Safari Repels All Borders

Borders, not boarders... this wasn't a Pirate event (another one of those is coming up in the New Year, though) but rather, two 'border' events, as you'll see... First up, a trip to 3rd Rock Grid, then, a load test on HIE. The HG Addresses are at the end as usual.

            Alpine, on 3rdRock Grid, is full of winter sports. You can ski, skate,  try the sled race, and throw snowballs here. We met up with the 3rd Rock crew, including Michel Farrell, whose real world radio show 'The Music Cafe' is a great feature the grid, and well worth a listen, even if you're not inworld!.

Zinnia demonstrates the sled race game

Zinnia.Frenzy: Welcome to Alpine, our new region for winter. Some of you know a bit about 3RG in the past but we have changed so much we are not the grid we were going into year 10 in 2018. We started off well before my time as a hobby grid 11 years ago Terry Ford had got wind of OpenSim and 3RG was born as a grid in Feb 10 years ago. Soon people realised the potential and Linda Kellie joined and she started building like mad... She was called the 3RG energiser Bunny, she just built night and day, so Terry made some code changes and sorted out the thorny perms situation, as people could just copy anything and then later added a money module.

Meeting point on Alpine

 Zinnia.Frenzy: We just were taking off when a tragedy struck and Terry had to leave. So he left the grid with a resident, Trucker, who stepped in. Things didn't gel very well tech wise and so Laz Pooraka joined in 2009. So with Lazuli at the helm things started to pick up. At that time it was still a closed commercial grid. We made the decision to go hypergrid 4 years ago. Terry is still with us as technician but none of us anticipated what came next.  2 years ago Lazuli decided it was time to retire, and his greatest wish was to turn 3RG into a not for profit grid... So a shocked 5 of us were offered the opportunity to take that forward.

3rdRock Welcome Region

 Thirza Ember: YaY we like no profit ...who are the 5?
Lucy Afarensis: all that dirty money
Zinnia.Frenzy: The 5 are Dolfke Barbosa who also runs New Grid Nirvana so we had a good start, Kira Tiponi whose background is in programming and the like, Thoria who is a software developer, and the only one of us in the USA. There is Kered my husband who is really a hobbyist lol until he got thrown in here, he is a lecturer in computing and was doing research in SL with the open University. Then there is me, I am the janitor, I organise and do a bit of everything, I am here daily and just keep the place running... and shout help!

Aime Socrates, skiier

Zinnia.Frenzy: So Kered runs the grid but Terry Ford is our coder,: he may have gone off to do his own thing but this is his baby, and 3RG I guess always will be. So now we are a Foundation Grid but we did inherit an economy, we are a not for profit we do all this as volunteers, but as people know servers cost money to run and so we make a small land charge,The idea is to give a fully supported grid, with the least cost possible. Which is what we do to the best of our abilities
Zinnia Frenzy: I forgot to mention Eldovar Lamilton. He is our mesh expert and paddles about in the servers with Kered - no idea what they do I am not allowed in LOL. So we have come a very long way in 10 years, and we hope to be celebrating 20 years. We may be smaller in number as the amount of grids increase but the loyalty we have here is what keeps us going, we have the best bunch of people who are friends in RL as well as virtual
Kered.Owl: Hi All
logicamp immo: Hi Kered
Mal Burns: Hi Kered
Zinnia.Frenzy: hello this is the guy who keeps the grid going

Zinnia.Frenzy: So next year year 10 we have some surprises coming up but under wraps...I guess I cant talk about the grid without ROBstock.This is our yearly event for charity.
logicamp.immo: Do you organize some concert ?
Mal Burns: more festival than concert i think
Zinnia.Frenzy: We used to have a Live Music and DJ show but we have diversified on many levels, we have Art exhibits, poetry ,storytelling
logicamp immo: yeah
Zinnia Frenzy: yes  we are going into year 11 of the event. Last year, we changed the name to NO Borders ROBstock. The charity is Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF). It is an independent humanitarian medical aid organisation. We are committed to providing medical aid where it is most needed, regardless of race, religion, politics or gender and also to raising awareness of the plight of the people we help. How year eleven? Well, it started in SecondLife and so its year 10 on 3RG. It was brought from there by Lazuli and I have with my team carried it on for the last 4 years

Kered.Owl: by team Zin means herself mostly
Mal.Burns: what dates for next robstock?
Zinnia Frenzy: This  next year we are set to go March 10th and 11th. After entering HG we dropped the Sl stage but by popular demand this year we go multigrid again.  So we are having 2 stages this year with cross grid chat and MOAP is some cases. So we are looking forward to a bumper event, and some great music, we are so lucky once the word goes out I get swamped... in the old days getting a live singer out of SL ws like pulling your own teeth, Opensim was not taken seriously, and we played almost all artists in Sl, Then they realised there was life outside... and so we are so grateful to those who come and play for us, we raise approx $1000 US over 2 days, and have done for every event organised last 5 years. We appreciate not everybody can donate, but we still want you to come, so keep your eye open as we  get organised and the word goes out!
George Equus: Médecins Sans Frontières is a great cause
Zinnia Frenzy: yes it a truly worldwide apolitical charity, and that's why we support it.

Our second stop was a load test on HIE expo.

           More than 30 showed up to help out, thanks for that. We tested the region borders, explored how quickly crazy Bento Meshes loaded (or didn't load) and got people to pre-join the HIE Language groups, which allow you to follow talks in French, German, Spanish and Italian, even if you do not speak those languages. The Welcome area has Join Group signs, you can quickly and easily use to join the group appropriate for your language needs.
           We are all looking forward to the event this weekend on Craft Grid, where you can hear talks in 4 languages, translated into English and many other languages, and also explore the many Booths and Stands on the Auditorium region.

                 To learn more, check out the HIE Event program, and come be part of the fun !

HG Addresses:  
Alpine on 3rd Rock Grid           grid.3rdrockgrid.com:8002:alpine
HIE Expo                                   craft-world.org;8002:hieexpo   - Portals lead to the Auditorium