Lee Iacocca is leading an effort to raise 11 million dollars to fund human clinical trials of a potential cure for type I (juvenile) diabetes. Mr. Iacocca has already given a million of his own money to the cause: one million down, ten million to go. So go donate some money.

Have faith, Will! One day, men’s hats will come back in style, and you and I will be ahead of the fashion curve.

The blog revolution has apparently reached this corner of academe; one of the topics of discussion at lunch (not raised by me, mind you) among our group of incoming faculty members was whether or not faculty members could set up class blogs on the college server.

That said, I’m still leaning against using blogs for any of my classes, although I do think it would be a good way to help fufill the whole “writing across the curriculum” thing that the college is pushing in some courses.

Well, half of orientation is over. I think I’m starting to recover my enthusiasm for the job (see here and here), in no small part because of the warm welcome I have received from my new colleagues. My fellow new faculty members (numbering seven total, including me) are a pretty interesting and diverse group. So far I’ve been invited to dinner, been interviewed via email by the editor of the campus newspaper, and gotten a new computer for my office (replacing the steam-driven Gateway monstrosity that was there before), in addition to various and sundry activities.

The only real irritant so far is the heavily Microsoftized campus computing environment—I am quickly learning to despise Outlook with a passion, and I suspect my laptop will be getting a lot of use for getting actual work done.

Anyway, I probably should be off to bed so I don’t doze off during Day 2.