WhimsyLand

It turns out that Packet-8 is every bit as slick as they advertise.  I purchased 3 handset stations after explaining to the Packet-8 sales guy what I wanted to accomplish.  Now I have three beautiful handsets on three desks, each plugged into my Ethernet network, and from there, to the Internet.  The handsets look just like standard multi-function office phones with a large LCD display and lots of useful one-touch buttons for retrieving voicemail, consulting the phone directory, redialing, adjusting volume and so on.  Like any good office phone, to call an extension, you just dial the extension number.  I went on to their website and logged into my account.  From there, I was able to set up each of the phones, establish auto-attendant, and configure voicemail.  The auto-attendant has all the usual office PBX features, like calling an extension, getting a company directory, or going straight to a person's voicemail.  OK, so I have a new phone system with professional features and reliable voicemail (it will even send me an email that I missed a call).  What's really amazing about the system is that Packet-8 doesn't know, or care, where an extension is physically.  I can unplug the handset, go upstairs with it and plug it into my WiFi receiver.  Junie can take the extension in her office here in Colorado, put it in her suitcase, and plug it in at home in Eau Claire.  I can ship a handset to Hong Kong or Russia or wherever and have employees halfway around the world that I can reach by just dialing an extension.  They, in turn, make phone calls with no long-distance charges with a phone number that originates here in Boulder County.  I can even take my handset to California when I'm there on a job, plug it in to the local Internet at an office or hotel room, and be instantly connected receiving phone calls exactly as if I were at my desk.  I can also use the web interface or the handset to forward calls to my cell-phone, when I'm out for a few hours.  For $5 a month, I can create a virtual phone number in Chicago that Der can call to reach me or anyone with an extension with no additional charges for long-distance.  All for about $40 per handset.  Amazing.

Vonage, which I also signed up for and tried, is just as amazing, if on a smaller scale.  I signed up, waited a couple of days, and got the box with a tiny VOIP interface box.  I plugged it into an Ethernet jack, plugged a normal phone into it, and got dial tone instantly.  The voice quality is excellent, and it supports all the usual stuff (Caller ID, call forwarding, 911, ...).  If you've been thinking about it for your home and you only need one or two lines, it's a great deal for about $30 a month AND they don't charge you the usual 30% of federal, state and local bullsh*t surcharges that you see on your current landline phone bill.

Of course, the instant I got a couple of Internet-based phone systems, Qwest managed to cut my broadband connection, first intermittently (no, Mr. Bahr, it must be your Cisco 678 DSL modem), and then for long painful durations.  After 4 days of telling me that I'm crazy, they now say that it will be up again in 4 hours, which is the Baby Bell equivalent of Real Soon Now.

Jeffrey Lee, Many Mountains Moving co-director, poetry editor, and managing editor for Issue 17,  has just about wrapped up the next issue, a beautiful ensemble of poetry and short fiction.  Malinda Miller and I are the Round-Up Staff, charged with finding all the people who have had their work accepted, and to whom we need to send galley proofs and requests for updated bios.   Malinda and I have been doing forensic web-searches, trying various combinations of names and "poetry", "poet", and other useful qualifiers.  In many cases, we've come up with work by the author in other journals and emailed the editors to get current information.  Still, we're missing a reliable phone number or email address for the following contributors:

Vito Aiuto
Thomas Robert Barnes
Justin Bzdek
Gerald M. Callahan
Josephine Chien
Ed Downey
Rosalyn Driscoll
Nancy Gannon
Eleanor Kedney
Gene Keller
Laurie Klein
Fredric Koeppel
Melissa Kwasny
Corinne Lee
Martin Napersteck
Clairr O’Connor
Heather Aimee O'Neill
Lois Rosen
Reena Roy
Neil Shepard
Annette Sloan
Maggie Smith
Mandy Smoker
Myrna Stone
Michael J. Vaughn
Rebecca Villanueva

OK, I know that seems like a long list, but we have way more than 100 contributors in this monster issue.  If you can help us with a contact email address, or know any of these individuals, please email me (or ask the authors to) a jbahr@set-software-services.com.  Thanks in advance.

The first Many Mountains Moving Poetry Salon of the season was a roaring success, mostly thanks to the efforts of Barbara Sorensen, the MMM Salon Coordinator, among other roles.  About 75 people showed up to bring potluck, drink wine, and hear Aaron Anstett, Tim Hernandez and John Latham read their work.  The venue is amazing:  the meeting room of St. John's Episcopalian Church in Boulder, a giant area with hundreds of folding chairs, dozens of folding tables, a great sound system (which we didn't use, but we will next time), and a huge kitchen that is used periodically to host a soup kitchen (dual ranges, hundreds of sets of cutlery and dishware, every imaginable gadget) that opens up, bar-like, on the salon so I could act as bartender and culinary handyman.  I spent most of the Open Mike session loading the dual dishwashers and scrubbing the crud off the ranges (apparently, the last gig was a pancake breakfast).  The next Salon is in a month or two, and I'll try to keep you posted, just in case you're in the area.

I got a new Atlantic with a fascinating article describing the end-game when North Korea eventually falls apart.  As usual, I felt finally like I was reading somebody who actually knew something about the situation, was somewhere between hopeful and realpolitik-al on the issues, and didn't sound like yet another mouth of the Ministry of Truth.  I also received a decent issue of Poetry, including Eight Takes by Dandy Dan Chiasson.  Dan has been all over the place in recent years, and must be Internet-savvy enough to self-google, as he found a review of his Eight Takes I did some time ago here and proceeded to kick my ass via email for mischaracterizations.  More power to him, we should all be held accountable for our statements (except Bill O'Reilly, who lives in the No Spin Zone, which Zone has been scientifically proven not to conform to the laws of physics or the whining of liberals).

More on that tomorrow.  I'm just happy to have Internet again.