Where did it go? It has been a roller coaster fall for the members of the leadership council, one we will never forget. But time continues to march forward. So, for our last BITeS post for 2014, I thought I would tell you a little bit about some of the exciting happenings with VIPEr. First of all, I think I should provide the 'answer' to our current poll. The answer is that there are registered faculty users of VIPEr in 36 countries around the world! It was quite a bit of work, but also a lot of fun to map this out. The thing I found most surprising is that we have not yet found our way into Germany. We are one state (Alaska) short of having users in all 50 states. We have users on every continent but Antarctica.

Here's a map showing all of our registered faculty users. If you know your user information is not up to date, I would sure appreciate you taking a few minutes to update it and let me know. I did a decent job of checking information, but I am sure there are some mistakes. Here I am on the map of users.

With the start of a new year will come a project meeting of the leadership council. We have already received some wonderful suggestions for improving the site from you, our loyal users. But if you have any other ideas of what we can do to make VIPEr even better, please let us know. You can e-mail me directly or you can use our new feature request/bug report that you should find on the bottom left of any page.

We are also busy putting the finishing touches on our upcoming workshop on catalysis. The dates and speakers have been finalized. I know I am looking forward to my first ever trip to the state of Washington to participate in the workshop. Stay tuned to VIPEr to learn all of the exciting details. I know I will get in trouble if I give too many details, but with the new teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens having been released, I feel like I have to give a little something away. One of our speakers has something in common with the author of The Catcher in the Rye.

Finally, we are continuing to gear up for the Denver ACS meeting. I expect that the final schedule will be released by ACS in the next week or so. It won't be too long after that before we announce a location for our social hour in Denver. I am really excited about our sessions and I think it will be a great meeting.

Happy end of the semester and best wishes getting your grading done.