Video telephone seemed a distant concept to me as a young boy — something that would arrive in a far-off future. FedEx delivered that far-off future to me yesterday.

I plugged in my iSight camera, and it bridged the 1,100-mile gap between me on one end, and my brother and nephew on the other. Seeing my nephew’s face was worth the price of the device.

Of course, I’m not the first to join the video chat community. Thousands have come before me, and millions will follow. Still, each is allotted his own “ooh-aah” moment.

Video chat gave me the same chills as seeing the Web for the first time back in February ‘93. At the time, pages were mostly lists of links; no one had the bandwidth to view images, let alone stream video.

Still, for all the enhancement to the Web in the 11 years since, it’s still fundamentally about connecting people. Now, I can put video of faces with names.

Chatsters can find me on the AOL/Mac chat system. My handle is ’siddhasana’.

In other Jetsons news, the BBC is reporting the imminent foray of the private sector into space. Vacation packages for Joe and Jane Consumer can’t be far off, so book your reservations now.