A couple weeks ago I was in Portland making things with friends.  In particular we made soap.  Sadly, not the type Tyler Durden makes while prepping for awesome ninja adventures, but still, it was pretty amazing.
Soap, like fire, is one of the basic things that keeps us healthy happy humans.  It also happens to be something I’ve never made.  Liz has though, and so she, Aaron, and I spent Saturday morning making soap, and it was Awesome! 
Here is a photo journal of the process,
 Selecting ingredients and getting ready:

Basically it’s pretty …

I spent the week at Marshall Space Flight Center, as I often do, but this time, rather than testing mirrors I helped unload them from the cryo-vac test chamber.  This concludes test number 4, and leaves us just over a year left until Primary Mirror Testing is complete on the James Webb Space Telescope. 
I see these mirrors almost every day, but still every time deal with these mirrors it blow me away how awesome JWST is; how great the team is, and how much careful thought went into the science …

“I ducked and threw my body sideways, instinctually catching myself as the Banshee narrowly missed me in its perfectly executed dive. My breath caught as I looked down 700ft to the earth below.  Whew, what a fall that would have been!” 
Looking to my left I smiled to see that my friend had dodged sideways in her seat as well, and was just as startled by the epic scenery and integrative experience the 3D movie was causing. 
 
I’m an Optical Engineer; I’ve been studying and working with light almost daily for a …

 Writing well is tough!. The details come with practice, and truly great writing must have every base covered.  However here are a couple simple things that should be done in every piece of writing you do, and I do mean EVERY bit of writing, whether it is a 140 character social media update, a journal entry, love letter, shopping list, or thesis paper. 
1. Ask yourself what the goal is for writing in the first place.  Before you even get a sentence down, why are you writing at all? This is often …

For many years I had forgotten about this book.  And then some years back I had a dream.  In that dream my bedposts turned into trees, and as I climbed out I found myself in a dark forest with grass underfoot and moonlight creeping through the leaves high above me. 
I awoke the next morning with a vivid feeling that I had been in that forest before, that it was more familiar to me than my own room.  But I could not place the memory for a very long time. 
Where the …