the technological floating population

It's almost 7:00pm at night (in the UK) and my co-workers in the States have been working for a few hours now. I'm chatting with one about a meeting we need to have. She's just starting her day (originally from Slovakia). When I started my day a friend of mine in California (originally from Ecuador) was up working late. Between the 3 of us we'll have had 24 hours of steady work. This, to me, is both normal and crazy. Normal because this happens more than I care to think about. Crazy because this is normal.

Meanwhile, my lovely friend (originally from Sweden) who opened her home to me is sitting on the couch listening to a lecture from a globalization course she's taking through Oxford. Yes, that Oxford. The line I just heard (in some indistinguishable European accent) was, "Are we Superman or are we Homer Simpson?" Again I'll say, yes, that Oxford. Today I'm particularly struck by the strange web of people I know where this is the norm. There are people who never leave their state, sometimes almost their home town and I'm having a strangely normal day filled with accents of the Great Technological Floating Population. Though I do technical things I'd hardly consider myself technical. So I feel a bit on the outside of this group I just made up. Actually, I'm sure there's some well-established names/fancy studies on this. And I did steal that floating population bit. But still, it's new to me and the same discovery can happen at different times in different places. How's that for logic? This is all a very long-winded way of saying I'm boggled, this fine evening.

My mind is boggled by accents and location and work. The cure for said malady is to go download my free audio walking tour of Bath. This is fantastic news because it's a Jane Austen's Bath walking tour I'm taking this Saturday. You see, this is how nerds de-boggle the mind.