USS Owners at SLCC

A number of USS owners (along with Dale Irata of Island Yacht Club), AND and old time sailor, Pixeleen Mistral, attended the Second Life Community Convention in Oakland CA this past weekend.  It was the first time most of us had meet one another in RL. We had a GREAT time. Get Chad to tell you about the French cutie he ran into in  Jack London Square. Let him tell you his side of the story, then Aislin and I will tell you what REALLY happened.

By the way, SL isn’t the only “service” that loses inventory. United Airlines lost Chad’s luggage. It showed up a couple of hours after the convention was over. Too bad RL isn’t immune to body odor like SL is.

The Blake Sea Community Issue

USS Owners meet with Viale Linden

As far as USS/Blake Sea and SL sailing community issues go,  the highlight of the show was a face to face meeting with Viale Linden, Directory of Integrated Marketing at LL. Basically Viale is in charge of Acquisition Marketing and Retention Marketing. Another hat that Viale is wearing at the moment is Director of Communities. That will likely change when LL hires at new person for that role. At this point we have no more information on the timing of that hoped for event other than I can tell you that at least two residents from the SL Sailing community have applied for that position. We have no idea how many others have applied nor when a decision will be made.

While Viale is keen on getting NEW residents into SL  (e.g. “what can you guys do to help increase the interest and bring new residents into the SL sailing scene?”) we  also had a chance to talk about how the relationship between LL and the USS and the resulting Blake Sea Community Partnership ought to emphasize the RETENTION side of his responsibilities. With the continued decline in the performance of sim crossings LL is in danger of  losing more residents all the time.  In this regard we had a very productive meeting with Viale on the very simple topic of getting the Blake Sea  and USS regions back on the same colo (server farm) and hopefully on the same version. This was something that worked well for a number of months before Keira Linden was let go. Now no one is watching the farm on this issue. He is working to help restore that arrangement.

Requests for some interface between Viale and the overall SL Sailing community have not progressed very far (e.g. “office hours don’t scale well.”  ”Lets leave that issue  the back burner until we get a community person in place”). More information will be shared as it becomes available.

Pixeleen Mistral

Any oldtimers out there will remember Pixeleen Mistral and her epic battles with yours truly over just about anything going on in SL Sailing. Pixeleen and I finally met, in the flesh as it were. We had a GREAT time. By the way, I suspect some of you old timers might be surprised than Pixeleen and I have pleasant IM chats about once a month these days on one topic or another.

USA 76

The day after SLCC ended a number of us went for a sail on the AC Boat, USA 76 (winner of the Moet Cup against Alinghi in 2003, 2nd boat in the BMW Challenge in the 32rd America’s Cup in 2007). Thanks to Dale Irata (commodore of the RL Island Yacht Club in Alameda, CA and the SL version of the same yacht club)  who coordintated the event. I will begin working on a video of the day as soon as I get the video files from Chad (we used his camera). In the meantime here are a few shots.

One thing that struck me was the sound of the wind whistling on the main. That’s something the on-board mics don’t pick up during television coverage of  an AC race.

USS Owners and Others Enjoy an incredibly nice day sail around San Franciso Bay on USA 76

Most of these shots are courtesy of Chad Sawson. You can see more here: https://picasaweb.google.com/101577248260922323688