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Baking Soda Shampoo

// February 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Personal/Blog News

Baking Soda Box

I started using Baking Soda shampoo late last year and it’s been going fantastic, so I thought I’d share my experiences.

I’m not exactly sure why I first decided to look up baking soda shampoo, but I think it had to do with the fact that my head gets so oily. I shave my head down to about a half centimeter and I hate exposing my scalp to soaps/shampoos filled with chemicals. I know there are great natural hand-made soaps (Amme uses local handmade soap) but I remembered reading somewhere that you could make your own baking soda shampoo and liked the idea. A quick search online revealed two things: 1. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, lots of people make and use it. And 2. It’s dead simple to make!

The best reason to stop using shampoo is the long list of chemicals most contain. If you’re scared by the long unpronounceable names on shampoo labels then baking soda is a great alternative. Baking soda shampoo is also a great once-a-week (or whenever) clarifier or “de-gunk-ifier”. Another bonus is savings. While some shampoos are quite cheap, baking soda is even cheaper. I like it because it keeps my scalp clean without stripping so many natural oils that my head goes into overdrive replacing them (the most common cause of excessively oily hair).

I learned most of what I know about baking soda shampoo from naturemoms.com, and I highly recommend you go there and read the excellent article. I use their technique for massaging it into my scalp, pay close attention to that section, and use about the same amount that I would for shampoo. WikiHow also has a great article on shampoo alternatives.

My own favorite recipe for baking soda shampoo is this:

Fill your container (a water-tight one you can get your hand into) 3/4 full with baking soda. I add the tiniest pinch of xanthan gum (you can pick it up at most health-food stores and a little goes a long way) but it’s strictly optional. You can also add a drop or two of your favorite essential/scented oil. Then just add enough water to make it a paste, about the consistency of toothpaste. Put the lid on and shake it well and you’re done!

If you find the mixture too thick to massage into your hair, or if your hair feels wiry, then add more water. If the baking soda settles out overnight (which can happen if you mix yours more watery and don’t use xanthan gum) just give it a quick shake before you use it.

Make sure to rinse your hair thoroughly and, just like regular shampoo, remember not to get it in your eyes!

Blotner L-85 IFC

// February 10th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Personal/Blog News

Blotner L-85 IFC, originally uploaded by Euicho.

I’ve added a bunch of UrbEx photos to flickr for the Blotner IFC, FJETC, Runway POL Garage, and the Dow WSA.

As always you can also view my photos by following the Photography link at the top of my blog. Thanks for viewing!

Radio In My Head

// October 7th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Personal/Blog News

Do you have a radio station in your head? I do. Every once in a while I notice I have a song stuck in my head that I definitely haven’t heard for a while. One of the most frequent times this happens to me is in the morning. Almost every morning as I start my morning routine I realize I’m humming or singing some random song. Sometimes they’re songs I really like and have listened to recently, but other times they are songs I hate or am indifferent to, and haven’t heard for years.

At any rate, this is the playlist my brain has created in the past two days:

Bonnie Raitt – Something to Talk About
Bob Marley – I Shot the Sheriff
Fleetwood Mac – Landslide
Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer
Metro Station – Disco

So, what random songs have you had in your head lately? Don’t be embarrassed… hell, Landslide is up there.

Awesome.

It seems a successor to the ubiquitous Chuck Norris Facts meme has arisen. The target? Action movie director Michael Bay.

In the wake of the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie a stream of Michael Bay Facts has been pouring out of twitter, and as with Chuck Norris Facts, most are hysterical.

Since Michael Bay Facts mock their target rather than revere him (he really is a shitty director, though I loved Transformers: ROTF), and since Michael Bay will never be bad-ass like Chuck Norris, I’m sure this meme will be quite short lived. With that in mind, get them while the getting is good. I see io9 has posted some of their favorites, and I’d like to do the same.

These are some of my favs:

jbneal: When you fist-pound Michael Bay, your hand literally blows up.
MattCox: In some states, it’s illegal to say “Michael Bay” in airports or crowded theaters.
frontierwoman:To clear a hangover Michael Bay straps a grenade to his head and dives headfirst into empty swimming pools.
burnflores: Michael Bay doesn’t like gum. He chews C4.
chris7crows: Michael Bay emerged from the womb with a detonator in one hand and a supermodel in the other. His mother then exploded.
MattCox: Bomb squad was at the library today. Someone returned Michael Bay’s autobiography.
jpmccu: Michael Bay’s school film project is lost to the world, as it blew up from awesome. The audience ran away in slow motion.
DJBullock: Michael doesn’t use a camera to film his movies. He burns the movie into the film using the heat of exploding orphanages.
And possibly my favorite: mrbs: Michael Bay was preceeded down the birth canal by a dove in slow motion. And followed by a column of flame.

It seems Aimee_B_Loved has become the unnoficial queen of #MichaelBayFacts on twitter with a slew of great ones:

Michael Bay literally fights fire with fire, but insists token minorities do so with clever, urban-sounding comments.
Michael Bay sleeps on a bed of hot coals and uses bundles of dynamite as pillows.
As an infant, Michael Bay had to recast his mother because her breasts weren’t big enough for the part.
Michael Bay uses battery acid as lube.
Michael Bay purposely edits out “sissy shit” like plot and character development.

And then some people are just Doing It Wrong:

ABAwesome: There are approximately 94 people in the USA with the name “Michael Bay”
Flonk2: Michael Bay was adopted.

See my own paltry (at least by comparison) MichaelBayFacts here, and let me know what your favorites are that I’ve missed, or if you think some up on your own, please share them!

Beautiful day for a Hike

// June 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal/Blog News

Amme and I went hiking today in Acadia, and what a day to go!

We chose to go up the Gorham Mountain trail. It’s listed as a moderate trail, but doesn’t require any climbing. It did get our hearts pumping though!

There was a nice little overlook that we stopped at to catch our breath and take some photos.

Eventually Amme let me know how she felt about the camera being pointed at her, lol.

When we got to the summit we took a little break to enjoy the beautiful view and how gorgeous the ocean looked.

We still felt pretty energized so we decided to keep going forward instead of backtracking, continuing on the backside of the Gorham trail.

We met up with the Beehive trail and on the way down, saw some hikes taking a more perilous trail above us. The Beehive trail ends at the Park Loop Road at the entrance to Sand Beach.

Once we got there we hiked a ways back towards the car and had a picnic on the rocks just above the rising tide. We ate bologna (Wunderbar!) sandwiches and then sunbathed for a while before heading back to the car. I was too relaxed to remember to take more photos, but Amme did!

While we were hanging out on the rocks some ballsy seagulls pestered us. After feeding them a while they got even bore brazen and tried to grab our bag of orange and banana peels (which is funny because Amme threw them a piece of orange and they were having none of that!). This photo was snapped while he was about 3 feet from my face.

We drove into downtown Bar Harbor after hiking back to the car and got some huge dark chocolate truffles before heading home. I love hiking days!

PS: See the full album in my photos section, or on flickr, or as a nifty slideshow!

New Layout, New UrbEx Photos

// June 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Personal/Blog News, Photograpy

Whatcha think?

Barring minor tweaks, My new layout is now done! Most all of it is a 3rd party theme, a first for me! But I chose to use it because I both learned a lot from modifying it, and because programmers always say don’t reinvent the wheel! I chose instead to modify a lot of the spacing and positioning, and add some little touches here and there.

I like how much information it shows, hopefully it doesn’t look too cluttered. As Tufte says, information is the whole point so your design should focus on it and provide a high density without making it unusable. This isn’t exactly ultra dense, but does give you a quick glance at what I’m up to online, as well as focus mainly on the posts–the whole reason for this blog.

~~I still want to add a couple of navigation links because right now it’s hard to go from post to post~~ (done!), but other than that I’m really happy with how it looks and behaves. Please let me know what you think of it, and offer any suggestions/constructive criticisms. This site is for my readers so I want it to be as easy for you to use as possible!

I’ve also been uploading my backlog of UrbEx photos. I’ve recently added the rest of the POL Tanks, Coal Elevator, Building 943, and the Civil Defense Bunker.

DIY Psudo-Album Project

// March 27th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Personal/Blog News

Noise Addicts have posted a fun and bizzarely syzygistic (thats right, I just made a new usage out of syzygy. Your day was wasted in comparison.) tutorial for making your own fake (or perhaps real!) band, album title, and album art in a “what’s your pornstar name” fashion.

I came across this via Make:, but the source, and a great gallery of examples, is over at Noise Addicts.

It’s strange how well it works out, especially some they have posted. Here are three I did this morning (I could seriously make these all day):