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December 27, 2007
Home For the Holidays...Virtually with Cisco TelePresence
Having already been to North Carolina three times this year to show off our new son, Jack...and, now that he is an active, crawling, exploring, fidgety, creeping, one-man wrecking crew 10 month old...we thought it prudent to skip the cross-country flight this holiday season. Jack did, however, want to see his Earnhardt Grandpma, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, etc...all of whom (most of whom) are still in North Carolina. Last year, this would have been a quandary...this year, however, we all got together via TelePresence. Jack, my wife and I were in San Jose...our Earnhardt parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins were in Raleigh, NC...a mere 2800 miles away.
Cisco set up a program called "Home for the Holidays" to have Cisco families use our Telepresence systems to "see" loved ones that they ordinarily would have missed this holiday season...as you can see from the pictures, all the Earnhardts were/are very appreciative on both ends of the system. These "virtual" visits (which are high-definition and life-size) will come to be fairly common in the years to come as more and more systems are set up (possibly in retail for rentals) and then in three or more years in the home. And, we're told, at some point, they will be holographic visits and you'll feel that much more Obi-Wan Kenobi.
We certainly enjoyed our visit with our family that we missed this non-travel holiday season and we're pretty sure they enjoyed "seeing" their grandson, nephew and cousin (and my wife...and me).
Thank you, Cisco for letting us have a holiday visit*...and thank you, again, Cisco RTP team for facilitating our visit.
Pictures of our holiday visit today:
Earnhardts in RTP TelePresence
Jack demonstrating some of his musical talents
Appreciative NC Earnhardts
"And, last but not least, Jackie Claus"
(With SPECIAL, SPECIAL thanks to Cisco friends in RTP, Sandy Roberts and Starr Franklin, for escorting the NC Earnhardts into the TelePresence unit in RTP.)
Posted by John Earnhardt on December 27, 2007 12:17 PM
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