Register now for the STC Conference, which will be held in Minneapolis, MN, next May. Conference Committee chair Saul Carliner, Program Committee Manager Phylise Banner Klein, and their team have put together an intensive program (to be announced soon).

This year's conference includes several one- and two-day pre-conference workshops, more than 200 sessions, five conferences-within-a-conference, and five certificate programs. Two keynote speakers (Simon Singh and Ze Frank) will keep everyone entertained during their sessions (Singh has the opening keynote and Frank has the closing session).

Visit the conference website for more information.

Well, Santa took off this morning at 4 am ET on his round-the-world tour. Jesse is tracking him on both Norad Santa and Google Earth. (Norad Santa requires Quicktime or Windows Media Player; Google Earth requires...well...Google Earth ;-) and the Santa Tracker.)

He's already been by New Zealand and Russia, and is currently delivering presents in Guam. (Google Earth is tracking him in real time, while Norad Santa puts up videos every hour showing where Santa has been.

Jesse planned on being up at 3 am today so that he could watch Santa take off. Luckily, he slept in until 5:30 am...but it's still going to be a long day!

From our family to yours, have a wonderful holiday :-)

Hat tip: Heidi Hansen (http://heidilhansen.blogspot.com/)

Heidi Hansen (formerly at Loud Carrot) keeps tabs on all sorts of stuff, and today's gem features links to an interview with Susan Burton that is posted at TechWriterVoices (http://www.techwritervoices.com). Check it out when you get a chance! (The total podcast is about 16 minutes long, but it starts over at 14 minutes.)

Updated to add text URLs.

I'll be attending the STC NNE Chapter meeting tonight...friend and colleague Sarah O'Keefe is speaking. Her topic is "Technical Writer or Soulless Automaton? Authoring in the Age of XML."

Sarah's been at the XML 2006 Conference in Boston this week, and she's been blogging about it at Palimpsest.