February made me shiver ...

... from one of my favorite songs (and yes, I know all the words _and_ chords) -- SIGCSE 2008 registration is proceeding smoothly (or at least the registration team is handling all the details very well). The main reason to register early is price (save $30-50); also note that SIGCSE membership ($25/year) saves $60 on the registration fee. I also ask you to consider "opting-in" during the registration process so that some of our supporters can be in touch, it's not much to ask considering their substantial contributions (some for decades, some we welcome for the first time).

And please look to encourage students to register and volunteer, and to contact our student volunteer chairs, Dan Garcia and Jeff Forbes -- it's a great deal on price and a fantastic opportunity.

Another reason to register early is to help us in our counts (and estimates of trends) for such things as meals, breaks, and proceedings (and if you really want a paper copy!). Less waste means more funds for the conference and for other SIGCSE projects. Early registration closes Feb 12 ...

... just around the time that the conference hotels will expect attendees to have made their reservations. We were hopeful that the lodgings would be suitable, but we were very surprised at how quickly the Red Lion and the Inn at the Convention Center filled. There are still rooms available at the final conference hotel, the Portland Hilton, and ACM has helped us to add a fourth, the Benson Hotel. Please take time soon to make these reservations so you can have the lodgings that work for you for the Symposium, _and_ we can see if we need to get started on yet another hotel -- a nice problem to have :-).

I also have to let you know that members of the program committee are very busy putting final approval on many of the materials you expect to have available (proceedings, advanced program, website, workshops). It is much work done by dedicated people.

Furthermore, I have to compliment them on the content of the Symposium again, I am still discovering how many great papers and other presentations we have, and how many really addressed the theme. I found myself constantly needing to stop reading for understanding and just get the stuff proofread! I thought we would have some papers on gender issues and a few on teaching students who have disabilities; rather, we have papers on culture, global issues, cross-country perspectives, even service learning projects near and far.

Happy Groundhog's Day!

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Also, as we all prepare to travel to Portland, I just want to note this previous post about the restaurants, and that I just discovered another article about the wine country via bicycle.