360 Coffee, How to be close when far

by Duf Anything and Everything

I enjoyed my last day of vacation more than I did the second to last day when I was undeniably in a sour mood.  Once again I found myself attending to little things mostly inside the house.  I also had another impulse buy, responding to a GoPro email about a special bundle price on the new GoPro 9.  I snagged it quickly almost totally ignoring I just bought a GoPro 8 a few weeks ago.  There have been some issues with the 8 that annoy me and I may just give it away as part of my 10,000 YouTube subscriber celebration.  I justified it as something else I can write off as a business equipment expense and I paid for it out of my PayPal account which is funded entirely by 3D store sales.  I have been in an impulse buy mood lately, and they can be dangerous.

Mid-afternoon I geared up for a different style DD ride.  I surely looked ridiculous with one camera perched 8 inches on top of my helmet while carrying a second camera on a selfie stick.  My plan was to record a 360 video of the ride but use the audio from the selfie stick camera to make for better production quality.  Well the plan didn’t work out thanks to a technical limitation I didn’t think about prior to the ride.  The end result is I have three videos, a 360 version of the ride there, the ride back, and the footage shot from the GoPro.  It’s kind of silly but entertaining. I talk in depth about my post Christmas blah sensations.

When I got back from the ride Katie and DJ were there so I got to hang with my little buddy for awhile which is always fun for me.

Monday night was a demo of how technology can bridge the distance of isolation many people have felt since covid became a thing.  Katie and Cindy were both in VR playing Beat Saber together which was really cool.  Not only were they in the same virtual space, they had real time voice communication going on as well so they both had a ton of fun.  Cindy played through most of the battery charge on the headset so I knew she was having a great time.  The previous day Cindy participated in a VR exercise class which was surprisingly fun and engaging.  You are definitely working hard but hardly realize it.

I just had no idea how crazy VR can be.  I’m glad I discovered it sooner rather than later.