Post number 201 - Looking back

This blog was born on the 1st of June 2007, 4 months and 26 days ago, and this is post number 201... a good time to look at all what I've done in SecondLife since.

I started with the goal of making money easily, using camping and banks. Simple plan, just a matter of how long I could camp and how much I could get out of the bank. I quickly learnt how find good camping spots, and how to re-configure the Second Life client to avoid being disconnected after 30 minutes of idle time.

While camping, I met people who are now good friends and who teach me a lot. I particularly think of Josephina Bonetto, who is now running Club Josephina. Jo also suggested to create a group to share ideas and good camping spots with other campers. I made it, and we are now 82 members in "Free Money from JohnLight Raymaker". Campsite sharing continues to go on, I regularly post good adresses to the group, and some other active members do it as well. It even happend that I used the group to find new campsites for myself ! I also decided that when I will get the 1'000'000L$, I will give it to one of the members of the group.

Jo also suggested to create an alt, a second avatar so as to be able to camp more, using my spare computer. I knew later than some SL players are running up to 8 avatars simultaneously ! When I met Jo, she was envisaging to buy a small piece of land to be able to change clothing in a quiet place... Not only she made it, but she is now running a night club and renting appartments !

As my wealth was increasing, I lost nearly all of it (10'000L$ by that time) when Ginko bank collapsed. This has been hard period, and I one lesson I learnt was to keep a separate reserve in a safe place. Since then I keep 10% of my total earnings apart. At this point an other important people comes in the story: Stroh Bing. He was kind enough to put me back on track, with a gift to compensate for what I lost in Ginko collapse !

Another problem hit the camping community at the same period: LindenLab made gambling illegal in Second Life. As gambling was a main source of income for camping operators, the number of campsites was strongly reduced, as well as the payrates and maximal earnings.

Another important people in my story is Arbitrage Wise, CEO of JT Financials, and SL Capital exchange. Apart from giving me very interesting inside views of a SL bank, he gave me 5'000L$ to invest on SL Capital Exchange ! Until now my results as a day trader are not exactly good, these 5'000L$ are now worth... 3'800 L$. Ooops. I'm still looking for better investment strategy.

More recently, I organized two contests to animate the little commuinity that is forming arount me and this blog. This was a good opportunity to reward friends I met through the group. They are way too numerous now to be all mentionned here, and I don't want to make any jealous... I won't cite bad people either, I'm in a positive mood right now.

To close this mini restrospective, I can say that what started as a purely economical quest turned into a passionating human adventure. It had up and downs, I met all kind of people, we exchanged views and ideas. I want to warmly thank all of you, who made SecondLife part of my Real Life...

And now, turn towards future, and see how to get this million Linden Dollars !

PS: Genie, you're the sweetest person I met in SL, I could not finish this post without talking of you.