Episode: 637
Title: HPR0637: Every Day Carry 
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0637/hpr0637.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:14:51

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Hi there, this is Brother Mouse and I'm going to do one of the recommended episodes today
on the topic of what kind of gear do you carry if you saw me on the street and said
empty your pockets.
This would be what I physically had on me.
As an organizational tool, I'm going to start from my head and that will kind of help
me keep track of the whole process.
I almost always have sunglasses with me.
My eyes are light-sensitive.
I don't know if it's years of staring at monitors or what, but excessive sunlight and even light
in restaurants and places like that just hurts my eyes and gives me headaches so I tend
to wear sunglasses which means I have sunglasses with me all the time which means that I've spent
years in years destroying sunglasses, sitting on them, losing them, breaking them, scratching
them.
Well, a few years ago I was working for the company that owns Napa, the auto parts
people and we got an employee discount and I was in the store, one of the stores and
noticed these safety glasses they had which were tinted, they were very dark so I looked
at them to make sure that they were UV protective as well, I mean sometimes you can actually
get in trouble by wearing dark lenses that are not UV blocking, but yeah, these are,
these are impact resistant, they have UV protection, scratch resistant, antifog, it was a
pretty neat deal and they look like relatively normal sunglasses, I mean they might be slightly
matrix looking like Neo would wear, but if you saw someone out wearing them, you
would not think that they were safety glasses, you would think that person is wearing sunglasses.
My wife borrowed some from time to time which indicates how normal they look, these are
called crickets and they're made by SAS Safety, I'm going to put a link to a picture of these
glasses in the show notes, the SAS Safety has them on website but it's hard, they don't
make it easy for you to see what these glasses look like, so I'm going to have another
link in the show notes that will give you an idea what they look like, I'm also going
to try to post a picture of everything I took out of my pockets up online somewhere and
I'll put that in the show notes as well.
The good news about these glasses is they are nearly indestructible, the cost on these
glasses at retail over the counter is about five bucks, when I was buying them with my
employee discount it was like three bucks, so I bought it like a dozen of them and so
I just have them in boxes in my garage just in case I lose them, but so far I haven't
been able to destroy any of them, they've been holding up, I can sit on them or close
them in the car door and they're just indestructible, so.
Also up in the head area, I normally have a Bluetooth earpiece with me, I don't talk on
the phone very much, so it's not actually what it's for, I stream podcast audio across
a Bluetooth earpiece, so that if I'm in the store or driving, commuting or working in
the house or whatever, I'm multitasked by listening to podcasts like Agriperlo Gritio,
which is how I found you guys.
So some of the earpieces have A2DP built in and so they natively will stream audio from
the phone, but I am currently using HTC G1, you'll see here just a little bit, Android
phones can send their normal audio over plain mono Bluetooth earpieces using little
apps, they're about three bucks a piece, the one I use is called Super mono BT or something
like that, anyhow you activate it and it just sends all the audio from your phone right
over a plain 10 dollar Bluetooth earpiece, so I do that a lot, in fact I automate that
process with Tasker if you heard my earlier Tasker show.
I found that the trick to not annoying everyone around you when you're listening to podcasts
with a earpiece is to get an earpiece that does not blink when it's in use, for example
the Scala 700, the Jabra 530, which is the one in the picture I want to post for you guys,
neither one of those blink when they're in use or at least when streaming, so you can
be more discreet and not blind people next to you in the grocery store line.
If I'm wearing a shirt with a pocket or a jacket with a pocket, I will have business
cards in my pocket, I have two sets of business cards, one of them is for my teaching duties
and one of them is for contact information on my volunteer activities around town, I
volunteer with a local neighborhood crime watch, and so if I meet people on the street
I hand them one of those cards and it gives them information about how to get involved
with crime watch and how to contact me if they need me and you are able to a dedicated
website that kind of thing.
Also in my shirt pocket or if I don't have a pocket in the button area, I carry generally
a mechanical pencil and a pen, I prefer 0.5 millimeter pencils, although they can be
a little scratchy.
I do have some 0.7s that I have, although I prefer the old Pintel Black Barold 0.5, I don't
think they're made anymore.
If you see the picture online, you'll notice that the ballpoint pen that I have pictured
has a piece of fluorescent orange tape on it, and that's because I'm always in the classroom
and kids are asking to borrow my pen, and so all my pens that I bring with me in the
classroom, I mark with fluorescent tape to remind them to give it back to me when they're
done.
Otherwise, I would go through two dozen pens a day, they would just walk out, I would
go broke trying to buy pens for the student body, so it helps me get them back.
Now at the belt level, things diverge a little bit.
I actually have two different sets of everyday carry.
One of them is normal, just my normal life, and the other one is when I'm in school buildings.
There are things you cannot carry in a school building, and so at least not in my area,
and so I tend to have a stripped down version, and I'll share that with you when we get there.
I tend to wear plain leather belts, usually kind of a dark brown color, and I wear my G1
phone on the belt because it's too big to fit in my pocket easily, and also I can't get
it out when I'm driving.
So I wear that on my belt in the little leather at case that's pictured.
In my normal life, I wear on my right hip, which is my strong side, in other words, my
favorite hand, I wear a concealed firearm, I'm licensed by the State of Texas to carry
concealed weapon, and I do so wherever it's appropriate and legal.
So I use a Don Hume slide type holster on my right side, it's outside the waistband
holster, and in the holster I am generally carrying a Taurus PT111 9-millimeter subcompact.
I have another sidearm, which I do not carry as often, I use it for a different kind of carry,
but I also have a Keltac P11, very similar in form factor to the PT111, so all the muscle
memory is the same. I bought the identical style holster for it, only of course it's shaped
for the other pistol, so there is much alike as possible.
Both of them are quite small, and my hands are average sized, and so my pinky doesn't fit
on the grip. Both of them I have put grip extenders on the bottom, so that my pinky has a place
to go, and I carry them in a 10 plus 1 configuration, and my defensive round of choice is the
Corban 9-millimeter plus P. I've tried carrying larger sidearms, like for example a Ruger P95,
but it weighs about twice as much as these small subcompact weapons that are designed for concealed
carry, and while people think they would like to carry something large, in the real world there's
a difference between what you would like to carry and what you're willing to strap on your body
every single day when you're wearing pants, so that's why I like the very lightweight subcompacts.
Obviously when I'm in a school, I cannot carry concealed, so I do not wear that on my belt
when I'm at work in school. Also on my right side, in normal carry, I have clipped to the inside
of my right pocket, which is my strong side, an original model Spyderco Endura pocket knife with the
half-serrated blade, so from the tip to about the middle point is a plain blade, and then from
about the middle to the back it is serrated, and this has been my favorite knife of all times. I have
carried knives since I've probably been, oh gosh, five years old, which was, you know, about 40 years
ago, and so I've carried, destroyed and lost many, many knives, and this Spyderco, which I've had for
about 10 years, at least, has been my favorite carry knife. It's just amazing. The grip is fantastic,
the thumb hole allows for easy opening, the locking mechanism is positive, but it's easy to close
when you're ready to do so. The plastic handle is not slippy at all, it holds a decent edge.
I dropped it one time and I was opening it, and I dropped it point down on concrete and broke the
tip off of it, and I was sick, and then I was at a gun show a few months later, and there was one
of those, you know, three dollars sharpened any knife dudes there, and so I gave him my three books,
and I mentioned to him how, how mad I was at myself that I had broken the tip off this knife,
and he goes, well, fix that, and he put it on the wheel and re-ground the tip down, and you just
can't tell that it had ever been damaged. This guy really did a fantastic job, not to mention
the fact that those gun shows sharpener dudes make your knife crazy, crazy sharp, so if you ever
have a chance to give those guys three or four bucks to sharpen your knife, don't hold back.
In situations where I know I'll be doing heavy labor, or I'll be in a situation where I think
people would want to borrow my knife, I swap over to one of those utility knives that uses single
edged razor blades utility blades. The one that I prefer, or the one that I carry right now,
is called, is the super knife brand. I think it works really, really well. The only thing I don't
like about it is that you have to have a small screwdriver to change the blade, and that's annoying.
I used to have a super fantastic utility knife. It was one of the first ones that I'd seen on the
market, and it had a very clever mechanism that you could use just with your thumb to change out the
the blade, but it was super positive. In other words, you couldn't you couldn't take the blade out
accidentally. I lost that one. I don't have any idea where it went. Well, a couple of years ago,
I was up at Home Depot, or Lowe's, or whatever, and they had a big five pack of husky knives,
these utility knives, and I bought them, and these things are horrific, horrific. The way that the
blade release is designed, like you can be cutting a box and accidentally trip the blade release,
and your blade goes flying across the room, and you go, ding, ding, ding, across. It's just
it's horrible. I'm going to find all of those and throw them away as how bad they are,
but the super knife one is decent. It's well made. It can be disassembled. It's just not as
amazing as at very first one I saw back in 2005. And of course, I can't carry knives in school,
either. So on those times when I'm physically in school, I don't carry any knife at all.
I tend to go pretty easy on my knives, and I touch them up when needed with some ceramic rods
made by, in this case, the Smiths knife sharpening company. The last thing that gets
jettisoned when I'm in schools is a zippo lighter. I've always been fascinated by the design
of zippo lighters, and pretty much just everything about them. The problem is, since I don't smoke,
is that I would refill the lighter, and within a few weeks, it would just be evaporated. If you
would be evaporated, it would never be ready for me to use. So a few years ago, I ran across a
butane insert. In other words, you take out the guts of your zippo lighter, and you slip in this
refillable butane insert. And so you've got a butane lighter in a zippo case, and it's just
fantastic. It works like one of those little torch lighters. So it doesn't have all the romance
of the NAPFA lighter fluid guts, but for my purposes, it actually works out better.
Before I delve into my pockets, I will tell you that I wear a large ugly geek watch, a Casio G-Shock,
not because I am some kind of wild, adventurous guy, but because I tend to be tough on watches,
and I've destroyed dozens of them in my life so far. So I finally just went over to the
Timex Iron Man, and to the Casio G-Shock watches, and I have not been able to destroy these yet. So
my normal clumsiness and bumping into things, and you know, showering with them on or whatever
has not affected my timepieces. In my pockets then, I want to go front pockets first. In my front
left pocket is my wallet, or when I call my wallet, it's the stuff I carry, cash and cards
bound with one of those bulldog binder clips. It's a plain binder clip like you might find in an
office supply. It holds together whatever cash I have. My driver's license, I concealed carry
license. A credit card, my debit card, and an emergency business card for each of the two
business cards I was telling about earlier. So I have one of each in there, just in case I
forget to carry cards with me elsewhere. They get beat up in your pocket like that,
but anytime I ever have to just deploy those, I always say, oh, I think I have an emergency card
in my pocket. It's going to beat up, but you can still read the text, you know, and so that way
they know that I normally don't treat business cards that badly. Also in that left front
pocket is chapsick. For whatever reason, chaps lips make me nuts. I just can't concentrate
if my lips feel dry. So I always have chapsick with me in my pocket. I tend to carry a softer
stick in the winter, like Carmex makes a stick, and it's easy to imply that when it gets cold,
and then the summer I usually go to a straight chapsick type, more waxy one because it doesn't melt
in your pocket. Also in that left pocket, I have something that looks like a chapsick container,
if you are looking at my online picture, but it's not. It's a screw-off cap container that holds,
you know, a couple of generic, et cetera, and some generic towel doll. Having that little tiny
tube of analgesics has really come in handy. I would say that at least once a month,
I pull something out there either for someone I'm with or for myself, and now if we move to my
right front pocket, perhaps the strangest object I carry with me on an everyday carry basis,
which is a white eraser. I do a lot of paperwork in school, and also in my volunteer duties with
the city here, doing crime watch, and I do most of that in pencil, and I carry one of these white
vinyl erasers because they work so well. They just work so much better than those old pink
erasers that you might remember from your childhood that there's just no comparison. So
the one of the pictures was actually broken in half. I loaned it to one of my students, and he
promptly broke it in half and returned it later. I actually didn't even return it. I found it on
the table after he left. So at any rate, I only have half of a eraser in my pocket, but they last forever.
My left rear pocket is usually empty. I reserve that pocket for change. If someone gives me change
at a register, I put that in my left rear pocket. So it's normally empty. I normally don't have
change my pocket, but if I do, that's where it is. In my right rear pocket, I carry a handkerchief.
I guess this means that I am officially old, but I have found that a handkerchief, and particularly
a full-sized one, not a very small one, but like a full-sized handkerchief, is exceptionally useful.
Not only for blowing your nose, should you need it, but also for
making impromptu bandages or cleaning up spills. Those full-sized ones are actually
big enough that you can do the bandana thing. You can do the old cowboy outlaw. If there's
a lot of particulate matter in the air that you would like to filter out, you can do that.
I would say that almost every single day I find a use for a handkerchief that I found in my back pocket.
The last thing is my key ring. It's actually split. It's one of those kind that you can take a
part in two different pieces, because I also ride a motorcycle from time to time. If I had a bunch of
keys wound up, they can drag on the top of the triple clamp and rattle and beat up the paint on the
bike. I have a very small key ring on one end with my bike keys and car key and a couple of other
things. The other one has the rest of the crap that you might have on a key ring, including a
forgeg flash drive. I picked four because that is the largest of the SD format. Before it goes to
the HC type and it seems to me that more older hardware can see the forgeg rather than larger than
forgeg. I use that what's it called unet booton? Is that the name of that utility? I use that utility to
make that flash drive bootable depending on when you're catching me. It may be a puppy linux
install. It may be a system rescue disk install. It may be a tiny core. It just depends. I would say
that puppy is usually what's on there. I have tried a couple of times to make this flash drive
multi bootable to different ISOs. In other words, I would really prefer to be able to go back and forth
between a puppy tiny core system rescue and maybe something larger like a bunch or something.
But I haven't been able to make it work so far. I got partially working one time
with the system rescue scenario also being able to boot to tiny core. That's as far as I could get
the other linux is we just blow up. So now you know the things that would be physically on my
person if you stopped me in the street and said hi there brother mouse. I appreciate you listening.
Thanks. Bye bye.
