So I recently revealed I have over 10 e-mail addresses I check regularly. Did you know we (the family) have 5 phone numbers as well? Actually, there are 8 ways to reach us via phone, but three don’t really count (okay, most don’t really count).

• Amanda’s Cell – Pretty obvious. If you know us or are her Facebook friend, you have this.
• Benjamin’s Cell – Ditto (it ends in BEN, isn’t that neat?)
• Benjamin’s Work – Really only Amanda needs it, but it counts. Technically you can call the front desk, so that’s 2 numbers, but my direct dial should generally be the only one used.
• Flessner Home – This one’s new. We’re still trying to get the kinks worked out, but soon enough we’ll reveal it to family members. It’s just a Google Voice account that rings both of our phones… if you’re in our contact list. Otherwise it just goes to voice mail. And the number’s really cool* (in my nerdish sort of way).
• Benjamin’s Google Voice – For a long time, I had a GrandCentral-then-Google-Voice number that I only used for SPAMish purposes (registering for free cars in malls and whatnot) and then more recently as a voicemail replacement. Then we got the ‘Flessner’ number, so this one was a little superfluous. Then I found out that using Google Voice as a real forwarding number AND as a voicemail replacement doesn’t always work (call cell, voicemail forwards to GVoice, forwards to cell, which forwards back to GVoice… :shudder:).  So now my cell phone’s voice mail forwards to my private Google Voice number which always goes to voice mail. As an added bonus, this is the account I setup on my Android phone, so I can send text messages for free from it (so it’s worth knowing if I ever text you). Oh, and I got a new number, too: 515-DIGIBEN 🙂

I also have a VoxOx number as a text/voice forwarding number because Google Voice doesn’t let you link a cell phone to multiple accounts. It doesn’t work so well, though, and unless this fall’s upgrade improves things, I may be looking for something else (any ideas anyone?). In any case, now that my Google Voice app connects to my private Google voice account, there’s not much need for this anymore.

And I wonder why Amanda thinks I’m crazy sometimes. 🙂

*Flessner Home – It’s 4242-Flessner (don’t count). It’s pretty much the best cross-Ben/Amanda thing we could come up with. I figured you could laugh about it (HA-HA-FLESSNER) or because I’m the baby of the family, perhaps GA-GA-FLESSNER. It wasn’t until later that I realized it included the answer to life, the universe, and everything twice!