• In January, we traveled to Florida to visit my paternal grandfather, my last surviving grandparent. Two weeks later, he died at age 88.
• Got our biggest snowfall in Macomb yet–14+ inches on Feb 1. Snow fort time!
• I enjoyed a fantastic Computers & Writing conference in Ann Arbor, with a great blogging panel, From A to <A> getting the Computers & Composition book award, and time well spent with good friends.
• With Neil Baird, I began a writing transfer research project which is helping me to kick-start my research into ease. In May, we got approval for our IRB protocol and a $7,800 internal grant; since that time we’ve build a strong set of case study data to work from, with 10 participants sharing their transition to writing in the major with us this this fall.
• Erin and I decided to road trip in summer 2011, covering 2,000+ miles on a three week trip which began meeting my brother in Arkansas, then heading west to New Mexico and Colorado. Chama, Ouray, Denver, Gunnison, and points between.
• As part of my sabbatical retooling, in August I traveled to Hanover, NH for the Dartmouth Seminar in Composition Research. Being away from the girls for two weeks was very hard, but the seminar very much worth it.
• Madelyn started school, in Mrs. Bear’s kindergarten at Lincoln Elementary.
• On September 12, we said good-bye to The Big Kitty, returning to a pet-less house for the first time since 1994.
• Some family issues I don’t wish to share caused us some serious aggravation.
• Obviously, the low point of the year was rupturing my Achilles tendon playing football. To be specific, the bottom came about a month after that, when I ran out of good cheer and struggled to cope. But now that I’m a month into physical therapy, hopefully the worst is behind me.

Here’s hoping for less not-so-great stuff in 2012.

Not surprisingly, the seminar was demanding intellectually: after a few days, some of us took to referring to it as “research boot camp.” That’s what it was. We first met the night of July 31, and finished our work August 12–just about two weeks. We had one day off: the middle Sunday. Every few days, new visiting scholars joined us to speak to their expertise: Charles Bazerman gave an overview to situating research in the larger field, and Cheryl Geisler offered a two-day workshop in coding data and discourse analysis. Dartmouth professors John Pfister gave a crash course in statistics, and Jonathan Chipman in visualizing data. John Brereton offered excellent advice about grants. Chris Anson and Les Perelman spoke to assessment and situating research in larger institutional frameworks. The last two scholars to join us, Neal Lerner and Chris Haas, spoke to research design and ethical research. We concluded with two days of presentations in which participants summarized our research design and described what we learned during the seminar, with Haas and Lerner offering commentary. Throughout, all of the visiting scholars were available for office hours and individual consultation–for me, some of the most valuable time I spent at Dartmouth.

The seminar felt like a week, or maybe two weeks, of graduate school every day. Seminar organizer Christiane Donahue planned the calendar very well, keeping us busy but providing time for individual work. Some days, especially early on, consisted of eight hours of intensive seminars. Some were divided between morning seminars followed by individual work, consultations, and group work. None of the activities suffered for want of attendance and participation. Even optional night and weekend classes were very well attended. All of the participants lived in Fahey Hall, a dormitory on campus; classes were held in a common space on the ground floor of the building. It wasn’t hard to find attendees hanging out and working in the common space on the first floor, and it was downright easy to seek help with seminar work: for example, after Geisler concluded her lectures on Friday, I suggested all interested attend a “coding party” on Sunday afternoon. About eight people showed up and worked for two hours, coding each others’ data and reviewing segmenting and coding schemes as well. This good-natured work ethic stuck for the entire seminar. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all work and no play: I definitely enjoyed local beer culture with Scott Whiddon, Molly Oberlin, Justin Lewis, Tara Lockhart, and other attendees. We got to hear Charles Bazerman sing opera during a much-needed first Wednesday social. But it was great to collaborate with a group of people serious about learning and getting things done.

Much of what I learned during the seminar was focused specifically on the transfer research Neil and I are doing. As always, I took notes carefully–55,000 words in seminars, group work, and on my own. I’ve shared my wordcloud. I boiled those notes downs to eight pages of takeaways after the seminar, but can focus on three things here:

First, our research design was too complex. Neil and I wanted to use multiple methods of data collection in order to achieve the complexity we believe is necessary for understanding our research questions about writing in the major–learning about the activity systems in which our participants work. But planning for multiple kinds of data collection is cumbersome. Better to achieve complexity by focusing on case studies driven by interviews–and learning to become a very good interviewer. Here are the changes I proposed in my presentation:

Secondly, I failed to separate assessment and research. Part of the reason for the over-complex research design Neil and I imagined arose from prioritizing institution-focused goals (including all of WIU’s diverse constituencies–transfer students, first-generation college students, etc.) over research goals (gathering a manageable amount of relevant data). Ironically, over-prioritizing WIU needs could mean not meeting them as the study collapsed under its own weight.

Third, I left the seminar with a list of methodological questions to approach as I continue to learn the art and craft of empirical research:

1. What principles can guide our comparisons of information from different sources?
2. How can we measure the quality of our interviews—given the difficulty of research into transfer?
3. How can we be genuinely beneficent to our participants, on the short and long term?
4. What mechanisms can help us apply lessons learned from this study to future work?
5. What support structures and resources will help us move the project forward?

All of the seminar leaders were very helpful, but I want to mention two in particular. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any academic work as hard as Christiane Donahue did for the entire the two-week seminar. It seemed like she was up before everyone every day. Before all else, she created a fantastic intellectual experience for us, providing quite a bit of it personally by speaking to transfer, research design, and other specialities while offering us individual help. In addition, she arranged trips to the local grocery, helped us get access to scholarly resources on campus, and woke up in the middle of the night to help seminar attendees who’d locked themselves out of their rooms. With Kathy Herrington, I was very glad to sneak around Hanover a bit and put together a basket for Tiane which recognized how helpful she was for all seminar attendees. Secondly, Chris Haas: her talk on research ethics came at the end of the seminar when many of us were borderline exhausted. But it was invigorating, and thought provoking too. I went straight from her first talk to a chair and wrote Neil immediately to say, “Hey, we’ve got to think about this.” The two three page handouts she provided were very dense, giving me two or three specific things to think about. After I returned to Macomb, I wrote Haas with some follow-up questions, and she traded email with me, providing some very helpful suggestions and things to read–and strong encouragement as well. Much appreciated.

Quite a nice exclamation point to my year of retooling. A wise choice for all of the audiences I noted above: people like me looking for a mid-career change, early career scholars with projects develop, or graduate students looking to establish a firm grounding in research methods. I’m looking forward to following this year’s Dartmouth Seminar, and getting together with my cohort at CCCC in St Louis.

• Augusta
• Belgium
• Berkeley
• Birmingham
• Brooklyn
• Brussels
• Cambridge
• Carthage
• Charleston
• Concord
• Cuba
• Erie
• Havana
• Jacksonville
• Kansas
• Manhattan
• Milan
• Oakland
• Ohio
• Omaha
• Paris
• Plymouth
• Princeton
• Roanoke
• San Jose
• St. Augustine
• Tennessee
• Vermont
• Versailles
• Virginia
• Woodstock
• Wyoming

Update 6/7: Here are some more, suggested on Facebook:

• Abingdon
• Athens
• Avon
• Berlin
• Cairo
• Frankfort
• Marceilles
• Monticello
• Naples
• Nashville
• Sparta
• Teheran
• Vienna

• I’m still catching up from four very long and productive days at Computers & Writing. Madelyn got sick the night before the conference, literally; two times I woke to help her throw up, then get cleaned up, settled down, and back to sleep. (Poor girl. Something she ate, I think; she was better a day later.) So I arrived short on sleep, and did nothing to catch up during. A good problem to have: excellent sessions and conversation. Easily the best C&W I’ve attended. I’ll have a more complete post about the conference in a few days.
• The day before the C&C book award was announced for From A to <A>, we were #1,200,000 on their best-sellers. The day after, #141,000. So I guess a few people bought the book right away. Cool.
• In the next few days, I hope to put a few beers now in secondary into bottles: IPA, session pale ale, and spiced pumpkin honey wheat. The Saison Chris and I brewed May 7 is still fermenting away. After a week, it looked dead, but when I racked it, it woke up enough to build up a second krausen. I’ve read that’s typical of the yeast I picked (WLP 565): it has a tendency to stop and start. I hope so; the saison had only moved from 1.054 to 1.032 when I racked it after 12 days. I’d like to see it under 1.020 before bottling.
• My new profile pic on Facebook is this snap from our mothers’ day trip to the Peoria Zoo. We smile with our whole faces!
• We are in minimal child-care zone, now that WIU is out for spring and the girls’ day care is closed. Madelyn will be doing pre-K and YMCA day camp this summer in between our travel, and we’ve planned some playdate trading and babysitter time for the girls as well. For those of you in Macomb, we’re always looking for more of the former…
• Speaking of travel, we’ve planned a three-plus week road trip this summer. Arkansas, where we’ll meet my brother and sis-in-law to camp; northern New Mexico; Pagosa Springs then Denver, Colorado; Rocky Mountain NP, and maybe Rapid City after that. Many miles will be driven, trails hiked, DVDs watched, craft beers consumed.
• Madelyn and Amelia have been getting some grandparent time lately. Bits and Eric were here for five days or so last week, and my parents are coming next week. I’m very pleased about both visits, and I hope for more.
• My running injury troubles are returning, or continuing, depending on the way I think about it. Lately my feet have been bugging me. Erin was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, so that’s on my mind. Suck. I think I need to start another cycle of swim and bike only pretty soon. But I want to finish being a Couch to 5K volunteer first. I haven’t made it out for as many runs as I wanted. Maybe half of them. Regardless, it’s been a lot of fun. Now if my body would just cooperate.
• I’ve been trying to update rsync on our Mac Mini today, which means I need to compile it. Which means I need developer tools. So, credit card in hand, off I go. No. fun. at. all. I can’t believe how shoddy Apple Store / Apple ID / Apple Developer / App Store / iTunes integration is. Trying to get an update for Xcode, I finally got a download started–then realized I had created a new Apple ID, rather than updating my existing one (despite using the same credentials). Great. Now I’ll have to log in and out to update different pieces of software.
• Making ice cream today, I overheated the custard. Gack, scrambled eggs. First time I’ve done that. Well, we get to see if Lebovitz’s prescription for that mistake–into the blender while it’s still hot!–is a winner.

• Madelyn and Amelia turned 5 and 2. Busy and busier–you pick. Both are avid readers; both would be on the computer eight ours a day if allowed.
• Lots of travel. We visited family in Florida (January) and Alabama (March). Our longest trip was a fantastic tour of parks in Utah and Arizona. In late September, the girls and I enjoyed a one-night camping excursion in a local park. I predict even more travel in 2011.
• My essay “Beyond Star Flashes” appeared in Computers & Composition 27.1, and From A to <A>: Keywords of Markup was published.
• Sick, I struggled through ATTW and part of CCCC, and finally gave up and left early. WPA went a lot better.
• Jeff, Thomas, and I met in Portland to drink local brews, eat good food. And I started brewing beer again. That’s continued with no major hiccups, except two broken carboys (augh).
• All of us got bike upgrades. As the girls get older, we’ll be using them a lot more.
• We said good-bye to Lumper, our girl cat.
• Erin and I painted the back and front porches, and got a new driveway. Other than that, not very many big house projects this year–a lot of small stuff.
• My sabbatical is going well. It’s a little more than half over, and I’m pleased with the retooling, reading, and writing I’ve accomplished to date.

Happy new year, everyone.

Travel

• Before I left, it was pouring, and I fell, twisting my right ankle and landing on my left shoulder. They are still swollen and bruised, respectively.
• Instead of the usual US67, I drove IL336/US61 to avoid flooding in southern Illinois. All the creeks and rivers I crossed were swollen and moving fast. Later, I found out I missed flash foods and the closing of US61 in Hannibal by less than two hours.
• Just after Jeff and I began our light rail trip from PDX to downtown Portland, a homeless hipster wearing a suit hopped on the train. He discussed drunken escapades and compared shelters with a fellow who got on a few stops later, then handed out cigarettes to a few people. We saw him two more times during the trip–once smoking a gigantic cigar.
• Best travel experience: a cab ride with Radio Cab’s Bobby A., who drove his cab at 99.9% of its limit and punctuated our conversation with a series of “You guys” and other colorful expressions. My gut hurt from laughing when our trip was finished.
• Our return flight from Denver to St Louis was delayed because of flight crew issues. The Frontier agent herding passengers said to nobody in particular, “This hurts me more than it hurts you–I’m supposed to go home now!” Jeff scowled and fired back, “What? So are we!”
• “We have a full flight. Help us out–we’ll gate check your bag for free,” announced the Frontier agents every time we boarded the plane. Doubly absurd: (1) they want $25 for a bag each way, and are surprised when nearly everyone carries their stuff on; (2) they expect travelers to wrangle bags through security and to the gate–and then check them?
• Going home, I got out of STL at 7.20p. Drove by a few fast food places and decided to skip them all–I bought a quart of milk and drank that instead. Arrived at 10.30pm to a dark house and sleepy girls.

Breaktimes

• On our way to the gardens in Washington Park, we came across the Oregon Holocaust Memorial. Incredible. I thought about it the rest of the day.
• Between pubs Tuesday, Thomas bought a long-sleeve shirt at the American Apparel store, while Jeff and I stood around and looked completely out of place.
• Wednesday morning, we enjoyed R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated and a nice roster of contemporary artwork at the Portland Art Museum. I could have stayed at the museum a lot longer; I particularly liked the photography.
• After a fellow with a oversized hat and neon-green sunglasses walked by us late Tuesday, we begin rating the hipsters we encountered on a 1-10 scale. Portland is thick with ‘em. It would be easy to generate a year’s worth of material for LATFH in a weekend.

Bars and pubs (in order)

Deschutes Brewery Public House: we got there around 7.30p on Tuesday, and it was swamped: line out the front door, and just a few seats at the bar. Excellent beer (cask bitter!) and good food, too–elk meatball appetizer and mussels. Jeff and Thomas got elk burgers.

Henry’s 12th St Tavern: we visited several times since they had a long list and it was close to our hotel, Park Lane Suites. Solid pours, and good service, but very noisy, and too many beers on the list were out. I almost left my laptop there Thursday night; returned to find it hiding under our darkened table. (Whew.)

Laurelwood NW Public House: our first stop Wednesday. We ate on the porch, enjoying a very fine roster of beers which, though they were similar styles, had excellent differentiation. Small samples (3oz), so we got two trays. Thomas particularly liked the red ale; I preferred the Hop Monkey IPA. Very good food; we all opted for the fresh greens with our sandwiches.

New Old Lompoc: our first (and most surprising) disappointment. Nice to see hops growing outside, but the place was very grimy, with people smoking on the patio and sticky menus. Worse, several of the beers had quality issues. We were in and out in less than an hour.

Lucky Labrador Beer Hall: a huge place, almost empty in the early afternoon. I’d been to the original pub on Hawthorne years ago, and remembered that I used to have a Stumptown Porter shirt. Generous samples, almost half-pints. Roots “kolsch” was really a gruit (which is why Thomas and I complained about it). We munched peanuts and enjoyed the “Super Dawg” IPAs.

Living Room Theaters: waiting for Tugboat to open, we stopped here so Thomas could get an espresso, and discovered they had Ninkasi on tap. I had water.

Tugboat Brewing Company: very disappointing. No pale of any kind on tap–in Portland, Oregon?!? Fewer than 10 handles. I liked the cheesy books at the table, and the great slogan: “Small, dependable, hard working”–but no sample pours, and lousy ESB. I left half of my half-pint on the table.

Bailey’s Taproom: across the street and miles ahead of Tugboat, a fairly new place with a very diverse roster of taps (about 20) with one of the few sours we enjoyed on the trip (Cascade The Vine). They offered sample trays, and again we got two, with a super variety of styles: Upright #4 saison, Fourth St Vienna Lager, Cascade Imperial Wheat IPA.

Harborside Pilsner Room: nightcap for Tuesday. We arrived fairly late, after our trip to Salty’s and back (see below), shortly before the place was closing. Terrific location right on the Willamette River. They offered a variety of Full Sail beers and a few guests on tap, which was fine, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Horse Brass Pub: the first place we visited Wednesday, after a long wait for the eastbound bus after leaving the museum. We had half-pints and a plate of outstanding fries–hand-cut, skin-on, nicely seasoned–then returned after lunch at ¿Porqué No? to find several beers on tap not there when we first arrived. Nice conversation with our server. I particularly liked the Beer Valley Pigskin Pale (cask) and the Double Mountain kolsch–very close to style.

Belmont Station: beer nerds’ heaven. A small bar connected to a store jammed with amazing beer. To support the Oregon Craft Beer festival, all their taps but two were Oregon beers. Amazing stuff. We each had three different half-pints. Heater Allen Isarweizen: wow.

Hopworks Urban Brewery: got here at the wrong time; the place was jammed and our palettes tired after Belmont. We had a half-pint and headed out for dinner.

Food

Portland Bagel Company: flavorful, light bagels and pastries. Thomas and Jeff split a bear claw, and raved about it. But whatever they were using to mop the floor just wasn’t cutting it. Sticky: ew.

Salty’s: recommended by our waiter at Laurelwood, right on the Columbia River near PDX. After a $30 cab ride there, we guessed the place has been riding on reputation for years. Menu, decor, and food right out of 1978. Way overpriced. The waiter was overbooked and the service slow: as Thomas said, you could tell he had just given up. Thankfully, the wine list was good and the sommelier helpful.

Kornblatt’s Deli: unlike PBC, traditional bagels, doughy, chewy, and more my style. Excellent service at this “breakfast all day” deli I’d visit regularly if I lived in the neighborhood.

¿Por Qué No?: amazing tacos. We got there just after 1:00 and there was a line–and there was still a line when we left. Not a minute after we’d been in the place, a server put pints of Hopworks Red Ale into our hands. Sooooo fresh and delicious: guac, chips, fish tacos, pork tacos. And very reasonably priced.

Ten-01: Thomas picked this restaurant. Outstanding service and very good food. I had halibut, and it was perfect: buttery, crisp on the outside, flaky, tender and juicy. Excellent desert wines, too.

Next time:

• Amnesia Brewing
• Country Cat
• Green Dragon
• Hair of the Dog
• Hop & Vine
• Malay Satay Hut
• McMenamins Edgefield
• Produce Row Café
• Saravesa
• Traveling with my girls

(Pictures belong to Jeff. Check out his posts, too.)

• Good sessions. I didn’t skip a single time slot. I enjoyed Bump Halbritter’s talk, which used Donald Murray to talk about what it means to be innovative (rather than just saying, hey, what I’m doing is innovative). The research project Shirley Rose, Barbara L’Eplattenier, and Lisa Mastrangelo are starting looks fascinating–updating surveys about WPAs from the 1980s. Several interesting discussion sessions focusing on dual enrollment. And I was very interested in the MA in Teaching Writing Michelle Sidler and Elizabeth Woodsworth are developing at Auburn and Auburn Montgomery.
• On the other hand: I went to (part of a) session which began with the presenter complaining about the hotel, apologizing for the poor quality of the talk, and distributing a handout which approached something completely different than the program. I suppose I should be used to this by now, but it still irks me. I left and found something better.
• My panel, with Jeff and Joe Bizup, went well, and I had good follow-up conversations with John Brereton and Jim McDonald. More on that soon; I’ve got more ideas about the slow numbers we’re seeing at Western–given that many others are dealing with similar issues.
• Time well spent with Susanmarie Harrington, Duane Roen, Chuck Paine, Charlie Lowe, and many others. I also met Dylan Dryer and Carra Lee Hood, both recently published in Composition Forum.
• No running–I’m still resting my feet and hoping I don’t have a serious case of plantar fascitis. Until today, I’ve had no symptoms, but this morning my right foot is bugging me for no apparent reason. I rode a stat bike once, and I’m getting home early enough today to ride as well.
• As usual, traveling with Jeff suits me. We both get up early, and we both like to eat. Thursday we headed to Monk’s Cafe right after we hit Philly. Mussels, belgians, sour ales, yum. We split veal sausage and duck sandwiches. Walking back to the hotel, I spotted a Russian River handle at Tria. It turned out to be Russian River Registration. Jeff nearly leapt over the bar. “We’ll take two!” Delicious.
• Given that I seem to have survived eating red meat, I may have to try some more soon. It’s been a while.
• Friday, the WPA organizers wisely skip hosting a meal, so everyone gets to enjoy the city. I went to Eulogy and Triumph with Jeff and Michael Day. Russian River Consecration at the former, and IPX, a good double IPA, at the latter.
• We left the hotel this morning at 9.10am. Thirty minutes later, we were at the airport and through security. Wow.

Kudos to Linda Adler-Kassner, Eli Goldblatt, and the other CWPA folks involved; they did a fine job. I don’t remember hearing where next year’s conference is. But I expect to be there.

A week ago Thursday, we finished the first trip of my sabbatical, our annual “School’s out, hit the road” adventure. The girls and I traveled to southern Utah, which I’ve been wanting to visit for years, visiting all the major parks: Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We flew to Vegas, rented a minivan, and drove our loop from there. Our trip was thirteen days, with a day of travel on each end, staying in hotels and rented apartments. Everything went well: no airline foolishness, the girls traveled well, we enjoyed hiking and sight-seeing, and most of the places to stay Erin picked were great. Bunches of pictures on Erin’s flickr, and bunches more to come.

What’s next? Not sure. I have a conference in July, and then a beer trip with Jeff and Thomas. The girls are going to Michigan with my in-laws while I’m gone. We have a short camping trip planned in early August; maybe we’ll tack a week or so on Lake Superior to the end of that.

Around the house, I’ve been doing a lot of miscellaneous work lately, much unplanned. Last week Erin spilled a half-gallon of milk in our Subaru. D’oh. I vacuumed out as much as possible with our wet-dry vac, then rented a carpet cleaner to do the rest. At least the spill was confined, for the most part, to the front seat. I decided to make the best of it and clean the whole car top to bottom, taking out the kids’ car seats and giving those a good scrubbing too. So far, so good: the car doesn’t smell bad at all, and nobody’s spilled anything in yet, either. More recent housework: find out what was jamming our disposer. The answer: a dime. I had to yank the disposer, but I got the dime out, and the disposer still works.

I also rounded up a bunch of electronics for disposal at our local recycling facility. This included a bunch of old hard drives. I formatted most of them with Darik’s Boot and Nuke. A couple more I couldn’t get to work required other means. That’s part of a larger, “must clean the basement” project which will surely continue.

Lots of rain here lately. Our strawberries fared poorly this year, with many rotting on the vine, but we still got a few good bowlfuls out. Not enough to make jam, though. The weeds in the garden are pretty crazy, as it hasn’t stopped raining long enough for us to do anything about them. Heck, I tried to mow on Saturday, and only got half the lawn done before rain started. Maybe I’ll get the rest done today. No tomatoes yet… plenty of greens, though, and surprisingly our lettuces are still tasty. We brought a bunch to a dinner party last night and were pleasantly surprised to find they weren’t bitter at all.

Now to continue reading and catching up on parenting and other things!

• Jan: the Gators win their second football championship in three years, largely due to Percy Harvin and Tim Tebow.
• Feb: we celebrate, realizing Amelia’s sleeping isn’t a fluke. (And we are celebrating still!)
• Mar: we travel to Florida to see family; I enjoy a very productive CCCC.
• Apr: a quick trip to southern Illinois; my brother and his wife meet us for hiking with the girls. Rainy but fun.
• May: we travel to Florida again, seeing different family this time, and friends in Gainesville too.
• June: I get tenure and a raise, and present at MEA with Jeff and Thomas.
• July: we get a new roof and gutters. I present at WPA.
• July: the girls and I spend a long week in Michigan, enjoying beaches from Grand Haven to Traverse City.
• August: We finish our kitchen upgrades.
• September: I ran a personal best in the Quad Cities half-marathon: 1:49:17.
• October: Madelyn and Amelia turn four and one.
• November: WIU approves my request for AY2010-11 sabbatical, not long after my summer stipend is funded as well.
• December: Amelia starts walking! And I finish 2009 with travel to Philadelphia to present at MLA. (More on that soon.)

Once again, a great year, and 2010 looks even better.

I’ll be out of the classroom from May 19, 2010 to August 17, 2011. 457 days. Fifteen months. Obviously my focus will be research, continuing my interests in standardization and protocol, especially as they apply to web sites in English studies. Last Saturday I had coffee with Geoff Sauer and we talked about some very good possibilities in that regard. I’ll also return to ease, the focus of my dissertation work and never far from my mind since that time. In terms of deliverables, that means making articles out of five conference presentations I’ve given in the past year or so, and finishing enough of a book manuscript to write a book proposal. For the specifics, here’s my sabbatical proposal (as a PDF).

On the financial side, I’ve written several small grant applications, a mix of internal (WIU) and external sources, with a few more in the works. This week I met with WIU’s research support staff and built a profile in their grant-searching service. So I hope to diversify this list soon. For now:

• WIU Foundation Summer Research Stipend (applied for and received; $3,500)
• Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA) Research Grant (deadline Jan 1, 2010; $1,000)
• American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Peterson and/or Legacy Fellowships (deadline Jan 15, 2010; $3,400)
• CAS Faculty Mentor Program (deadline early Spring 2010; $3,000)
• WIU University Research Council grant (deadline April 6, 2010; $5,000)

On the long term, I hope to use these grants to work my way into a larger grant opportunity, such as an NEH Digital Humanities Startup or an ACLS Digital Innovation Fellowship. It’s possible I’ll apply for the NEH-DHS this year, but I don’t want to rush it.

Even if I get all those grants, that won’t make up the salary differential, given that some can’t be used in that manner anyway. So Erin and I have been saving diligently and will continue to do so. If we must, we’ll break out the MasterCard, then start talking about a home equity loan. And I don’t see that as a big deal. Who knows when or if this chance will come for me again?

On the family side, Amelia will be nineteen months old at the start, and two years nine months at the end. So she’ll still be in diapers for most of this time, but not all of it. Madelyn will start kindergarten when my sabbatical ends in August 2011. (!!!) Erin and I are planning to travel some, of course. We’ll mix recreation-only travel with longer stays in places where I can get away during the week to read and write. I expect we’ll do one international trip–somewhere we can speak Spanish (or try to) and let the girls do the same. Maybe Peru, Argentina, and Chile, or Spain. We’ll get around the USA quite a bit. It’s looking like Colorado and the Four Corners will be our first trip, in May and June (Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, etc). If I get the AAS, we’ll be in the Boston area at least a month. Erin wants to spend a month or so in a Cascadian city, since she and I have friends in Portland, Seattle, and I have a very generous offer to visit from a friend who lives near Spokane. I’d like to spend a month on a lake in the upper Midwest, be it Lake Superior or one of the many smaller lakes in Michigan, Minnesota, or Wisconsin. And of course we’lll get to Florida to see family.

I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to May 19. Not that I dislike teaching or the service I do in English & Journalism. I don’t, in any way. But how remarkable it will be to have this time for myself and my girls.