Google Voice

I've been wanting to check out Google Voice for a long time, and I finally got an invitation from Google to sign up. It is fantastic and I'm very excited about it.

You can use Google Voice either with your existing phone number, or you can get a phone number from Google. I chose one that is local to where I'm moving to. You can search for phone numbers that spell things, and I tried my first and last name with no success, but eventually got a phone number that ends in MATH, which is pretty cool.

What GV does at this point is that, when someone calls my new number, GV will ring whatever phones I've told it to. I can tell it to ring my office phone, home phone, and cell phone all at the same time from that one number that belongs to none of the phones. I can also, if I choose, set up classes of my contacts and have GV treat them differently. (For instance, perhaps business associates get to ring only my office and cell phones, but family get to ring all three phones.)

GV also catches all of my voice mails and will email me when I get a voice mail or a text message. Voice mails are automatically transcribed (not very well, but better than nothing) and there will also be a link to play the voice mail recording on the computer. Text messages come as they are, of course, but best of all, I can text the person back just by replying to the email. (I don't do a lot of texting, but now it is at least easy to do with those few people I know who do text me.)

I can place phone calls from my Google number from any of my phones (though I forget how) and I can also place them using the website as a helper. I tell Google who I want to call and from what phone, and they ring first my phone, and then the other phone, and make the connection. It's sort of like having a secretary. One of the advantages is that I can manage all of my contacts in Google (same contacts as in Gmail) and not in my cell phone. (Of course, I might also want them in cell phone if I want to place calls when I don't have access to a computer, but there are not that many people I call regularly from outside of my home or office.)

My favorite aspect is the voice mail capture and emailing. I am pretty bad at ever getting phone calls and I especially don't notice voice mails (much less texts), but I check email all the time. This will make my chances of receiving and returning phone calls much higher.

I also really like the idea of having one phone number that will stay the same no matter what kind of phone I have. I'm considering, once I move, having a prepaid phone plan so that I don't have to pay $40/month for the five or six phone calls I make every month. I know that you can keep your numbers when you change plans these days, but this seems so much easier - just give everyone the Google number and only you and Google have to know where it's ringing. (For that matter, if I wanted to make even fewer phone calls than now, I could just have the Google number and no actual phone plan, then find a phone booth or something to place calls when necessary.)

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Google Voice so far. I have one invitation left that I can send someone, so if you're interested in trying this, just let me know.

Spring Cleaning

In an utterly out-of-character move, I took advantage of having five days off and have gone through everything in my entire bedroom (including the closet). I got rid of a lot of things including

• just enough books that I could shelve all of the remaining books
• all of my clothes that don't fit or are stained
• giant amounts of papers that I don't need or want
• a kite I never fly
• five of my seven pairs of snow gloves/mittens
• a scarf I would never wear
• shoes I don't like
• sheets that are not the same size as my bed
• one of the six pillows I own
• a tiny cooler and a giant thermos
• about six backpacks and other similar types of bags
• my Miami J collars from when I had my surgery
• connectors and cables for tech equipment I no longer own
  

I also finished going through all the papers I have from childhood. When I bought my beautiful file cabinet a couple of years ago, Mosch and I went through almost all of my papers and filed them away or discarded them. But I left one medium-sized box of papers from childhood because I just ran out of steam, and figured I could get around to them later.

I like to keep almost everything like that. I love to look at elementary school reports cards, the paper on solar energy that I wrote in 3rd grade, my high school journals, and all kinds of stuff like that. And now they are all filed properly in my filing cabinet.

The nice thing about a serious filing cabinet is that, once you have one, and until it is full, there is no cost to adding more things to it. It takes up the same amount of space whether it is half-empty or mostly full. So it was really wonderful to get all of the papers in there.

We also, while filing all papers, emptied out my "to be filed" file folder and either filed or discarded everything in it.

I had a lot of help from Mosch and some from Ed, but I worked really hard, and I'm super pleased that I've thinned out my possessions somewhat, and organized and cleaned the rest. The room and closet got an excellent vacuuming too, so everything is just super nice.

I still feel like I own too many things, but at least in my bedroom, I don't own anything I don't actively want to own. When we did the closet, we took every single thing out first, just to make sure that (a) it was just as easy to throw things out as to keep them, and (b) the stuff would get reorganized. Obviously I couldn't do that with the whole bedroom, but still - almost everything was gone through.

As much as I love getting rid of things I no longer need, and seeing the useful things go to thrift stores where other people who actually want them can get them, I'm usually way too lazy to clean and organize. But since this was my last week at my old job, and I had to work hard all week to get caught up, I was in the habit of working, and since I spent the last day at my job cleaning out my old office, I was even in the habit of organizing and cleaning.

I'm very pleased with myself tonight :-)