Leading off.

Long time, no see. And no, it's not a misprint, typo or any other similar type of error. This is, in fact, our December/January issue.

Despite the obvious lateness, (resulting in a combination of sheepishness and embarrassment) that this issue exudes, you can't imagine how happy we are to be bringing you this particular edition of Sask Business.

Although some of you may have been thinking that we must have gone on a break, taken a winter holiday or some other such assumption (while perhaps others may have jumed to the conclusion that we'd shut the doors) actually, quite the opposite was true.

Since we last spoke, we've been publishing our little (or in some cases not so much) tails off. In fact since our November issue we've published a book (our first), a couple of periodicals and another magazine that we publish for a client on a contract basis. When all was said and done, we'd published nearly 500 pages. In other words, when you consider our typical year of eight, 32-page issues of Sask Business, we'd done about two year's worth of work in two-and-a-half months. Yeah, you could say we've been busy.

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Sunrise Publishing (our corporate name) has been publishing this magazine for 12 years. Though there have been highs and lows over that time, never, ever have we put out a magazine so far behind schedule. And for that, we apologize. We owe an even bigger apology to our Business of the Year, which we'll now acknowledge in our upcoming February issue of Sask Business. (For the sake of time, we opted to move that feature into our Feb issue, allowing us to get this particular one in the mail a few days sooner.)

As the saying goes, you live and learn. Although we've long known that Sask Buiness has been our claim to fame, or our flagship publication as we like to call it, we let our guard down. We were far too accommodating regarding some deadline dates and our own magazine and publishing schedule suffered as a result. Among the things we've learned is that we will not do that again.

As another saying goes, never say never, and although I'd like to say that we'll never put out a magazine so late (beyond its dateline), we already acknowledge that this will not be the case. In fact our February issue will be out in March, but if all goes according to plan, our March/April issue will be out in April.

Because we've been breaking all the rules of late, we'll continue on with that trend and acknowledge some of the people who have been responsible for our minor miracle of delivering the aforementioned projects on time. Particular thanks go to our printing partner, PrintWest, for their remarkable turnaround and professionalism in the most trying of times. Last, but certainly not least, our staff including Linda Hamm, Shalynn Regier, Komar Gryba, and in particular, head designer Trevor Sellar, who has been working diligently, virtually non-stop--evenings and weekends included--and oftentimes thanklessly. Congratulations everyone for a job well done.

Now let's get back to work, we've got some magazines to publish.

Keith Moen, Editor

Publisher's Note: Keith so eloquently forgot to mention his own name. I would like to say a heartfelt thanks to the entire Sunrise team for a job well done.--Twila