The Airships @ The Heliograph

Looking about on one of my favorite blogs The Heliograph which had a post on a great video series about airships. The series oddly called. Sit down for this... "The Airships" investigates the beginings, development, and decline of airships. Great stuff! You can watch the entire series at The Heliograph

The Blue Max

Made in 1965 and staring George Prepard, James Mason and Ursula Andress. Prepard a corporal in the German infantry leaves the trenches to become a pilot. Setting his sights on shooting down 20 planes, enough to win the Blue Max.

This was on late night cable about a month ago and Second Life has completely thrown off my internal clock on the weekends so I found myself sitting up watching till the end. As far as movies go, its not bad. I mean I stayed up till 3 a.m. watching it after all. You can actually see termites jumping from George Prepard at times he's so wooden but the flying scenes more than make up for any short comings. This was 1965 so no bluescreen here. Just WWI planes pushed fairly hard, and looking and sounding great doing so.

I dug around on the web and it was listed on Hulu. But said it was unavailable. Might be worth a look to see if you have better luck.

Airship Ventures Zepplin Christened Eureka

Naming Zepplin Earns Oakland Couple Lofty Prize

Airship Ventures a company that recently started service with their Zeppelin NT airship in the SF Bay area had a naming contest for their new ship. Christopher Humphrey won an online contest to pick the name of the aircraft, which is 15 feet longer than a Boeing 747. He submitted "Eureka," which was a code word for the project during its design.

Check out the full article here. And here is a better link to the video featured in the article. Be sure to also check out Airships Ventures site.

Lighter than air travel is back! Even if you do have to go to San Francisco to do it.

Zoe Connolly - Timeforce 10 Machinima

The only scene where Avery is not kicking my butt!

Very cool Timeforce 10 video by Zoe Connolly. Timeforce 10 is a multi-sim science-fiction espionage roleplay adventure which her group is playing both inworld and offGrid on various blogs, etc.

Oh, did I mention I play a very small part in the video? Eh, ever the self-promoter!

Aether Inglewood vs The Airship

New video up of me attempting to build my first. Well first anything in Second Life. If nothing else it's worth a look just to hear Old Blue Eyes. The most amazing thing? It actually flies! Have a look.

RCAF Last Organized Dogfight

Due to the Open Space issues in Second Life, today marks the last of Royal Caledon Air Force's weekly organized dog fights. As I joked today with Zoe Connolly due to my performance in the skies above Lovelace this morning I wouldn't be missing them very much. That of course is not true.

I may in my short time here in Caledon set the record for being shot down in the RCAF (my un-official call sign is Target) but to me that's not what these weekly meet ups were all about. Don't get me wrong I love ripping the canvas of a Fokker DR1 with slugs from my guns as much as anyone. But frankly I don't see some of these people other than at one of these weekly get togethers.

It's my hope I don't lose contact with many of the fliers here in the RCAF. I know Zoe has big plans for the RCAF after the beginning of the year, she's clever that on. But some of the best times I've had in Second Life have been at these weekly dogfights. Be it standing on the tarmack at Second Skies shooting the breeze with everyone or watching at the bottom of my parachute as someone takes a victory roll after shooting me from the sky.

If anyone is actually reading my little chunk of the aethernet and should come across this and you need a little target practice. Give me a shout in world. I could use the stick time and beside...I'm a hoot!

Happy Skies everyone.

Steampunk Roleplay - New Babbage - The Cloud Angel

Digging about on Youtube this evening and found the following interesting video. Fire up the boilers on the airship. Load my ray-guns and goggles we are off to New Babbage!!

Find out more at the New Babbage Ning.

Amazing Tribute

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down
And I guess that's how you started like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown...

Just looking about on the web and came across Emilly Orr's beautiful blog. She has captured my feeling of the last 24 hours far better than I could ever express about the loss of our dear Sumie. That in mind I'll point you to her amazing posts about our friend.

Monday December 15th post

Tuesday December 16th post

Loss of a Close Friend

I heard this afternoon that my friend Sumie Kawashima passed away in RL. Needless to say I was shocked and deeply saddened at hearing this.

I know quite a few people in Second Life. Lots of people in my "friends list". Lots of people that I know just to say hello to, how are you?

But Sumie was without question one of my true friends in Second Life. It didn't matter what we were doing. Out chasing pirates over the Firth,(We found not pirate one) me riding shotgun as she flew. Dancing at Prop Spinners, her doing back flips and Boing Boing all over the place. Listening to her talk as a drunken pirate, which always had me on the floor laughing. Hanging out on the deck of my treehouse or watching her work on one of her wonderful aircraft at the aerodrome. She was never anything less than a delight no matter what we were doing, and I just adored her.

Each and every time we did something together she always left with "I love you angel." And for whatever reason, be it my stoic mid-western upbringing, a general emotional constipation.... I never told her how great I thought she was and how grateful I was for our friendship.

At the beginning of the month I decided to take a break from the internet and Second Life. I just felt I was spending way too many hours here. The idea was that I'd be back after New Years. I lasted about 10 days and my main reason for returning to Second Life was to check on Sumie. I knew she had been sick and in the hospital but was doing much better the last time we talked.

There is a Sheryl Crow song called the "Difficult Kind". In that song is a line that goes something like...

"There ain't nothing like regret to remind you your alive"

I find myself regretting two things. That I don't have command enough of the English language to express how much I'll miss her and that I never told her how cool she was.

Love you Sweetie, I'll miss you more than you can imagine.