I don't kno whow the holidays treated all of you. I expected some down time. Every year there's a lull that settles in around mid-December and lasts into the first week of the new year. Every year but this one. I've had no lull. There's been no letup in activity. And I've reached the point of hitting the wall this week as I try to keep up.

I'll fill you in on what's underway, just so you know what could be coming in the next week or so. Several of the phone conversations I'm having are driven by a VON Magazine article I'm writing, but the chats themselves are broad in nature.  These aren't the standard interview chats I've podcast before.

Last night I spent an hour or so online with Stefan Constantinescu from RingNokia. I had a great time hearing his views and insights. I need to do some audio editing to get that podcast together and online. Hoping to work on that late tonight.

Today I chatted on the phone with folks at MegaPath about their managed services and the value of managed services with regard to VoIP and security. There's a post in there that I have to find some time to write.

I also chatted with the great people at Siemens about an announcement that's coming early next week. Stay tuned for something pretty intriguing on that front.

Next week I have a chance to chat with Mark Collier. Mark's the CTO at SecureLogix and the co-author of a recently release important book that I've mentioned before, Hacking Exposed: VoIP. We're actually going to be talking a bit about VoIP security and the smart things people are doing with the moving perimiter.

On the 15th I'm talking with a senior exec at Covergence about a new access session border controller solution.

And I'm still setting up chats with KoolSpan, Ingate, potentially Cognio, and others.

I won't be at CES next week. I won't be at the Internet Telephony Expo in Ft. Lauderdale either. I do have a three-day trip to Little Rock next week on something unrelated to unified communications. So I'm hustling and working on new, newsbreaking and interesting things rather than just pointing to some other news stories. I'm busy hustling some interesting things for you to chew on here. Stay tuned.