Bay City, "Hot Bay City Nights," And Other Events

By Deaflegacy

Marianne McCann is a resident of Bay City.  She also organize and run the Bay City Alliance, a group for other Bay City residents to meet and work together to the betterment of the community.  Marianne also had the great, good fortune of being able to help manage and present events for Bay City for several years now.  As long as the folks feel that Marianne is doing a good job, as long as she physically can, and as long as Second Life and Bay City exists, she will continue doing that.

Marianne hopes that Bay City has many more years to come.  “It's a great community with some great people in it. I hope we'll see more good folks become its citizens, and we'll continue to have fun long into the future..” said Marianne.

“Bay City is a unique little slice of the Second Life mainland. It's about 24 residential regions and about the same number of Linden Lab owned ones, decorated by the LDPW "Moles." It's loosely themed to the American Urban Experience, circa 1945-1965, with a distinct art deco influence. Unlike much of the mainland, Bay City has developed a strong community of folks who have sought to make the place all that more special.” said Marianne.

Marianne would say that Bay City is a very special place because it's a great blend of people and places, all seemingly working in concert.  It makes Marianne happy to see.

Bay City will have large events just about monthly.  Most are concerts, or at least have a musical components.  They can take many forms.  For an example, February “Mole day” event honors the LPWD, and their work helping to build Bay City.  In the holidays, they have a “Tree Lighting” event that includes charitable giving and live music, etc. They also have two weekly events.  Their meetings happen every Tuesday, while a weekly “rumble” race happens Thursday nights.  Toward the end of September, they usually have their Oktoberfest.  Oktoberfest is a Germanic tradition.  All big beer-focused, harvest-time event.  Oktoberfest is usually a couple hours long, with Djed music and much celebrating. Details are, as yet, pending.

Marianne would recommend Bay City to newcomers who come to Second Life for the first time.  “It's a great place to sightsee and explore, with a lot of mole and resident made content with visiting.” said Marianne.  “It's a good place and a great community.”

I got a chance to ask Marianne about "Hot Bay City Nights".  Marianne said, "Well, the "Hot Bay City Nights" event is designed to be a vintage car show and sale, focusing on the Bay City "theme era" of 1945-1965. We will bring in vendors to show their cars at the fairgrounds. We also have a couple other events at the same time: car washes to support Child's Play Charity, and the "Miss Bay City" pageant."

The first "Hot Bay City Nights" was in 2012.  The name is a take-off on "Hot August Nights", an annual vintage/custom car show in Reno, Nevada.

As long as the folks are interested and Linden Lab keeps the lights on, then Marianne suspects that they will keep doing it.

"Well, it's a group effort. This year it was primarily ran by Maureen Boccaccio and ADudeNamed Anthony, in that they did much of the decor, arranged for the vendors, and organized a lot of other details. I was also part of the planning and set up. Meanwhile, Evola Courtois managed our charity car wash, GoSpeed Racer DJed Miss Bay City, and Pygar Bu emceed Miss Bay City. So it's really done by a number of us around town." said Marianne when asked about people in charge of "Hot Bay City Nights".

"Hot Bay City Nights" ran from August 19 to 27, 2017.  Miss Bay City was held during the event on the 27th.  The car wash was held on the 23rd, if Marianne's memory serves.

Sounds like I have missed out on the fun but there is always next year and I'm already looking forward to the next event!

You can look up more about Bay City at it's Community Center at Daley Bay (234/24/25)

Deaflegacy

Troubled Waters at the Blake Sea

As many of my readers know, the Blake Sea is the most widely used water area in all of Second Life. It was created a few years ago, with support from the community, to be a "sailing first" area of mainland, where races and pleasure sailing can occur without interference from other residents. The Blake Sea is Linden-owned, and therefore is supposedly open to everyone to use as they wish.

 

There have been many problems in the Blake Sea over the years. Almost as soon as it was created, the aviation community in Second Life saw the opportunity to use the 30 sim estate, and surrounding sailing estates that total over 100 sims. After some debate, an established set of guidelines for the aviation community in the Blake Sea was determined. Namely this meant that pilots could not fly close to the water (unless they were landing or taking off from an airfield), they need to remain clear of sailboats, and they must avoid areas that sailing races can occur.

 

Eventually, a third group joined the Blake Sea. The Pirates and Navy roleplay battles in century vessels, and have an established leadership. An area of the Blake Sea was set aside for their battles, the "Contested Waters" - a four sim block of open water, with rezzing enabled and a short autoreturn. The sailing community debated for a while, but with approval from Linden Labs, the pirates and navy were welcome into the Blake Sea, with the caveat that they remain in their own contested waters.

 

About a month ago, a new group has been gaining ground in the Blake Sea. They have been sailing around in WW2 era boats, which are rather large and visible from a great distance (depending on your draw distance). Some have been combative between each other, but most have been peacefully sailing in the public waters. In addition, this group (after gaining approval from the community liaison, MarkTwain White) has placed an aircraft carrier in the Southwest corner of the Blake Sea, in an area that is rarely used by the sailing community.

 

There has been mixed reaction to this new entity in the Blake Sea, for the most part split between the established sailing and aviation groups. At first, the new group has been using the entire public Blake Sea estate, but after discussions the group has agreed to remain in a small area away from everyone else - just like the Pirates and Navy. This area, in the southwest corner of the Blake Sea, is the least used by the sailing community, and does not contain any racing lines.

 

For a majority of the sailing community, this was not well accepted, and has culminated with a rather large protest on June 17th, 2012. Participants were asked to silently protest the new group's activities, waiving white flags and floating next to the aircraft carrier. In response, the aviation and pirate communities, for the most part, started protesting their protest - waiving green flags and lining up in helicopters and aircraft. It was a sight to behold! According to one protester, Gwenetha Juliesse, who was waiving a green flag and is an avid aviation enthusiast, "We already have established air traffic routes over the Blake Sea area for people's convenience. There must be some way of establishing battle zones for ships or so on."

 

A proposal has been submitted to Linden Lab regarding this issue, but they have yet to make an official decision as of this time of writing. This proposal, which involves setting aside a four sim block in the southwest corner for their use, which mirrors what was approved for the pirates group.

 

Marianne McCann recently stated the "situation in the Blake Sea is getting worse." She told of a group notice from Tig Spijkers on the SL Aviation group, "Effective and immediately all military style or combat boats, planes, helicopters, etc are now banned from the Saliors Cove regions. Only current exception to this rule are the aircraft and vessels of the SL Coast Guard."  

 

Gemma Cleanslate and Howdy Colter, pictures by Marianne McCann