lots happening

[Rob Seaman]

Howdy,

With the new year under way, it seems time to discuss a number of  
ongoing initiatives:

	1) Hotwired book - the editors have distributed a number of writing  
assignments with a deadline of Valentine's Day.  We plan to have boxes  
of these to hand out like candy at meetings starting with SPIE this  
summer.

	2) SPIE - thanks to all who submitted abstracts.  The initial program  
for conf. AS107 has been submitted and looks excellent.  Pending any  
changes from above, there will be a solid block of time domain talks  
all day on Thursday 1 July, spilling over to the morning of the 2nd.   
The final schedule comes out in April.

	3) The U.S. National Observatory (ie, "your observatory") is turning  
50!  We are holding two workshops in March, celebrating a stellar past  
and anticipating an even greater future.  The "future" workshop is  
"The Eventful Universe" (http://www.noao.edu/meetings/eventful- 
universe), focusing explicitly on time domain astronomy.  Several  
friends of VOEvent are on the SOC or giving invited talks.  One day of  
the workshop will consist of break-out sessions on several topics - I  
plan to chair one on VOEvent.

	This will be the one meeting this year that will explicitly look at  
far future trends guiding the science and technology of time domain  
astronomy.  Your participation will make it even better.  One favor:  
between delayed VAO funding and a likely freeze on federal facilities,  
our accountants are fretful.  Please click through to http://bit.ly/9V5Eb7 
  right now to indicate even a smidgeon of desire/intent to attend.   
The form is not directly tied to payment and abstracts can follow  
later (although titles are nice).  I believe there are registration  
waivers available for students.

	4) Time series - we are pressing forward on v2.0 with the intent of  
reaching an IVOA recommendation at the Victoria InterOp in May.  Time  
series are hot - see the many incredible Kepler papers.

	This is the time, we are the people.  (Read Henry V act VI scene III  
if you need more of a pep talk.)

	5) VAO Facility for Rapid Transients?  VAO is ramping up in  
anticipation of funding.  Science priorities will be set.  We need to  
make the case frequently and fiercely that "real time astronomy" is  
part of the mix.

	6) Boston ADASS tutorial?  Proposals for a ADASS Sunday tutorial will  
be accepted in the next month or so.  Boston is a good place to  
consider hosting a VOEvent session, if only due to the presence of the  
CBAT/MPC.  The Sky/WWT tutorial was very successful in Quebec.  We can  
do as well or better. Ideas for the program?

	7) Infrastructure.  Excellent work was contributed last year on a  
variety of issues related to deployable VOEvent-aware software,  
including a broker from Bob Denny and an iPhone app from the LSST  
folks.  Deployable is not the same as deployed.

	Let's make 2010 a year of planting and growing our infrastructure.

Rob

PS - speak up if I omitted your favorite topic!

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