July 24, 2020
Dear Everyone:
These days I have two to three Zoom meetings
per week.
For those of you just returning from
Intergalactic Travel, we are still attempting to thwart the Coronavirus
by staying as far away from each other as possible.
Zoom is only one of many video conferencing applications
available to the general public.
“Jeannie” and I decided that we liked Zoom
better than some of the others because Zoom is more “user-friendly”,
which simply means that it is less obtuse to people who don’t do this
kind of thing all the time.
There are icons, simulating “buttons”, across the bottom of the screen
which tend to be fairly self-evident as to their use.
For example, there is a little picture of a
microphone. If it has a red
diagonal line through it, the user can surmise that their sound function
is muted. Also, if you start
making noises, Zoom will display a short message to tell you that no one
can hear you, and offer a few suggestions as to how to rectify the
situation. Did you know that
holding down the spacebar temporarily unmutes until you let go of it?
Well, now you do.
I also discovered that Zoom offers a “Virtual
Background” for users.
Prefer that the whole world doesn’t see your disheveled living room or
unmade bed? No problem!
Instead of a blank wall, or a view of your
ceiling, the system allows the user to choose an image provided by Zoom,
or they can use one of their own.
This is really very similar to what Hollywood
uses to insert “Computer Generated Images”, or CGI, into movies.
The director tells the actor, “Stand in front of this green
screen and look terrified.”
The CGI crew inserts the horrifying monster later.
Or we’ve all seen the newscaster who appears to
be sitting in front of the station logo; or the weather person backed up
by an interactive map that shows the forecasted temperatures expected
tomorrow. What Zoom does is
much the same albeit simpler.
The software sees a green spot and substitutes
a corresponding pixel from the preloaded image.
Instead of a green screen, the user sees a tropical island, or a
star-scape. Or a picture of
the user’s dog if that’s what they want.
Zoom doesn’t care, as long as the background is green.
As for the “green screen”, it’s just a length
of cloth of an appropriate shade of green.
In my case, it’s a length of green polyester about five feet by
seven. I got it from
Amazon.com.
The question, of course, was how to arrange
this five-by-seven chunk of “fabric” to simulate a background.
I decided the living room was the best location.
As it happens, I have shutters in front of the patio door.
The shutter panels are hung from a frame fastened to the wall.
All I needed to do was figure out a way to hang
the length of cloth from the top of the frame.
I didn’t want to use tape of any kind.
Some would be too flimsy; others would be too permanent.
I started thinking about paper weights.
Back when I was working, the company had many
paper weights made from leather.
They were circular in shape, roughly three inches in diameter,
stitched together and filled with sand.
That made them heavy enough to hold down the corners of sturdy
rolled maps. We found many
other uses for them. Every
now and then, I regret that I didn’t “liberate” a few when I had the
chance.
But that is neither here nor there.
Back when I first decided to try and do
something about my disintegrating spine, I had a number of sessions with
a physical therapist. One of
the exercises that she gave me was to lay flat on my back.
Hold the hands together and raise them above the head as far as I
could reach. This stretches
and strengthens the back muscles.
Once it became easy, she advised me to hold
something relatively weighty, such as a can of soup.
That increased the effort.
Later, I moved up to a 2-pound weight that I also used for some
arm and ankle exercises.
These days, I’m up to five pounds.
This particular weight, one of a pair, consists of a short length
of fabric with slots sewn into it, plus a Velcro strap to hold in onto
one’s wrist or ankle. The
weight comes from a set of plastic sacks, each shaped rather like a
lozenge. There are six of
these “lozenges”, each weighing a shade over 0.80 pound.
Together, they add up to about five pounds.
Each one slips into one of the slots in the overall piece.
I only use one of the pair for my back
exercises. The other I had
stashed somewhere in the second bedroom, also known as the Really,
Really BIG Closet. It didn’t
take me long to find it.
I extracted the six lozenges from the holder.
Next, I wrestled the large arm chair away from
the patio door. Then I got
the four-foot step ladder from the outdoor closet and placed it behind
the arm chair, in front of the shutter panels.
Then I perched precariously on the step ladder,
while holding the top edge of the green screen over the top of the
frame. And coaxed each of
four 0.80-pound weights into place.
Many, many trips up and down the ladder to run across the room
and see how close the whole thing was to where I wanted it.
Eventually, I had the screen hanging in place.
Of course, it blocked the shutters and the patio door.
But it made a damn fine screen, if a little too narrow from side
to side. When sitting in the
arm chair, in front of the screen, a little of the shutter panels show
up on each side, as well as the printer on the right.
Tough.
In the next Zoom meeting, I appeared to be
sitting in the arm chair in Meg’s back yard, with the pond and wooden
chairs behind me. Very
relaxing. It was a big hit
with the other meeting participants.
After the meeting, I needed to get that screen
out of the way so that I see as well exit onto the patio.
That meant hauling the smaller kitchen stepladder back behind the
arm chair. Hop up onto the
ladder and use the last two lozenges to fold the bottom part of the
screen up onto the top of the shutter frame.
It’s hardly elegant, but it’s eminently
practical. I can even use a
reaching tool to pull the two “temporary” lozenges down and let the
whole screen fall into place before the next meeting.
I have well over 100 images from which to
choose, all originally intended for use on my website.
Since most of them are photos of landscapes, waterfalls, flowers
and various critters, a mountain lion, raccoon, or raptor coming in for
a landing, almost any of them will look better behind me than boring
shutters.
As to why I have so many photos of plants and
animals? Easy.
They can’t sue me.
Love, as always,
Pete
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