NASA’s First Future Forum to Feature Secondlife

NASA Ame’s CoLab requested Cindy Bolero’s support for NASA’s Secondlife component at the Future Forums event held at the Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA.

Cindy worked with NASA avatars Astrodel Zapedzki (CoLab), Universa Vanalten (HQ), and Caledonia Heron (Houston), carrying out a flawless video webcast and mixed reality interaction at the Forum. NASA Ames Research Center’s video production staff and event committee produced the well-attended event.

The Tech Museum’s New Venture Hall was the location of the Future Forum

Featured on the screens is the virtual version of New Venture Hall. NASA Deputy Director Shana Dale (avatar Xena Dahl) watches Cindy’s webcast stats screen in foreground.

Plasma screen featuring Extropia sim, another webcast location in Secondlife

The Future Forum wraps its final panel discussion while the webcast is featured at NASA’s CoLab sim

Special thanks to avatars Stephe Rous from the The Tech Virtual, Robbi Rockett of Swings N Things for the emergency poseball scripting for Xena Dahl, and Jamie Otis for robust server support.

For more information and pictures: Future Forum at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California

NASA Calls on Bolero for RL/SL Field Mission

NASA’s Space CoLab requested Cindy Bolero’s expertise in live video webcasting and region admin skills to carry out a four-day mixed reality event. The NGEC2 conference was held in RL at NASA Ames Research Center in California (Silicon Valley). The Secondlife part of event was held at NASA’s CoLab sim.

Visit these links for the media coverage on this pioneering event!

Space CoLab Report

TroyMcConaghy.com

NGEC Flikr Group

GlobeHoppin Blog

California Wildfires Virtual Base Camp

In late May, a wildfire swept through the Santa Cruz Mountains only a few miles from Cindy’s RL ranch. Many fire trucks and helicopters came to town, along with hundreds of firefighters. In the weeks following, more fires broke out threatening more homes and lives. More recently, a freak lightning storm caused four fires, which came much closer to our RL home.

We built California Wildfire Virtual Base Camp to demonstrate what was going on in our RL for a month. Trucks, helicopters, gear, food, and emergency medical props were set up to demonstrate the emergency response. A slideshow of photos was compiled, and the video screen was updated with new video reports daily.

Secondlife’s ERST and SLFD groups assisted with the virtual build and the display was announced to the public. The California Wildfires Virtual Base Camp is a tribute to the firefighters, pilots, and other support who risk their lives to save people’s homes and animals in real life.

Aerial view of Base Camp

Fire trucks offroad in rough terrain and helicopters work together

Tired and hungry firefighters take a break to eat and rest

Inworld video screen plays updated news reports from the web

Aerial view shows strong winds causing fast moving wildfire.

Click here or on picture to watch video about the hundreds of horses and other animals evacuated from the Summit Fire (You have to watch commercial first, sorry)

Visit The CalFires Website
featuring Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

Special thanks to:

lilemms Bebb, Co-Director of ERST in Secondlife
ERST – SL Emergency Response Special Training RP Group
Firefighter actors Johnnie, Moto, Cindy, and Lorianna
SLFD – The SL Fire Department RP group
Wakatech’s Tubeorama & YouTube
KRON San Francisco
KGO San Francisco
KCRA Sacramento
KSBW Salinas

Group Aerobatic Flight Training

Moto and Johnnie conducted an introductory flight lesson with the Red Bull Extra Aerobatic planes. A handful of enthusiastic BGers showed up, and from what I hear, they had a blast! It was the first event at our new airstrip in Utopia Estates.

The new runway, tarmac, and hangar sits atop a bluff

Moto gives a briefing

Off go the student pilots!

Tail chasing makes for good practice.

Fancy maneuvers by the squadron

The Bolero Group staff is available most anytime for flight and navigation instruction or practice (in other words, any excuse to go flying!) It would be a good thing to get out and practice now and then so you’ll be ready for when we go on cross country flights or expeditions.

Recent Trail Rides with the SL Riding Club

Equestrian activities and communities have always been a big part of the Bolero Group’s cause. For more than year we’ve continued to offer engaging events and beautiful riding sims.

The SL Riding Club, founded by Cindy Bolero in 2006, has provided adventurous group trail rides by skilled guides (also SL pilots, so they excel at communications, navigation, and tracking), large-scale horse shows and rodeos, colorguard units, an equestrian mall, and more.

Below are reports on some recent trail rides::

Cindy announced a group trail ride starting at the SL Riding Club Stables. As the ride got under way, LL network servers on the west coast went down, Cindy gets logged off abandoning the group. SLRC Trail Guide Lisamarie comes to the rescue and leads the group through the forest and on towards the volcano.

Cindy is able to log back in and finds late addition rider at the stables.
She coordinates with Lisamarie to meet up at the base of the volcano

The Volcano Trail Ride usually ends up at Tiki Bar Beach. The horses are cooled and watered then the party breaks out! Wooo hooo! The bar serves fruity blended drinks, and thanks to Azure Islands management, we have a cool music stream to dance to.

Cindy assembles a group ride at Wild Mustang Horse Park. They head for the trail then an RL emergency makes her log off. Riders report back later that the bridle paths under development are awesome!

Cindy and Dusty take a small group on the Volcano Trail Ride.

Two new riders on young fillies do their first climb up to the caldera.

As the group arrives at Tiki Bar Beach after the climb, one of the fillies rolls in the sand and takes a rest. It was a hot dry day and the horses were pretty thirsty. Dusty the Vet examines the horse for exhaustion, but finds she’s just tired after the long ride, and after resting, the young filly is fine.

After making sure the horses were watered, it was time for some cold beverages.
Dusty cools off in the water trough! Or did the girls toss him in it?

Below are some pics Moto submitted from other group rides:

Lisa, Moto, Johnnie, and Liz explore a gorgeous openspace sim

Exploring Acropolis, a large group of garden sims with miles of trails

Moto also reports on a group ride he led in northern Azure Islands. An area that was once snowbound that is now much warmer. The head count may have been about 7 riders starting out, but only the sturdiest riders and horses completed the whole ride. Johnnie had to log off to go flip pizzas or something.

FYI: Moto will take you through some pretty rough country, so beware when you sign up! It’s best if you’re good with SL maps to keep track of the group, or to catch up them with after crashing.

Moto says, “Keep up! Lots of land to cover”.

Riders make it over the rocky summit

The group comes down the mountain into green hillside pastures

A rest stop by the lake. Some of the riders are getting tired due
to time zones, so a few call it a day and log off.

Remaining riders Lorianna and Elisabethh, make it out of the hills,
through a neighhorhood, and across the big bridge into town.

Last stop to water horses in the city park before heading home

Thank you Moto for providing pics and story of the ride. Wooo hooo!

More Blogs and Stories about the SL Riding Club
by Members, Visitors, and Reporters

The Volcano Trail Ride by Malu Zhao translated from Spanish. Its very nicely done. Thank you Malu!

Tamies Adventure’s in SL Yay Tamie! Thanks

CNN Blogwriter January Darkstone covers Barrel Racing at Wild Mustang Horse Park

Taku Raymaker tells about winter at the SL Riding Club – translated from Japanese (clik on pics!) Woooo Hooooo Taku!!!!

Caissa Amat submits to the The SL Looking Glass

Arya McLeod records the very first Sl Riding Club Volcano Ride – Coolness!

Apryll Miles writes about SLRC trails in her blog!

Hang Gliders – The Best Way to Explore Sims!

You’ll find hang gliders left out on Bolero Group land, particularly Roxie’s Roadhouse roof or the airstrips. Often they are set to group share or for anyone. They are also set to moveable so you can pull them out of stuck places.

Give them a try! They use basic SL flight controls including throttle. Here’s some tips:

1. Take off pressing Page Up key briefly.
2. Slow down by tapping Page Down for best controlled flight.
3. Get out of a spin by pointing nose down (Up or Fwd arrow key).
4. To get out of stuck area, like against building or underwater,
    Sit the glider, then go into edit mode, then enter 100 in the Z box.
    This will put you in the sky and you can resume flight.
 

Group-set hang gliders can be found on top of Roxie’s Roadhouse

 

The gliders are awesome for a slow moving hover 

Johnnie turns on colored smoke and does some aerobatics

 

 

It’s no longer difficult to fly aircraft in SL. The newer scripts are great!