The Story of the Sandals

Last night was the finals for our 2011 Summer Curling League (we're in Southern California, we don't really have winter), and as usual, there was a raffle and a gift basket to go with the end of the League.

In the gift basket was a pair of flip-flops with a slider on the left one.

The story actually starts two leagues back, with the same idea of a Gift Basket.  Our Secretary kept calling it a "Winter Curling Gift Basket" and I kept hearing "Winter Curling Gift Basket" and thinking "why 'Winter' -- what's special about that."

That got me started thinking "What would be in a Summer Curling Gift Basket" and it was a short step from "Summer Curling" to "slippahs with a slider."

I told Cristi, which is why all of the E-Mail messages to members emphasized "Summer Curling Gift Basket."

Cheap flip-flops are all over the place during the summer.  You can wear them to get across the hot pavement to the beach, and if you lose them, they cost about $2.

Teflon would have been great for the slider material, but it's expensive and a little tricky to glue, so I started looking for an inexpensive substitute.  I found a kitchen cutting board made out of HDPE.

HDPE is hard to glue, but not if you use a hot-glue gun.  It's the same plastic (or close enough).

Shaping the slider was the hard part, and I have a good couple hours sanding and grinding to refine the shape.

... and since there is always pain involved in art, I've got a couple of minor burns from melted plastic.

All of that was worth it.

Congratulations to our Skip, Misha, for winning the gift basket.