The Changelog

Usually when I learn a new programming language, I'll hang out on its mailing lists and IRC channels, learning from the answers given to other people's questions, and asking my own. After a month or two, I usually feel fairly good with my abilities; that I could answer most of the questions, and understand most of the questions.

Well, I've been using Haskell for about 6 months now. I really like Haskell, and it's a great language to use, and it's already my preferred language.

But here's what's unique about Haskell. The more I use it, and the more I participate with the Haskell community, the more I realize just how much there is that I could learn. And it seems that I'm not alone with that feeling.

I wonder why Haskell is unique this way.

Just when you thought ethnic Mennonite food was boring, somebody has to go and do a technical analysis of it.

It was funny for me, anyway. :-)

I recently wrote about Asterisk, the Free Software PBX. Well, I've completed the first stage of installation in our home and must say this is the most fun piece of technology I've played with since MythTV :-)

Here's what we now have in our home:

• Local calls can be dialed like usual. By default, they will use a landline (aka PSTN line). If the line is in use, they'll be routed over the Internet at a cost of 1.2 cents per minute.


• Long-distance calls can be dialed like usual. By default, they'll use an Internet VOIP provider at a cost of 1.2 cents per minute. If the Internet or the provider is down, they'll fall back to our landline, at the usual cost of 7 cents per minute.


• Toll-free calls can be dialed like usual, too. By default, they'll route over the Internet for free using FWD, but if that's down, they'll fall back to the landline.


• Almost every phone in the house will have its own unique extension number. These all start with "11" so they don't conflict with any public telephone number. So, no more running up or down two flights of stairs to ask a question.


• The IP phones in the house can also act as intercoms; when a special extension is dialed, they will ring once, then automatically go into speakerphone mode.


• We have call forwarding, 3-way calling, etc. without having to pay the usual high telco rates for these services.


• Call transfer is nice if one of us answers the phone, but the person wants to talk to the other person, who is in a different room. (And callers get to hear some nice music on hold while they're being transferred.)


• To a regular caller, it sounds like we have an answering machine if we don't answer. In reality, they are leaving a message on Asterisk's voicemail system. The system e-mails us the audio message as an attachment as soon as the person is done recording the message. Also, an indicator lights up on every digital phone in the house. We can check the voicemail from any phone, in our house or not, using a passcode -- or by listening to the attachment.


• By physically taking our IP phone to any broadband Ethernet port, we can make and receive calls on it almost like usual. Yes, if we take the phone to Indiana, and someone calls our Kanas number, phones in both Kansas and Indiana would ring.


• Emergency calls are routed over the landline like usual. In the future, I will set it up so that dialing 911 automatically disconnects anybody that's using the landline, so the emergency services can be contacted immediately.


• All analog phones are automatically connected to the normal landline in the event of a power or network failure.


• "Ring all phones" feature that essentially simulates an incoming call


• Caller ID everywhere, both for internal extensions and for calls coming in from outside


• All sorts of other fun stuff I haven't even tried yet...

Read on for a description of how it all works, and some hardware and vendor reviews...

At the center of it all is Asterisk. Asterisk is responsible for receiving and routing all calls, the fallback plans, etc. It's a very powerful and amazing piece of software.

Our digital phones are Sipura SPA-841 models. These are amazing phones, usually selling at $85. The Voxilla Store has the best deal with free shipping, plus excellent service. The SPA-841 comes with one Ethernet port and a modern-looking digital interface. It supports all the bells & whistles, such as 2 lines, call forwarding, call history, personal directories, speakerphones, distinctive ring tones, etc. It's also web-configurable, or can be configured via TFTP and XML files (very very nice if you have more than one!) The breadth of the configuration of these phon is just amazing.

Our analog telephone adapter (ATA) is a Sipura SPA-3000 (also with a good deal at Voxilla). This nifty little gadget sells for about $100 and has one ethernet port and two analog telephone ports. One of the analog phone ports is to be connected to the landline (PSTN) connection from your phone company. The other port provides line voltage, dialtone, ring voltage, etc. to phones in your house -- that is, it simulates the phone company to them. So, your analog phones can dial VOIP numbers -- and get the benefit of call routing over the Internet and the like -- all without having to invest in more-expensive digital phones. We are keeping our cordless analog phone (cordless IP phones are not very good yet), and a couple in infrequently-used by nice-to-have locations.

The PSTN connection lets you use VOIP to dial out. In our case, Asterisk is the one doing the dialing out, so the PSTN connection is controlled completely by Asterisk.

One super-nice feature of the SPA-3000 is that it has an option to bridge the two ports together in the event of power loss or if it loses contact with the Asterisk server. This is great so your analog phones keep working even in an emergency situation. Some people might disable this, though, because of the shock of having long distance suddenly cost 6 times more than usual :-)

The next stage in the project is to run some network cabling in the house so we can deploy an additional digital phone and relocate the server and ATA equipment to a more convenient location. Cat5ECableGuy has some great deals on jacks and cable. Service seems to be good, too; will let you know when my order arrives.

I also have a Sipura SPA-1001 (single-line ATA for use with analog phones) that I'll be deploying once the cabling has arrived. That will give the kitchen phone its own extension separate from all the others.

I have had a few hitches along the way. I first tried a cheapo Wildcat X100p clone from ebay. I found it to be unstable and cause asterisk crashes on my Alpha. The SPA-3000 is working much better.

The other hitch relates to disconnect supervision, which my telco doesn't provide. That means there's no good way for a machine to determine that the remote party has hung up the line. The SPA-3000 for some reason can't detect the off-hook warning tone either, but I have some workarounds going.

I also found that multiple simultaneous uploads on my DSL link would flood the transmit queue and cause latency to be unacceptably high for VOIP to work. After some tweaking with the Linux traffic shaper and ToS bits in Asterisk, I think I've got that nicely worked out.

I purchased some of my early equipment from Telephonyware. Decent prices, but they appear to have lied about the shipping date, and didn't return my e-mail asking about it. VOIPSupply had much faster shipping, but also really charges a lot for shipping & handling. Voxilla has good rates and fast service, so I'm using them now.

That's a lot for one post... more to come next week.

For about a month now, we've had this odd odor in our house. It started out in our laundry room, on the east end of our main floor. Then we noticed it in our bedroom, on the west end of our 2nd floor. Since then, we've noticed it in almost every room in the house on different days, but never all over at once. It's always one or two rooms, but they could be on opposite ends of the house.

I few weeks ago, I realized that the smell was coming from the furnace vents. After some experimentation, I noticed that running the furnace made the smell go away. It got worse when the temperatures were warmer, and the furnace wasn't running.

So we called out our local heating/plumber guy. After they were out here three times, they did find a couple of problems with our furnace, but no gas leaks or anything that could explain the smell -- which, by the way, three different employees couldn't identify. They even left an air charting unit with us, which ruled out things like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates. It did helpfully notice that there were odors, but didn't tell us what they were.

So here we are, still smelling this.... smell. It defies categorization. It mystefies experts. Something like a cross between dirty laundry, mold, and a skunk. And yet.... none of those, either. It's weird.

I've taken to closing the vents in our bedroom before turning in for the night if the smell is bad in the evening.

So, I'm appealing to all the bloggers out there for suggestions, short of selling the place and moving to town :-)

Oh, and this is not the first time we've had odor problems here. However, the cause the first time was immediately apparent and thus could be eventually dealt with :-)

I read this at the memorial service for Alvin Goerzen on March 23, 2005.

For us grandchildren, our earliest memories of Grandpa are of visiting him at his farm. It was always fun to be there. Family gatherings were usually there, and he always made delicious food. Peter, James, and I remember the Zwiebach, borscht, and monster cookies the most. If any of these things were ever missing from a meal, I'd be disappointed, even though the food was still great.

The family usually was at Grandpa's place for Christmas. Grandpa's tree had the wheat-weaving ornaments that Grandma Goerzen made. I don't remember her, but I always admired those ornaments.

After dinner, we'd have our gift exchange. We'd all get our Christmas presents, and then after it was all over, Grandpa would get a sly smile and a little twinkle in his eye. He had "extra" presents for each of us grandkids every year. No matter how nice the other presents were, Grandpa's always seemed extra special.

There were lots of things to do at Grandpa's place. He kept toy tractors and vehicles in a closet off his living room. They were probably 30 years old, but they still worked fine. He also had a large supply of board games. But the most unique thing was his air hockey table. It was always great fun to play a game of air hockey with Grandpa.

We have lots of memories of Grandpa's yard and farm, too. The yard was always good for exploring -- an old implement here or there, or an old vehicle. Or maybe some wasps if you look in the wrong place. I never got stung, but I still remember what places to avoid because of wasps or bees.

I remember the day I was exploring behind some buildings and found an old John Deere tractor. I had heard people talk about this tractor, but I couldn't remember ever seeing it before. It seemed almost like a legend to me, and I was quite excited to actually find it.

Grandpa's creek at the edge of his pasture was good for fishing and camping. The cows didn't seem to mind the visitors, and sometimes came surprisingly close.

Grandpa liked to be a bit of a tease. He'd greet us with "Hi, Skeezix" when we'd arrive at his place, and he often called me Hanschen.

Grandpa was always interested in our lives. He was at all our school concerts, recitals, and plays. Last fall, Terah had been sick, and just as she was getting better, Grandpa was taken to intensive care. We visited him there, and it was the first time he had seen Terah since she was sick.

Grandpa looked asleep when we got there. Terah said "hi" and started to ask him how he was doing. He immediately interrupted her. In the strongest voice I heard from him in quite awhile, he said, "Terah, how are you?" Grandpa refused discuss how he was doing until he was completely sure that Terah was OK. It's a special feeling to know how deeply he cared about us.

Grandpa always wanted visitors, even when his illnesses made it difficult. Terah and I often visited him after church on Sundays. He wanted to know how we were doing, what happened in church, and might tell us how he was doing if we asked. He sure wouldn't say anything if he thought it might interfere with hearing about us, though.

Sometimes, it was difficult for him to talk, but every time, he made sure to say thank you for visiting. That made us feel special, too.

Terah remembers another hospital visit. Even though Grandpa looked asleep, she held his hand and talked to him for awhile. When she said goodbye, Grandpa managed to open his eyes for a moment and thank her for visiting.

Last Thursday, Terah visited Grandpa at Bethesda. She called me at work to tell me that Grandpa didn't say "thank you". She didn't have to tell me what that meant.

We hurried back to Bethesda that evening. Grandpa was still not doing well. He said a few words when we got there, but by the end of our visit, he was too tired to thank us for visiting.

That time, I was the one that said "thank you". I thanked him for letting us visit him so many times. He brightened all our lives.

As Terah wrote, my grandfather passed away on Saturday. He had been sick for awhile, so this was no surprise, but it's still been hard.

Sunday was the Palm Sunday service at church. Normally a happy service, but this year, it was different for us.

After church, we sat down with the pastor to start thinking about the memorial service and the meal following it. Let me tell you a bit about the meal.

First of all, the food store in my home town (of course there is only one such place) sells a product that is labeled, and rings up as, "funeral cheese". Most of the rest of the world knows it as Colby cheese. But around here, it's funeral cheese, and is served often (not just at funerals). But it is fairly common at funerals.

Later that afternoon, we went to Miller Funeral Home to start making arrangements.

I have to say a few words about Miller Funeral Home. The relatives from "The Big City" were not looking forward to going there, since they were afraid of high-pressure salesmen. Ivan Miller, director of Miller Funeral Home, is not a high-pressure salesman.

Just to set the stage a little: Ivan received a plaque honoring him for 50 years as director of the Home... and he got that plaque a few years ago. He warned us several times that it would cost 13 cents extra to list some more names in one of the area newspapers. It became almost a running joke for the rest of the day.

He showed us each of the coffin choices, the price on each, then left us to discuss and find him if we had questions.

Today was the viewing. The viewing was from 1 to 8, and it was announced that the family would be there from 6 to 8.

The funeral home was *packed*. Family laughing and talking everywhere, meeting old friends, remembering birthday parties 30 years ago. It was mostly a happy time. My aunt said "it's exactly what he would have wanted" and she was right. Several people remarked at how different these events are from family to family. With some families, it's a somber or tense occasion. With the Goerzens, it was so loud that it was hard to hear, and the room was terribly hot, despite the howling wind and 36 degree temperatures outside.

I also got my last look ever at Grandpa, and it was hard to leave, knowing I would never see him again.

I've been asked to share a few memories at the memorial service on behalf of my brothers and Terah. I've written up my remarks, but I'm nervous about it -- and that's somewhat unusual for me. I've never been a speaker at a funeral before.

Sorry for the rambling post. I'll post my remarks here sometime tomorrow or so.

Thank you to everyone that has posted comments, sent e-mails, etc. It is great to have to many caring people around us.

It must hurt when you have this and this in the same season.

Terah called me at work yesterday afternoon to say that she had just seen my grandfather, and he was not well. Although we had both visited him regularly, and our last visit was on Sunday, she suggested that I ought to go see him in the evening, too. He was declining rapidly, and might pass away at any time.

Grandpa has been ill for several years now. He's been diagnosed with both Parkinson's and congestive heart failure (CHF). There have been several times in the past few years where he almost died. He's the only person I've ever heard of that's flunked out of Hospice because he got better. (I think he was proud of that, though he never let on)

It seems not that long ago that we were having family gatherings at grandpa's house on his farm, complete with his famous beef borscht, zweibach, ham, and tea rings. Then he moved into town, and finally, into the nursing home. Our family gatherings lately have been in a meeting room at the nursing home,and everybody brings something -- good food, but, well, not Grandpa's.

One year for Christmas, Terah and I decided to make up some borscht for grandpa. We had his recipe, and with Terah's cooking skills and my memory, we came pretty close. Grandpa was very surprised, ate a lot, and was the envy of all the other residents that day. He also could tell us exactly what ingredient we had too little of.

The CHF has made talking difficult for him for some years now, but he always manages to say something. One time, he was in intensive care in the hospital, and Terah went to visit him. She held his hand and talked to him, although he looked like he was asleep (it was hard to tell). When she was ready to leave, he managed to open his eyes for a moment and say "thank you" for visiting.

Every time we would visit him, even if he had only a word or two to say to us during the visit, he always made sure to say thank you for visiting. He'd usually add that he wanted us to come visit again soon.

When Terah saw him yesterday afternoon, he didn't have the energy to say thank you.

When we saw him yesterday evening, he was just strong enough to nod and say "I think so" when Terah asked if he remembered her earlier visit.

Now, it was finally my turn to say thank you, for letting us visit him.