Deadline met!

In actuality I only met one of two deadlines, but wait -- it may be that the SFYS deadline is moot, since it isn't at all clear if they are meeting in August anyway.  So a bit of extra stress for nothing, perhaps, counterbalancing the fact that I may not have missed a deadline after all.  In either case, SFYS is not really an urgent deadline, and if I miss it, it isn't that big a deal.

The conference paper deadline was considerably more real and certainly felt more pressing.*  Now each year is slightly different in terms of the requirements, with a big change this year that figures don't count against the total word count limit.  That worked to our advantage, since we had to ruthlessly cut out different sections to get it down under the limit, and we would have had to cut another 300-400 words if figures counted (like they used to).  Also, I remember when the deadline worked out to midnight Eastern Time,** but they gradually relaxed it until it was midnight anywhere in the world, so effectively there is the whole overnight period for us procrastinators.  As it happened, I had the paper edited and the formatting ready by midnight, but it did take another ten minutes to navigate the site and get the submission in.  Still, it felt like a significant accomplishment.  It was good to have a co-author on this paper, since he was able to edit sections while I was still writing up the results, and then I could tweak his edits and so forth.  While I probably could have finished the paper on my own, there might well have come a point where I would have just said, forget it, but having a co-author makes it that much more likely I will respect these hard deadlines.  So now I just wait to hear if the paper was accepted.  I should know by mid-Oct.

In the meantime, I have quite a few posts I've been meaning to get to, but had to put on hold while I wrapped up this paper.  But that's enough for now, I really need to get some sleep!


* I am glad that I didn't have to disrupt my life or even work that much to make the deadline, though I was so tired I did skip the gym once over the weekend, and then last night as the final edits went through and I uploaded the paper.  But I'll go tonight and will more or less be back on track, though I'll have to skip swimming laps and thus will try to make them up over the weekend.  And maybe spend a bit more time on some academic subjects with the kids, so they don't forget everything over the summer!

** And I definitely remember the year I missed the deadline by 5 minutes or so.  So frustrating!  That was probably my worst TRB-related experience (other than a few months ago when my travel authorization was cancelled!).  Now I remember another year where there was some breakdown in the submitting process, and everyone got an extra day, which I ended up needing.  Though to be honest, I can't remember now if this was the TRB website that went down or the ASA website.  After long enough, it all blurs together...