The NEWS: I'm a Knight-Wallace Fellow

That, above, is the news. A fellowship.

Which is to say that as of September, I move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I'll spend the academic year at University of Michigan with 11 other "mid-career" -- gosh that sounds OLD -- journalists taking whatever classes I want, traveling overseas, listening to lectures, taking a cooking class, reading War & Peace, doing whatever I want.

What I won't be doing? Freelancing. For anyone. Or podcasting. Or blogging.

It's a really big deal for me, obviously, but bittersweet. Tonight on the live version of "The Strip," we announced that we will cease the show sometime in August, at least for now. It's been a tremendous six years, and we'll stop when I go to Michigan. It's hard to say what life will be like next spring when the fellowship is over, so we can't make any predictions. Miles will be staying here in Vegas and visiting OFTEN.

In the application process, I had to come up with a study focus and I wrote about how I need to learn better how to cover the impact of the rapid expansion of Vegas-style gambling across Asia, particularly in Macau. There's a Center for Addiction Studies and an Asian Studies program at University of Michigan. So that's some of what I'll do.

This is the same fellowship the Sun's Emily Richmond and the R-J's Molly Ball left Vegas for. What do we all have in common? We all co-hosted The Petcast. And some people wondered why I was bothering with that.

It's a whole new adventure and I'm very excited. I'm considering how to proceed with this blog, and I may see if there's another Vegas blogger who wants to use it when I leave.

The big idea is to step back from the constancy of work and study a bit, relax a bit, pursue the sorts of things I've always wanted to do but never had the time or energy for.

More on all this later. Gotta go watch Top Chef with Miles.