I’m taking a couple of days ahead of time to look around. If you are coming to the conference as well, drop me a line – probably text messaging to +44 793 171 1988 is easiest if you can do it, or leave a message/call me at the Congress Plaza 312 427 3800 – and maybe we can meet and chat before I start running around like a maniac seeing all the interesting sessions (there are more papers that sound interesting than I can possibly catch in person, alas!)
P.S. Do check out and contribute to the AoIR Chicago wiki I started up.
P.P.S. You might want to use the Technorati aoir6 tag to tag any postings relating to the conference once you get here.