rain barrels

Do you ever notice how nearly every website that features composting equipment also has rain barrels for sale?  I know it's all gardening related, but I guess I never think about rain barrels when I'm feeding my worms or composting Sun Chips bags. However, I have been looking around for an empty barrel for quite some time.  The only ones I ever seem to discover are always caked in kitchen grease or sludge, neither of which is fun/easy to clean.  If I were to find a nice barrel, then I'd have to get borrowing some pretty decent equipment in order to outfit it with proper parts.  Rain barrels seem pretty simple, yet they require some time and thought to design them right. Then I discovered Travis Skidmore, who builds sweet…