We live in the future (I live in Mongolia)

I keep my Gerris office in a building in Columbia Heights, Arlington, Virginia. There's a huge first-generation Mongoliancontingent here. 

I assume most of the building. Skype, FaceTime, and Hangouts have erased the 6,509 miles between Dominion Towers and downtown Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

It's amazing. We live in the future.  I'm constantly impressed and amazed.

I remember as a little kid with my first girlfriend. She lived a few miles away but we would stay on the POTS for hours, just being together, maybe watching the same TV or just living together, apart. Later, as a young man, I would fall asleep on the phone with my girl, away at her parents, and the line would still be open in the morning.

Back in the days when long distance was expensive, I needed to save up to chat with my English Rose from Honolulu back when she lived in Norwich and I worked for my dad in Hawaii. I virtually bankrupted us.

That's what immigrant families can do readily, globally, now -- and for free. It's amazeballs.

And I didn't even mention Viber, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Messenger, Nimbuzz, Fring, WeChat, ICQ, ooVoo, NetTalk, Tango, Vtok, LINE, KakaoTalk, LiveProfile, Groupme, Kik, and ChatON -- I'm sure there's more.