Can You See Me Now?

There have been some amazing inventions in my lifetime.

Microwave popcorn.

Fantasy Baseball.

The iPod.

But face it, if it wasn’t for Al Gore and his little internet invention, our life would be incomplete.

I’m on it at least 26 hours a day.

Tonight I went to dinner with a friend.

I used mapquest to find the restaurant, Yelp to find a place for dessert and espn.com to find out how bad my fantasy baseball team performed today.

Just imagine if I had to wait until tomorrow morning to read those box scores.

Been there, done that.

Honestly, the world wide web gets more amazing every day.

There is a website for EVERYTHING.

You want to keep up on the first male pregnancy.   

•   malepregnancy.com

If you want to see what pets would look like in a uniform.

•   petsinuniform.com

If you have a mullet and you’d like to have it rated.

•   ratemymullet.com

Really.

I’m proud to say I had never visited any of those sites until five minutes ago and honestly, I don’t plan on going back.

But one place I do visit almost daily now is called skype.

Most of you have probably used it or seen it or heard of it.

It is a site where you can make video phone calls from one computer to another.

FOR FREE.

All you need is a webcam and it takes less than five minutes to sign up and download the software.

And then, you can see them and they can see you.

It’s skype-tastic.

If this sounds like an ad, it is.

Well, they are not paying me, but this product is incredible.

Especially if you and your family live on opposite sides of the country and you want to see what each other looks like a couple of times a week.

It is as simple as...

text -- hey dad, can you skype?

text -- yes.

Logon.  Open Skype.  Click call.   Click Video.  

Have conversation.

Amazing.

Through the first week of our separation, my wife and kids and I have skyped almost every day.

(Is skyped really a word?)

I know what it has done for me and I can see what it has done for them.

Really, I can actually see it.

Not that I am anything special to look at, but being able to see me and know that I am still there, has actually made them happier.

I can see it in their eyes.

Thanks to skype.

It certainly doesn’t replace being able to hold them or hug them or yell at them for having a dirty room, but it does remind them that I still exist.

Most of our conversations have gone at least 30 minutes, where a normal phone call is over in five.

This week, my six-year old auditioned for a local choir.

For the audition, she had to learn “My Country, ‘tis of thee".

So the night before the audition, we sang it over and over... and over again until she got the rhythm.

I could see that she was nervous and as stiff as she was bored.

So I asked her to sing “Baby” by Justin Bieber.

She did, every word, including the rap part.

She was smiling throughout.

So I encouraged her to do "My Country" that same way, with the same energy.    Which she did. 

I may have been across the country, but for our rehearsal, it was like I was there.

She loves singing.   And I love listening.

If you want to see her rendition of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”, click here.

The girl can sing.

And fortunately the choir agreed.  She made the team.

She skyped to tell me.

Is skyped a word?