Hooray for technology!!!

I haven't heard yet how Peggy's night out went, but I'm sure she had a blast! I'll be eagerly awaiting the report. Eric and I were too tired from my week with a sick Sawyer to go...Sawyer is finally getting back to himself again. More smiley, less opihi.

Yesterday was an awesome day. I cleaned up Peggy's computer (physically and virtually) and connected a camera to her computer. I set up the Mac Application called iChat so that Peggy can have video conferences with family (and anyone else with a camera and an AIM or Mac account).

We practiced by "calling" her from my laptop which has a built in camera. She got to see Sawyer and Kala'i playing in the living room from her bed! That gave me the idea to let her see the rest of the house where her wheelchair can't go. I took her on a tour of the attic and the cottage.

Then we saw that Jenifer Segler was online. We initiated a video chat with her and she popped up on the screen with Jade. There she was, clear as day - "Hi Peg!" Wow. It was really amazing to see it work.

Then we reached Peggy's brother Peter and we video chatted with him for a while. He was so excited to be able to see and talk to Peggy and all of us. It was beyond cool. Peggy just kept saying how excited she is about it all. I told her that now she can see more of Indy - we can check in from home on the weekends!

Did I mention that all of this is FREE. We had an extra camera from our old computer since my laptop has one built in and setting up the AOL AIM account doesn't cost anything. And chatting doesn't cost anything and it is so much cooler and EASIER for Peggy than holding the phone up to her ear for a long time.

I'll be training you all on how to use iChat, but it is really simple. You just have to pull the computer over Peggy's bed so that she can see the screen. We're just going to leave the iChat application open as much as possible. In order for people to call, you have to click on Peggy's name and make her "available". When a person wants to chat, you'll see a window pop up inviting you to chat and you can just click "accept".

If anyone would like to be an iChat buddy with Peggy, her AIM is peggychun - If you want to be an iChat buddy with Eric and myself, our Mac account is chunzy@mac.com