The things you carry

The things I carry change relatively frequently, but the things I carry are fairly consistent. I rarely leave the house without keys, a watch, and my phone. I stopped carrying a wallet for a while because I'm old(-looking enough) to not need ID most of the time, and I rarely make purchases expensive enough to need anything more than Apple Pay. But just recently our local supermarket has been having loads of technical problems so I've had to add my wallet back into rotation. I don't love that.

Other things I carry if I'm going out for the day, obviously change depending on where I'm going, but the above represents things I always have in my bag or in my pocket.

Wallet as mentioned. This one is from Wolfram Lohr. I would love to not have leather, and go for something like a Ridge, but whilst they're putting their big horrible logo on things, I'm stuck with animal pelts I guess. Ridge's designs also scream Rick and Morty fan to me, a little. Like wallets as a personality. Yes I realise I'm blogging about wallets.

Backup battery is an Anker. I wanted this one because it gives you a power draw read-out. I also discovered this one can charge my camera, which is game-changing. It can't push out enough to power a RaspberryPi 5, though, so I expect it'll be replaced soon.

Some sort of hand-held games console this week is a Nintendo 3DS XL that has been hacked to high heaven. The reason for this one at the moment is the Red Viper emulator, and the EZFlash Parallel. I've wanted to play Sonic Colours for ages but couldn't find my cartridge and I hate TwilightMenu++.

Torch is a Zebralight. A Zebralight SC600Fd IV Plus XHP50 Floody 5000K if you want to get precise about it (why wouldn't you). As soon as Giaco releases the Darkfade, this will go in a drawer, or get donated to someone who needs a pointlessly bright light/pocket warmer.

Knife is a little black cerakoted friction folder from Darriel Caston. I wanted something small and I've had this for years and the blade is still sharp. It also has a good pokey bit on the end that I use for threading Peak Design anchors more frequently than I care to admit.

Keys are a lot. Remember when I said about people who base their personality on a wallet. That doesn't apply to keys. The ring is a CW&T Key Wrangler with a Gerber Shard, a tripod screwdriver which I think came with my webcam, and an Airtag (which I use embarrassingly frequently) in a SKLTN from Giaco.

Watch is my most-prized possession. I usually wear an Apple Watch but I have a love/hate relationship with it and I've been trying to wear a normal watch more often. Apple has their claws in me with the ability to unlock my laptop and 1Password though.

Sunglasses are from Cubitts. I don't normally like sunglasses but I should wear them more and you can't do that if you don't have them on you.

Flipper Zero I don't really use in the way most people do. I have it in my bag and when I have downtime I pick a tool and learn what it does. Obviously I don't use any of the dangerous/irresponsible stuff but if you use Unleashed with all the apps there's loads on there that you can use without crashing people's insulin pumps.

Pen and pencil - Parker Jotter with a ceramic rollerball refill, and a Rotring 800. There's better pencils in terms of functionality (yes, pencils can have functionality and yes I love it, and yes I can hear Charlotte rolling her eyes) but they're not really robust enough to live in a bag. This one is robust enough to live in a rock tumbler.

And that's it. Most of the time I bring a camera, sometimes my laptop, a drone, iPad, but always this stuff. I haven't pictured my phone because it's just a phone. I used to love my phone but now I just sort-of tolerate its existence. If a less-tethering device could give me maps and messaging apps I probably wouldn't bother with a smartphone again. I dislike them more with every passing year.