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 simple, lye gets combined with some sort of fat product at about 135F to create trace.  Essential oils (or whatever weird stuff I chose to put in my soap) gets added at this point. 

I made three types of soap (which I will classify by their given names): coffee soap (bacon based), cedar soap (olive oil based) and rose soap (canola oil based). 

Here is the bacon fat heating:

Here is the mortar and pestle used to grind up the coffee, chili peppers, cedar wood, etc.:

The lye waiting to be mixed with water :

Essential oils ready for adding (Liz had an awesome selection needing to be used).

Cedar for decoration:

Rose petals for decoration:

Aaron stirring the trace:

Coffee and chili for adding and decoration:

Liz measuring the water to add to the lye:

Aaron monitoring the lye solution as it cooled to the proper temp:

My three soaps all done! Now they have to sit for a month to properly harden (and lose most of their color).

1. Wake Up Soap! Bacon fat, ground dried chili, menthol, cayenne, ground Indian coffee
2. Castilian Beauty Soap: Olive oil, red rose petals, rosemary, clary sage, lavender, honey, vanilla extract
3. An attempt to make soap that is actually usable by humans: Canola oil, ground cedar wood, peppermint, ground apricot pits for exfoliation

One of Liz and Aaron’s monster bars:

The cool hat I crocheted that evening!

The weekend was quite an adventure in science and domestic awesomeness.  Thanks Liz for the know-how and supplies!  Later we used the glycerin from the soap to break into a DNA sequencing lab (well mostly it was Liz’s key and access code) and spun heavy whipping in a centrifuge.  We determined there is a fundamental difference between the fat in organic whipping cream versus cheep-o brand whipping cream.  Imagine that!

 The force of the collision pushed a shriek out of my lungs, and yet, when that shriek was finished I was still flying through the air, accelerating downward and outward, and so I quickly filled my lungs and let loose another.  And as a third shriek became a full whoop, falling became flying, and my motion changed from downward to up, and out…

A huge rope swing was set up on Monkey Face in Smith Rock State Park near Bend Oregon.  We had heard stories about it the day before from a local, along with a boast of “It was the most fun thing I have ever done.”  We hiked up to Monkey Face to take a look, and it was still rigged!

 I took pictures with the zoom lens and checked out the equipment.  The rigging looked bomber.  A double line for the swing, well backed up, and protected from abrasion dangled 100ft or so down from a prominent prow of the reverse tapering Monkey Face monolith. 

Plan A was simple, swing until I quite moving, then uncoil the swing ropes and rappel down the double line to the ground.  My ATC was already locked in, so I wouldn’t have anything to do, no rope transfers, rigging adventures, or possible mishaps.  Safe, simple, perfect.

The wind was intense!  After the 4^th swing my path changed orbit and I smacked into the Monkey Face tower, using my feet and legs as shock absorbers.  Finally I sat still dangling in space, over a hundred feet from anything except an overhung aid route.

…I sat in my harness, letting the adrenaline seep through my skin and float away on the breeze.  Looking up along the rope to the anchors I saw one of the climbers poking his head over the edge to check on my status.  I heard some excited voices from the rock I had launched from, as the nearby fabric of life rippled making room for the intense energy of the recent event. 

 The harness I had meticulously tightened while prepping for the swing was starting to cut off the blood flow to my legs as I sat in space and uncoiled the ropes.  My legs began to tingle as I lowered the lines toward the ground.   Fully uncoiled they dangled, and snapped in the breeze still far short of the rocks below…  Damn.

Plan B involved a complicated rope transfer with a single line rappel to the ground.  I had hoped to avoid this, but the swing turned out to be bigger than I thought.  I mentally added another 50ft to all my distance estimates which left me 120ft from the anchors and 150ft from the ground.  The peak of my swing probably put me close to 300ft off the deck with another 200-300ft down to the river below.  Wow!   It was one hell of a swing! 

Take a look at the photos my brother took, and the video Sophia took to get a good feel for the magnitude.  Major props to Joel for such an awesome rigging job.  I would have liked to meet you, but thanks for making it bomber and leaving it up an extra day.

Monkey Face Rope Swing Sequence (jump sequence as taken from my brother’s position).

Bumping around the land of my childhood with two of my best friends over the last week and a half was amazing!  We spent the 4^th of July in Ashland, which is always a good time.  I went to my 10 year high school reunion, which actually deserves its own post for all the awesomeness it was!  We then headed into the Russian Wilderness in N Cali, and spent 4 days alone together next to a mountain lake soaking up the peaceful beauty of the natural world.  We watched eagles, napped in hammocks, skinny dipped in frozen lakes, and glissaded down snowy slopes.

A rising craving for the Pacific Ocean turned us West and we headed to the coast.  I spent an evening visiting two friends in Eureka who are gearing up for marriage and a life of happy excitement.  Wow!  I have never seen either of them more sparkly and amazing than they are now.  It makes me a bit giddy just to see so much well-placed love coming from these two splendid people.

We then spent a day basking in the power of the infinite expanse that is the Pacific Ocean.  There is a direct tie from this body of water to my soul.  I don’t realized how much I miss it while I’m in Colorado, but when I return to the West Coast part of me wakes up and comes out to play that refuses to share my body unless my toes are dipped in the Ocean. 

Another day we returned to the forest, the most amazing forest in the world, the redwood forest.  This place is magical, a playground for fairies, and a jungle gym for me.  There are logs to run on, trees to climb, and ancient spirits to sit next to.   Eight foot ferns create a luscious understory to the 300 to 400 ft trees who are well over a thousand years old.  It is the paradise of my soul, a place that calmly heals and revitalizes all the warn places from the rub of daily life. 

I found a tree, broken off a hundred years ago 50’ up, 15’ in diameter, that had been hollowed out by years of rainstorms leaving a solid shell surrounding a soft pile of foliage, bark, and delicate tree tissue.  I sat in this place and listened to the silence of the forest.  Many feet of wood on all sides shielded the sound of the world from my ears while magnifying the living energy of the place and funneling it right into my soul.  I could have stayed for hours drinking in life for this was a place where only the most positive moments exist, strung together into a calmly ascending journey backwards and forwards through the mists of space-time.

We returned to the Rogue Valley, and I spent a day talking to my dad, and working with him in the garden that has provided so much vitality to his corner of the world recently.  We dug up 3 wheel barrow loads of garlic, and started braiding them for winter storage.  I love getting my hands filthy with growing things. 

My dad is one of the most inspiring people to talk to, for unlike a lot of the world, as he ages he continues to fling himself into life, deepening each experience as his yeas continue to present him with more and more opportunities for growth and wonder.  We go places in our conversations that I seldom go with anyone else, places that catapult the human race into new realms of meaning, path, and dream-creation.  I feel certain we have a serious adventure to have in the near future, and I’m looking forward to it while trying not to be too anxious.

My brother bought a house recently with his girlfriend.  It’s amazing seeing him fully arrive in life each day, and make the moments peacefully strong around him.  We spent an afternoon at this house, sharing time with all the family of Oregon.  Wow!  Such beauty in age and experience.  From my Grandpa and Martha at over 90 to Toren at less than 1 there is a true energetic happiness and curiosity in the world I seldom see.  The true gift of a multigenerational family smacks me in the chest every time we all get together.  THIS is the way we are meant to love, to live, to share the world.  The gifts and experience of all can be shared in such unique ways when everyone is living nearby.  I miss this while I’m in Colorado, but, I am following a powerful path of my own, that takes me into the unknown, motivating me, and crafting a life, that manifests opportunity and change at each turn.

I’m flying back to Oregon now, for the second half, which will involve some new souls (my brother and Sophia) as well as some new adventures .  I just spent a week in Alabama working on some amazing JWST stuff, and dang, what a crazy transition, but truly motivating in a different way.  However, now I’m back to the Pacific North West to continue on the path through Oregon, on to Montana and back to Colorado.

Pictures from the last part of the adventure!

Public speaking can be scary!  We had over 1350 attendees for Ignite Boulder 11, and speaking in front of that many people is a trip!  Watching the video of my presentation, barely a trace of nervousness shows through. I felt happy, and full of goofy fun and confidence. 

I had just spent the day teaching Swiftwater Rescue to Sheriff Deputies with Boulder Emergency Squad, and was already buzzing from that.  By the time I got on stage I was absolutely bouncing with energy.  Part of this comes from being the focus of a thousand people’s energy, standing on stage sharing something with a captive audience.  THAT is empowering.  Another part is Ignite which is something dear to my soul, something the organizers and I continue to pump full of life energy, which in turn cascades among the Boulder community into a massive torrent of creative wonderfulness exploding every two months with more and more fulfilling events. 

The speaking experience was amazing, and to me says “success” at making such a terrifying thing a strong point in my skill-quiver.  However, I struggled deeply with the light and fluffy nature of my presentation.  I strive to add more substance, and meaning to each Ignite, and so doing a fun presentation was a real challenge for me.  However, I prepared the presentation and deck in a night, last minute to fill a dropped spot, and as I watch it again, I see my clear message came through despite the fun aspect of most of the talk. 

This is exemplified with the rest of the presentations at Ignite Boulder 11. Holy crap, what an incredible speaker group!   By far the most cohesive and prepared yet.  Each talk had a life message, and encouraged the audience to get out and change the world, or appreciate the world how it is now.  This is the most important message we can get across to a motivated and powerful audience and we did it!  Now, let’s go geeky, let’s show the community something screwball and passionate, let’s show them by example of changing the world rather than telling them to do so.  I really look forward to continually changing and adapting Ignite Boulder to fit a dynamic Colorado audience whether from the perspective of a speaker or an organizer.

As a personal side note, doing a backflip in front of 1350 people on stage at the Chautauqua Auditorium is freakin’ exhilarating! 

Check out my talk from Ignite Boulder 11 here:

And my Ignite Boulder 5 talk on Surviving Freefall from 30,000ft Without a Parachute here: (see how much more nervous I am!).  

And my frustrated post on Ignite Boulder 4, and how the whole thing began for me, wow, what a long way it has come!:

As always, check out IgniteBoulder.com for info on the next event, and the videos of the rest of the amazing speakers.

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 of making this thing work. 

We had quite an audience of MSFC personnel this time, and seeing their smiles was yet another great reminder.  I love showing new people the program or telling them about it for just that reason, the excitement and wonder is contagious, and revives my love of space stronger than ever.

Here are a couple photos from the week:

Also check out JWST General Summary

and JWST Ships 6 Mirrors

for a couple other recent developments and background info.