I want to give a lot of prominence to the elderly in Aberon Garden (a neighborhood still under construction), it seems to me to be a very fun stage of life in the Sims 2, which can be given some twists.

If you have Sophie-David's mods and you send your uni sims to a lecture, one of the elders (depending on the subject) turns up to teach them

We? Elder? I'm only 30.

Some of us are slightly older

That's one thing I like about Sims 2. It has an ability to attract people of all ages and despite our differences, we all come together... *queue Beatles song*

For some of my retired sims- especially sims who had very active jobs or long hours like athlete and dancer- I'll have them get one of the Teen-Elder job as more of a hobby, like politics or journalism. It seems realistic to me that elderly retired sims would be involved in volunteering for political campaigns or writing a movie blog. Even Aerobics Instructor seems like something an active elder could do for 3 hours a few times a week for fun. I don't stress over promotions or skills, it's just a reason to get them out of the house. My parents are retired and they're always involved in different activities, like church groups or hobby groups.


I think I mentioned at some point I was trying to set up a summer camp business lot. I finally got it built and had my first test sessions.

Kinsley Hernandez owns the summer camp. It's on a community lot. I currently have cabins for only 8 sims because that seemed like a manageable number, so I chose 8 boys and 8 girls who seemed like a good fit. Each household sends Kinsley a check for §2000 per child for the week and I put the kids in the camp uniform (because Gussy Up was bloating her household wardrobe with a billion kids clothes).

On Monday morning, Kinsley goes to the lot and I use Inge's pupil token to summon each kid and assign them a cabin (class) #. I'm still trying to find the balance of a schedule that allows for an activity plus meals, bathroom, and the annoying energy loss of children that I'm either going to mod out or institute a naptime. There's a bunch of activities on the lot and I either have 2 cabins (4 children) go do 2 different activities or all 8 kids do an activity together each day, plus free time to play. The kids make new friends, get skill points, badges, and vacation memories. The only other institution mod I use is Inge's crowd controller for summoning the kids because it's quicker than manually directing them. Since the activities and schedules are pretty flexible, I didn't bother setting up teachers or classes or anything.

Current plan is to use Inge's boarding school to send the kids away for week during summer season when it's their rotation, since the original intent was having the children of working parents occupied for the summer. I'm still trying to figure out how to do Kinsley's schedule so she can do a boys camp week and a girls camp week since I only have room for 8 for now. Maybe when I'm more comfortable with the system and have employees, I can combine the 2 groups and have 16 campers together. Either way, §2000 X 16 = §32,000 minus expenses, so I don't think she'll need to work during the off-season.


Lessons learned so far:

-Kinsley needs to hire an employee and immediately make them a manager to control them since this isn't a normal business lot and there's nothing to sell or restock. I had to find a sim who had badges already, who wasn't a necessary employee elsewhere, who has a decent personality for a summer camp counselor. Current plan is employee working day shifts since I don't think the OFB employee system could handle 5-day shifts even with overnight sleeping breaks

-Original plan to have the whole camp in cute matching t-shirts was tossed because it was difficult to tell the children apart, so now each cabin has a matching t-shirt color and they look like Legends of the Hidden Temple contestants

-Pupil token de-selects students when you leave Live mode, so each night I'm saving and making any necessary purchases or building edits and then reselecting the kids in bed so they don't zap off the lot because if I do it during the day, it's really hard to find all 8 children across a wooded 6X6 lot

-The season day stays static throughout the week. I had switched Kinsley's home lot from spring to summer to test it, but the weather never advanced so the first test session was Spring Day 1 weather for 5 days and the lake never unfroze

-The business reached level 3 by Saturday morning the first week and she got customer stars throughout the week even with the kids all selected, so the normal OFB functions are working even though I wasn't expecting that

-CLT worked fine for Kinsley being gone for 5 days except for bills, people kicking over the trashcan and watering her flowers. I ended up having to select a passerby to pay her bills so the repo man wouldn't show up before she got home and hired a maid and gardener just in case for the second session



I realized I only took 1 picture the whole boys session, but I got a few more of the girls. I still have to do terrain paint, I was waiting to see which were the most-traveled paths. But overall, I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out so far.

I had two MailBoxes, one was out of world and I didn't know about it. It might have happened because my mouse is broken and it double-clicks and buys another item. The postman would drop the bills at the edge of the lot near where the out of world mailbox was and where I couldn't see them. The repo man almost came to Landgrab's house. My walking from college would also stay at the edge of the lot.

Malcolm Landgrab's cash cow 10 star electronics store has new inventory, packed with maximum density. We smuggled blue personal computers from Beladonna Cove, a giant Pancake television that nobody yet has, and a made in China knock-off Rod Humble's computer. We also figured out that there was a demand for Neukum wall speakers and executive design telephones. That is why people love this store. We sell what nobody else even thought was legal. Too bad I can't snap stuff into forbidden slots because it doesn't snap back on restocking.

We have a manager who is the husband of Lucy Burb. He demanded a ridiculous pay of §95 because of a bug, but this store earns so much that it is fine. He needs this money to cater to girls on his mind. I'm surprised that the money actually goes into his household cash.

Tammy King may need to come backafter she was fire for starting a fire in Club Dante.

Maybe I need to redecorate this hellish flat design wall. Maybe the customers will not be as dazzled by the Number 1 sign then.

Josh Anderson has bought the shop at 1 Bond Street that Jones & Moltke Construction (Veronaville) Ltd. just built for him. But he was too tired to go there and open it last night. After a good night's sleep he hopes to go and start trading there tomorrow. Josh has big plans for his shop.

Simwardrobe made an auto bill payer that would help with the bill part. Here is a link to the folder on Sim File Share that has it: https://simfileshare.net/folder/87858/

I made a Sims 2 version of a Sims 1 starter house (tho the lot size is far smaller). I've been considering to make some families to make my build lots for the business contest a bit more lively and this is the first built home in the subhood.


Now, I did add some stuff that wasn't in the Sims 1 version such as a stove and a sink for the bathroom. So it's a small upgrade. But like I said, the lot size is on the small scale, while the Sims 1 lots are massive. So it evens out.



edit.

Now we're getting started. John moved into the house above. Now, I did chose to give him the last name Andersen as a way to celebrate my danish heritage (my grandad was from Denmark). He said hello to the welcome wagon and spent most of his first day entertaining them. It gave him a reputation boost which is probably good for the business.



Second day was spent making toys. He then went home. For a brief moment I was confused why the sun was still up then I remembered that in Sims 2, time doesn't passes while on a community lot, duh.
Anyhow, he went home and took care of his needs. Then next day he went back for the "second day" at his business. He sold out of all the toys he had made and got a good review! So, great start to his business. I decided to not give him any badges, so he can only make bricks. (Though I did give him some skill points in handiness and creativity because he should "always have been good at making stuff"). It's hilarious how they take this cubic meter of a block and make 1 tiny brick. Such a waste.

The summer camp lot looks like so much fun to play!

I'm admittedly putting off my play sessions because there's a certain town tragedy that I have to plan for, but in the meantime I still have to play through Jenny Curious's and Rick & Jane Smith's college days. Rick, who is a culinary major, mainly mans the dorm cafeteria as a part time gig, while Jane, who is a show business major, got into cosmetology. She's been practicing on her dormmates. Really makes me wish I could do the same with their clothing, I mean, c'mon, pink slacks, olive green tee, and red/green bowling shoes!? I know this is university, but how much do you have to hit the bubble blower until you think that looks good?

Also, Lazlo's a teenager now.