Quick Pick: Cooler

     No, this is not a "Quick Pick" of an item that allows you to keep a few beer's cold while lounging in the park, though you could!  Keeping a cooler in your apartment is actually a great tool to have on hand.  The first, and very useful, thing you can use your cooler for is; in the event of a black-out you can place all the perishable food you keep in your refrigerator and freezer in your cooler.  This will give you more time to either consume the food before it goes bad, or it allows enough time for the electricity to come back on.  Sickness will start to run rampant if the electric goes out for more then 24 hours, especially during the warm months.  People will be eating things that are bad or are on the way to bad, due to the fact that they won't be able to cook it.  Also because bacteria thrives at room temperature.

     The second use of a cooler, or any large portable container for that matter, is as a rain catch.  Water will be a hot commodity in NYC if we lose electric for more then a few days.  The treatment plants that make our tap water potable (or consumable) will go down after a few days.  These plants only have a few days worth of back-up fuel to run generators in the event of a grid failure.  The water company, just like all other utility companies, need electricity to function.  Not to mention that the water system in NYC is antiquated and a bit fragile.  Our water comes from the mountains in Upstate New York through a very long piping system.  The first of which; Water Tunnel No.1 was completed in 1917 and has not been turned off since, not to mentioned cleaned or maintained internally.  The second, Water Tunnel No.2 was completed in 1935 and goes to Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.  The new tunnel; Water Tunnel No.3 (very original names, I know) has been under construction since the 70's and is expected to be completed by 2020, at which point they will attempt to clean and repair No.1, if it makes it that long...

     To use your cooler as a rain catch, just line the inside of it with your trusty contractor bag and allow the water to fall freely into the container or place it under a gutter.  Rain water is completely safe to drink on its own, but once it touches anything, like a gutter or roof, it is contaminated.  To treat it use a disinfecting method (i.e. boil, halogen, filter, etc.) to clean it.  You should also treat water that has sat around for more then 24 hours.  I will be doing a comprehensive post on all things water soon.  Don't forget that water weighs a lot (a gallon of water weighs 8lbs. the world around!  It's actually a little bit more, but it's a good way to remember.)  So either get something with wheel's or don't fill it all the way.

     So there you have it, grab yourself a multipurpose and very functional medium size cooler today, and I'll see you in Sheep's Meadow this spring...