Really: it’s awesome. I realized this tonight while sitting in my hammock in my back yard. My back yard. I had just mowed the yard- something I used to take joy and pride in when I was a teenager. Up until tonight I had just mowed because I needed to mow. Tonight though I got the mower running again after it being on the fritz for a week, and put everything else wrong with my house; nay- my home aside and took some care in my mowing. It turned out beautifully. I’m growing a ball field for my nephew Grayson and his buddies Jack, Sam, Sophie, Sophie’s little brother or sister and [[Insert girl name here ]] so when they come to uncle Chris’s they can play outside like I used to. I sat and I looked at my  house and went over the first two months of home ownership in my head. (-two months, really!?) So far I’ve moved in, torn a car apart, bought a car, had the basement flood twice, removed the carpet from the basement along with pretty much so everything else, installed can lights, replaced a sump pump (mostly) and mowed the yard. Mowed the yard a lot, actually.  It’s been wet this spring, so I get to mow a lot, which is nice.

I can’t wait to mow some more.

PBX:

Choosing to run a digital VOIP PBX in your house is a big step, taking away your regular analog phones (without adapters, anyway) and replacing two wire phone line with cat5/6.  I looked at several options when choosing a pbx software, the most popular of course is Asterisk and it’s variants. Some of the limitations and built in flaws of * really worried me though, and I started looking around again.  I run pfSense as a firewall here at home, so when I noticed a ‘Freeswitch PBX’ Package show up on the list available packages I jumped into IRC and installed it.

Sip Trunking Service:

I couldn’t continue my relationship with Vonage- it just wasn’t flexible enough and I would always have to have a line tied to their stupid box. I was dumping POTS all together, all SIP all the time at my house. As such I did some research and signed up for Aretta to get a DID and the calls flowing. The setup was easy and nothing I’ll go over here, jump into IRC if you’re having a problem and numerous people will help, and read some documentation to get started. I also later added a number with Viatalk. Each provider has plus’s and minus’s. I’ll give you a brief rundown of each of the providers I’ve chosen:

Aretta:

• + Local Numbers
• + Outbound Caller ID # transmitted as sent (meaning I can send a number other than the one they have)
• + Unlimited Channels
• + Unlimited Trunk accounts and CDR’s for each trunk
• + Backup PSTN and PSTN Forwarding (send calls to your Cell if the PBX goes down)
• + Really wants to help support FS clients and likes FS
• +/- Billed per min per channel, an affordable rate depending on use
• -  Billed per min, even on 1800 calls
• -  Is new at dealing with Freeswitch and doesn’t have many clients using it

Viatalk:

• + Cheap ($180 for two years of unlimited talkign)
• + Works all the time, without fail
• + Lots of FS users using it
• -  Two channels (one in/one out or two in or two out)
• -  Outbound caller ID will always be your #
• - No local DID’s

As such, I have a Viatalk with a Cincinatti # for my job, and Viatalk with several #’s for other uses.

Phones:

With a system comes phones. The SPA 941 worked fine for a while but lacked some fun options. I stumped up some cash and bought a Snom 870 a few months ago, and really really like it. But on my pbx are running the snom, the spa 941 and a couple older polycoms. Anything that is SIP compliant should work, but I STRONGLY suggest you get something that can be configured via web interface for your first phone.

FusionPBX:

Fusion is a software layer that sits on top Freeswitch and makes configuring it into a PBX a breeze. It’s a progression from the config pages in pfSense and is a really nice product that I maintain a watchful eye on. A newer FS port for pfSense is coming, and with it a full Fusion Package, meaning a really really sweet PBX and interface for the pfsense firewalls.  Find the developers and users (like me) on IRC in #fusionpbx on freenode.

Summary:

I now have a phone system that has IVR’s (menu’s etc) available, sends my Voicemail to my email, hunts around to find me (including forwarding the call to my cell but yanking the call back to leave vm on the PBX), can register phones without being on the same network (the lake house, for example), lets me conference with a virtually unlimited number of people and most importantly has my own choice for hold music from Mp3′s. It works great and while tinkering is part of what I enjoy about it, would run pretty seamlessly without my intervention. A success if I do say so myself. Stay tuned and I’ll detail some fun configuration stuff and talk about more advanced features (phone provisioning, etc).

Starcraft 2 Beta: Finally got to play some (my roomate has it) after I got picked randomly by Blizzard to participate. I am excited, and will dedicate some time to playing.

House: Closing the 15th of this month.

My spirits: Mid to high.

A Husband, a Father, a Poet, and a Friend.

Educator, Veteran, Officer, EMT and soon a Grandfather.

Enjoy your time with God, Mike- we’ll see you again.

The Texas Mile is a 1 mile standing start shootout in Goliad Texas that specializes in letting you push your car to the limits.  This March 26th, I’ll be pushing my 2000 Corvette as fast as it can go in 1 mile.  Between now and then, is a lot of prep work and planning. I’ve got my registration in and dues paid, but here’s a run down of what I’ve got left to do:

• Oil pressure sensor replacement [relocating while I'm doing it, thanks TPE]
• New injectors, possibly a BAP – just priced some injectors from Dallas Performance for a nice price from Taylor
• Fuel pressure sensor
• Retune –  Will be swinging through Either Dallas Performance or England Green on the way to the mile
• New tires – Thinking nitto NT555′s
• Fix the truck to pull it down there – almost there, just springs to do now
• find a trailer to pull it on
• Book hotels for the way down and down there
• submit medical release and tech inspection forms
• install fire extinguisher

Wow, the list isn’t long but it is expensive and time consuming…