Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Pocket Dump: The I'm Officially Old Edition

Now that I'm officially old (having turned 40 a few days ago, whoo!), it seems somewhat appropriate to do my yearly pocket dump. Here's 2015's version and here's one from 2013. No huge changes, though plenty of tweaking:

Let's see...

  • Still carry the same $0.75 3x5 notepad. While my Galaxy Note 5 has a pen and all, nothing tops the speed, versatility and convenience of simple pen and paper.
  • My "wallet" held together by a small binder clip. This includes cash, metro card, visa card, debit card, medical card, a folded up check, and backup codes to get into Two-Factor authentication accounts. I'm really loving the binder clip wallet.
  • A coin. For a while I tried carrying a slightly sentimental coin, such as one of the $1.00 coins that I picked up Ecuador (which is quite common, oddly enough). But I kept losing it. So now I just try to have a random coin on me. It's useful for making decisions and for other odd jobs.
  • CPR Essentials - That's a CPR Mask, Gloves and instructions. Thankfully, I've never needed the mask, though the gloves have come in handy.
  • Pilot G2 Pen. Still may favorite pen and ink combination.
  • Cen-Tac Slim Line Pen - a relatively new addition. It's a self-defense item and writing implement, and appears to do both well. I'm loving the it-doesn't-look-like-a-self-defense-tool look of the pen. Another bonus I realized yesterday: the Pilot is blue ink and the Cen-Tac is black ink. That's two different colors for even more expressive drawing.
  • Handkerchief - probably the most used and useful item I carry. Now that I'm over the hill, I can carry this with pride. Though I've been carrying one since high school, so it's hardly a new addition.
  • My "wallet" - contains a bit of cash, nothing identifiable and whole lot of 'junk.' See below. If you want to rob me, I'll gladly hand this over to you. And if you're enlightened enough to appreciate the ways of EDC, you'll consider it one awesome score.
  • Steel Wire Keychain - I'm loving this style of key chain. It's sturdy enough that I'm confident it won't break and it unscrews easily enough to access the items on it. For $3.50 for 20 of them, it's a deal hard to beat.
  • On the keychain:
    • Photo Microlight knock off. I picked up 10 LED lights for $9.99 and they're just so bright. I couldn't resist putting one on my keychain and phasing out my beloved Photo X-Light. One day I'll probably splurge and buy another X-Light, but for now, I'm happy enough with these knock offs.
    • House key. What a novel inclusion, right?
    • Derma-Safe Razor Blades - still my preferred EDC knife. Super sharp, super compact and easy to replace when it gets all nasty.
    • P-51 Can Opener - still my multi-tool of choice. It's sized perfectly to fit on one end of the key chain and not slide off the other. These days I'm using a paper clip to keep the P-51 closed. Last use of the P-51: to open a can of tomato sauce about a week ago. Crazy, right?
    • A Safety PIN and another Paper Clip - Two super useful, super lightweight objects.
    • (2) Pill Cases - Holds, pills. Insert joke about age here. Actually, one of the pills I carry is for Shira and her migraine's, so it's not all about me.
    • Tac Compass - the compass actually gets stored in the pill case. So far, the Tac Compass is holding up well and storing it in the pill case is turning out to be ideal.
    • Nitecore NWS10 Whistle - Titanium baby! I'm not completely convinced that this whistle is as loud, or louder than the Fox Micro Whistle that I carried for so many years. But it's definitely more compact and it's holding up well. It stays for now.
    • Doinshop USB Micro SD Card Adapter - this guy is bigger than the Kingston one I carried for some time. However, it seems to protect the card and be more reliable due to it being more sealed. Regardless, I still like the idea of carrying a thumbdrive with personal documents, USB adapter, backup card for my camera and backup storage for my cell phone all in one tiny package.
  • Not shown: Galaxy Note 5 Cell phone, Car Keys and Res-Q-Me car escape tool

As for the wallet mentioned above, even I was a bit curious what was inside of it. Here it is 'dumped:'

Here's most of the items in the photo:

  • Paper Ikea Tape Measure. Note to self: time for a new visit to Ikea to stock up on tape measures.
  • An Oven bag.
  • Various noteworthy fortunes.
  • A short strip of Leukotape P on piece of Rock-Tape backing. Leukotape P is crazy sticky.
  • A Fresnel lens
  • A length of 100# test fishing line
  • Twist ties
  • A floss card
  • Stickers!
  • (2) Scratch-off lottery cards
  • Various flat-pack, powered meds.
  • A (hopefully) important looking Kinkos Card that serves as a credit-card stand in.
  • Some very thin toilet paper from my travels in Ecuador. Here's a lesson you learn there quickly: many (most? all?) publicly accessible bathrooms don't have toilet paper. This tiny stash saved my, well, butt, on more than one occasion.
  • A card size section of tape filled with glow-in-the-dark powder. It was an experiment in making a glow in the dark card. It was mostly a flop, but for some reason, I still have it in my wallet.
  • Lots of twist-ties
  • Band-aids - these are among them most used items in my wallet.

Yeesh, it's time I clean that puppy out.

So there you have it. Another year older, another year wiser and another year prepared for whatever life has to throw at me.

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