Another Apology (And How To Do Really CHEAP Research!)

I apologize for being behind in my blog and in my work. As a few people at Wofford know, the interim called "The Life Abundant," headed by Drs. Davis and Moeller, ran into problems on Monday. Since I was in charge of getting those two to the airport, I also had to stick around and see whether the interim would depart or whether everyone would head back to campus. Sadly, it was the latter of the two options. We spent most of the day unsure of what the next move would be for them, whether at any moment I might be driving then back to GSP or some more exotic destination. Hopefully, all the problems have been resolved and the entire group will get off tomorrow morning! But it brought home to me once again why one should never procrastinate on one's work. You never know what emergency will lead you off, or when you will need to help someone else out.

Quite frankly, I have no idea how people with spouses and children, or people who are primary caregivers of any type, ever get an academic work done!

But I did manage a few little things today. So much of writing and research is, frankly, dumb luck. I mean that! Today I stopped by the bookstore on the way home and stumbled across a newer biography of Walt Disney. Why is this significant? Florida tourism---Disney World---how was it developed, what were Walt's real intentions....you get the picture. While I didn't really expect to find anything new (and I didn't) I still felt that I should cite this book in the appropriate chapter. So, on the floor of Barnes and Nobles, I quickly skimmed through the index, found a good bit of information, and realized I had NOTHING to write the page number down with.

Yes, I suppose I could have bought the book, but $20 for a footnote? That seemed pricey.

Muttering the pertinent page numbers over and over to myself, I hurried to the counter, made my original purchase, and borrowed the clerk's pen to scribble the numbers onto my receipt. Then I rushed home and looked the book up on Amazon to make sure I had all the proper information (author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication). While looking that up, I stumbled across yet ANOTHER new book I had not seen in previous research. Fortunately, the "Look Inside" feature was enable, and I was able to do some quick scanning which resulted in a nice footnote and another bibliography entry. Does any of this change the major thesis? Of course not. But I like to be as up-to-date as possible, and it's actually kind of nice to get ever more confirmation that one is on the right path.

I hope it's not some ethical violation to do research in a bookstore. I figure if they don't mind people carrying coffee and lattes around, they probably don't mind me scanning a few extra pages.