I've had a run-in with poison ivy. I loathe poison ivy. Fortunately, most of the affected area seems to be on my shins. There is a small patch beside my hip, but it hardly itches at all. There is a very small patch at the base of my neck, and it itches like crazy. I bought a topical treatment which reduces the itch and will supposedly help dry the rash. Given my experiences with serious bouts of poison ivy rash as a youngster, I consider myself lucky that it's not worse. Still -- I loathe poison ivy.

The first week of classes is mostly done, and I've enjoyed what I've seen. I've resolved to spend less time fiddling with the computer and more time on technical reading this semester. I've succeeded for the first week, at least. I hope I can continue to maintain this much reading time in my schedule; I've digested one paper on wave localization which has a significant impact on some of the applications I consider, and I'm struggling with some textbook material involving thermoelastic damping and general coupled effects between the electrical, thermal, and mechanical domains in solids.

My rear bike wheel has a broken spoke, but I think I'll wait until Tuesday to have it repaired.