Blogging will probably be a bit light for the next few days unless I'm in serious need of a break.
While I'm happy at my current school (at least for the near term - it's probably not a school where I would be happy for the rest of my career), I applied for a position this past fall at a university that I'll call the Unknown University.
It has pretty much everything I'm looking for - a small doctoral program, a great location, reasonable tenure standards, a great teaching load, and the opportunity to get involved in some programs that are ideally suited to my skills and likes (I really can't say more without giving the school away). And most important, it's just around the corner (about 70 miles on an interstate) from where the Unknown Wife and I grew up. The one downside is that their salary, while still not bad, is a bit (about 10-15%) below the market for schools like this. Still, it's about where I currently am, so at least it's not a decrease.
The upshot of all this is that they had brought out three candidates to campus (of which I wasn't one), and liked all three. Unfortunately for them, thanks to their below-market salary, all three either accepted offers elsewhere (one after stringing them along for a couple of weeks) or subsequently turned out to have some serious flaws.
In any event, I've just been given a fly-out. As part of the interview, I'll be presenting a paper to the faculty. I'm trying to finish the paper right now --it's in pretty good shape, but still can use about 20 more hours of work to shore up a few weak areas and put on the final gloss.
As a result, I probably won't be blogging too much for the next few days, at least until the work's done. I'll have to send it out to the department at Unknown U on Monday, at which point I'll probably have a good glass of wine (or three).
Stay tuned.