Year: 2014

Doug Mahoney had the unenviable job for The Sweethome to pick “The Best Utility Knife.” I have a huge issue with his pick: it’s a folding utility knife. Yuck.

To be fair, he does state:

To get the full range of use out of the knife and as much safety and portability as possible, we recommend going with the folding style over the retractable. They’re smaller to store, tend to come with belt hooks, and because of the way the folded blade nests in the body, there is a lower chance of their accidentally deploying in your pocket. Retractable knives are nice, but their feature set is more geared toward the professional tradesman.

If that’s your caveat, then you need your headline to read: “Best Household Utility Knife”, anything less is disingenuous and annoying to anyone who actual wants the best utility knife.

Now, you may wonder what my background here is, so let me tell you: my grandfather, and father, own and have run a construction company since he left the military in the early part of the 1970s. I had my first tool belt (not a toy one) when I was 6. From 16 to 23 years of age I worked all school holidays in the field of my father’s construction company. To this day, my office, is inside a construction company office.

Next to a tape measure, pencil, and hammer is where the utility knife stands in usefulness — It’s something every construction worker that is worth a damn carries. I know what I am talking about when I talk about utility knives because I used them day in and out for a very long time in very tough conditions. I’ve sliced my hand open a ton with them, and demolished a great many things with the help of them.

These folding utility knives aren’t good for much. Sure, you may think they are safer, they are smaller (when folded), and have a belt clip (really?), but they are worse than a “normal” utility knife in just about every task. ((I can’t think of a task they are better for, but I am sure there is one.)) They usually are less sturdy, less comfortable in your hand, and far more fiddly to open.

If you are worried about safety, but you still want a really good utility knife, then you buy this Stanley one. I have about six of them, and have had them forever. What’s not great is that if the blade gets gummed up you can’t retract it, and with too much force the blade may retract on its own. What is great is how grippy the handle is, how well they work, and the fact that they are seemingly indestructible. I’ve never had one accidentally open — so I think they are just as safe as those folding ones.

My favorite utility knife? This one for $6. It doesn’t retract, has a flat head screw (the philips ones always strip out) and stores blades. This thing is light, always ready, and even more indestructible than the retractable version. Even if you do destroy it… it was $6.

A lot of people don’t like non-retracting blades, and I get that, but this is the best utility knife you can buy — not those folding pieces of shit. ((Just to set the record straight.))

I struggled with finding a wrist strap to use for the X-E2, as my old DSPTCH wrist strap was a tiny bit too small for my wrist/hand. I first put on a trusty Domke neck strap, but there are only a handful of times each year where I would actually want a neck strap on my camera.

I knew I wanted a wrist strap, but there are tons out there. I looked mostly at Gordy straps, as they are very popular, but then I found Tap & Dye and I really love the look of their stuff. I picked one up, and have been using it ever sense.

In brief, here are my thoughts on it:

• It’s rather expensive, but I wouldn’t say overpriced.
• The attachment to the camera looks superb, with good protection and a beefy look.
• The sliding D-ring on the strap functions a lot better than I had anticipated, much better than the DSPTCH strap.
• This is a strap that is just begging to get a little patina on it, but surprisingly it doesn’t patina quickly. I guess that is good, and not bad.
• It’s surprisingly much more comfortable on my wrist than I thought. I think of wrist straps as more a drop-prevention mechanism, than I do a carrying mechanism and that is the best way to use this strap. I don’t find the strap uncomfortable to use by any means.
• The strap really doesn’t pack down well at all. With nylon straps you can really get them out of the way, but this strap is stiff and seemingly always in the way when you want to pack away your camera. The best bet is to loop the strap opening around your lens, but then you have to finagle it off the lens when you want to shoot a picture.

Overall though, I am quite happy with the strap, and love the way it looks.

I’ve been using a standing desk pretty solidly since 2011 and prior to last month I could have confidently told you that I had only spent 20–30 days sitting at a desk since 2011. Sitting was a very rare thing, because when I work, I stand.

That’s just the way it is now for me.

My legs and feet rarely get tired. I don’t get annoyed by standing and anyone who has tried standing for work knows exactly the annoyance I am talking about.

I prefer standing and my life seems to not be impacted, so I stand.

From the moment that I started standing I wanted to get an adjustable height desk — a fancy one that moves up and down to preset heights with just a push of a button.

There are times, especially with young kids at home, where I just don’t get enough sleep and that makes sitting really — really — needed.

In the past I’ve always had a sitting desk I could move to, but it meant physically moving all my crap from one desk to another. That amount of annoyance always kept me standing, but meant that if I did move it was a move that would last the rest of the day.

An adjustable height desk just seemed logical, but I forbade myself from getting one for the first year to force myself to stand more. However, a month ago I got myself an adjustable height desk, apparently I finally “got around to it”.

I bought the Jarvis Desk from ErgoDesk.com, as it seemed decent looking, but more importantly it was cheaper than most other options I was considering — by about half. It was almost a no-brainer purchase.

I did consider other desks, the two top contenders I didn’t buy were:

• GeekDesk: This is probably the most well known of the lot. But I didn’t like a few things about it: the top choices were various flavors of ugly, and the legs have a large cross bar on them that I find unappealing. Additionally it was more money once shipping was factored in.
• NextDesk: I really wanted one of these. They are gorgeous and just look like art. However their starting price was double the Jarvis, and they had that bar across the legs (again).

The Jarvis was cheap, and missing a cross bar, so I pulled the trigger.

The Desk

Overall the desk is what I thought it would be. It’s very sturdy, large enough, has four presets for height control (I only use two), and just works.

It’s a desk, what more do you want?

There are some nice things about the desk:

• The top can easily be swapped out, and the width of the legs is adjustable, so you have a pretty flexible base for your desk.
• The presets work like a charm, though I keep playing with them all the time.
• Overall the desk is very stable. It’s not rock solid, but then again it adjusts over a huge range — it’s more stable than I expected.
• The movement speed and fluidity is fine. Nothing stellar, it is what it is. I can’t imagine a scenario where I would need a desk to zoom from one position to another. The wait isn’t annoyingly long, but it isn’t fast either.

There are, of course, a few issues:

• It’s pretty noisy. As in: the entire area around me knows when I am changing heights because you can’t avoid the whining sound. That’s probably the second worst issue with the desk. (But something I expected. I doubt it’s any more annoying than Shawn typing next to you.) Maybe less of a whine and more of a whine-hum.
• The top I picked is a dark grey laminate, and man does it suck. I like the look of it just fine (though it’s nothing great), but it’s a magnet for smudges. I tried seven different cleaners before finding one that would clean it streak free, and even then you can’t touch the desk without leaving a mark. It will drive an OCD person to break — I get close sometimes.

Overall then, solid value for a solid adjustable height desk. I’d pick a different top/color, but I am probably only a month away from building my own top for the desk anyways (that was the plan all along).

I recommend the desk, but I have caveats, which I detail next.

Using an Adjustable Height Desk

For the first week of owning the desk I imposed a rule: sitting is allowed at lunch only. (I eat lunch at my desk most days.) Then after the first week I changed the rule to: sitting is only allowed after noon.

In fact, today, as I write this post it’s the first time in almost three years that I came into the office and just sat down instead of standing up to work.

Where I was perfectly happy standing before, I am now prone to switch heights two to three times throughout the day. I worry that this is less healthy — having an adjustable height desk over a standing only desk — but then again I am much more comfortable and thus less cranky being able to sit down when I want.

When I don’t sleep well the night before, or when I just need to kick up my feet it’s easy to do so. I’ve built the habit of standing to work, so I feel more awkward sitting. So long as I don’t let that feeling change, I should still stand more than I sit.

My advice is to get a standing only desk for at least the first year of standing while working. If you give yourself the option to sit when you are trying to change from sitting to standing, then you will sit. Take away that option to sit for at least a year so that you can build a strong habit.

After that you will probably find you don’t need an adjustable height desk after all. I sure as heck don’t need it. It’s a nice desk, but unnecessary.

I have a serious addiction to bags, but my recent move to Fujifilm cameras necessitated another bag purchase — this time a camera bag. I never found the need for a small camera bag with the GX1 and the OM-D as they stowed well inside the GR1 Field Pocket (and inside my jacket pockets). I really only used one lens with both those cameras.

With the move to Fujifilm, however, I sold off all of my other camera gear, and thus needed a bag to at least have a central repository for my new gear at my home. This became blatantly apparent when I carried all the lenses and accessories piece meal to the hospital for my daughter’s birth.

Previously

With my Canon gear, the size alone, meant you needed bags for the gear. I had a special hiking backpack (for sale right now), a Pelican/LowePro serious storage case, and my shooting bag which is the more classic Domke F-4AF Pro.

I still have those bags, but the Domke proved too large. The camera and lenses swim around in the bag, and it is just too big now. So despite all of that, I wanted a smaller bag which better reflected the smaller size of my tools.

The Search

I really thought I would just get a smaller Domke, as they hold up really well, but I kept looking to Think Tank and Ona Bags as well.

Ultimately, the Ona Bowery in Field Tan led me to the purchase button.

Quality

I was immediately taken aback when I opened up this bag, the fit, finish, and feel of the bag is exquisite. In my opinion it is finished better, and feels better, than Hard Graft bags and at a fraction of the price.

It’s small — though others would say large — but it holds my entire Fujifilm kit just so. This bag is just something special as a bag in general.

The canvas is meant to patina, and comes a bit distressed (I don’t think purposefully). Since owning it the distress keeps coming, and I love every new mark that shows up on it, but one could wax the canvas if bothered.

There are a few really nice touches on this bag that I want to point out:

• The clasp. I am so used to velcro and zippers, that the metal clasp is a refreshing change. It’s silent to use, secures well, and is just all around better to interact with.
• The shoulder strap feels like a smoother seatbelt material. I really love it. It’s smooth, but no so slick that it slides off your shoulder. Really something nice. The DSPTCH straps always slid off my shoulder, but for some reason this strap (though smoother) stays put.
• The trimming on the bag is subtle, but so well done that sometimes I just admire it. I’m trying not to exaggerate, but it really is well trimmed.

Of course, nothing in life is perfect and especially not the accessory pockets on this bag.

At each side of the bag are little pockets to stow stuff. The rear and front pockets are adequate. They don’t secure shut, but they are tight enough that batteries, memory cards, and filters won’t come slipping out.

It’s the end pockets that are the real issue: they are tiny, obstructed by leather trim at the opening, and almost comically useless. I loathe them. They are hard to get anything out of, and not much will fit in them. I’d almost prefer they didn’t exist at all.

The bag is also missing any kind of secured pocket — I’d love to see a zippered pocket on the inside of the flap for storing memory cards, but there isn’t one. In fact aside from the foam padding and interior divider you would be hard pressed to say this is a bag specifically made for cameras. That is both good, and bad.

Overall

This is easily the best camera bag I have ever owned, and quality wise one of the best bags I have owned in any category. It isn’t perfect, and it is pricey compared to like sized bags, but I don’t think I could have made a better purchase for a small camera bag.

Something tells me I will have this bag for quite some time.

Buy It and Support the Site

• Amazon, or in Smoke.
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