Category: Articles

Another custom creation from the same individual who made the beavertails I talked about before. This time it is an admin pocket he made for me, with a standard MOLLE layout for attaching to a PALS grid in my ASAP. This thing is awesome. To get one, you can look on eBay and Instagram or reach out directly to him and have him make you something custom.

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On average, I ruck 6.5 days of the week. I generally only take a day off because I am out of town, my body is sore, or the weather is unsafe (high winds, lightning, rarely heat). And because of the hot and humid climate I live in, the clothing I choose to wear when I ruck is very important for the comfort of the activity.

It’s been a couple years now in Houston where my clothing has been driven from the stuff that will keep me warm and dry enough, to the clothing that will get the sweat off of me and help to keep me from over heating. Here’s the stuff I have tried, and spoiler: only a few of the items are near perfect, while everything else is a series of trade offs.

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I will start by telling you that you can’t buy this bag, at least not directly with any link I can give you. You can readily buy them from other people, and many are new-with-tags because people like to make money from bags like this. When this bag was released, it would set you back $350. Now days, most sell between $500-$750 depending on how many are for sale at that given time — eBay has a few every couple weeks.

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Update 12/13/21: It has been brought to my attention that Tuff Possum Gear has COVID misinformation on their website/blog, this is very unfortunate to hear. Please keep that in mind when/if considering ordering from them.

I love the Pocket Possibilities Pouch from Tuff Possum Gear, but when I ordered those I wasn’t sure how much I might like them so I also ordered the Pocket Tool Pouch to check out as well. At $15 it’s a pretty easy item to buy and check out, but it’s not as good as the Pocket Possibilities Pouch — not even close.

That said, this little pouch has it’s uses — more based on size and ruggedness than anything else.

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When I received my Mystery Ranch ASAP I knew I needed to do something to help tone down the absurd amount of PALs webbing across the face of the bag. I also knew I wanted to get something a little fun and also maybe useful to do accomplish the hiding. So I started looking at Mystery Ranch’s line of ‘stick-its’ which is also known as a Beavertail, or helmet cache. Basically a bit of fabric which is attached to the bottom of your bag, and then clips somehow to the top of the bag — creating an area to carry bulky things.

The issue with the Mystery Ranch variants is that they come in coyote brown, black, camo, or blaze orange — in other words not the color choices which would really help me tone down much. But, there’s a seller on eBay and Instagram who custom makes these out of Ukraine, using whatever pattern you want.

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I really loathe buying device chargers. This isn’t even to complain about the fact that Apple stopped selling them with iPhones, because I never counted those as useable — much too slow. Generally I am constantly needing to buy and change out chargers to find the right balance of size/speed/ports/cost. Faster is better, but faster also means bigger, usually. And then you have costs and what ports you want.

Here’s the bottom line: I don’t like slow chargers; I don’t like bulky chargers; and I don’t like spending tons of money on chargers. And also half of the time my chargers get taken from me by the family, so I get to test all sorts of new stuff. To that end, here’s some chargers I want to direct your intention to…

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For years now, I have kept a ‘wish list’ of items I feel I would be unlikely to buy for myself, but which I very much want. And this particular pen had always been near the top of the list — I never bought it because I wasn’t sure why I would use it over some of the other “nice” pens I have. I did end up snagging this recently after some encouragement from others who have it, and my only regret is that I didn’t buy it sooner because it is stupidly good.

I shall now tell you why it is the best pen I own…

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I’ve been very happy with the Benchmade Proper — a knife I have found to be an excellent for the office. However, this Lion Steel came about after finding a new subreddit r/slipjoints which is dedicated to this type of pocket knife. It’s one of those subs you should not visit if you like having your money in cash form, instead of knife form which is slightly less liquid.

Anyways, in trying to decide which model of the CK lineup to pickup I ended up with the CK01 which has a lot of great materials for a reasonable price at about $127 (changes a little by variant).

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One thing I constantly think about when I am putting together supplies/preps are the two scenarios which are likely worst cases for me: what if the worst natural event hits when I am working, the kids are at school, and my wife is doing her things (meaning she is out, I don’t know where)? Or, what if it hits when we are all at home and sleeping and it is 4am, because 4am is scientifically the worst time — to early to be awake, too late to be awake…

What that event is varies drastically depending on where in the world you live. Those on the West Coast of North America would be foolish to not be taking the risk of earthquakes very seriously, and the mid-southern third of North America can add wildfire risk to the matrix too. In Houston it’s hurricanes, floods, and thunderstorms. Others will have tornados, tsunamis, monsoons, derechos, volcanoes and a variety of other lovely things. These events and wreak havoc, and while you could debate which type of risk you prefer, they all present a high level of risk. A high level of extreme disruption to comfort. And debate all we want, they will happen.

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When I first wrote about this bag back in November I wasn’t back in the office, and as such this briefcase was hard to test. Since that time I have been back in the office, and I have had plenty of time to test it out and put the 3-Way through its paces. And my initial impressions were correct, this is a very good bag for the office, but I don’t think it is the bag for me.

I never planned on this bag being something I used a ton myself, rather I bought it because I had mentioned it in my Get Home Bag post and thought I should put my hands on it, found a decent price on one and snagged it. After that first impression post, I found that I liked the bag, and was excited to give it a go back in the office.

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Some good items I’ve seen on sale for this Memorial Day — typically I ignore posting this stuff but the deals are pretty solid:

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Update 12/13/21: It has been brought to my attention that Tuff Possum Gear has COVID misinformation on their website/blog, this is very unfortunate to hear. Please keep that in mind when/if considering ordering from them.

For years now, I have used heavy duty plastic ziploc style bags as boo-boo kits and storage for other small items in my bags. I have never bought one of these bags — I accumulate them from stuff I buy. But this also means my bags are a hodgepodge and I was often limited in what I could store as they are also either really small or too large to be useful. So I went out and bought several small pouches to try and remedy this problem, and the Tuff Possum Gear Pocket Possibilities Pouch is the clear winner.

This pouch is fantastic.

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Welcome to the Mystery Ranch 3 Day Assault CL, stop here if you are not ready to buy this bag.

This bag is my ultimate go anywhere, do anything, choice — out of all the bags I own, or have tested. It’s that good. I actually thought going into trying this bag, that it would be a bag I would try, and decide was too large to keep — that’s not even close to the case.

There are caveats, so read on…

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I’m not a huge optics guy, I don’t do ‘birding’, I don’t hunt, I don’t shoot long distances… or short distances, and I also don’t go on expeditions. The last time I talked about optics on here was to mention the most excellent Vortex Diamondback binoculars. But in a Member Journal I mentioned trying out a Brunton Monocular, which I did buy, did try, and do hate.

That monocular left me wanting. And here’s the thing, I know that binoculars are better in almost every sense — except in size. So I said screw it and grabbed what I have long wanted in the Vortex Solo monocular. And I really am a fan of this thing.

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