An Unexpected Birthday Gift

For my birthday in April, I was given a gift certificate stating I was scheduled to attend a 2-hour, Trapeze 101 class at Trapeze U in Gilbert, Arizona. Needless to say, it was an unexpected gift. I’m not sure I had ever considered flying on a trapeze. I had no idea there was even a trapeze school nearby.

Several years ago, and for no real good reason, I earned the nickname Flying Galindo (Flying G for short).  Flying Galindo sounds similar to the Flying Wallendas, the legendary high wire family. That’s probably what made this gift so appropriate and such a good idea. Now I could live up to my nickname.

After the surprise of the gift wore off, I checked out Trapeze U’s website. I began to get really excited. This was going to be fun.

What a Rush!

Fast forward three weeks to the morning of Saturday, May 15th, 2010. My class was scheduled for 8:00am to 10:00am. What an incredible experience. I climbed the ladder and flew on the trapeze a total of eight times that morning. It was exciting and scary all at the same time. Each time I stepped onto the platform to jump, my heart was racing. Each time I landed and climbed off the net, the adrenaline was flowing. All I could say afterwords was “What a rush!”.

Flying Galindo in Action

The following video and photos show several of my attempts flying on the trapeze.

David Galindo – Trapeze 101 Class from David Galindo on Vimeo.

Thank You

I would like to say the folks over at Trapeze U are incredible. They made the whole experience safe, exciting and fun. I’m giving them two thumbs up.

And a big THANK YOU to my wife for giving me one of the best gifts I have ever received.

Palm Pre (keyboard open)

What I’m excited about today is the the MintyBoost Kit I ordered from Adafruit Industries. What’s a MintyBoost Kit? It’s a make-it-yourself portable battery pack and USB charger in a mint tin. Once assembled, the MintyBoost will charge my Pre and many other rechargeable USB devices. I learned about this little $20 device on the PreThinking Blog.

MintyBoost battery pack & USB recharger

My MintyBoost Kit shipped today and I should be receiving it via USPS Priority Mail within the next couple of days. I’ll get it all put together and post an update on how it’s working for me.

Shea Butter and Cocoa Butter Soap

I was given a great gift for Christmas – new soapmaking ingredients I haven’t used before. Among them were Cocoa Butter, Clary Sage Oil, Avocado Oil and Ginger Root Powder. Since then, I’ve been wanting to experiment with some new soap mixtures but haven’t had much time until this last week.

As a hobby, making soap is a great stress reliever. It’s a mixture of science, art and aromatherapy all in one. I had a pretty busy week and by Thursday night, I was ready to “degauss” (as my coworker and friend, Noah, likes to say!).

So I popped open a beer (gasp!), laid out all my supplies and spent an hour on the following creations. Click on the picture of the soap  for notes on the ingredients.

Shea and cocoa butter homemade soap

I finally watched “Fight Club“.

Fight Club DVD cover art (C) 1999

Have you seen the 1999 movie “Fight Club”? I love watching movies but apparently I missed that one. A couple of months ago, after mentioning I make soap, people were asking if I had seen the movie. Everyone was surprised that I hadn’t. I think the actual response was “WHAT?  You make soap and you haven’t seen Fight Club?? That movie’s awesome! Tyler Durden makes soap!”

Another friend at work, Michelle, loaned me her “Fight Club” DVD before Christmas. After a bit of prodding, I finally watched it yesterday. All in all, I liked it and thought it was a decent movie. The movie has a large following of fans that can probably add more to this analysis. For me, I now understand the Tyler Durden/soapmaking references. I’d say more but I’d be breaking the first rule of Fight Club.

Want a bar of soap?

I don’t sell my soap. It make it, give some away and use most myself. I’m not making soap in large enough quantities to supply a lot of people but I’m going to try something new with this batch.

Comment on this post by 7:00pm (Arizona time), Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 on why you want a bar of soap. The names of those who comment by this time will go into in a hat. After that, I will draw one name from that hat and award one of the bars of soap pictured above to the person whose name I draw.  Comment all you like, but I’ll only put your name once in the hat. (Gotta be fair, right?) Make sure you put an email address I can get back to you with. I’ll only use that so I can ship you your free bar of soap – I’ll even pay for the postage!

I’ll post the winner’s name by Friday, January 30th. Good luck!

Some of the essential oils I’ve used so far are: lemongrass, sandlewood, lavender, vanilla, orange and coconut. I like the first three best, either alone or combined. Things start getting a little more interesting when you start including additives like chamomile and lemongrass leaves along with soap coloring.

A couple of days ago, I started putting together the vanilla-scented soaps you see here:

I used scraps from previous batches to get the marbled red chunks. I didn’t document that process, but here’s what I did with the large slab of cured soap tonight:

We’ll see how this soap works in practice. I think my next soap will be an olive oil-based lemongrass and sandelwood combination. Maybe I’ll throw some oatmeal in there too. Why not? Throw caution to the wind – that’s what I say!