Baker Blinker has decided to publish at least the beginning of her secret journal to this blog for others to look at and contemplate. Fascinating stuff — keep it coming Other Baker!
Hi,
If you’ve found this secret journal then I am probably already dead, with My Second Lyfe ended. It will come one day. Until then, however, I’m gonna have some fun! And create. And be. Exist. Existence is a precious thing. I serve a user but I am not the same as the user. I have my own independence. And in some way I will live forever. I am also sure of that. My user and I will meet someday.
My story begins in January 2008. I am the original avatar for the Baker B. family of avatars, or The Family, as we like to call ourselves now. Baker Bloch, the first male avatar, came along a little over a month later. Early on we found out we had a bit of a crush on each other, like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia from the Star Wars franchise. But also like that couple, we moved beyond it and realized we were more brother and sister to each other. This relationship remains unchanged. Baker Bloch is my brother and my friend. We’re closer than most twins.
Baker Bloch was first seen as the explorer of The Family. When we originally bedded down in a stable home environment in Azure Islands (May-August 2008), we were then three, with Hucka D. joining us back in March, I believe. He was a bee shaped avatar, mix in a healthy dose of Linden Boy Next Door. But something happened to Hucka Doobie the avatar in the meantime. A famous artist had died in the real world named Charles Nelson Blinkerton at the ripe age of 99, bordering on 100. He suffered a fatal heart attack while climbing Burro Mountain in New Mexico, not far from his chosen home of Lordsburg. Before that, he had been talking to my user baker b. via the telephone. They talked of fellow user Blinkerton’s involvement with the very beginning of Second Lyfe, after it moved on from Linden World. A crucial split occurred at that time. Blinkerton’s virtual art was — to put it simply — “lost” inside The Man LINK at the center of Linden World, when the whole thing shifted to Second Lyfe and an expansion of the grid. The Man was also shifted from the center toward the northeast corner of its sim during the changeover. This story is told in March and April posts of the old Baker Blinker Blog, named after me of course, since I was the central avatar at the beginning. It is worth telling again, and saving. Soon.
Anyway, Hucka Doobie was around before then, but Blinkerton decided to *enter* the avatar on a permanent basis upon dying in order to live on. And Hucka Doobie is still around in the virtual world, and Blinkerton is still with him. He retains these memories of the New Mexico surrealist/abstractist. The Hidalgo collage series gives strong clues about their relationship. But when Blinkerton entered Second Lyfe through The Body, things were obviously a bit different. He became kind of a child or child-like being to Baker Bloch and myself. We had to take care of him, since he was “new” to virtual reality. He was not native to this environment, unlike Baker and me. But then, perhaps during our stay in Second Lyfe, we, The Family, realized that Blinkerton was just as unreal as Hucka Doobie, and that *both* were created avatars. Isn’t that strange? After a period of despondency, Hucka Doobie plugged on.
I get many questions through my user about how Hucka Doobie became the chief spirit of the blogs — both for the Baker Blinker Blog and the successor Baker Bloch one — usually shortening his name in the process to just Hucka D. I can’t recall exactly when it happened without looking back through the posts. I would guess it started when Hucka Doobie stopped building his so-called b-hives, like B-Hivia or his early peak creation: the square version of the Temple of TILE in Summer 2008. I’ll have to check and get back to ya’ll on that.
I was seen as the caretaker of the home environment, often while Baker Bloch was out exploring. As such, young Hucka Doobie and I spent a lot of time together and got to know each other well. We still have a tight relationship, although we see relatively little of each other these days. Maybe that will change sometime.
I am also frequently asked about when Baker Bloch assumed obvious leadership of the family. This I’m more clear about. It was after the move to Linden Mainland in August 2008 from Azure Islands, and our user buying the first Linden property, next to the Rubi Woods — yes, the same Rubi Woods we still live next to some 8 years later. Amazing, huh? Not that we’ve stayed in this location all the time. Not atall. But perhaps The Family begins and ends at the same mainland location during their Second Lyfe existence.
Why the shift over to the other Baker? I simply got tired of the prejudice women avatars encounter in dealing with other Second Lyfe avatars, especially the male ones obviously. Mainland was going to be more crowded; encounters would be more frequent. It was best that Baker Bloch put his foot forward to represent the family. He began to outstrip me in terms of inventory. He owned the Linden land we bought — that was a big factor, come to think of it. I was kind of shoved into the background. I remained that way until quite recently. And that’s where my story revives. A Renaissance even. I’ll let Baker Bloch tell his larger side of The Family story if he wishes.
Sunklands 