The meetup last night went well. I provided some comments to meetup.com on the facilities
It was perfect. A table outside the room provided the perfect place for handouts, buttons, and sign-up sheets. The AV resources worked perfectly. The room was filled, but not crowded.
It was a lively meeting that was informative, stimulating, and productive. We showed the "sleepless summer" video and broke up into working groups to organize for "Dean Day" Sept 20.
I took my powerbook to show the 
Bryant Park Sleepless Summer video clip (warning -- large file). It was a good speech and drew numerous rounds of applause when I showed it. I think he makes a convincing case when he says, regarding Bush on the economy, foreign policy, health care, and education, "We can do better than this!" After the video, we divided up into working groups. I took part in the group that is organizing a demonstration for Sept 20th. It sounds like it will be fun.
I liked Probat's Web Journal. It matches up nicely with what I think a cat would write.
Someone reminded me of this story today, so I put it here so I can refer to it.
A storm blows the door off a farmer's barn and his horses run off. The neighbor comes over and says, "What terrible luck!" The farmer says, "Well, maybe..."
The next day, the farmer's horses return and lead two wild horses with them. The neighbor comes over and says, "What wonderful luck!" The farmer says, "Well, maybe..."
The next day, the farmer's son breaks a leg while trying to break the new horses. The neighbor comes over and says, "What terrible luck!" The farmer says, "Well, maybe..."
The next day, the army comes through and conscripts all the young able-bodied men to go fight as cannon fodder in the war, leaving the farmer's son behind. The neighbor comes over and says, "What wonderful luck!" The farmer says, "Well, maybe..."
I met my biol597f students for the first time this evening. I'm always challenged by the tension between putting myself in the center and trying to leave a space for students to fill. Many students will never put themselves at the center unless there's a bit of a vacuum drawing them in. At the same time, some students find it helpful to have something who is an enthusiastic leader cheering them on. Once students find their voice in the class, and have a chance to take my measure, I can step back and be a little less fractured in how I approach the class.
One thing I remembered as I looked at the schedule in class was that I need to move the sessions where we practice doing observations to earlier in the semester. In the past, we've done that too late and have had to postpone the observations assignment due date. I really want to do squeak first, however. I think squeak is going to be a lot of fun. I know its going to be confusing for some people, but I hope I can get across the idea of how any one of these projects has nearly endless depth: you can grab onto one end of the string and keep following it and following it and following it and never reach an end. It's like a big tangle of yarn which, as you follow one strand, it loops over and under other strands any of which could be followed out to complete other ends.