December began with a faculty lunch of Tom Levin (German), Jill Dolan (English), Chika Okeke-Agulu (Art and Archaeology), Anatoly Spitkovsky (Astrophysics), Roberto Car (Chemistry) and King-To Yeung (Sociology). which was the prelude for a trip to New York for the Sloan meeting where we saluted Jeanette Wing's good work before making our way through the holiday decorations and past Minnie Mouse and the debt clock to dinner with Sarah, Ed and the Davisson seniors.

The next day, we toured with Sarah who showed us the Social Work building before we went tot he Kitchenette and had brunch

Back on campus I had another faculty lunch with Andrew Houck (Electrical Engineering), Rob Socolow (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Hendrik Lorenz (Philosophy), Stacey Sinclair (Psychology and Afican American Studies), Tera Hunter (History and African American Studies) and Pedro Meira Monteiro (Spanish and Portugese).

Things were going well but then the big explosion happened and I now have many many many pennies to re-sort.