After a great deal of thought, I have decided to return to blogging.  It's not that I believe my  presence was missed in the blogosphere, but more that I have things to say and pictures to show.

I'm not one to air my dirty SLaundry (or even my clean SLaundry for that matter), so instead of ranting over what happened recently, I'll discuss the philosophical topics the experience brought to mind.

It would seem many of us come to SL because we have gaps in our lives.  I am the first to admit I have many. I work...A LOT.  I don't have much time for a social life, and the man in my (real) life lives 90 miles away. We see each other maybe twice a month at best.  My RL besties live all across the United States, from California to Michigan to Tennessee to Virginia and New England.  I met them all through our shared love of Big & Rich, but now that our guys are off exploring solo careers, we do not get to see each other very often.

Out of this group, I was the first to join SL.  As of today three of my BFFs are now also in SL.  When we have time, we'll gather at my house in the Costa Rica sim and sit around and carry on like hens.  Due to all of our hectic schedules and the vagaries of life, this doesn't happen frequently.

I can occasionally entice my RL guy into SL, at least when we're both NOT playing World of Warcraft.  

But something is still missing so I look to SL to fill those gaps.  I've got a lot to say about the subject and about how I see others dealing with their own gap effect, but it's not going to be tonight.  While Burning Life is still going on, I'd like to share how I've filled one particular gap in the past week.  There will be a lot of pictures, and I should probably make a slide show, but I like giving my readers the option of clicking on the pictures to see them more true to size.

So away we go to Burning Life:

The Entrance (in most of these I've used the Sailor's Delight windlight setting):



















The tunnel leads the visitor into an explanation of the history of Burning Man and Burning Life, and is quite informative.

It also gives one the opportunity to take a nap in a ruby slipper (might as well, there's a lot of exploring ahead):





















There are really too many amazing builds to share them all, so I'm just going to highlight the ones that caught my eye enough to stop and take pictures.




















There are all sorts of cool freebies scattered around all the builds.  I loved this cool solar system table lamp:
























I fear this build may prove to be more prophetic than most people would wish to contemplate:






















There's some free kitschy wall art at this build as well.

All sorts of transportation devices await your visit:

Straight out of a Johnny Cash classic:



















To a little pink golf cart (pictures taken at the DMV Diner):


















The cook must have been on break, but at least he left a plate of burgers behind the counter.



















Next I played the Mouse Trap game...(a lovely builder here but most of the builders in BL are quite friendly and willing to talk about their creations):


















I loved this area with the ridable ferris wheel, hot air balloons, and climbable ladders.  One of the ladders will take up some 300m into the sky to a giant tree with cushions to rest (and there's supposed to be some sort of freebie up there, but the day I went it wasn't set for "sale" *pouts*):
























Time to break this up into more segments. More to come...

Lysi