Episode: 1977
Title: HPR1977: What's In My Bag
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1977/hpr1977.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 12:44:44

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Hello everyone, mirror shades here again. I want to apologize for the sort of rough quality
I don't have much in the way of recording equipment and that last episode was recorded on a very old Sony tape recorder that actually bit the dust.
So I did manage to scrounge up this microphone. I don't know how well it's going to do.
So we're going to find out hopefully you can between the the janky microphone and my terrible hillbilly accent you can understand most of what I'm saying.
So today I just wanted to talk a little bit about some of the gear that I use. I work for the local school system here in the IT department.
And when it comes to like backpacks and bags and stuff, I have quite a few, well not quite a few. I've probably got three, maybe four.
I'm just about as bad as my wife is with purses. I have, let's see, I have an old beat up target backpack that I bought probably six or seven years ago.
I have a mini Alice pack. If you just jump on Amazon and type in mini Alice pack, you're sure to see what one looks like if you've never seen one before.
It's an older style military backpack. Mine's black as opposed to you know the olive or the camouflage or something.
I also have a engineers field bag which is again a type of military bag. I did replace the strap on that bag because the one it comes with is kind of not good.
But it's a great bag. Let's see what else. I also have a 3v B locks 2 which is what I'm generally carrying right now.
Some of the stuff that I carry with me on a daily basis. I have a multi tool. You just can't go wrong with a multi tool if you work in IT or if you're some kind of technician or engineer and you have to go out on side a lot to work on different things.
I do have a tool bag. It's like a tool bag that has several screwdrivers and stuff. But the multi tool is by far my go to tool. I just about don't leave the house without it.
Mine is a SAG. Mine's the EOD model. I know Leatherman's are very very popular but I really really really love my SAG. I wouldn't trade it for anything I don't think. It's a little heavy but it's very nice. It's never let me down.
Some of the stuff that I carry in my backpack. I live in Kentucky and allergies are a thing here. A really big thing. Even if you don't have allergies, if you live here long enough you will.
I usually keep some ibuprofen and some kind of sinus like decongestin or something with me.
Ibuprofen 2 is good for inflammation. Like I said in my last episode I'm 38. I've got my right knee. It's kind of a bum knee. Sometimes my lower back gives me issues.
I'm just having that on hands. A good idea. Excuse me. Let's see. I usually keep... I've got one of those. It's a little pocket riff. It's a little book. You can go on Amazon and look it up the pocket riff. It's like an $8 book.
It's got all kinds of information. It's not something I pull out very often. But I like knowing that I have it because some of my co-workers think it's silly to carry it around because I've got a smartphone. You can just google whatever you need to know.
But what if you can't? What if you're just happened to be in an area where at that particular moment of time you don't have any sort of internet access.
It's kind of nice to know that you have access to some reference material that doesn't require an internet connection or a charged battery or anything like that.
I also have... It's one of those Stanley... It looks like an ink pen but it's actually screwdriver. There's a hundred different ones of these things out there. They don't cost very much. You can get them on Amazon or whatever.
I try to keep a few pens with me. Never a pen around when you need one and a couple small notebooks.
And also a Sharpie. There never seems to be a Sharpie around when you need one. Sometimes when a hard drive goes bad and needs to be replaced, what we do is...
I have to bring that bad drive back and we'll label it as bad. We'll just write it with a Sharpie bad across the top of it.
Because if you don't, you might set it down. Forget you set it down and somebody will pick it up thinking it's a good drive and it won't be.
So just to eliminate confusion, we label them before we send them off to be destroyed. But there never seems to be a Sharpie around when you're in a classroom.
When I need a Sharpie, I'll like to never find or dry race markers which believe me, they don't help you at all.
I don't know if you ever try to use a dry race marker right on top of a hard drive but it's definitely not what you need.
Let's see. I also usually keep... Well, I'm actually a smoker. I do have cigarettes and a zippo lighter.
I have quite a few old flash drives and SD cards that I keep in one of the smaller pockets on my backpack.
They're various sizes and brands. Most of them are old. I don't think I've got one. It's over eight gigs. It's pretty bad but it's the truth.
And because I work in a school system, I tend to keep hand sanitizer with me because you have to...
a lot of times use the keyboards that are there and you just don't know...
there's hundreds of kids a day who are handling the keyboards and the mice and you don't know what germs are on there.
So keeping hand sanitizer with you is just a good idea because...
Yeah, you just don't want to catch anything. I usually keep some extra DELA batteries with me.
And I have a wireless mouse I keep. I've got my laptop which right now I'm carrying...
it's a Dell E6500, Dell Latitude E6500 which isn't a bad laptop. It's an older laptop. It's seven or eight years old now.
I bought this when used. When I first started working here, I was issued a laptop.
But I wound up returning it because a lot of stuff. It's state-owned equipment.
So the state mandates a lot of stuff. Like you can only run Windows 7 on it.
You have to have my cappy antivirus on it. And I just prefer to have a Linux machine with me to actually get things done with.
So I bought this when pretty cheap. I got it used. It wasn't too bad. It's a little scuffed up but it's okay.
Let's see. I have my smartphone that I carry with me. It's a Nexus 6.
I have an old first gen iPad that I also sometimes carry with me because I usually keep a few e-books on there.
Just in case. Sometimes I'm out. Usually it's for lunch. When I stop for lunch, I like to try to get into a couple of pages of reading or something or whatever book I'm happy to be reading at the time.
And let's see. I'm trying to think. Oh, this sounds silly. But I also carry with me an extra just thing of deodorant because working in a school system.
You never know. Especially with Kentucky weather because it might be 20 today and 70 tomorrow.
And the rooms. The HVAC. I don't know if there's just the way it's run, but you might walk into one room and it'll be it'll feel like a freezer in the next room. We'll feel like another.
And there's a lot of walking involved. Up and down stairs.
You're going to buy lunchtime. You're going to be pretty sweaty. I usually keep an extra thing of deodorant just so I don't stink all the time.
And I also usually carry with me a thermos. Actually, it's kind of funny. That purchase started out as I wanted a really nice travel mug.
And most of the nicer ones. I had some cheaper ones, but I was just tired of the cheap ones. And so I wanted something that was a little bit nicer.
And the only one I could find that was like fairly high capacity. There was like a 24 ounce travel mug. And they wanted it was like 25 bucks or something.
No, that's not going to happen. And I noticed that you can buy thermos, a 40 ounce thermos for almost the same price.
So I wanted to buy a 40 ounce thermos. And I'm definitely a coffee drinker. I drink a lot of coffee. Probably shouldn't, but I do.
And I usually, yeah, that's with me almost every day too. It's kind of like the salt. I usually don't leave the house without it.
Also, that thermos, I got to say, it really works. I've owned some thermos in the past. And they've not been very impressive.
It's a thermos branded thermos. And I can make a pot of coffee in the morning about 7.30 and come home and 11.30 at night. I can pour coffee out of that thing and it's steaming hot still.
I don't know what magic juju they're doing to the thermos nowadays, but they really, really work.
Also, I tend to, especially in the winter, it goes without saying, you know, you want to dress in layers, but I usually wear a hoodie.
I don't know. I think they probably look down on that, but I do anyway because it's a, it's a warm layer that you can take off pretty easy.
So if you're in one of those rooms, it's like an oven, you know, you don't have to swelter to death.
And I actually, one last thing, I don't always take it with me, but I do have a, one of those spare batteries. It's one of those, you know, you plug it in.
It's got like two USB ports on there and you can charge your phone or whatever. It just depends on, it's the kind of thing I really wish I could take with me all the time.
It's a little bulky. Most of the time, my phone gets me through the day out without any issues.
It usually has plenty of battery left when I get home, but I don't know, just one of those things.
What if I go somewhere immediately after work, which almost never happens, but you never know.
It's nice to be able to just, to just charge your phone without having to worry about, you know, finding an outlet or something.
And that's, that's about it. That's usually what I carry with me.
Some days I might throw magazine to in there or something. It just depends.
But that's mostly what I carry with me on a daily basis.
I think that's it for me now. Thanks for listening. Hopefully I didn't bore you. And until next time.
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