If you have never been to Red Rocks, I encourage you to do so and Film on the Rocks is a great opportunity to make that happen. Jennifer and I went last night to see “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

I found out earlier this year that the location the powers-that-be chose for the final resting place of the Holy Grail was Petra (البتراء), located in Jordan. Living in the region, I’ve added to my growing list of places to visit. What I did not remember from seeing the movie as a child was the opening scenes where young Indiana steals an artifact from would-be pillagers. But now having been to Moab only weeks ago, I recognized the setting as Utah’s Arches National Park. I felt a strange sense of pride having seen the wilderness where Phuong and I spent three days in a pop-culture movie.

Arches
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Balancing Rock
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Caves

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Protected: Eternal Sunshine

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Soap

His name is Robert Paulson.

Who doesn’t love Tyler Durden and Fight Club? In the spirit of the Paper Street Soap Company, Kevin and I decided we would try to make our own soap.

Unfortunately, we didn’t render human fat, and as Kevin is vegetarian, we had to use vegetable oil. After doing a little research, we picked some oils, ordered four pounds of lye (NaOH), and got to work. It’s apparently a very long process, starting with combining your fats and heating them until the mixture homogenizes, mixing lye into water (never putting water into lye), mixing until “trace,” and letting it sit… for 4-6 weeks.

Our recipe called for 175 grams of lye into about 514 ml of water (~8.5 M). The highest concentration of NaOH I’d worked with (in Quant lab) had been only .4 molar, but that wasn’t so dangerous, so why should 20 times more concentrated do any harm?

Our handywork is sitting in my basement, and over the course of the last few days it has hardened from about liquid soap to a substantially thick paste. Hopefully when it finishes, we will have usable soap.

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