OP, with your current MQMs and scheduled biz trips I am guessing you'll have a some rollover MQMs by staying Silver. Let's estimate 18 more segments at the 500 min each. That's 9K plus your current 22K = 31K which would give you 6K to start with on Jan 1. Since you recent biz travel life started in June am I to assume you will be continuing to travel a lot in the beginning of 2011? If so, you could reach GM status by April or May with your paid-for-by-someone-else biz trips and 6K rollover MQMs. Then you would get GM through Feb 28, 2013.
Reach GM in April/May 2011 you get GM for the remainder of 2011 plus GM through all of 2012 and THEN an additional grace period of the first two months of 2013.
Right now, calculated out I have 35 segments planned and 22,000 miles, 21 segments and 12,500 miles planned, with the potential for 1 more business trip and an unknown number of segments and miles. This would mean that I just need 1 RT from ATL to CVG or CMH, easy. I have the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas open but those are not cheap weeks to fly. I will likely try to fill up my weekends before and after then with some fun trips like Vegas or LA. Luckily my schedule filled up and I am travelling every single week the rest of the year and I will make it.
The reason I want to hit Gold now is because segments do not roll over and I have been taking a lot of short 500-700 MQM trips. I want to earn the 100% bonus on travel rather than 25% you get with Silver.