This week: my move to Boulder; dressing like a bear; cost per wear; and the AirCard E.
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Year: 2024
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Topo Designs Global Briefcase — Quick Impressions
A little over a year ago, my kids both switched their school backpacks over to Topo Designs backpacks — and since then they have fallen in love with those backpacks while at the same time those backpacks have held up nearly perfectly for them. And that data point has impressed me enough that I’ve been wanting to pick up a Topo Designs bag to test and review for myself.
I decided to grab the Global Briefcase in Olive — and I’ve been testing it for a bit now. It’s a very good bag, but not really my cup of tea, so my testing is abbreviated on this one.
Here are my impressions after using it for two-ish weeks.
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Member Journal — 5/13/24
This week: let’s talk about expensive new iPads, and a $20 bag.
## iPad prices are too damned high
One of the core benefits of this site is, unlike many other sites, I am not chasing page views. I am not even really chasing new members — so much as I chase retaining the current members (big thanks to those who Memberful tell me have been members for 7+ years now, *wow*). That single focus allows me to avoid frantically posting coverage and hot takes (or publish them if I want) — instead I often sit back and publish more measured hot takes whenever the hell I please. If you want those hot-hot takes, come hang out in the Discord.
But, here’s my thoughts on the new iPad Pros:
Let’s dive into this, shall we? Because this was an event I was waiting for, anticipating buying new devices after, and am let down by.
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Filson 24hr Briefcase, One Year Later
It’s been over a year now since I declared that I was going all in on the 24hr Briefcase as the primary bag I take into the office. This change has actually held true over that stretch to my own amazement. The only time I deviate is for testing other bags or when I needed a larger bag to tote some extras to or from the office.
I am not sure I’ve stuck with a bag this long for office use, and that alone is a testament to how great the 24hr is.
It’s almost perfect in every scenario I need it to be used for. And it’s so good that I regularly consider bringing it as a personal item over other travel shoulder bags I have on trips. (My original review is here.)
I wanted to revisit this bag now that I’ve had a lot of use and time with it. Combining it with all the other variants/colors of this bag, I am coming on nearly two years of using a 24hr Briefcase. I am more confident now than ever that this is the best bag you can choose for office carry.
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Hardgraft Notebook Wool Wrap – Quick Thoughts
I picked this particular item up to serve a very specific purpose, to carry very non-specific gear. I often run into a situation where I have some smaller things I need to stow somewhere in a bag. I need to easily pull them back out of the bag, or to get at them while they remain in the bag. Sometimes this is for travel on a plane or by car. Other times it’s heading out with the kids for the day.
The items vary widely and I wasted a lot of time trying to dig through my pouch pile to find something suitable. So I set out to find a pouch which would work well enough across all my uses. I’ve kind of found it in the Hardgraft Notebook Wool Wrap.
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Meermin Unlined Penny Loafer
Note: Meermin provided these loafers for review.
I am a boot guy, or at least I was pretty sure that I was a boot guy. But, my pal, kept telling me that I needed to up my loafer game and that they are vastly better than I think they will be. I dipped my toes in a while back with some suede tassel loafers, but had been longing for a classic penny loafer.
When I saw that Meermin was releasing this unlined, soft calf leather loafer, I couldn’t wait to give them ago. In the world of loafers, pricing is all over the place, and climbs rather quickly. Meermin, by contrast, offers a really nice looking loafer at an extremely competitive price.
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Last Day of ROKA Sale
Quick count: I have four pairs of ROKA sunglasses. They all are in my car next to my drivers seat. You might be thinking “that’s overkill”, and yet what I am thinking is “could I get away with one more pair?”
These sunglasses are supremely lightweight, the lenses are excellent, and the style range is fantastic. In fact, my only complaint with ROKA, is that the Phantom XL seems discontinued before I could get a preferred style in it. (The Phantom, though, is still around.)
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Malkoff Bodyguard Reflector, Fantastic Light to Pickup
The fine folks over at Kosen have a really cool Malkoff model available. It’s a standard Bodyguard light with a few changes: 519a emitter, tail shroud, and a reflector instead of an optic.
The big deal on this is the reflector. The standard Bodyguard (review here) has an optic so it is a little narrower of a beam. This reflector has a much better (IMO) beam shape, which makes it even more useful. Like I said in my review, this light is a one trick pony, but it’s a good fucking trick.
Activating the light means it always comes on at high — and it’s really bright. After 8 seconds it drops down to a light output it can sustain for a long time without heating up too fast. You are probably like: “8 seconds, too short”. But when you get this light, you will be like: “man 8 seconds is almost too long”.
I wasn’t going to post about this when they dropped, as I thought there was no way I would have time to post before they sold out. But this run must be larger than I thought. Now is your chance to get one. Malkoff doesn’t sell these directly, only Kosen does (but Malkoff still did all these changes).
And just in case you think this light is really large, it’s not. Here’s it next to a Hoku Clicky:
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Soulver 3 — iPhone App Available
Soulver has long been one of my favorite little apps. I’ve been using an ancient version on my iPhone, as they never released version 3 for iPhone (only Mac and iPad).
Until now.
Soulver 3 is now available on the iPhone. It has a 30 day trial, and a one-time $14 purchase.
I’m pumped, instant buy.
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Style & Backpacks — A Scale of Bag Formality & Style
I was getting ready to write a post about where I am at with my gear this year. As well as another longer term look at a few Filson bags, then I realized: there is an underlying notion of aesthetics and style which is hard to address when looking at a singular bag.
As I focus more of my attention on my own style, one common thing I read/hear/see is that you should never wear a backpack unless you are hiking — or some shit like that. This usually comes about from men older than I — people who only equate backpacks with hiking or school.
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Trakke Bairn and Bairn Pro — Quick Thoughts
Trakke’s recent offerings are becoming more and more appealing to me, while at the same time the pricing seems — it’s a lot. I picked up both of these bags second hand, which is a good way to save money and get a sense of how they wear overtime. They are both quite good, but flawed in their own ways.
These bags are a meld of modern layouts and ideas, married with more classic aesthetics. They feel like they sit somewhere between something like DSPTCH/Defy and Filson. I am not going to go very deep, as I didn’t use either for extended time — but enough to get a good sense of what they are and aren’t.
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Zero Tolerance 0545
Over the holidays, I found myself in an outdoor store which sold Zero Tolerance knives (among others) and I played with a few of their models. Some were models I had thought about picking up over the years, and some were simply the type of knife you appreciate existing, while never wanting to own. Unknown to me at the time was that the ZT 0545 existed, but when I got back from the trip I started to look at ZT in general as I was impressed with the offerings I handled.
Because of the action and the thin nature of the ZT knives I handled, I needed to get one. Coming across the ZT 0545, with a MagnaCut blade — it seemed like a perfect match, if a little large. I went for it.
I am glad I did, because this knife is very good, and likely underrated in general.
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Tactile Turn’s Slim Side Click Limited Releases (Short Length)
Tactile Turn and Tactile Knife both make outstanding products. The pens from Tactile Turn always were slightly off for my use. A little oddly slippery horizontally, while finding superior grip vertically. And then there was the bolt, a fun fidget toy, but an inefficient writing mechanism.
I assumed I was not the target market of these pens. However, I kept staring at the images of the Tactile Turn Nitro seasonal release Side Click pen. The color are my colors. It looked so neat, I decided to grab it in the Slim Short variant — this would hold the refills I was looking to use: OHTO’s Flash Dry refills (a left-hander’s dream).
And, what I found is a pen that I have now bought in two more iterations of ‘seasonal’ releases. As it is an outstanding pen from Tactile Turn.
