I CAN NOT believe it’s been a whole week since I last posted here! I’ve been pretty busy in my first life and haven’t been able to long into SL much lately and when I have managed to do so I’ve mostly been working on organizing my inventory as it’s gotten a bit out of control lately. I guess time flies even when you’re NOT having fun.

The last post talked about technical difficulties with this blog template and some of the images showing Photobucket upgrade ads due to exceeded bandwidth. I did hear back from the template designer and he told me that none of the images in the template were saved to Photobucket and said that the demo template was working fine so I should just reinstall the template. I checked my blog again and the Photobucket ads were gone so I figured that everything must have worked itself out and I was ready to drop it and move on.

Alas, a quick and easy solution was not in the cards...press Read More to for continued drama.

Then I looked at my blog again yesterday and the issue was back! UGH! I did a little more research and found out that it’s an off and on issue depending on the amount of traffic on that template at any given time. I decided to respond back to the template designer with more information in hopes for a permanent solution.

As I mentioned above, the designer indicated that none of the images for that template were stored on Photobucket but when I looked at the HTML file of the template I was able to identify several images that had addresses linking them to Photobucket. I did a quick copy and paste on one of those links and put it into my response to him and asked for further clarification as to whom these images might belong. I also checked out the demo he had indicated was working fine and was able to recreate the issue when I moved my cursor over different areas. The issue wasn’t as prominently displayed on the demo because several of the affected fields were not filled out (i.e. Catagories and Friends & Links) on the demo and I mentioned that to him as well.

Kudos for the designer for his prompt responses and willingness to look into the issue because he responded the same day and said that I was right, he had mistakenly forgotten to move some of the images over to his own server and in fact some were still stored in Photobucket and were exceeding their bandwidth. He then went on to mention something about the images were removed from Photobucket because of the bandwidth issue and he wasn’t sure if he could get them back to put on his own server and that he was continuing to work on the issue. His English is a bit broken so I’m not entirely sure about the meaning of that last part, since I still see the images on the template, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and a bit more time to work things out before I decide to switch templates.

So, you may or may not see ugly Photobucket ads when you visit my blog but if you do please rest assured that I know about it and am working on getting it resolved. Thanks so much for visiting and I hope you’ll return soon.

I looked at my blog today and was slapped in the face with "Bandwidth Exceed" and "Upgrade Now" adds plastered over some of the graphics that are provided with the template I used. Not very pretty, to say the least, but at least they still function properly.

As I mentioned, those particular graphics are a part of the template and therefore it's not an issue that I have any control over. I have left a couple of messages with the designer of the template as well as the provider and I hope that it will be resolved shortly. If it's not resolved, I guess y'all have a new template to look forward to because this one just looks ghetto right now and y'all deserve better.

In the meantime, let me try to make it up to you. I found this link to a funny video on Banana Vella's blog and wanted to share it with y'all. It's a Bear Grylls parody and it's called Man Vs. Second Life. Enjoy! 

Cheers, obrigada, danke schön, grazie, bedankt, ta, sagol, takk, multumesc, dziekuje, komapsumnida, jule, tack, gum xia, arigato, merci, tienu, gracias, ke a leboga, kiitos, go raibh maith 'ad, and THANKS!!

It's been one month to the day since I installed Google Analytics (or sometimes fondly referred to as Anal Tics since it's the retentive type of personality that relishes in these things) on my blog and since that time I have gotten hits from the following countries:

United States, Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, Germany, Italy, UK, Netherlands, Australia, Turkey, Norway, Romania, Poland, South Korea, India, Sweden, Singapore, Japan, France, Estonia, Dominican Republic, South Africa, Finland and Ireland.

More love on next page..just hit Read More button below.

I think that it's so incredibly cool that people from all over the globe have visited my blog at least once and I just wanted to say thank you for your interest. I know that I have a few return visitors and I want to extend a special thanks to them for their continued support. I would also like to express my gratitude to Banana Vella and Shangreloo for placing me on their blogroll lists as I know I've gotten traffic from their blogs. Thanks ladies!

If my arms could reach around the globe I would give y'all all a huge hug!

I'm gonna do my best to keep the posts coming and I hope that y'all will feel free to leave a comment or two every now and again to reassure me that, in fact, someone is remotely interested in my ramblings.

Hugs and kisses and best wishes!

For all my American readers...Happy Independence Day! I hope you have a safe and enjoyable holiday and try to remember what those fireworks stand for and appreciate your freedoms.

Best wishes!

As if going head-to-head with GIMP wasn't enough to torture myself with, I just had to upgrade the blog template / layout today.

I have less than 10 posts on this blog so far and being that it is my first blog you would think that I might be content with a basic layout and generic template while I get the hang of things. But nooooo. All I could do when I saw it was think how bland it looked in comparison with the other blogs I kept up with. I had played with changing the background and text colors a bit, but nothing really appealed to me.


Then I thought that I'd use my newly downloaded GIMP program to at least create a custom header for the blog. HA! Read the post below to understand why that won't be possible anytime in the near future. Next I turned to trying to find a non-standard Blogger template. There were many websites that offered them and I settled on the one you are seeing now. I think that I may have swung a bit far to the opposite end of the bland spectrum but at least it appeals to me and I enjoy looking at the page now.

Of course, by the title of this post you know that can't be the end of the story. I downloaded and installed the new template with no problems and the text and pictures copied over just fine. The insanity began when I started to try to add back some widgets, get the menu links to work and find and insert HTML code. I also wanted to make it easier to navigate and read without having to scroll like crazy just to read a single post. Many frustrating yet rewarding hours have gone by today and I've learned a bit more than I knew before but still have some issues to resolve. Yeah, I'm looking at you Mr. Search bar.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new template as much as I do and don't hesitate to let me know if something isn't working properly.

Howdy y’all! Thanks for stopping by!

My name is Braunwyn Cleanslate in-world, but all my friends call me Bryn. I’ve been in SL fairly regularly since November 2006 and let me tell ya, it’s been a crazy ride. Despite that, Second Life has so much to offer and two and a half years later I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface.

Up until this point, my main creative outlet in SL has been building and decorating three of my own houses. I’ve also enjoyed snapping a few pics here and there as well as meeting new people and cultivating friendships. Despite those activities, to be honest, I was feeling like I was in a bit of an SL rut.

Over the last few months though, I’ve picked up a number of new hobbies, each one seemingly leading to the next. It all started when I met someone who had done some style consulting in SL. This person had long given up that profession, but it got me to thinking about my avatar and what improvements could be made. This person had also made a few blog entries about their previous profession and that got me started reading the SL fashion blogs.



Now a whole new world has opened up to me in SL. Just in the last few months I have probably tripled my selection of skins, hair, clothes and shoes while at the same time clearing some very old and unattractive freebies from my inventory (boy, was that a time consuming task!). I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a fashonista at this point but I would feel comfortable with the title frugalista since most of my new stuff is either very inexpensive or free. I’m amazed at the quality of some low cost items in SL, it’s just a matter of knowing where to look.

With my new and improved avatar I was feeling froggy when I saw a notice for an open model call for one of the in-world agencies, so I jumped. I was overjoyed and a bit intimidated to be selected as one of the agency’s models. That particular “job” lasted only a few weeks before the agency merged with another and had to cut their stable of models in half. I unfortunately didn’t make the cut that time around, but I wasn’t sad because my interest was fully peaked and by exploring modeling opportunities I knew that there were many more options available to gain exposure. Since I already had an interest in photography, I feel that hobby will also grow and develop as I pursue modeling.

I am constructing this blog (my first ever) as a creative outlet for me as well as a place to document the Second Life and times of Bryn. I won’t be focusing on any one thing but instead present a slice of Second Life as seen through my eyes and my interests.

Now that those formalities are out of the way, let's get this show on the road!


Model / Photographer - Braunwyn Cleanslate...Photo taken at free studio in the Ivalde store...Eyes - Tuli - intense eyes - blue - group gift...Shape - Alady 2009 Perfect Tribute to Jula...Skin - Genesis - Candace Peach "Glitteratti" - group gift...Hair - ETD Kiley - Blonde red - freebie...Shirt - Capris Abby Dawn Sweater - Navy blue - 10L sale...Shorts - Hell Bop - Leonard - hunt gift
Shoes - ETD - Demi Trainers (starley white) - welcome gift...Jewelry - Tickled Pink - Hearts cascade necklace - freebie