What I want to know is, what is that prize?  What could be so very important that the onslaught must begin before the sentence is complete?  Does everything you say have to be an assault?  Does everything you hear have to be an assault?

I’d love to enter into conversations about a whole slew of interesting topics.  Moula, Open Source, the state of the planet, quantum living, the massive increases in tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc; you know, ordinary things.  But there are very few places or groups of people who can seem to stay calm long enough to have such a conversation.  I’ll keep looking, but it does get a bit frustrating to have a question and refrain from asking because only the self-declared know-all’s will be the only ones who answer — then shortly they begin to argue with each other.  Those interest me not in the least, as they’ve said very little already that I didn’t already know and plenty I knew they would say that showed knowing wasn’t their goal.  The goal is winning.

Ah well.  Such is life.  Back to the cavern to smell the flowers and talk to the butterflies.  They all seem to be able to live in harmony with one another at the moment.  I guess they’ll let me in for a while, too.

“I don’t think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon.  We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service.  These times demand it.  We’re not going to attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make.  We’re not going to convince the bravest Americans to put their lives on the line as police officers or firefighters if we don’t properly reward that bravery.
 
So, yes, we need a conversation about pensions and Medicare and Medicaid and other promises that we’ve made as a nation.  And those will be tough conversations, but necessary conservations.  As we make these decisions about our budget going forward, though, I believe that everyone should be at the table and that the concept of shared sacrifice should prevail.  If all the pain is borne by only one group — whether it’s workers, or seniors, or the poor — while the wealthiest among us get to keep or get more tax breaks, we’re not doing the right thing.  I think that’s something that Democrats and Republicans should be able to agree on.”

I don’t normally get political.  Well, OK, I got political when someone threatened to pull the plug on Public Media and the Muppets….  But you know, what the president is saying above is logical to me.  Enough is enough of the disparity in our economic and tax policies (and what is this blarney about needing subsidies for rich oil companies?)  This is utter nonsense politicians are spewing while the bahro (and explorers) continue to suffer.  There is enough for everyone, folks, and getting fatter on the backs of the least is just not the way to do things.

That is decidedly NOT good Cavernsense.

It sounded good in my head, though, like something that goes on automatic once I start the journey down into the Cavern.

• Relto Book — check
• KI phone/pad/pod/camera — check
• Office key (heh!) — check
• Journal — check
• Munchies — check
• Sample Collection kit — check
• Cavernsense — do I have to check?

It really seems like something that would travel with any Explorer at any time.  Rock climbing, skydiving, not-meeting, linking, ledge leaping, party organizing… oh, I forgot it that time.  Well, I suppose one out of many isn’t too bad, although the few times I forget to use cavernsense I get myself into all kinds of situations.  Like this last time, when I chose not to ignore that nudge in the back of my brain that said “The Healers Guild should do something for the Re-re-opening of the Cavern.”  I really should have sent it back to oblivion.

But then cavernsense doesn’t really allow one to leave it behind.  It is, really, always there, riding shotgun so that when it is needed it leans forward and lets out a crack! just at the time one needs it.  You can ignore it, but you can’t really ever forget it.  Once you know it is there, you always know it is there.  If you ignore it for too long, things spin you around to face it squarely and listen to that “you should have listened to me” voice that is so very irritating.  So I just accept that my cavernsense, like my other senses, will be working and alert when I get down to my Relto and start digging around for clues to things I don’t yet know exist.  I don’t worry that I’ll get into too much trouble, as long as I don’t ignore it.

And that is good Cavernsense.

The Healers have grown a bit, in a very quiet way.  I myself have given quite a lot of thought to something I could start doing regularly in the Cavern as one of the GoH members — something that wouldn’t become large and unmanageable.  Not the meditations, because that implies something… different…  not sure what.  But I do think there is room for an event, a small one, that allows people to meet regularly, think positively, and help the community while helping themselves.  There are a lot of technical types of things going on, and I’m not a techie type anyway.  So I don’t really think I’d be stepping on any toes or butting in to events already taking place.

Yeah, I think I’m ready to take a small step over to another new mountain.  A smaller one this time.  That last one was enormous and took way too much of me to get over the top.

How about this one, over to the left?  The slope is gentle, and the pass isn’t too far below where I’ve come to already.  That means I won’t have to climb back up so much to get over the next top.  Not so far down, not so far back up.

Now that sounds like good CavernSense.

May your pen ever flow with ink

May your journal pages never run low

And may the words you write weave laughter and healing into the world you create.

I must be linking somewhere new again.  It always happens like this when the vortex shifts slightly.

It was nice.

Sidenote:  Discovered I could finally be in three places at once.  In the Cavern, in Second Life, and in my chair.  I do believe I have fully entered the multi-verse.

I meant to review the video plug-in for a website I was working on, and if I liked it thought I might compare it to another, and then to yet another that was better than the one we used for CCN.  I didn’t get there, because I very much needed to upload a png to the RL project site on an OS Second Life sim, and for the life of me I have not been able to construct, modify, layer, or save a png that was not gauzy and not at all opaque in some areas and transparent in some areas.

I finally begged help from a very good friend, who, even though recovering from an illness, took the time to walk me through the procedure.  Unfortunately, the program I was currently using was as not the same as hers and although I thought the steps would be similar, they were not.

Stop.  Do-over begins.

At this point I fired up the connect-to-the-virtual desktop at school and took the lengthy amount of time to get it all set up.  My getting-old-lappy complained, but since I’d given it a good cleaning yesterday, I told it to be quiet.  Dum dee dum….   twiddle thumbs….  make coffee…  connection established, please wait for the virtual desktop to start…..   choose your program group…. please wait for the virtual desktop to continue….  choose your program….   get another cup of coffee….  start up the old-old computer…  please wait for the program to start…  check a forum on the old-old computer…  program finally starts.

Each step takes quite a long time, mostly because my little lappy is rather slow.  Funny, it is actually the fastest of all the computers we have, but in comparison to the speed with which technology has advanced, it is now considered old.  I’ve been trying to raise the funds for a new desktop, but alas, donations are not forthcoming for the Computer-for-Ghaelen campaign.  Don’t know why…

Oh yes, in case you are wondering, I did finally get rid of the sneaky Pete in my lappy.  It was not really dangerous, just a nuisance that likes to watch everything one does.  I wonder if that is what “The Watcher” does in the cavern.  The whole fiasco was my own fault, really, for not running regular scans.  I am rather disappointed with Spybot though.

Application open.  Upload image to modify… step one… wait… setp two, wait.  Spending the time I didn’t want to spend yesterday.  Step three…. wait.  You really should stop complaining as that little malware would still be running, Ghaelen. Ok, step four… save to png…

Here’s the real problem.  I am not certain Second Life will run with this application open.  If not, I have to close this down, and then if I missed a step or it doesn’t work, do I do the whole thing over?  Well, I guess I’ll find out just how much of a trooper my little lappy is.

Fire up SL, go to OS grid.  Program loading…. erg, a grind… wait.  Get more coffee….  try the login button….  wait…  check a forum.  Oh hey, I think the Memorial event will be a go.  Cool.   Logged in to SL (is the virtual desktop still connected?  I am trying to hurry, but hurrying is no longer in the cards for this laptop.)  Ok, upload image…  wait.   Rez cube…  make bigger…  argh, this is going slowly now, lol.  Open inventory…  paste image to cube.

Gauzy.

Sit and stare at it.

Wait, Ruby told me she sometimes had to use a second viewer.  But the one I like can’t connect to this OS grid.  So, I’ll have to go to regular SL…  I’ll go to the building studio the professor allows me to use.

Quit OS grid.  Maximize the virtual desktop window — still running?  Connected?  Ok everyone, let’s try this one more time…

Launch different viewer…  wait.  Make another pot of coffee.  Ok, program started.  Login… wait.  check another forum.  Oh look, a Moul update!  Add a trip to the Cavern to my list.  SL Healers’ Outreach retreat loaded.  Here I am.  Maybe I’ll just try a cube right here, so nothing has a reason to crash.  Rez a cube… wait?  What?  Oh boy.  Oh, upload an image… wait. Pay money.  Grrrrr.  Drink some coffee.  Open inventory.  Good thing it goes right to the most recent added object.  Pull image to cube, and wait….

Huzzah!  Oh my gawd it worked!  Jump up and down in RL because my avie is frozen. Whoo Hoo!

Sigh a big sigh, quit out of SL.  Back to the virtual desktop and spend an inordinate amount of time preparing only two other images.  Quit out upload, and then begin a new round of investigation — get into the OS grid with a viewer that will show this texture correctly, and see if Gimp will work if I follow the same steps.  It is free, which is all I can afford right now.  I am disappointed in my tried-and-true program, but I won’t uninstall it until I do more tests.  That will be down the road at some much later point.

For now, though, back to the initial task on my to-do list.  Check out video plugins for the website.  Sigh.  That takes a completely new round of tests, another several hours, and another set of possibilities for inviting sneaky-Pete’s into my computer’s life.

I could do something else for enjoyment, but then what would be the fun of that? I love audio, video, 3D, virtual world anythings, and would rather create in virtual reality and new (and old) media than avoid the sneaky-Pete risk altogether.  It only makes good cavernsense.

I head to bed with good intentions for tomorrow.

Morning finally arrived, and I, with too-little-sleep, attempted to work on something academically intellectual and in that task I succeeded. Then, feeling less guilty about that, I moved on to the real work at hand.  I meant to review the video plug-in for a website I was working on, and if I liked it thought I might compare it to another, and then to yet another that was better than the one we used for CCN.  I didn’t get there, because I very much needed to upload a png to the RL project site on an OS Second Life sim, and for the life of me I have not been able to construct, modify, layer, or save a png that was not gauzy and not at all opaque in some areas and transparent in some areas.

I finally begged help from a very good friend, who, even though recovering from an illness, took the time to walk me through the procedure.  Unfortunately, the program I was currently using was as not the same as hers and although I thought the steps would be similar, they were not. (At this point I should have closed my beloved tried-and-true program and taken the time to use the virtual desktop privileges I have through school and connect with the correct program online.  I’ve done that often before, but it was extremely time consuming, and very resource intensive.  Basically, it is two desktops running at the same time, I think.  My little lappy is a trooper but not that powerful anymore.  So I didn’t go that route, I tried to use what was at my disposal without wasting any more time.)

Three hours later,  no program I already had installed would work for a darn and I finally decided to follow her instructions exactly.  I could not find my installation CD to save my life.  (I had uninstalled that program when I got my tried-and-true program because that old one also took a LOT of resources).   Argh!  Already five hours had passed, during which time I’d decided it was a good idea to maybe host a Guild of Healers’ event and not only give myself something else to do but poke my neck out for lopping off of my head if lopping was to be had.

Fortunately, in this case no lopping was to be found. We really do have a great Uru Community, lol.

Back to the day.

I finally located my installation CD and began to clean out resource to make room for it.  Of course I complained the whole way, but this did remind me of what we used to do during UU.  Defrag, give it more virtual memory, add RAM (which I’d done last year), stop any unnecessary processes…   I pulled up task manager — why does every single application want to start up first in the morning, even when I don’t use it but once in a while?  This old one was like that, too, and I knew it would install several little companion applications it thought had to be running all the time….   Part of the reason I uninstalled it.  Argh.  At that point I noticed a strange process running… now which new and freebie application was that for?  It didn’t want to stop when I stopped it….  No programs claimed it….   Took that computer offline, googled the process on another computer…. found out it was a medium risk malware… oh jeeze, how did that get there?  Lots of warnings on the internet about a banner ad or program or something…  Could be that modeling or video editor I had tried out the other day?  (I have got to stop trying all these new things…. )  I saw very few helpful tips on how to remove it as it seemed to be fairly new.  Jeeze!   Which site to go to for advice, even?  They all want to download cookies, flash cookies, and they have gizmo’s and gadgets that will scan my pc for all malware (but will they refrain from installing something else????)  Do this, do that, it’s dangerous, it’s not.  For pity’s sake!   The techie site I usually went to was now gone…. so I chose a big (hopefully safe) one…. they were not very helpful… Try safe mode, registry editor, use my crazy antivirus they said — that was worthless this time and picked up nothing.  Even good old Spybot didn’t think anything was wrong.  I could feel my head preparing to explode.

Now look, all I want to do is make a decent png, dammit!

Another four hours passed.  Fortunately I had decided to cook dinner while installing my old photo editing application.  That, at least, was tasty — the dinner, I mean.  Course, there are even more dishes to be done now.  My beloved husband just smiled and nodded as I complained, mentioning in passing he had nearly lost a huge clay vase he’d been working on for three days because there was a weak seam on one side. That took him all day, too, and he had as much work to finish as I did.  I said, “awwwww, I bet that was frustrating and time consuming,” even as I maintained the opinion that my problem was much more important.

I am here in my study, back at the old computer, (the problem was on a newer computer which is actually fairly old now) and I not complaining to him any longer because it is late, I’m getting tired and beyond cranky, and am running a scan (on the newer computer) using a new (and I hope trustworthy) little malware-seeking program that is supposed to fix this lickity split.  It did find some ‘infected ‘objects already (whatever that means anymore), more than either spybot or my antivirus.  I hope it doesn’t want me to get rid of something I really need.

I looked disgustedly and unfairly at the CD on top of the pile of papers.  I knew that old program was instrumental in helping me notice the malware, but I also knew that it will cause its own set of problem.  So, I decided I would try the virtual desktop option just to see whether the steps even work, because if they don’t then I don’t have to uninstall yet again.  I know, I should have done that in the first place, but I really was trying to avoid wasting time….

I’m running through the Cleft, touching all the items I remember as I run by. Such memories of such a place. My chat is going a mile a minute and it is all wonderful. Tyion found his keys and is in the cavern! We had a really nice chat. I ran and ran and didn’t even get tired, it was so great laughing and yelling as I ran.

I hated going through all the ages again in earlier journeys here, but somehow… somehow this time…

This time I don’t mind.

The only thing I wish for is that the cleft would be public. it is so bright and airy, perfect for picnics or bonfire parties. Maybe someday though. Maybe someday.