Ask HN: Ideas for parking a phone number while overseas?

I've had the same phone number for nearly 10 years now. Next month I'm heading overseas for at least a year, and I'd hate to let the number go. I'd love to be able to port it to Google Voice but that feature is not yet publicly available (anybody have an in at Google?). It's also not possible to port a number to Skype. Current options include leaving it in the States on a cheap family plan ($10/month) or using a service like NumberGarage ($30 + $5/month). Both of those will let me keep the number, but I won't be able to get much use out of it while I'm gone.

I see that it's possible to port a number to Twilio. Any ideas for something clever/fun/useful I could do with Twilio or some other similar service?