Google Hangouts - Mar. 20: 7 central/8 eastern US

I had my first Google Hangout today, in this case with a group of students and teachers in my lineage (people who study/studied with Alan Chapman). It was a very fun and easy way for us to all talk together. I would be interested in participating in more hangouts, and wondered if anyone here would be interested. They do seem to work best with a small group (more than 6 people seems to get a bit complicated, not so much technically as simply due to there being less time for each person to talk and more accidentally interrupting each other and less ability to get more deeply into the subject) and a theme (a specific question, practice technique, book we've all read, etc.). Is anyone interested in coming up with some themes and scheduling some hangouts?

I'm in.

How does that work, is it like a group Skype session?

Mike Ramos wrote: How does that work, is it like a group Skype session?

Exactly

Thanks Russell. I might be up for that.

It seems to work much better than skype - the organizer creates the hangout at the time arranged (everyone has to have a gmail account), then sends the "now open" signal via email to everyone who made arrangements to be part of it, and they click "join" on the email they receive. Then we all appear as talking heads with video. So there's no "place" until the instant of it coming together, and you can only join if you get the invite (ie make arrangements in advance with whoever starts the group). The video quality is better than skype and you can put on cartoon hats and mustaches and there's silly laugh track buttons and stuff too. It's free (except for selling your soul to google).

We only had quality issues for one person who was trying to use dialup or 3G from an island somewhere. And once it got kludgey and kind of froze up for 30 seconds, but then it was fine again.

Let's see who shows interest and on what topics (if any) over the next few days, and then take it from there?

I would definitely be up for it. I've participated in a few that Villum has hosted, and it's been pretty interesting. My strong preference would be evenings rather than daytimes, and I'm in the EST time zone.

Ona Kiser wrote: It seems to work much better than skype - the organizer creates the hangout at the time arranged (everyone has to have a gmail account), then sends the "now open" signal via email to everyone who made arrangements to be part of it, and they click "join" on the email they receive. Then we all appear as talking heads with video. So there's no "place" until the instant of it coming together, and you can only join if you get the invite (ie make arrangements in advance with whoever starts the group). The video quality is better than skype and you can put on cartoon hats and mustaches and there's silly laugh track buttons and stuff too. It's free (except for selling your soul to google).

We only had quality issues for one person who was trying to use dialup or 3G from an island somewhere. And once it got kludgey and kind of froze up for 30 seconds, but then it was fine again.

Let's see who shows interest and on what topics (if any) over the next few days, and then take it from there?

Thanks Ona, sounds good. I'm on the west coast (USA) and pretty flexible about meeting times...

Let's do it!

I'm 3 hours ahead of US EST (Rio de Janeiro) at the moment (changes seasonally). Since work hours are going to be pretty much ruled out, I can mostly do whenever, as long as it's planned in advance - my schedule is a hodge podge that varies daily. The challenge will be scheduling West Coasters. We can always do shorter more frequent sessions at alternating times to fit in different time zone folks who have work/kids, or that match some people's lunch schedules, etc.

I'm in central time, too.

I would also love to participate, but US evening times might be a bit hard for me, as i'm on central european time. I've been running hangouts in more weeksthan not since august 2012 over on kfd. I recently moved them to tuesdays at 22:00 central european (16:00 US east coat), which *might* make them a bit more attendable for you wonderful americans.
If you do hangouts late enough, i might get up early for it

Yes, probably the least compatible schedules are US west coast + Europe. I think a good number of people who have responded work 9-5 (plus) so US afternoons/days are not feasible. Why don't we do moveable sessions, rather than have one constant time. That way sometimes it works for more easterly folks and other times it works better for more westerly folks.

Anyone want to aim for a date early next week (Mon/Tues/Wed) for a first try? Does anyone have a theme that might be interesting? I'm currently rather interested in:
"real-world" applications of insight
the role of austerities in practice
using "real-world" difficulties as fodder for practice
devotional practices
or whatever....

Oh, you are so practical.

Be warned, I will spend that part of the conversation changing silly hats.

We'll probably get more out of laughing at silly hats than pretending to solve Problems, anyway.

So far we have the following:

Person: Best time/Time Zone, GMT equivalent

in order of time zones

Marked with * people who have fixed limitations on schedule (such as being at work for set hours) - Chris, Shargrol, Villum - 9-5 off limits for you?

Villum (CEU) - GMT plus 1
Ona (flex, BR) - GMT minus 3
Andy (Evenings, EST) - GMT minus 5 - *
Tom (flex, EST) - GMT minus 5
Nadav (flex, EST)
Russell (Evenings, CST) - GMT minus 6 - *
Chris (CST) - GMT minus 6
Shargrol (CST)- GMT minus 6
Mike Ramos (flexible, WST) - GMT minus 8


If you have work/etc that blocks out availability at certain hours, please add your "best available hours" - ie 7pm-12am or 9am-12pm etc.

I'm EST. Flexible for now, but evenings probably better in the long run.

updated:

Ona Kiser wrote: So far we have the following:

Person: Best time/Time Zone, GMT equivalent

in order of time zones

Marked with * people who have fixed limitations on schedule (such as being at work for set hours) - Chris, Shargrol, Villum - 9-5 off limits for you?

Villum (CEU) - GMT plus 1
Ona (flex, BR) - GMT minus 3
Andy (Evenings, EST) - GMT minus 5 - *
Tom (flex, EST) - GMT minus 5
Nadav (flex, EST)
Russell (Evenings, CST) - GMT minus 6 - *
Chris (CST) - GMT minus 6
Shargrol (CST)- GMT minus 6
Mike Ramos (flexible, WST) - GMT minus 8


If you have work/etc that blocks out availability at certain hours, please add your "best available hours" - ie 7pm-12am or 9am-12pm etc.

US, east. I'm tending to work long days and big chunks of weekends lately and not sure when that will let up. So, I'll have to play it by ear.
When I can do it, Best Available Hours are 7PM to 10PM EST on weekdays and with planning much of the time on weekends.