I've been offline more than usual lately due to business travel and what turned out to be a failing coax cable.  (I've had an email account and been on the net since 1986, but I didn't even realize that was possible.)

During this time I have utterly failed to do any of the huge pile of reading I have to do, but I have gotten a bunch of other more mundane stuff done.  Call it an end of semester thing....

Have you ever read a call for proposals and had an IMMEDIATE idea for a presentation, despite having none of the background research done for it?  I had that happen today.  I have this incredibly clear mental picture of the argument I want to make, but no real idea if there is background information to base it on.  I think I'll spend some time this weekend getting that written up.  In writing the proposal I'll either find that the information I need is out there or not, but one way or the other I'll know if this is a fertile path to follow.