Author: Ben Brooks

My family bit off a lot all at once. During the brief COVID-19 pandemic respites, my wife and I had taken small trips here and there without the kids (they were not vaccinated, so they stayed back). Then as they were vaccinated and things opened back up we did a few road trips, not much else.

However, we did plan a big trip to Disney World — a fast, hot, and busy trip for the first big family vacation post-lockdown.

For those who have not been to Disney, or have not been to Disney parks in a while, the one thing to know is that they are never static. The way things work, operate, and the tips seem to change each time I visit one of the parks (I know, first world problems). To that end, I read a ton of guides about what to bring with me, what isn’t allowed, and all that for this trip. Those guides were fine, but I don’t know, they missed out on a few things. So here’s my gear report from the trip, highlighting some things which the guides got wrong or which need to be emphasized more.

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In preparation for coming out of COVID lockdowns, for better or worse, I decided to finally update my beloved Fujifilm X100T. The X100T has simply become too large of kit for me to take everywhere, and too finicky to connect to my iPad (to transfer images) for it to find regular use around the house. I looked at a lot of options before settling on the Ricoh GR IIIx.

This is a fixed lens, APS-C sensor, at a roughly 40mm full-frame equivalent lens. It’s also tiny. And it is completely amazing.

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Once I got more into the flashlights, it was a near certainty I would end up with a BOSS 35 from Oveready — it was more a matter of when. This light is sexy, expensive, and neat. There’s a lot about this light, and most of it is nuanced to love, but I am convinced this light is all show, very little ‘go’ if you will.

So read on to find out why…

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I’ll keep this short, because this pouch sells itself — it’s that good. This pouch is designed for one purpose: to carry extra batteries for your flashlights. Technically you could carry extra batteries for any battery like thing, but really this is designed specifically for the sizes of batteries most commonly found in flashlights.

This is $25, skip and buy now while you finish reading.

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Note: GORUCK sent me this item for review.

This is the one GORUCK bag I have been most skeptical of, so when I was offered a chance to check out this bag, I took it. The <a href= https://tracking.goruckaffiliates.com/392M6MZ/R74QP/?uid=10″>GORUCK GR2 26L in Multicam Black blew away my expectations of what I thought this bag was and is, and quickly found a spot in my bag rotation.

This bag is a killer do-all type bag. Whether it is EDC to the office, holding all the things while you drag the kids about, or anything else life throws at you. The only thing I didn’t get to test this bag for is travel, but I am fairly certain that for those who pack light, this will be a bag they love — read on to see why.

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I love the Mystery Ranch ASAP. And I was fairly certain nothing would unseat my high benchmark on the GORUCK GR1, but then I tried the ASAP and it met and passed the bar. The ASAP does have a flaw, small as it might be, it comes with no laptop compartment. Which means you need to add suboptimal options to the bag to rectify that.

And then, the ASAP SB came out, same bag — except it comes with a laptop sleeve integrated. Oh yes please.

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I have a love-hate relationship with Spyderco knives. I love how easy they are to open with the giant thumb hole, and how slicey the blades are with the thin and tall leaf shape to them. In hand almost any Spyderco feels pretty damned great. But I hate how bulky they are to carry, and how lefty-hostile they make their knives. There are, for sure, a few true lefty knives from Spyderco, but compared to other knife makers they have basically none.

Most useable Spyderco knives for a left are lockbacks — Spyderco, I will note, does not agree as they label their compression locks as lefty friendly. They are wrong, but whatever.

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Something a little different than what I normally post about: I want to bring your attention to an awesome light strip I found. These light strips come in an array of color temps, all are high CRI (90+) and they are pre-installed in an aluminum channel and made to be surface mounted and clicked together to form a long seamless string. Thus they come in 2’ and 1’ lengths. I have two setups right now in 3500k and 2700k.

These ClickBright LED Light Bars are great.

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When I picked up the excellent LBT Daypack 14L v2, I was excited to try my first bag with a fully loop back. I had good success with it on the laptop sleeve I had picked up for the ASAP, and generally felt like the hook backed pouches work far better than I would have imagined.

Turns out, I love hook back pouch systems. And there’s a popular one to modify GORUCK bags: the GR1 Shooter Conversion Sheet from Ruck Customs. I grabbed one to try out, and see how well this would work for one of the all time great bags.

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