Long Distance Song Writing

We've been doing some long distance songwriting lately. Our friends Kaye and Jamie live in Florida and he is an awesome keyboard player and composer. The last time we visited with him, I played him an instrumental that Jilda and I were working on called Insomnia. Jamie liked the groove and said "we should work on this." We didn't have much time that evening, but last week he dropped me an email asking if I was still interested in collaborating. I said I was, so I sent him a rough mp3 of the song that was recorded on my little recorder. It's a really good melody, but it needed work. A few days later he sent me a draft of the drums, bass and keyboards. It blew me away. I'm now working on the guitar parts. I can't wait to get the finished product.
What makes this all possible is the wonder of modern day technology. We both have PC's with Pro Tools software and fast Internet connections. Jamie has an account with Box.net This is an online storage website. For a small monthly fee, you can upload huge files. Pro Tools files with all the effects, and instrumentation can easily be 60 or 80 megabyte files. He uploaded the files to box.net, and I download them to my computer and add my parts. When I'm through, I upload the files back up and he downloads them to his computer to do the final mix.
This kind of work, in the old days, would have taken weeks. It can now be done easily in a matter of hours. I love America.