February 26, 2021
Dear Everyone:
I attended a meeting of my Homeowners
Association Board of Directors last night.
Like most meeting these days, this one was conducted via Zoom.
In fact, I have at least two or more Zoom meetings every week.
On the Plus Side, no travelling.
I don’t even have to walk across the street to the Clubhouse,
much less drive a few miles.
On the Down Side, no actual contact with anyone.
It can get a bit boring.
So, there’s a tendency to try and lighten things up with virtual
video backgrounds.
Backgrounds is a feature in Zoom that allows
the User to substitute an image for whatever is behind the User during a
session. In Zoom, it works
best if the User has a green background to begin with.
This is similar to what movie makers and local
news productions use. An
actor will stand in front of a green screen, and the computer-generated
imagery (CGI) crew will insert whatever effects are required later.
A local weather forecaster will stand beside a graphic that
illustrates the possibility of rain, snow or sunshine on a map of the
area.
What happens in Zoom is static and far simpler;
but it can take the monotony out of seeing the same bedroom furniture
week after week. It does,
however, require a blank screen, preferably green.
I have lots and lots of images, from the collection that I use in
my website. So I just needed
a green screen and a way to hang it behind me.
I found a screen available via Amazon (of
course). It was basically a
large rectangle of green polyester.
I placed the upper edge of on top of the frame that holds the
shutter panels in front of my patio doors.
The length of cloth hung in front of the panels during Zoom
meetings.
It meant that I could use any one of many, many
landscape images as a virtual background.
One week, I would be sitting in front of a snow-covered Mount
Diablo; the next, with a waterfall cascading down behind me.
I discovered that I could not wear anything
green while sitting in front of the screen.
Not unless I wanted to see my head sticking up out of a mess of
southwestern cacti.
There was a time when I had nothing green to
wear, a fact that was born down upon me every Saint Patrick’s Day.
Now, for some reason, it seems like half my wardrobe is made of
one variation of green or another.
I have to save the lavenders, pinks and blues for “Zoom meeting
days”.
In time, I got tired of the relatively small
screen that I had acquired from Amazon.
It was only about a couple of yards wide.
A few weeks ago, I was at one of my favorite sewing and crafts
stores. On a whim, I looked
into the aisle where they had large bolts of light cotton fabric.
They had a bolt of “fern green” that was nine yards wide.
Coincidentally, it turns out that the frame for
the patio door shutters is almost exactly nine yards wide itself.
All I had to do was place one end of the fabric on top of the
frame, held in place with small weights, and let the whole thing roll
down behind my chair.
Presto!
Of course, it’s not really all that easy.
I had bought more length than was needed and wound up snipping
about a yard of fabric away at the bottom.
That remnant can go into the “Sewing Box” for when I suddenly
need some green cotton fabric.
Just the thing for Saint Patrick’s Day.
And I can’t just leave nine yards of cloth
hanging in front of the patio doors all the time, not if I want to go
out onto the patio, or even see some daylight.
For now, I slowly roll the fabric up from the bottom, holding it
in place with some large binder clips.
I can roll it up to about six feet above the floor, which allows
me to use the patio doors and open and close the shutters as needed.
It’s a bit clunky; but as a proof of concept,
it works. I’ll figure out a
way to improve the process as time allows.
Stay tuned for further developments.
Love, as always,
Pete
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