I joined Second Life on 13th December 2005 as a refugee from
Active Worlds,
Runescape and
Ogame. The moment I arrived I was addicted, hook, line and sinker, here was the vision of the future I foresaw when I first joined Active Worlds back in 1997, and life has never been the same since. I saw straight away this was the life for me and upgraded to premium membership. The picture shows me on my 9th day at The Shelter. My avatar was Gemini mark 1.
From the moment of conception I chose to be a kid, I figured I was unlikely to get 'hit upon', I certainly got that wrong (EEK!!), but I also found it helped me find many new friends everywhere I went. There weren't many virtual kids at that time and it was weeks before I met any, and most of those were girls.
One of the people I met was Hoo Doolittle, a really lovely lady who was later to become my virtual mommy. She is one of the nicest people I have met in SL and I was very lucky to have found her. She introduced me to her dear friend, Boo Doolittle, also a really lovely lady and now my SL aunty.
On my 13th day I visited a club called
The Drop In where the owner had noticed in my profile I had been an entertainments manager in real life and he promptly persuaded me to become a manger at the club. within a couple weeks the owner quit SL for personal reasons and bestowed the Drop In on me which, due to my financial circumstances was a poisoned chalice, but I threw myself in to the club none-the-less. We had around 200 members who loved the friendly welcoming atmosphere. The ladies frequently commented that they felt safe there.
It was then I met
Kris Spade whilst dancing at my friend
Dane Zander's club,
The Blueboy Club in
Apollo. I still remember now the moment he walked in looking very panache in his suit. He has been a member of SL since 2003 and is one of the first virtual kids. Within days Kris became my partner and best friend in Second Life. He is very special to me and added an extra sense of fun and meaning to my SL and I can't imagine SL without him. He persuaded me to close The Drop In and build a new club and this was the beginning of
The Vortex Project. Little did I know how much of my time was to be consumed on this project.
It was around this time that Kris and I were exploring and we came across
Loki Boy Avatars, a store that sells boy avatars and clothing, a rare thing back then. Then without warning a jawa av appeared which turned out to be
Loki Eliot, the store proprieter. Loki was to become a great friend and my SL brother.
Over the next few weeks I started meeting other kids, new converts and newcomers and Second Life started to become more interesting. It was an exciting time which I greatly miss.
The Vortex Night Club was opened March 2006 and has over 700 members. It has a realistic look and feel with a high standard of music provided by our many DJs. We hold live DJ events everyday, 7 days a week. The Vortex is friendly, warm and welcoming and we pride ourselves on being a safe and clean zone, which is part of the appeal for many of our members.
