Buried in a comment that nobody but me will read, so I’ve copied here:
It looks like I’ll be running a few Sunday D&D games while I’m on the East Coast. Sunday night players might want to browse the game web-page at http://www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/russell/DND to get a sense of the world and to start designing characters. I tend to make a lot of world information available, so much that it intimidates some. Most of the information is just for my own benefit, although there’s nothing most PC’s wouldn’t know. So don’t be put off by the bulk, and just skim the parts you need for your character or that you find interesting.