Jug Failure
I noticed a pool of water on the ground and isolated it to this 6 gallon unit from Reliance; some small part of the seam had split and it was oozing about ½ cup/day. A reminder that you have to keep checking on your stuff for unexpected behaviors that can render them sidelined when its Go Time.
Also take note of what things are stored above other things should a container fail; I had a glass jar of vinegar freeze and shatter in storage in the Rockies and I am glad it wasn’t near a strong base like baking soda. As they remind everyone in CERT: “Remain upwind, uphill or upstream of the incident.” I too wish a lot of this stuff was fly and forget but it just isn’t. Rust never sleeps.
Pickle Juice
I can’t believe I saw this small bottle the other day at Wal-Mart. It is sold as a sports nutrition supplement and proclaims itself as “the functional evolution of pickle brine.” It sounds silly but remember that a pivotal antibiotic was derived from mold.
I am a long time fan of pickle juice because it is sour, salty and full of fermentation byproducts that are great for your gut. If you don’t want to drink the juice right out of the jar as your reward for emptying it, ¼ cup added to tuna or chicken salad will add some new life to those lunch staples.
If you’re also into fermented vegetables the above book by the Shockeys is really useful. I also love kimchi, the kind without any English on the label that you can pick up at H Mart. This isn’t a foodie blog in any way but if it has a benzene ring in it, sign me up.
Off-Site Data Backup
I’m about three weeks in to using Proton’s new offering, Drive, as an encrypted cloud storage solution. They released a utility for Windows that uses your encryption key to send files up in the background – like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. but without the corporate snooping.
This is termed a Zero Knowledge approach where the data encryption key resides only locally and if you lose it, everything in the cloud is lost forever, without recourse. This was previously offered by a company named Spider Oak and I used theirs for a decade but now their business focus has changed and it has become less supported.
On the todo list here is a comprehensive review of the Proton suite of tools for the average user who just wants to be smart in what they use their computer to do. So look forward to that.