Adios to Quantum Mechanics

I dropped my QM class. I was trying to work on the second weeks worth of homework and just wasn't into it. Professor stream-of-consciousness was just a little too out there, and I don't need that kind of grief.

Today I finally got ahold of somebody at the National Climatic Data Center about the data I need for my research project, and it turns out I can't have it. At least not unless I come up with hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. It seems like most of this data was generated by government reasearch, though. Could I file a Freedom of Information Act request?

I've got to give some sort of a talk for my Senior Seminar class in two weeks, but I have no idea what I want to talk about. I was thinking about something in theoretical computer science, but am having a hard time thinking of something that wouldn't require a ton of background to understand. Also, I seem to have forgotten just about everything I ever knew about it.

Johnny Carson died on Sunday, and for some reason I miss him. I was never a regular fan or anything, though when I was growing up he seemed like one of very few adults who were cool. I think my feelings have something to do with the fact that I always thought I'd see him again. After he retired it seemed certain that he would turn up on Letterman's show now and then, maybe host the Oscars, whatever. But other than a couple of cameos on Letterman, that was it. Gone. It reminded me of when John Lennon was shot. Everybody sort of figured the Beatles would do something again some day, but it never happened, and then all of a sudden it was official.

My mother called today and said that Ed, my brother-in-law, was in the hospital with meningitis. It turns out he wasn't and he didn't, but he was just out of the hospital with a serious inner ear infection that's in danger of turning into meningitis and he's going to have to have an operation next week to clear it up.