Tag Archives: Zoom

Some Secret Santa Fun (or More Virtual Social Time)

Posted on December 21, 2021 | Comments Off on Some Secret Santa Fun (or More Virtual Social Time)

As I’ve mentioned on here a few times before, I have a group of friends that I met through a FB group that I watch movies and tv shows with over TeleParty. And from that group, a smaller group of us have become close and have a text group between us. We share a lot of random things in that text group, but we share serious things too. And because we are pretty much always talking over text on a daily basis, we have gotten very close. It’s still crazy how close we have gotten even though none of us have met in person yet, but I think a lot of people have experienced that over the past two years.

We’ve done Secret Santas within the FB group we are in before, but this year we decided to do one just within our group. We used a website to set it all up so it figured out who we would give gifts to and it allowed us to put wish lists on there too. I had a bit of a hard time figuring out what to put on my wish list, but I took my time and thought about some things I would normally buy for myself and some things that I might not get for myself. I don’t normally put practical things on a wish list, but it made sense this time.

Because of delays with the post office, we set this all up in November with the idea that we would have a few weeks to get things shipped to each other. And to open gifts, we set up a Zoom hangout.

We’ve been on Zoom together as a group, but only a handful of times over the past 2 years. And it had been a while since we had been on Zoom together, so it was nice to see each other’s faces and hear everyone’s voices. Texting is good for handling a lot of communication, but hearing and seeing people makes it feel more real.

We ended up being on Zoom together for about 3 hours. Most of that time was us being silly and sharing random stories or updates from our lives. There are 3 of us getting ready to move, so that was a part of the chat. But I think all of us craved this social time since most of us are still pretty isolated. All of us are aware of how the pandemic is having a surge so we are all being careful with how much we go out and do things. So having our time on Zoom was a much-needed break from being alone.

And of course, we had to open our gifts together! For the person I got to give gifts to, I sent them 3 things on their list and 1 random thing that I thought would be funny. And I think most of us had that idea because most of us got some things we put on our lists and one or two little things that we didn’t have on our list.

For me, I got 2 things from my list and 1 extra. I got new workout gloves (which I need and hadn’t had a chance to buy myself) and a ring that I saw online that I liked that is a pretty basic ring. And the person who got me my gifts also painted me a little cute square canvas that I know I will put somewhere in my office space when I move to the condo.

I don’t think any of us expected to be on our Zoom for so long, but I’m so glad we got to have this time together. We’ve been trying to plan a group trip somewhere for almost a year, but we keep having to put it off because of the pandemic. We do still hope that we can have a group trip soon so we can finally meet in real life, but we just have to wait until it’s a bit safer. But at least we got to give each other gifts and spend some virtual time together that wasn’t just texting.

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Default ThumbnailAnd Another Virtual Party (or A Secret Santa Hangout) Default ThumbnailHaving Fun Doing Gift Shopping (or Keeping Secret Santa To My Budget) Default ThumbnailHaving More Virtual Movie Nights (or Still Trying To Be Social) Default ThumbnailStill Celebrating Halloween (or A Virtual Costume To Go With A Virtual Party) Default ThumbnailFinding A Social Life Where I Can (or Virtual Parties and Distance Hangouts) Default ThumbnailMaking Condo Hunting More Fun (or Taking Advantage Of Ways To Be Social)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

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Still Celebrating Halloween (or A Virtual Costume To Go With A Virtual Party)

Posted on November 5, 2020 | Comments Off on Still Celebrating Halloween (or A Virtual Costume To Go With A Virtual Party)

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Even if I don’t have a great costume, I love dressing up a bit and being creative with a costume. And I especially love seeing the costumes that my friends come up with. The party that Marie and Chris throw every year is such an incredible Halloween party, and I look forward to it every year. When the pandemic started, I don’t think anyone thought we’d still be staying home by Halloween. I mean, I remember thinking that we’d all be able to be together for the 4th of July. But here we are, almost 8 months later and still staying home.

But being at home didn’t mean that Marie and Chris weren’t going to throw a Halloween party. I had a feeling they would do a virtual party, and that’s exactly what they did! I was running a Netflix Party group that night, but I was able to time it out so I didn’t miss too much of the party. They had teased that there was going to be something special at 6:30 and I figured out how to make the Netflix Party work so that I was done at 6:25!

Since the party was virtual, I thought it would be funny to do a virtual costume. I knew I wanted to do something fun with my Zoom background, but I wasn’t sure what to do until I saw a post in a Facebook group that inspired me. The post was about funny ideas for Halloween decorations and it was a bunch of crosses in a yard with the names of guys that have ghosted women. I loved that idea, but I had to make it work in a Zoom background. So I found an image of a graveyard and I added text on it to have some nicknames of guys I’ve gone out with and the dates we were texting or seeing each other before they ghosted me. I did a test with the background before the party and even though you couldn’t see one of the tombstones, I think it looked pretty funny!

It was a little hard for the tombstones to be read, but I was ok with that. I knew I’d have to explain the “costume” no matter what. So I just planned on explaining it and reading to everyone what I wrote.

I made it to the virtual party before 6:30 so I was able to chat with my friends for a few minutes before the guest arrived. And the guest wasn’t as much of a guest as it was a puzzle and mystery for us all to solve! Marie and Chris had a video of them as skeletons saying their souls were stolen and needed our help to get them back. It was so clever and creative and all of us were enjoying it so much while watching the video!

We were told that we could work together as a group or solve it alone. The thing from the video was about solving a riddle, so I figured I could solve that alone and I did that and followed the instructions to give them the answer. After I did that, I got a crossword puzzle in return. That’s when all of us at the party decided to work together. I was the designated answer writer since I printed out the crossword. We quickly were able to get all the answers and I submitted that for the next clue.

And the next clue was a pattern of lines that was an overlay to put over the crossword. Then we wrote down all the words that were under the lines to get the next clue. That took us to Facebook and a specific photo they had posted. If you zoomed into the photo, there was a tiny.url listed and we realized we had to go there. That led to an unlisted YouTube video that mentioned a series of numbers. Someone in the group realized those numbers could be a Zoom meeting code and password, and they were right! After we entered the new Zoom meeting, that became the full party!

It was so much fun working through all the clues and puzzles we had to do to get to the party. It made things feel much more like we were together and not just a bunch of people looking at each other on screens. And we were able to get through the puzzles relatively quickly because we had worked together. So it was a nice moment for us to bond as a group since there were some people in the party that I hadn’t met before.

Once we were in the second party, it was like the other Zoom parties Marie and Chris have done. Some people were in costumes and some people were not. And a few had fun Zoom backgrounds like haunted houses and things like that. There wasn’t a costume parade, but I still liked to see what people dressed as and it was nice that we were trying to be festive.

And we just all talked about lots of random and fun things. We discussed random movies and Halloween stuff. Marie and Chris even had trivia questions so we could do little trivia games where we competed against each other. I only got 1 trivia question right, but I still had so much fun.

I wanted to be able to stay at the virtual party as late as possible since I didn’t have to drive home after it and I was able to sleep in the next day. But it seems like being on Zoom hangouts takes it out of me more than I would expect. I just felt so tired after being on there for a few hours. I think by the time I was saying goodnight to everyone, I was in the party for about 3 hours. I also had been on the computer almost the entire day without a break, so that might have been part of it too. I didn’t want to say goodnight to everyone, but I needed to so I could get some sleep.

Of course, having a party in person would have been the best and would have made all of us so happy, but there just isn’t a way to do that right now and be safe. And a virtual party is much better than nothing at all. I think all of us just want this pandemic to be under control to the point where we can see each other in person again. And it’s tough when we have no idea when that might happen. The next big party for the group is usually New Year’s Eve, and I’m not sure if things will be any better by then. After that, we have the Oscar party. Maybe by then, we can be together since the Oscars have been pushed back to be a bit later. The Oscar party was the last party that we were able to have this year, so it would be nice if that was the first one back.

I hope that everyone had a good Halloween, even if it wasn’t what you are used to doing. And hopefully by next year, we will all be able to celebrate the way we are used to. I have a feeling that if we can, all of us are going to have epic Halloweens in 2021!

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Default ThumbnailVirtual Memorial Day (or Doing The Best We Can For Now) Default ThumbnailA Busy Halloween (or Dressing As A Box Office Employee) Default ThumbnailLow-Key Halloween (or A Work In Progress) Default ThumbnailHaving Some Halloween Fun (or Creating A Clever Costume) Default ThumbnailLow Key Halloween (or Costume Flashback) Default ThumbnailFirst Halloween Party Of The Season (or At Least I Made An Appearance)

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Trying To Prevent Zoom Fatigue (or Not Sure If This Is A Pandemic Problem Or Not)

Posted on September 4, 2020 | Comments Off on Trying To Prevent Zoom Fatigue (or Not Sure If This Is A Pandemic Problem Or Not)

When the pandemic started, so many aspects of life changed quickly. Not all the changes were things that were unfamiliar to us, they might have just been slight changes to things we are used to. For example, standing in line at a grocery store is a change, but not a drastic change. Same with trying to only go to the grocery store once a week (I guess there are some people that always did that, but I wasn’t one of them). Those little changes were odd, but not things that threw me off too much. I might have had a bit more stress and felt panicky over things, but there was enough familiar with it that I felt better. I’m sure a lot of people had to adjust to working from home, but that was the easiest thing for me since I always worked from home. But for my friends who never did, they still had enough familiar things that it didn’t feel that different.

But then there were a lot of things that we never used or didn’t use that often that are now things we use a lot. Netflix Party did exist as a browser extension before the pandemic, but I never used it until we were all isolated. Now, it’s a weekly part of my life and I love it! I can see myself using this for a long time, even after the pandemic is over. And I have only seen Netflix Party as a positive thing. I guess there is a negative with not being able to watch on my tv and having to use my computer, but that’s not a huge negative to me.

And while I have used different forms of video chat in the past, I have never used it as much as I am right now. It is funny how Zoom became the default video chat service when there are so many others that have been used before. But Zoom is now almost the generic name for doing a video chat, no matter what the platform is (Zoom is like Xerox now). I know I’m not on Zoom calls as often as many people are, but I’m on them at least once or twice a week. And honestly, being on video calls that often does stress me out a bit. I have no clue how my friends who work 9-5 jobs that have to be on Zoom calls the entire time do it.

A friend of mine who was posting about Zoom fatigue (which is a real thing) was explaining why Zoom calls are so much more exhausting than in-person meetings. When you are on a Zoom call, you have no clue if someone is watching you. You don’t know if someone has their screen in speaker view or gallery view. You don’t know if they are focusing on your video or someone else’s. And always feeling like you might be watched but never knowing is so tiring and a big reason behind Zoom fatigue.

For a long time, I have covered up my webcam. I do this for a few reasons. I don’t want to accidentally turn on my webcam if I don’t want to be on video. I know that some people can hack into them (although I do have security measures on my wifi, you never know), and covering my webcam was something I saw in paperwork for my business insurance. I used to just use a little piece of a post-it note to cover it. I never really used my webcam so the post-it was on there for a long time. And if I did use my webcam, I would just cut down a new piece to replace it. Before the pandemic, I think I would use my webcam maybe once every 2-3 months.

But now, I use it all the time. And I wanted to be able to cover my webcam for the security measures that I was worried about before but I also wanted to cover it for Zoom calls. I know you can turn off video on Zoom, but if I’m going to be jumping in and out as a speaker in a call, it’s just easier for me to cover my camera and not to turn it on and off a lot. So I started looking into better ways to cover the camera than a piece of paper. And fortunately, my search was over almost as soon as it started when I saw there was a cheap and simple solution.

I didn’t realize that webcam slide covers were common and popular. On Amazon, there are dozens of listings for them. And they are pretty much all the same. The differences seem to be either if they are black versus color or how many sliders are in a package. I picked one that had a few sliders in it in case I made a mistake putting it on my laptop or if I ever had to take it off and put a new one on. But so far, I have only needed to use one of them. It was super easy to put on my computer and it doesn’t affect being able to close my laptop or anything else.

So now, when I’m on Zoom calls and don’t want to be watched (like if I’m eating or moving around my house), I can just put the slider over my camera and my screen on Zoom is dark. I’m still listed as a video call, but you don’t see any video. It’s such a simple solution for this problem and I’ve found that it makes my Zoom calls much easier to tolerate. I don’t feel like I’m being watched or that someone is judging me when I’m not the speaker. I feel like I have a bit more privacy while on calls. And it does all the security protections that I had with a post-it note but is much easier to use.

I have no clue if Zoom calls will be this popular for longer than the pandemic, but I know that I’ll be dealing with them for a long time. So I’m glad I have something I can use to try to keep Zoom fatigue to a minimum.

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