With his kids scattered across the country, one of my sisters had the idea of having a webcast video birthday conversation. What a great idea, we agreed; how shall we accomplish this? After a week of back and forthing on possible solutions, we finally settled on an audio conference call with web cam video broadcasts from four locations. After ironing out a few bugs and making sure everyone could be seen and heard, the birthday boy was escorted into the room and SURPRISE!!! Happy Birthday, Dad.

We sort of had to arrange each web-cam broadcast in "Brady Bunch" format on our screens...and, there is always a bit of a lag on the camera images. And, being that none of us have any experience with video production (well, I don't THINK any of us have any experience in that area), the lighting could have been better for some.

Overall, however, it was a wonderful few minutes of pre-arranged closeness although one cam was broadcasting from Kentucky, one from California, and one from Vashon Island in Washington (the other from my dad's house).

When being there in person is not possible, a web-cam conversation (Brady-Bunch style) has nothing on AT&T's slogan about being the next best thing to being there.