Monthly Archives: September 2009

My wife and I drink a lot of water. A lot. I’m not sure of the exact amount she consumes on a daily basis, but in my case, being that I drink damn near nothing but water, I come in somewhere between one-half to three-quarters of a gallon every day; even more on days I go to the gym.
In trying to be environmentally responsible, I finally bought a SubZero stainless steel water bottle last week at Belk. I’ve been reading about the quote-unquote dangers of using and reusing plastic water bottles for a long time, namely plastic leeching BPA (Bisphenol A) into the water. I use an empty water bottle when I go to the gym and just refill it at the water fountain. The whole BPA issue got me thinking a long time ago but I was, quite honestly, too cheap to shell out the money for a stainless steel water bottle. We went to Belk last week for a sale they were having, mainly to get a new belt since my loss of weight has necessitated smaller ones, and spotted said SubZero bottles on the checkout counter. They were on sale for only $6.99 so I figured what the hell – go for it, and got a black one.
At home I washed it out – and by washing I mean filling it half-way with water and adding a few drops of soap and shaking it violently with the lid on – and set it aside to dry. The next morning I threw the lid on with the intent of using it at work for the day instead of the usual plastic cup I have sitting at my desk. So I screwed the lid on and went on my merry way. When I got to work I opened it up and I have no idea why, but something drove me to take a peek inside; and when I did, what did I find but two faint rust spots down in the bottom.
I then went online on my phone and quickly discovered that these bottles are notorious for rusting inside. If you Google something like “SubZero stainless water bottle reviews” you’ll see what I’m talking about. Needless to say, I didn’t use it that day and when I got home I got online again and researched the best brands to buy.
Friday night, in honor of the Labor Day weekend and the accompanying sales taking place, I went to the Champ’s Sports site because we have a 20% off coupon, but nothing came up when I searched “water bottle”. I then went to Dick’s Sporting Goods and only found plastic bottles, which of course I didn’t want. My searching eventually took me to good old REI over at the Mall of Georgia. They, as always, had exactly what I was looking for.
Yesterday morning we made our way over there expecting a big Labor Day weekend sale crowd and were pleasantly surprised to find just the opposite. Long story short, my wife and I walked out of there with two Klean Kanteen Classic 27oz stainless steel water bottles (orange for her and brushed stainless finish on mine) and a pair of sports lids (the squirt bottle style) for only $3.95 a piece. Normally at the $20 mark, these bottles were on sale for only $13.99 (good until Monday, by the way). Last night I washed them out with the plastic bristled bottle brush and guess what – this morning, not a rust spot to be found!
What I like about the Klean Kanteen is the fact that the bottom inside portion is rounded, whereas the SubZero and many others I looked at actually came down to a ninety-degree corner. I don’t like the corner at all because it is damn near impossible to clean and many times, mildew grows there and you can never get rid of it. With the rounded bottom, my bottle brush can scrub every square inch of the inside of the Klean Kanteen.
Now you can find me in the gym sans re-used plastic water bottle, sporting my new brushed stainless steel Klean Kanteen.
One wonderful side-effect of the water bottle is that we can just fill them up using the Brita filter at home in the mornings and refill them at work. My wife’s office has an actual water filtration system that feeds their water cooler from the hard lines and my office uses a water cooler with the bottle on top. Here at home I’m planning on installing one of those under-sink water filters so we can have filtered water fresh out of the tap without having to spend money on Brita filters anymore. I really want to install a whole house filter too. I’ll have to get my neighbor the plumber to help me with that one.
Here’s to healthier drinking water, money saved on Brita filters and the annoying task of constantly refilling the pitcher, and money saved on buying cases of bottled water!

I put another load into my homemade compost tumbler today, which has quickly become a weekly occurrence. And I wonder who’s sneaking into my back yard and stealing it.
I fill it to the brim every week with the usual compostables (Firefox says compostables isn’t a word, but it is in my world so I’m using it anyway): kitchen scraps that I keep in a gallon size Ziploc bag and a good load of shredded paper. I fill it to the brim, but when I go to fill it again, everything has broken down to the point where the barrel is only about a quarter full.
Apparently it’s working.
And it’s working good. Somehow or another I’ve managed to mix in the right amount of “green” matter with “brown” matter so that I have yet to even add water to the mix. Yep, you read that right. I actually put so much green matter in there – remember green matter naturally has a lot of water in it, like vegetables, fruit peels, etc. – that I have to balance it out with tons of shredded paper to soak up all the water that is released when it breaks down. Luckily my primary source of income is drafting, so I have a nearly limitless supply of paper to shred.
It doesn’t stink either; it’s got that nice earthy smell to it. When it does start to smell a little, all I have to do is add more paper and tumble it a few times. And the insects love it. I’ve found spiders in it, all kinds of flies, gnats, creepy-crawlies, etc.. Surprisingly, they stay inside the barrel and you don’t even know they’re in there until you take the lid off. They are welcome guests though; they actually aid in the breakdown of the stuff in there.
I’ve also added more things to it. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve started putting things in like pocket lint, dryer lint, nail clippings, hair, shavings from the chunk of basswood I’m attempting to whittle into a canoe …
I flip the barrel over several times after I fill it to get everything mixed up good. Other than that, I will flip it once or twice a week when I find myself taking out the garbage, under orders from the Queen, under duress of course.
It’s somewhere between a quarter and half full right now. I think that when it reaches the pipe in the middle, I’ll empty it out into some buckets and start anew. Which reminds me – I need to go Google and see if there are any special tips on storing compost. One thing’s for sure – I’m going to have some healthy plants next Spring.