Year: 2021

When I posted my review of the Mystery Ranch Front I thought I had found a bag which was going to start walking away with praise — and I mostly did. It’s such a stupidly good bag, and while not perfect (especially for EDC) it is just good. Then Mystery Ranch discontinued it (I hold out hope it comes back) so I felt the need to see what some of its sibling bags offer. Specifically, the most readily available to US customers, the Mystery Ranch ASAP.

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Over in my member-only Discord (you are in there right? You should be in there, great way to not feel guilty about buying many amazing things) I was lamenting about how I don’t love all the duraflex and other buckles on my bags. And how I wished that more of them were Fidlock or Cobra. Turns out (thanks members) that you can get split bar V-Buckles from Fidlock.

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I’ve long wanted, desired, and drooled over the Hill People Gear Kit Bags — alas I cannot really see a practical use for those in my current day to day life (rest assured I shall buy as soon as I have a solid excuse to do so). But, during one drooling session, I came across the Hill People Gear Belt Pack, which is one of their smaller Kit Bags attached to a belt strap instead of the chest rig.

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I am not sure where to start with this light: the price, the output, the form factor, or the general popularity? Because it checks just about every box, and the brand in general has such a wide array of offerings that everyone will find something they like there.

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I’ve been carrying a sling style bag for a while now, and before that a small satchel field bag. Over that time my bag has ballooned in the amount of stuff in it, and then predictably slimmed back down as I sorted out what I actually need. I figure with more people getting vaccines and trying to venture tenuously back into the world, I would update you on some of the items I find most useful.

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There’s a chance this is end game level here. Only time will tell, but this is an extremely good keyboard which gives me a nice hybrid solution of Bluetooth and mechanical, while being very low friction to use. I love this keyboard, so no more fluff, I’ll tell you why you need one or two.

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Warning, there be affiliate links here.

Here’s some things that caught my eye which the 20% off coupon applies to:

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I found out about this company by happenstance and immediately liked a lot of the pouches they sell. If you go look today, you’ll see that many out out of stock — I have this one because it was in stock when I went to order one. It’s the Tech Organizer, though you will note that my pictures look different from the website pictures. I don’t know which one is the current model and which is the old, but functionally they are close enough.

I’ve not been using this for tech, but rather as a slim organizer for my day hiking bag. It is fantastic, so let me share why.

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I had been meaning to write about this topic for sometime now, and in anticipation of it, I went ahead and bought a few more headlamps. Partly because I found a new need for them, and partly for this post. And then this topic came up on the member Discord a while back, and I was surprised to learn my thinking on this matter was more common that I thought, but also it meant I needed to test one additional light before publishing this.

So, with that said: what makes for a good headlamp?

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I have quite a few bags at my house, and some of them are kept around because there’s no money to be had in selling them (meaning they won’t sell for a price I would be willing to part with them) and some are kept around for my wife or the kids to use, and the rest are for me. So what the hell do I use my bags for? Well, let me tell you (I have left the ones I keep for the family or because I can’t sell them off this list):

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At the end of 2020, GORUCK released the all new version 3.0 of the Rucker. This model had a lot of hype around it from GORUCK as they consistently stated that it was the most comfortable Ruck they have ever used. That’s a statement for sure. But GORUCK only initially released the smaller 21L model, which is a touch too short for my longer torso. So I impatiently waited for January to come around and GORUCK to release the 25L variant.

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