Not long after we moved into the Brighton House, my roommate Mike bought a camelbak to quench his thirst on those long bicycle rides along side the Charles River. Coincidentally, I came across this article days later. It describes how to create a Do-It-Yourself cheap Camelbak dryer using little more than just a plastic hanger. I immediately emailed Mike the link and put it out of my head.
It was not until a couple weekends ago that I was reminded of the subject. Mike came upstairs holding a wire hanger saying we was finally going to make the dryer. I made the suggestion that he should use a thicker, sturdier plastic hanger instead. Once he returned with the new plastic hanger, he asked me if I had anything to cut it with, adding that he didn’t want to make a bad cut and have it come out jagged and what not. After pondering this thought for a moment, I had an epiphany and responded, “Well…we could just…melt it…” Before he could finish his response, I was already downstairs ripping a brand new soldering iron my dad had given me as a gift out of its prison of plastic packaging. Mike had a cookie sheet out on the counter within seconds and then the real fun began.
The metaphor ‘Like a hot knife through butter’ has never been a more appropriate phrase. Although in this case its more like a super heated knife through processed and hardened petroleum, but I’ve had mashed potatoes enough to know what its like to cut through butter and I’ll be damned if this wasn’t close to that. The whole process could not have taken more than five minutes including taking the time to round out all the edges.
I was so excited at the prospect of this project that I didn’t even change out of my frisbee clothes from earlier in the day to dive right into this. I had Mike run upstairs to find my camera so we could take pictures to properly document this Brighton House project…then I had him open a window because it started to smell a little toxic.
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