“Welcome To Stone Lake”

Featured Post
by on January 20, 2018 at 7:19 pm
Posted In: (Fiction) / "Illustrated Story Line" ? -, Creativity -, Life should be more fun. -, Life should be more relaxed -, No bears in the news today -, Quantum Theory and Parallel Worlds -, Uncategorized, Welcome -

*** This is a “ComicPress” Blog – And an experiment. We really like the way it looks and due to ‘Real Life Issues’ – we haven’t had the time to do the research to discover exactly how the ‘comics’ feature works. But We also like the way things have worked out with our first attempts at Story Telling with artwork done while developing our Game World … [ -jrw- ] ***

= = = = =

Kaeren

– Kaeren of Stone Lake – Parallel Earth designation =   ( E/NorAm/US+Can+Mex #-07) –

Saturday, January 20th, 2018 —> At least in this dimension —>

— This is Kaeren – She always thought she lived on the only version of Earth that was real.

— Sorry, this is not the case.

— Her whole crazy story is chronicled in a novel, titled “The Stone Lake Revelations” – which – if you’re lucky – just might get published sometime this century in this particular dimension –

— There’s a bit of a postscript published here ( or in the process of being published here ) on the page titled “Secrets Of Stone Lake” —

~~~~~ Xhyrean

= = = = =

— “Chapter Two” :

— ‘Stone Lake’ is a property that includes a steep hill where logging trails were the only way vehicles could hope to reach the summit.

— Kaeren O’Neill’s protective uncle George owned the property. When she was a bright-eyed five year old he’d promised Kaeren it would be hers some day.

— But George disappeared and everybody said he ran off with his secretary. Since uncle George worked for the US Government a lot of scary men came around and asked a lot of scary questions.

— But that was ten years ago.

— And a farmer named MacPhearson { Uncle George’s best friend since childhood } received a letter from Uncle George’s attorney explaining that if George disappeared for more than five years, Farmer MacPhearson should sell the property and make sure the money from that sale went to Kaeren so her alcoholic mother couldn’t drink it all up – The plan was that money would pay for Kaeren’s University Education.

— But nobody seemed to want to buy that property, heck, most of it was nearly vertical.

— And when an out of towner was interested, Farmer MacPhearson drove the potential buyer up the steep and partially washed out logging trail in a four-wheel drive vehicle that had been ‘customized’ for use as a farm utility vehicle. MacPhearson’s son had hacked off the back half of the once Station Wagon-like Power Wagon, put down a sheet of marine plywood and built a low wooden wall and working wooden tailgate and presented his father with one of the world’s ugliest hybrid pickup trucks. But Farmer MacPhearson thought it looked just dandy. All it had to do was drive forward and back, turn corners when he turned the steering wheel and stop when he put on the brakes. And that it did, in spades. And it was real good at carrying all kinds of stuff around his farm.

— Farmer MacPhearson had spent many hours in his youth, hunting with Uncle George – all over that hill. When George got his US Government job, the loggers thought they could squeeze him for big bucks, told him he needed to pay them quite a bit to cover their insurance and operating costs. But George wasn’t stupid. He knew how much the loggers were overcharging for the wood they ‘harvested’ from his land. And he basically told the loggers they should try one or two impossible sex acts with themselves and told his friends on the local police force to make sure the idiot loggers stayed the heck away while he was off working on classified government projects.

— But when the logging trail ended at a mound of debris, Farmer MacPhearson scratched his head, shrugged and told the young potential buyer, “I guess this is where we get out and look around a bit -“

— And when the two of them walked around the pile of twisted tree trunks and mud and who knows what else – Farmer MacPhearson gasped at what he remembered should be a hilly landscape full of old growth trees and trails left by deer and moose and smaller animals, and a gurgling brook that ran through those hills and over a couple small waterfalls – and saw only a nearly level area of exposed – not quite weathered smooth – stone. All the farmer could say was, “Well, that’s different -“

— As the summer afternoon sun blazed overhead, and heated that stone – several areas of almost spooky – mirage like – waving areas of heated air rose above the uneven ground.

— The prospective buyer – a young man only a couple of years older than Kaeren – smiled, “Looks like a stone lake -” and that name stuck.

 Comment 

But then, one morning – she woke up to see:

Featured Post
by on January 20, 2018 at 7:10 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized
Eslyn in Mer city

– A completely unexpected landscape –

— She thought she was still asleep and dreaming.

Midnight in the desert.

– But the people in this ‘dream world’ knew she was there and responded to her presence. –

— She could taste the air. She could feel the wind. The sand in this strange place smelled like wood smoke.

The Ottarian Calendar :

by on March 31, 2018 at 3:12 pm
Posted In: "Boof!" -, (Fiction) / "Illustrated Story Line" ? -, Computer Game Building Schnarr -, Creativity -, Dreams don't always make sense - Especially when you're wide awake -, History -, Life should be more fun. -, Life should be more relaxed -, Quantum Theory and Parallel Worlds -, There were Bears in the news today -, Uncategorized

Enscribed on this 10th day under the Otter Moon in the Chiellan year 7531 C.E. { Common Era } – by Rocky, The Ymmp.

Ottarian Example.

Sporkette is an Ottarian. Ottarians are known to be Playful, Curious, Intelligent, { Not always very Wise } Socially Nurturing – and they have no sense of personal property – They share everything they have or ‘find’ with everybody.

 

— The Ottarian Calendar was adopted by L’Haeren { Prince and co-Regent of the Principality of Aerendel } about 2500 years ago –

— The Ottarian year begins on the first day of Spring. There are twelve “moonths” with 30 days each and a 13th ‘time of the Phoenix’ which lasts 5 or six days at the Winter Solstice. – Chiella’s Moon follows a slightly erratic schedule with some ‘Moon-moonths’ lasting between 28 and 30 days. Popular myths include a very busy Arche-Angel whose job it is to keep the moon from either falling into the sea or sailing off in search of a more interesting planet to circle for eternity. & While no Ottarian believes that life on Chiella could possibly be boring – they do concede that if a moon had an attitude like that of the Highe Elves – it could become bored about circling a world with too much beauty and constant excitement.

— In the ‘old days’ there were moonths named after flowers, trees, fish and insects. In a time which they forgot – Ancient Ottarians bowed to pressure from Highe Elves to rename their months after only mammals and birds. Nobody knows why they would cave in to any kind of pressure like that.

— Ottarian Astrology is borrowed directly from the Highe Elvish and their ‘Zodiac moonths’ vary slightly from their ‘official moonths’ – and the signs and totems associated with their Zodiac also stray from direct translation from the animals that give the moonths their names. Moonth Names were adopted when every single Ottarian supposedly agreed upon them – sometime in their forgotten past – when it must have been easier to get every member of the Ottarian race to agree about anything.

= = = = =

Spring Time:

Otter Moonth – Beaver Moonth – Raven Moonth –

Summer:

Owl Moonth – Rooster Moonth – Crow Moonth –

Autumn:

Deer Moonth – Hawk Moonth – Bear Moonth –

Winter Solstice:  Time of the Phoenix

Winter:

Wolf Moonth – Fox Moonth – Raccoon Moonth –

 

= = = = =

Saint Frodo has the Elves bring gifts at the Time of the Phoenix:

 

— During the time of the Phoenix everyone, especially the children, are on their best behaviour – Because their Sun once threatened to go away and never come back. This is a time when Ottarians think about the year that has just passed and really hope they were kind and charitable and ‘nice’ to everyone who did not threaten to kill their children and spouses and burn their land or worse – On the second or third day of the Time Of The Phoenix – if the daylight lasts measurably longer than the day before – They celebrate Gift Day – on which all children find gifts either on their doorsteps or under a gift tree if the family has one. This goes back to a time when ‘Saint Frodo’ first began secretly asking the Elves to leave gifts for all the children who were especially good and nice to everyone, because the Sun loves children and was always happy to see happy children sharing things with each other, and that made the Sun want to shine warmly for at least another year.

Jedi Cat Tricks –

by on March 11, 2018 at 6:51 pm
Posted In: Creativity -, Dreams don't always make sense - Especially when you're wide awake -, History -, Life should be more fun. -, Life should be more relaxed -, No bears in the news today -, Pets -, Quantum Theory and Parallel Worlds -, Uncategorized

Sunday, March 11th, 2018  —>  +1˚C / +34˚F @ 6:21pm { Atlantic Daylight Savings Time } —> & It was snowing lightly { ‘SnowGlobe’ effect } not so long ago — on long time friend’s — Jimmy Noyes — Birthday 🙂 —

Domino in Arnprior.

– Domino – Using his superior mind’s Jedi Cat tricks on us mere humans –

 

— This was a while ago. Domino was with us from something like 2006 to – um, either May 2015 or 2016 – 🙁 –

— He was a rescued Bengal cat – cross bred between endangered wild ‘Bengal Cats’ and domestic tabbies.

— Variations of the breed populate lots of teevee commercials.

— He was a quirky, world-class cat – who – among other things, shocked us in the waiting room of our Vet ( where he was obviously unhappy in his cat travel crate } – when, after I told him, “Everything’s going to be okay. In a couple minutes well go see this nice lady and shell look at you and maybe give you a shot of something -” He very loud and clearly replied, “No! –  No-ooo – No-ooo!”

— I dreamed he was an eight year old human boy with battle scratch scars on his face.

— I also dreamed that he told me he was unhappy because he wanted somebody ( preferably another cat ) to play with.

— He also named our Orange cat ( Yes, ‘Trouble’ is every orange cat’s middle name ) When we were calling him ‘Tigger’ instead of ‘Morris’ – the name the shelter gave him – Domino called out “Moe- Moe- oe-oe” and the orange came and smiled. Shortly thereafter when we couldn’t find the orange guy we called out “Moe-” trying to sound like Domino – “Moe-oh-” and the orange guy happily rounded a corner with a big smile on his face.

— As he was dying, and I was inconsolable, I tried meditating to send him energy that might help him get better – or ease his transition – I almost fell asleep when I had a fairly clear ‘day dream’ ( in the late evening ) in which I saw him as a kitten again, happily bounding off into fields that must have looked like his first home and finding his original cat-person woman owner – and bonding with her again in the next world – When I blinked I looked down at him and he was gone.

— There are tears in my eyes as I write this. We miss him dearly. But we also know he never got over losing his first love, his original owner. And I believe I received nearly undeniable messages from her thanking us for taking such good care of him after she couldn’t.

— Waaaa –

— but this was the first thing I did with our original free download of ComicLife the first time I knew it was out there –

~~~~~ Jim

Working Through Catastrophic Deletions & Learning to Really Appreciate Colour

by on February 24, 2018 at 9:43 am
Posted In: "Boof!" -, "Weird Weather" - even in the game world? -, Computer Game Building Schnarr -, Conspiracies -, Creativity -, Dreams don't always make sense - Especially when you're wide awake -, Exploring Caverns -, History -, Life should be more fun. -, Life should be more relaxed -, No bears in the news today -, Quantum Theory and Parallel Worlds -, Uncategorized

Saturday, February 24th, 2018 —> +2˚C / +35˚F with less than an inch of new snow on the ground, and the vehicles … @ 8:13 am A couple hours North of the Bay of Fundy —

Xhyrean's new look -

– First the Good News? – This is me in Aerendel –

— Yup We had a Catastrophic “oops” – One click wiped out like ten days of work.

— Working inside a 3D Compute Game – World Building – has it’s ups and downs. Now the bad news? —> While trying to resize an ‘asset’ ( big old rock ) the pyramid moved, I clicked and we lost – jeeze – I don’t know – The bottom 4th of one area —? Ten days’ work messed up in half a split second?

— But – Before I admitted anything I tried to undo that click, nope  – didn’t work, so I started fixing the area the hard way – & three hours later I had the perimeter back where we started – But we had some intense landscape that was missing – including the connections with other areas – We’d spent hours fussing with ‘water’ to fake a waterfall – and tip up one ‘oceanic’ bit of water – at a weird gravity defying angle – and messing with orientation adjustment tools to try to match up the edges of three bits of water, two parts of a river and the waterfall – so it didn’t look as horrible as we feared it might. And we were proud of that. But that ‘One-Click’ disaster had buried all that hard work beneath a now suddenly flat featureless landscape. — Luckily – the water, the rocks we used to cover the seem at the top of the waterfall – all that stuff was still there, hiding.

Ocean inlet about to be deleted.

– The “Ocean Inlet” Above ( We weren’t entirely sure whether it was going to be and ocean or a big lake /inland sea – ) – Was actually beyond the limits of the area it was connected to – And it was slowing us down –

— The above was just before the disaster – We deleted two cosmetic additions to one major area because they were really slowing us down, making it frustrating to try to navigate around – No matter how pretty or aesthetically satisfying they looked, they had to go.

TaleRocker looking at thesky.

– Jim’s Builder character – Checking out the ‘altered’ blue fog –

— “Before”? – Please notice how flat the land is to ‘TaleRocker’s right –

Have ou seen the stars tonight?

– In the process of driving ourselves nuts to fix the landscape – Jim went off and checked out an old area that never lost the stars, came back and tried something –

— Now look – Pulling down the ‘Landscape’ again – left us with a dilemma – and the opportunity to make some changes that might be more visually interesting – We’re not finished with that ugly weird hill on the other side of the river, but the river itself looks better than it did ( Um – in my opinion anyway – )

— & Another unexpected bonus to working our tails off in marathon sessions – I got up exhausted and headed for the kitchen to get myself some ‘nourishment’ and everything I looked looked absolutely amazing – Suddenly everything around me was vibrant with colours I probably saw, but didn’t  pay much attention to – paint on the walls – even the sand on the dog’s stairway in and out from the elements – even the sand in the driveway – Everything was beautiful – I remember a Yogi giving me advice way back in my misspent youth – He said that anything artistic we do helps us in our quest for spiritual ‘enlightenment’. Like the quote from “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” – “Before enlightenment – chopping wood and carrying water — After enlightenment – Chopping Wood! and Carrying Water!”

— Did I tell you that when Jim came back from North Shamrock Island he went in and deleted our ‘Skybox’ and bingo – the stars came out – They’re not all that visible in the screenshot above, but they’re there –

Ellyn the half-elf

– “Ellyn the half-elf” –

— “Ellyn” ) I don’t know how well putting her to the left of this text will work, but there she is, cropped – with the exposure adjusted so she actually shows up in this ‘photo’ –

Ellyn.

– I think this is Ellyn posing in a full width screenshot that had to be adjusted for size to keep it under 2 MB so this blog will accept it here.

— This was Ellyn before we messed up the landscape behind her.

Fidaria

– Fidaria – The female cat person. –

— Fidaria. Jim met a young woman of ‘Yugoslavian’ pedigree whose name was Fidaria. He thought that name was both beautiful and exotic. So when one of us wanted a Female cat Person as her main builder Character – Before she knew I had a cat person avatar for me here –  And she wondered what to name her – Jim went down the alphabet and got as far as ‘F’ and or friend lit up – “Yeah – that’s a whole lot better than “Kitty” –

Xhyrean at sundown.

– “Me” in the dark at Sundown – just before the stars came out and dazzled us all –

— I should probably end this here – I was the last one standing a couple hours ago and things got slowed down to an agonizing scrawl as the loads of landscaping changes we made were stacking up in a buffer somewhere – And I’m pretty sure I can safely log out and re-enter and run around to see how the changes we made look in the ‘daylight’ here 🙂

— Hasta luego –

—– Xhyrean ( the bloodshot and starry eyed ) –

“Darkness, Darkness-“

by on February 20, 2018 at 9:11 pm
Posted In: "Boof!" -, "Weird Weather" - even in the game world? -, Computer Game Building Schnarr -, Conspiracies -, Creativity -, Dreams don't always make sense - Especially when you're wide awake -, Exploring Caverns -, Life should be more fun. -, Life should be more relaxed -, No bears in the news today -, Quantum Theory and Parallel Worlds -, Uncategorized

Tuesday, February 20th, 2018  —> 0˚C / +32F with light rain @8:15 pm in Atlantic Canada —> It’s Kathy Krafchick’s Birthday { & Patty Hearst’s too } —> Happy Birthday to both of them { Not that either one will likely see this … } —

Starry sky & Kaeren.

– The Stars Returned – & the night sky got dark. Kaeren was there to see it. –

— The screenshot of Kaeren gazing at the starry sky might be too dark to show up well here. I may have to preview this and then mess with the screenshot.

— A lot has happened since the last time I posted here. Kaeren was really busy – planted a lot of flowers, brought Springtime to DelVahria and to Keltic Vale.

— { & Out of Character -} The dark night skies went away and haven’t come back. We read notes and discovered that that could be because of racial issues. Races that can see in the dark might keep the darkness –  and the stars – away.

— & Since I’ve been back { as ‘TaleRocker’ } we managed to light our streetlamps, get our waterfalls to look something like waterfalls, dropped a large rock across the river at the border between Keltic Vale and DelVahria – lost a couple water troughs – And we think we figured out why a lot of the plants that Kaeren planted kept disappearing { apart from the obvious – Forest elves picking them, taking the plants home and transplanting them – } And we think we might have solved that little problem – But we’ll have to hang on and see what happens next –

— After the last time Kaeren got to go star-gazing night hasn’t fallen in, jeeze, weeks in this dimension – two days back on the Earth we came from – Time passes differently here –

Dark clouds -

– And we’ve seen some dark clouds lately – { Did have to mess with the exposure on this one. } –

— & We don’t know what’s coming here – none of us have been here long enough to know if they have a monsoon season or if hurricanes come this far inland –

— So, um, We’ll keep you posted –

— { & because I knew and liked Kathy Krafchick – an intelligent, sensitive, artistic young woman a bit younger than me – when Patty Hearst was kidnapped – that effected me deeply. I tried praying that she’d come back to her family safely – and because I’d already heard of the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ {{ I am 28% Viking – but that has nothing to do with what my ‘radar’ picks up – all sorts of absurd information finds its way into my brain, mind & soul (?) and stays there – }} [ shudder ] — I thought the justice system failed Patty Hearst and all of us when they sent her to jail for not being strong enough (or stupid enough) to resist her captors { and maybe get herself killed. ((?)) }

Indigo skies at sunset.

– “Indigo Skies At Sunset?” – The orange glow around the mountains might be a temperature inversion effect? –

— I don’t know, maybe it came out all right in the end — ???

~~~~~ Jim