That concrete patch was probably a smart move by the last guy to stop sewer gas. My old place had a terrible smell until I sealed mine up properly with hydraulic cement. Sometimes covering it is the better fix for the problem you don't see.

Remember my dad trying to use a bandana for sawdust, he looked like a sad cowboy. Good on you for getting serious, that coughing is no joke. Tara_jones94 has the right idea with the seal, that's the whole game with a grinder. My cheap mask fogged my safety glasses so bad I almost took it off, which is a terrible plan.

Half an inch of creep is just wild to picture. That's a huge gap by the time you reach the fridge. Riley_schmidt is totally right about that dab of glue saving a headache, but man, pulling up a whole Saturday's worth of work sounds like actual torture. Your buddy must have been so mad at himself for skipping that one step. It's crazy how the smallest thing can wreck a whole project like that.

Twitter support saved me from a hotel hold last month.

Watched my buddy get totally sold on one of those crocks after a deep dive into fermentation videos. He filled the thing with like 15 pounds of cabbage, had it bubbling away in his kitchen for weeks. The final kraut tasted exactly like the batch he made in a regular old mason jar, but then he had to figure out where to store this giant ceramic monster. His story totally reminds me of what john_cooper said about it just sitting around. It seems like the gear is way more fun to buy than it is to actually use more than once.