Here’s my configuration (perhaps mostly for geeks, but hopefully also for anyone who’s interested):

I started with an old 433MHz Dell desktop system with a 3.2GB hard drive that Mark had laying around, and beefed its memory up to a whopping 128MB. Other than that, it’s vanilla hardware, probably something you could even find in a dumpster behind your friendly neighborhood office complex. I plugged it into a battery-backup power supply, connected it to my local network, and stuck it in a closet where the noise wouldn’t bother anyone.

From there, I decided to use the FREE trixbox PBX all-in-one telephony system, because trixbox (which is based on Asterisk) has all the software you need to run anything from a simple home phone system all the way up to an enterprise-level call center. Installing trixbox on the hardware was amazingly easy – I popped the CD in, rebooted, and it did the rest. It took care of installing the operating system, the phone system software, and all of the other packages I could ever want. When it was done, it pointed me to a web interface that I could use to administer the system from there. I practically didn’t even need to have a keyboard attached, and I certainly didn’t have to mess with logging in on the command line and puttering around with configuration files. And, I get visual displays of call activity, e-mail and web access to voicemail, vital stats on the hardware, and lots more. Wow. Did I mention it’s free?

At Summersault, we’re using IP phones, which are basically phones that plug into the network instead of into a phone line. This is convenient because you don’t have to run copper wire everywhere (that’s a good thing to keep in mind if you’re trying to convert a high school into a national communications center for a Presidential Debate, eh?), and I could do that at home too and just take advantage of my local network setup. But, I decided that I wanted the flexibility of using regular old phones that I had laying around (especially the one with a wireless handset), so I bought a Sangoma A200 card with 2 FXS ports on it. That’s basically a fancy way of saying I bought a thingamajig that went in the computer that allowed me to plug a phone into it.

Then I had to figure out what to tell my system about how to route phone calls. In other words, when I pick up a phone and punch in some numbers, where should the call go? That’s part of the beauty of a VOIP system…I can set things up however I want. I could have an extension for the kitchen, and one for the basement, and maybe a shortcut that goes straight to a family member’s home number, and…the possibilities are endless.

But I kept it simple, don’t worry. Long distance calls are routed out through the CallWithUs.com service, which charges a flat fee of 1.38 cents per minute (that’s $0.0138, Verizon) to calls in the U.S., and I can refill my account there through quick and easy PayPal payments. No federal taxes, no start up fees, no monthly charges. Beautiful.

Local calls are a different story. I *could* route them through CallWithUs, but it doesn’t feel right to pay a per-minute fee for something that is traditionally “standard” in a normal phone setup. I could call Verizon and have a physical land-line put in (my Sangoma card has a port for that too), and just route all my local calls there, but then I’d have those pesky monthly fees whether I used it or not. The solution? For now, I’m telling my VOIP system to talk to the VOIP system at Summersault, and use one of the company’s available phone lines for outgoing local calls. Cool!

(Just think about all of the business phone lines that sit around unused during evenings and weekends, and how we could save lots of dollars by making better use of them, especially as a part of good local infrastructure planning! Mark and I have even joked about making “local phone calls” an employment perk, but we’re not sure that would be a real selling point, yet.)

Incoming calls are a slightly different matter, and I haven’t gotten that far yet. CallWithUs, Sipphone and various other providers like them offer dedicated local phone numbers for dialing in (sort of like you can get with Skype) for as low as $6.50/month, usually with a certain number of incoming minutes free. I’m not sure we need that yet, but however it might get setup, the features for handling incoming calls in trixbox are extensive. We could have it ring right through, or go into a menu system (“press 5 if you are calling to sell something…”), or go to voicemail, or forward to a cell phone, or….phew. One thing at a time.

So, that’s the setup for now. It’s definitely overkill for my simple home needs, but I enjoyed putting it together as a part of a proof-of-concept, and it’s neat (as a geek, anyway) to have that kind of control over every aspect of your phone setup.

There are lots of places to turn to if you want to try some of this yourself. I learned a lot of what I know about VOIP and Asterisk-based phone systems through my work in transitioning Summersault’s phone system to that setup. I can certainly recommend the books Switching to VOIP and Asterisk: The Future of Telephony (which, in addition to being available in sturdy book form, is also available free to download). They’re definitely geared toward folks who are ready to dive into the guts of telephony software, but they’re still accessible to those just wanting to learn more about phone infrastructure and what’s possible with VOIP.

And of course, through Summersault, I’m available to consult on these matters for home and business use, though I can’t promise that I’d feel comfortable charging for all of my time, since it’s just so much darn fun.

Update on 10/16/2007: I’ve now added an incoming phone number (DID) to the setup, also through CallWithUs. At $6.50/month with 2,000 free minutes included, it seemed like a great deal when the need arose. And it’s especially nice that they let you set your own outbound caller-ID, so all of the calls appear to come from the new number, making return calls even easier. Nice!

Almost every month, I see the list of themes and think about what I would write about. I start to compose the words in my head. And then I look at the submission deadline for that topic (usually just weeks away) and then at the publication target for accepted pieces (usually many months away), and I tell myself that I’ll come back to it later to actually send something in.

I’ve been a subscriber of the Sun since 1999, and I have not yet gotten around to submitting anything to them. I’m not sure if it’s because I can’t experience the instant gratification of having my writing accepted (or rejected) like I can with a weblog. Or maybe it’s because I still have such a hard time letting myself write about things that other people are writing about. Or maybe it’s because I know I would be submitting something for someone else to judge or value, and I’m not confident or vulnerable enough. Or maybe it’s pure laziness, apathy.

Whatever it is, it’s a form of writer’s block that seems ridiculous and intimidating to me, yet very important to overcome.

It was 20 years ago this month that my father passed away from cancer. I celebrate his life, the family he left behind, the impact he had on me, and the cycles of life that give the world meaning and possibility.

It was 30 years ago this month that I was born into the world. I celebrate the landbase that sustains me, my health, my successes and failures, my friends and loved ones, my past and future, the hope that drives me, and so much more.

And so here I am, in August of 2007. As E.B. White said, “I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.“

It’s important to me to distinguish this way of being from the classical definition of what it means to be an introvert, “a person who is more interested in his or her own self than in in other people.” I know plenty of people who fit this definition well – they become so occupied with their inner existence and interests that they forget (or never learn) how to respond well to external stimuli, how to be sensitive to the physical and verbal signals given off by those around them, how to communicate well with others. While I understand and respect the ways that someone could manifest that personality, and while I see that they can find other ways to be brilliant communicators or express themselves magnificently, it’s very important to me to be sensitive to and interested in the beings and happenings in the world around me, as much as I am in my own self.

So if I’m not a classic introvert, what am I? I think I’m just someone who prefers to be quiet in settings where quiet is not always the norm. I do this in part as a way of bearing witness to the many kinds of ways in which there is not enough quiet in our lives.

I’m sometimes a quiet owner and principal of a small business, when so many of my counterparts have personalities or roles that require them to be loud and dominating in business meetings because that is what we are taught about how to be a good leader.

I’m sometimes a quiet man because so many man are taught that they must be loud (and manly in their loudness) in all but the most extreme circumstances. I’m quiet because I do not want to be a man who uses loudness as a way to play my manly part.

I’m sometimes quiet in conversations before I respond to something someone else has said, because when we get into a mode of speaking in rapid response or speaking out of a need to fill the silence, we aren’t able (I believe) to fully speak from the heart. When I allow a pause of a few seconds or even longer, I speak more from my true self.

I’m sometimes quiet around women because they have often experienced or been taught the same things about Real Men: they’re loud and in charge and the conversation will follow their pace, tone, and volume. I’m quiet here because I want to be in conversations with women that are not dominated by my volume or my gender, and where they can be loud if they want to without having to compete against me.

I’m sometimes a quiet friend in a circle of friends, because so often friendships are defined and enacted by making sure we all have enough to say to each other, that there is sufficient gossip, personal updates, and random observations to fill the time. I’m quiet because sometimes I want to experience friendship and be a friend without using the stream of words on which we are used to depending.

Learning to find my not-so-quiet voice and my louder noises for the times when loudness and firm voices are appropriate is another kind of growth that I’m still working on. But I enjoy practicing and refining the art and invigorating discipline of quietness, even in a world that does not often cherish such things.

Misty had a long life – upwards of 16 years – and was a wonderful companion throughout. I never thought of myself as a “cat person,” but I inherited her from other family members and she grew on me. She didn’t always have the warmest disposition when you encountered her at first – in recent years I think she had forgotten what her “nice meow” sounded like, so every entreaty or remark, even the happy ones, were done in the tone of a kitty with better places to be. But she made friends with strangers quickly, wasn’t afraid to look a little silly in the name of effective and comprehensive play-time, and always knew when it was time to cuddle up. And bless her heart for tolerating my experimentation with various gadgets that were meant to make her more comfortable – the automatic litterbox cleaner, the battery-powered timer-based feeding contraption, the elaborate windowsill lounging surface structures. I think she sensed my good intentions all along, even if she didn’t share my enthusiasm.

If you want, you can make a donation to 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com in honor of Misty – they help homeless pets all over North America to get adopted into loving homes like the one she had.

Goodbye, Misty.

So (or, despite that), I decided to throw up a few videos I’ve produced over the years to see what happens. There’s my trip to Washington D.C. to ask the president not to invade Iraq, highlights from a conference on cultural change that I organized, a clip from an inspiring talk about peak oil, and highlights from the raising of a wind turbine at the Cope Environmental Center, which I’ve mentioned here before. These were shot with everything from a digital still camera to my GL-2 MiniDV rig, so the quality varies widely, but I’ve already generated 1 subscriber to my “channel”, 49 views of my videos, and a comment. I love web-based social networking!

Let me know what you think.

I don’t publish this information as any sort of prescription for anyone else; there are millions of ways to make changes in our lives to do less harm, and not all of them look anything like the below (and some of them contradict the below), so I fully respect that this is what works for me as I experiment, and it may not work for anyone else. There is no one right way to be more sustainable. However, if you find this list useful, or have suggestions or feedback on it, I hope you’ll contact me to let me know.

Things I do in my life to reduce my unsustainable resource usage:

• I’ve created, participate in and financially support multiple community-oriented programs that promote and educate others around messages related to sustainability.
• I have a rain barrel in my yard to collect rainwater for use in gardening and yard work. It reduces the amount of filtered and treated city water I use by just a little bit, but rainwater is also better for my plants.
• I mow my yard less than neighborly convention might dictate. I’m working on using a scythe to replace my gas-powered mower (and increase my physical exercise!).
• I replaced the old drafty windows in my house with newer and more sealed ones. This helps reduce the energy needed to keep me comfortable inside. Unfortunately, the replacement windows are made up significantly of petroleum-based products.
• I had a super high-efficiency furnace installed in my house.
• I don’t use air conditioning at my house more than 3 or 4 days per year, and use ceiling fans, window shading, and other methods instead. (I do, however, work in an air-conditioned office, so I can’t claim to be braving the heat every day.)
• I live in a small town that is easy to get around, has the potential for great community-building, and has a heritage that involves peace and justice, sustainable agriculture and entrepreneurial solutions to difficult problems.
• I’ve replaced all of the conventional incandescent light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescent bulbs. These are supposed to last much longer and use much less energy.
• I wash my dishes by hand.
• I purchased a high-efficiency front-loading washing machine
• I also purchased a high-efficiency drier, but there really isn’t such a thing, so I try to use a clothesline to dry my laundry in the sun when I can.
• I have been working on putting my appliances that use phantom power on power strips that I can turn off when I’m not using them.
• I participate in my city’s recycling program
• I compost all organic waste from my cooking and store it in the big compost bin next to my garden.
• I try to buy goods and services from local businesses when possible. This reduces the amount of resources required to bring those items to me, and supports a strong local economy that can be more resilient to fluctuations in energy prices. I especially try not to buy goods and services from businesses that I feel are actively harming local/regional/national natural resources, engaging in slave labor, or participating in the cultural trends toward sacrificing our planet and its lifeforms in the name of increased consumerism.
• I support my local food cooperative by volunteering and serving on their board of directors, and by ordering household staples in bulk from them.
• I try to avoid eating food that will poison my body and potentially increase the resources needed to keep me healthy (now or in the future)
• I avoid buying new products and clothing when I can find them in like-new condition by shopping at Goodwill or the Salvation Army.
• I have installed or am installing low-flow shower heads in my showers.
• I avoid using household chemical products that pollute and cause medical problems
• I ride my bicycle when I have time. Having time to ride a bike is a relative/subjective/complex thing, so I’m working on ways to make more time for riding instead of driving.
• I walk places when I have time. Having time to walk is a relative/subjective/complex thing, so I’m working on ways to make more time for walking.
• When I do drive, I drive a car that gets reasonably high gas mileage (i.e. not an SUV) and I try to minimize my trips.
• I have a garden where I sometimes grow my own food instead of buying it from retailers who have produced it with a variety of chemicals, packaged it with a variety of non-reusable materials, and shipped it from all around the world using a variety of petroleum resources.
• I work on sharing tools and equipment with my neighbors when we can.
• At the company I co-own, I direct our management and “human resources” practices to encourage community and sustainability in our business activities.

Things I do in my life that aren’t so sustainable, or areas where I could improve (a beginning list…I’m sure this could be quite long if one looked at all the details):

• I live in and contribute to a culture that is inherently unsustainable
• My day job is centered around the use of computers and related electronics equipment , which are some of the most wasteful and energy-intensive products to produce in the world. Their production, usage and disposal is one of the top contributors to environmental pollution, workforce exploitation, and global consumerism in the world.
• I still buy lots of goods and services from non-local businesses, and/or businesses that actively participate in harm against the land or against other people.
• I have too much stuff in my house. Too much stuff means more time and energy spent managing and repairing that stuff, and less time having fun. I need to have more fun and less stuff.
• I don’t bike or walk nearly as much as I could if I made more changes to support that lifestyle.
• I don’t grow nearly as much food as I could if I made more changes to support that lifestyle.
• I still eat foods that poison my body.
• A significant portion of my income helps to fund violence and oppression committed against people around the world.
• I don’t put enough energy into being a more active participant in my community – getting to know my neighbors, developing relationships that allow me to give support and get support, etc.
• …

The adventure of doing all of the above is certainly not reflected in these simple bullet listings. In some cases, they were simple changes that required little or no money or time. Others were significant financial investments or major lifestyle changes. And many are ongoing, where I’m still feeling out the effects of my decisions and still finding ways to do better.

I know that the people who say these things usually intend them to mean “I was so embarrassed/disturbed/upset/whatever by that experience that it numbed my senses and temporarily made me unable to function.” And I suppose that in an age where finding just the right expression to boldly and cleverly convey our complex emotions (perhaps without really revealing what they are) is all-important to being cool, using the very raw and attention-getting experiences of suicide, death and dismemberment as material is an appealing way to go. When someone says that something was merely “horrible” or “shocking,” it’s easy to tune them out since there are so many horrible and shocking things shown to us every day. But when they effectively say “it made me want to end my life,” we’re not yet so desensitized that we don’t sit up and pay attention, at least for a little bit.

When someone tells me that they want to kill themselves, I can’t help but take them seriously for longer than a little bit, and when what follows their statement is a laugh or a twinkle of the eye, I feel a bit used and drained. Maybe it’s because of the various people I’ve known through my life who have ended their own lives or who have tried to commit suicide, and who were very serious about it. Friends, colleagues, family members, acquaintances. I think about a friend from college who told me so many times how depressed he was, who gave off so many signs to so many people, and despite the help he got and the incredible releasing and healing progress he made later, still chose to use a gun to end his life. He wanted to blow his brains out, and he did.

I don’t claim to understand the compulsion to end life as a solution to one’s problems, but I do know that it is at work in the world, a painful and all-consuming feeling/experience that affects more people than we might know. I know that there are probably people I encounter every day who have seriously contemplated suicide, some who have actually tried. And then there are the majority of us who have probably experienced the end of a life (by other means – there are so many ways to die in this modern culture) of someone we love, still just as significant and full of emotion.

So I guess statements about ending one’s life in this particular way as a vehicle for conveying emphasis on a matter don’t work very well for me. I know that I’m probably desensitized to plenty of other kinds of similar statements about violence or harm to others, and so I’m not sure why I would choose to remark on this one. Maybe it just reminds me of a wish that the people I have known who have genuinely felt compelled to end their lives would have been that obvious about their intentions. Perhaps then I, someone, anyone could have taken their statement to heart and done something more about it.

Or perhaps it’s because when I hear it from someone I’m talking with, I feel I should be able to respond in some useful way, to reflect back to them these raw and potent words coming out of their mouth. Words have meaning, words have power – don’t we deserve better from each other than to abuse them this way?

On Wednesday the heating and air conditioning service folks who were scheduled to show up at 8 AM didn’t, and when I called they said they’d forgotten about me. The phone system at work stopped accepting faxes for no good reason just as two time-sensitive faxes were coming in, and so I had to rewire that setup.

On Thursday the heating and air conditioning service folks showed up early while I had shaving cream all over my face. When they did come in, the problem I’d reported was not reproducible (“it just started working”), and so they left. One of our database systems at work experienced some weird corruption that required a flurry of emergency troubleshooting, and we thought we had it fixed. While attempting to fix the phone system problems with the incoming faxes, I rendered the phone system inoperable for a time until I could learn about and then debug some confusing problems with loading Linux kernel drivers. This made me late for a meeting, which I initially tried to let the other meeting attendees know about by calling them on the phone, which was, of course, broken.

On Friday the database corruption came back, and the fix this time involved creating a 256 kilobyte file full of zeroes and placing it in a special directory on the filesystem to appease the database gods. The estimate for my car repairs came in at several hundred dollars, and they won’t be able to do it until next week. I saw a movie by a guy named Al Gore, and apparently we live on a “globe” that is “warming up” a lot and apparently if we don’t start treating that “globe” with more awe and respect, we’re all going to die by fire or ice or both.

When I got back from the movie (technically on Saturday) and stopped by the office to get my stuff, barely able to focus my eyes because it was 1:30 in the morning, I heard a hissing noise that turned out to be a water main break that had started to flood the basement.

WHAT THE HELL?

This is all apparently a clever way for the universe to communicate that I should have taken up my friend’s offer to spontaneously go rafting in a national park this week. I GET THE POINT, PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE NOW.

P.S. I know, I know…I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got music, I’ve got my health, who could ask for anything more? Blah blah blah.