Hello Cage friends,
So I'm a day late and a buck short as they say. It's been an interesting few moments as life tends to be these days. I wanted to wish all you a Merry belated Christmas and an early happy New Year.
I was the fortunate soul who had a chance to work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day on my night shifts. This did not leave a lot of time for me to truly celebrate the holidays but I was able to connect with family and friends that mattered and that I hadn't seen or heard from in a while.
Of course this year some traditions were altered as Covid has put restrictions on us all. But I wanted to share a very interesting tool and talk about my family reunion Christmas Eve day before I had to head off to work.
My brother wound up finding an app that actually created an opportunity for my family to reconnect over these holidays. If you are interested I suggest you take a look although perhaps it may yet be in time for New Years since we've already made it past Christmas. If you head over to the ever powerful Google and search gather.town you will be directed to a magical place.
This app allows you to create a virtual space in which multiple people can join, hang out and spend time with one another. The cool part is that you get to create the space you get to enjoy, and for our family reunion we managed to have a virtual house created for our gathering. It was based in an 8-bit style and was quite nostalgic in that sense. We had the opportunity to spend time outside by a firepit, there were trees and a yard to go outside and enjoy. Inside the house you could move from the front entry into the living room, dining room, kitchen etc. So the whole point of the app is that when you log in you have a character created for you. You load up your video camera and your mic and you use the directional arrows to move your character wherever you want to go. As you approach other people and create a close proximity with them their camera will pop up and you get the chance to talk with them.
So as you cluster around you can have more and more videos pop up, although the idea is to break off into smaller groups and mill about in different sections of the home so that you have semi private conversations. Unless of course someone else walks over and then joins the conversation. You could stand everyone in the same area but just like being inside a crowded house with multiple people yelling and talking over each other it can be difficult to pinpoint who is speaking to whom, and whether that question was intended for you.
The other neat thing about the experience is that in certain areas they even had sections set up where you could play games together. There was Pictionary and a few others and you had to walk over and click on them to participate. Once a separate "room" was created for the game to be played.
It was really quite wonderful to reconnect with family from both sides of my tree, and to see cousins and their children as well as those who hadn't been seen or spoken to in years. It was a wonderful way to reconnect and in the age of virtual interaction was kind of different and fantastic.
I really do hope everyone was able to reconnect with their family, to get closer to those that are important to them and to feel the connection and energy of the interactions fostered in life. It's not quite the same when everything is done through the phone, tablet, laptop or desktop. But the connection matters. It's still deeply important to spend your time in ways with those around you. Simply existing within their sphere of sight can be a wonderful thing. Even to just be able to be a fly on the wall, to work beside someone on something that is required and handle your immediate tasks while they do the same. To find a natural existence beside someone in a digital way, such that you are both comfortable.
I hope everyone feels loved and appreciated for their time and presence these holidays, and with hopes that next year will be one that continues to improve the natural state of the world. Best to all of you who have taken the time to read my words this early morning.
