pause for a break.

* 101,000 meters: I have broken through the atmosphere! Or so I think!

My avatar is now completely apoplectic and it is seeming to get worse... Every object and body part is waving about as though it were in a gas fume.

* 140,000 meters: My Avatar seems to have acquired two names, an identical title is jittering about my stomach as is the one above my head... they seem to trade places every now and then, but at times they both show.

The blue light above is growing brighter.

* 206,000 meters: Things get dark. Everything quite suddenly and somewhat purposefully faded to black. I don’t know if i reached the end of the virtual universe or got sucked inside one of Jeff Lindens black holes to 2035...

* Update: I go back down to see if things will reappear again, to my surprise I must travel 1000 meters down to 205,000 meters high to regain the view of the bright blue space around me. It must be a black hole. At 206,000 meters things fade to black again, right on cue.

* Meters Unknown: My Location Finder has failed and I can not view object properties attached to my avatar. Estimated 244,000 meters high. I am getting bored with the darkness of this virtual universe so I decide to try a little sim crossing action. After a bit of toying with the ants below on my mini-map... I resolve that if I tap the "up" or "down" arrow key in a rhythmic pattern, skipping a half second beat between each tap that I JUMP across a sim! Literally I leap and my AV bounds from border to border.

I could traverse the world in a matter of minutes... or seconds...

The Truth is out there Second Lifers, one day we just might make it to the moon...