Introduce yourself

Hello everyone!

As I briefly described in my biography I am a wife and mother of 3 children, 4 if you count my husband. I only say that because my husband is like a kid at heart. My children’s ages run from 18, 12 and 7 years young. I am proud mother of 2 loving boys and a very witty little girl who is commander and chief when she chooses to be. We are also proud fur parents of a British Bombay cat named Jasper. He was given to us a few years back when my parents decided to become snowbirds and decided it wouldn’t be good to have him traveling back and forth with them from Florida to Massachusetts. So since he was accustomed to me, it was an easier transition for him to adjust to our family and he settled in quite nicely. He is now king of the castle other than when our daughter is chasing him around to have a tea party or play dress up.

My husband and me - 2017

Our kids - 2017

Jasper - 2017

So more about me and my background. I was raised as a catholic in a very strict Portuguese family. My parents are from the Azores. My dad was in the military in Portugal and a soccer player. When he came to this country to play a game he decided he wasn’t going back. He later sent for my mother and her family. They were married here in the US in 1972. I came along 2 years later and then my brother and sister. 3 in total. I had a wonderful childhood. We weren’t rich but never went without. My parents worked hard on 2 different shifts to support us and give us something better than they had. We lived in Somerville (Boston area) until I was 13 and later moved to Dartmouth where my mother would get her dream one family home on a 3 acre lot that my dad had purchased for only $30K. That was a STEAL back then. We grew up in the small town of Dartmouth.

My parents - 1972

My parents - 2017

I later went onto college and got a degree in game design and game programming. I am the product of the X-generation. I grew up when computers started to be accessible to every household and the first generation of hackers were coming out into the scene. I was introduced to computers when I was young with just regular macintoshes and chasing that little white bunny during school sessions as a result of good behavior and good grades. I cannot recall the name of the game but I do remember the white bunny. Also a huge fan of the Oregon Trail. I do recall our first home computer. At the time it was the best of the best, a Commodore64, 8 bit computer. I can still remember the day my dad upgraded our modem to 2400bps. I thought nothing could get better than this! I could download what use to take me 24 hours, now in half the time! It was the first time I was introduced to AOL and then mIRC. As the years went by I upgraded more and more. I became very involved in the computer communities. Let’s just say, I was “very” involved in mIRC and all of what it offered. I learned how to use Linux and FreeBSD, social engineering and a few other things I care not to discuss being it was not considered “legal”. I remember the fall of Yahoo, Geocities, and a few other websites/programs with the huge DDos/PING attacks, some of them were very close friends of mine back in that time. After a few of my friends were taken into legal custody I decided I would drop that part of my life and focus on something that wouldn’t land me in some bad company.

All this while I met my first husband online, moved to Texas for a few years, had my first child (son) and then proceeded to move back to Massachusetts. 6 months later my first husband would leave me and my son back to Texas and never return again. I raised my first born by myself for years. In the meantime I met a few guys here and there but never any that held my interest. I became a gamer in my spare time. I was a huge Microsoft fan and XBoX360 would be my outlet. I joined a clan and played Rainbox Six with my teammates. I cannot say I regret any of these new decisions. I had fun! It was nice to go in and blow “shit” up, plan tackle moves and take out my frustrations on someone else. I cannot say it was easy being a woman living in a man’s world. Most girls/women these days were not really considered equal. I was the only woman in any of my gaming classes. 1/20. But I can say I found some of the men I did have in my classes were very kind and very respectful. But a woman playing in a man’s online world was a little more difficult. There were always 3 types of men that I would encounter. #1. The protector; basically hearing my speak made it their job to “protect” me. Like I was some lost puppy that needed a human shield. I would kindly thank them for their help as I threw a grenade between their legs as I walked past them in the game. #2. The flirt; example: Everyone is in the chat area talking and I join in and say “hey guys” which immediately prompted at least 1 man to respond with “heeeeeyyy baby, how are you doing tonight?” (I can hear Andrew Dice Clay's voice in my head when I type that.) And finally, #3. The equal: my favorite. Treated as an equal for all games. As long as I could keep up, I would be their teammate.

I then moved on to the PS3/PS4 and XBox1. I do still dabble a little in console but I grew to love PC gaming. I started with DAOC, then moved to EQ, EQ2, WoW, Warhammer Online, back to WoW, back to EQ2, The Sims Online, Rift, FFXIV and Second Life. I became very close to some people online and to this day still remain close friends that I would consider family. I also met my second husband in between all these gaming adventures. I first ran into him during a clan match in my earlier years on console gaming to in turn, bump back into him on The Sims Online. We didn’t know it then and found out much later that we had actually played console together online. I honestly didn’t care for him much in TSO (The Sims Online). It was a role playing game and we were bound by a Mafia family we called The Valentino’s. He was married to the Godfather’s daughter and I was the daughter of The Godfather’s brother. I was considered a Hood Boss and the manager of the family store. I know it sounds kind of corny but it had its perks. We met a lot of people and in a short time became close friends with these people we called family in game. Yes, we were evil and mean. We had to be, we were “mafia”.. LOL. Thinking back it sounds so weird yet I have such great memories of all the time we shared doing random shenanigans and making lifelong friends in the process. After EA decided to terminate TSO, we all moved to a game called Second Life. I unfortunately decided to go back to my MMORPG’s and play that for a year or so before rejoining them back in Second Life. And this would be where I finally decided to give my husband the chance he wanted way back when. We became friends to lovers to finally tying the knot, in game and out. It will be 10 years in Feb 2018 that we have been together and married in Second Life and 10 years together in real life. We are blessed by 2 more children, our son and daughter in total making 3 and don’t forget our furry baby. We are still presently gamers and so are our children. We are a very tech savvy family and kinda been around the block a few times to understand and know what we are doing.

Me =)

After college I did get pregnant with my third child so I ended up going back to trade school and taking up my passion of hair. I became a stylist in all this mess and still working now as full time hairdresser with learning some new makeup techniques when the time allows. We decided that with 3 kids, going back and forth into a city would not really be good so that’s why I decided on the career change. Being a stylist made my schedule a better fit for our lifestyle. In all this mist, my middle son was diagnosed Autistic. So being home for him was my priority. Thankfully he is a low functioning autistic and with a good schedule, proper diet and a handful of amazing people to help, we have him excelling without any medication. It has its ups and downs, but I would not trade it for anything.

Our 2 Little’s

So what I thought would turn into a small introduction post became a few pages of my entire life. Yes, I am still involved in Second Life. I am currently a blogger and do a lot of photography in game. I have a flickr account for my SL avatar. I will include the link if you want to be nosy.. lol =) No, seriously I don’t mind, I’m nosy so I’d look if you posted any links and why not, its there for viewing.

♥ My Second Life Flickr ♥
♥ My Second Life Blog ♥

I do also dabble in a little of photography. I have a SONY a6000 mirrorless digital camera with a few different lenses. With the help of my father-in-law I have learned how to shoot some pretty cool photos and learned how to play in Lightroom. From my previous experience I had taken a few classes in photoshop but I find that helps more when doing photography in Second Life over real life photos.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my post. I hope this gives you a little peek into me and my life and this is the first time in years I have been able to put it into writing. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have writing it.

Sincerely,
Jeanne aka Starfall aka Pippa