This is a reminder that the deadline for call for papers was June 1. We
are still getting a few papers trickling in. We plan to start scheduling
next week. Could you please make sure that we have your paper registration
form and abstract by the end of this week at the very latest.

During this week we will be contacting you if we are missing bits and
pieces from your registration.

Please note: a number of you have made special requests for scheduling.
We will attempt to honour this wherever possible. I am advised by past
programmers that this is tricky, and so I have to add the "wherever
possible" caveat. Priority will have to be given to those who literally
cannot be in San Diego before or after a certain date. If it is a
preference that has been expressed we will do our best, but no guarantees.

Because we have two separate dates for registration -- one for papers and
one for conference -- some of you may not have completed your conf
registration. This may present us with a problem if you wish to go to one
of the Friday or Saturday workshops. I will get a list from Dan Herron
next week of all who have requested each of these workshops. We will do
our best to avoid conflicts (again, we can offer no guarantees). If,
however, you have not completed your conference registration and we do not
know your special needs by the end of this week, we will not be able to
avoid conflicts -- we simply won't know about them.

This is our proposed time line: we intend to send out email confirmation
of times of presentations as soon as we have our preliminary schedule
resolved. We will also send out hard paper confirmations at the same time.
I am being wildly optistic in thinking that this will be in about two
weeks time. It will be by the end of June at the latest.

One final twist: if you have been selected as either a Holmes-Cardoza
nominee or a Distinguished Proceedings award nominee, you will be
presenting on Thursday morning. You likely will already have a preliminary
presentation time when you hear your good news either from Deb Ballam or
Ernie King. You can assume that we will be rescheduling you till Thursday
am. There is no flexibility on this time and if you CANNOT be there, you
should contact either Deb or Ernie immediately.

Thanks for all of your help. Looking forward to meeting you all in August.

From the desk of the bureacrat....


Sally Gunz