Day 31-35 The new meaning of "Travel"

Sat/Sun Apr 18-19

Instead of our YouTube live show on Sunday, we did a private Zoom call with our Geeks on Tour members. We tried something new, asking them to "register" for the meeting ahead of time, submit questions beforehand, and share scanned photo albums. About 60 people registered, and 50 showed up. I felt the meeting went very well. It points out how you need some kind of agenda for an online meeting to go well - just like you do in an onsite meeting - who knew?!

Mon Apr 20

Online Toastmasters contest winner

Monday evening is our Online Presenters Toastmasters meeting. Unlike most Toastmaster's clubs, this one started out in the online/Zoom format. Jim and I are charter members, being with the club for about 3 years now. This club's experience really showed in Monday's meeting. They tried something new - an online webinar contest. 6 contestants gave a 6-8 minute "webinar." That means they were to prepare to teach a skill or promote a product using visual aids and speaking. Jim took the role of timer, and I was a judge. The 6 participants gave stunning performances. Jim and I have been presenting online for over 6 years now, but I still learned something from this group. If you'd like to watch, you can view the winner's speech, or the whole meeting on this blog post. To make it even more amazing, the winner, Krishn, is from Mauritius and it was 5am his time. He's so good, he can give a speech in his sleep!

Tue Apr 21

I haven't left the house, except to walk around the block, in over a month. So how do I satisfy my need to travel? Instead of traveling from the east coast to the west coast, I now travel from the couch to my stand up computer desk. Other times I start at my sit down computer computer desk. For a vacation I put my backrest on the bed and turn on that TV.
Another idea to ease my sadness over the lack of travel was sent to me by Ana from Toastmasters: 

Wed Apr 22

Where had the day gone? Where had the week gone? Time goes so much faster when were home . I wake up with the plan to get to work on my updated photos book, but first let me just look at the computer, check email, answer a few questions.

Oohh, Jim made a delicious omelette for brunch.

A question about photos prompts me to make a little video. Then, something put a bug in my ear to go thru some old backup CDs to see if there are any pictures on them that need to be uploaded to Google photos. OMG, it's almost 3pm and time to hop on a zoom meeting with some fellow Google photos teachers. They are so much fun. The 3 other women all know each other from teaching for the computer club at Hilton Head Sun City. We've presented to their group many times over the years, both onsite, and online.

Bad News

Sunday 

Covid-19 US Cases: 764,177 Deaths: 40,591

Tuesday

Covid-19 US Cases: 816,240 Deaths: 43,921

Wednesday 

Covid-19 US Cases: 847,849 Deaths: 47,349

Good News

Wednesday was Earth Day -although it certainly didn't go as planned with thousands of people celebrating, there was plenty of good news as lots of stories covered the reduced pollution and re-emerging wildlife that are a side effect of this pandemic.

• Pandemic side-effects offer glimpse of alternative future on Earth
• Wildlife in streets, less pollution in big cities: Earth looks different on Earth Day 2020

• Air pollution falls by unprecedented levels in major global cities during coronavirus lockdowns