Episode: 1299
Title: HPR1299: What's in my Bag
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1299/hpr1299.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 23:10:19

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Hey everybody, John Culp and Lafayette Louisiana here with a contribution to the What's
In My Bag series.
Got the contents of my bag laid out on my desk at work here.
By the way, my bag is a backpack.
It's a fairly large backpack and it fits a good bit of stuff.
First thing to go in is my laptop, of course, that's the thing that goes in and out the
most.
A lot of this stuff just stays in there and doesn't come out very often.
One of those things is a patch cable, an ethernet patch cable.
It's, I don't know how long it is, it's probably about 10 or 12 feet long and I don't
need it all the time but it's awfully nice to have one when I do need it.
I've also got a little bitty patch cable just over a foot long and I don't remember why
this one's in there.
It's one that I made myself.
I can tell from the way it looks but I don't remember why I put it in my bag so anyway.
It's there.
It doesn't take much space so I'll probably just keep it there.
I've got a couple of adapters.
These are micro SD adapters.
I probably just need to keep one but for some reason I have two of them in there.
Also not a big deal since they don't take much space at all.
So the adapter, here's another adapter too.
This one is for an old phone card that I used to have.
The phone that required this was a Sony 580 or something.
It was not a smartphone.
It was what they called a Walkman phone I think.
It was a pretty cool little phone for playing music and whatnot.
But it had a proprietary formatted micro card to store files on and you needed a special
reader for it.
So this is a USB micro card reader thingy for that phone.
I should probably get rid of it because I don't really need it in the bag anymore.
Now the coolest piece of tech that I carry around in the bag might be my Zoom H1 recorder
which is what I'm using right now to record this episode.
And I've started carrying it with me all the time in the bag just because it's so small
that it fits in there and I don't really notice the weight either.
So I keep my recorder in there.
I use it to record lectures.
I use it to record podcasts and who knows what else meetings.
If I'm going across campus to a meeting somewhere I will bring that thing out and record
the meeting and then whoever has to take care of doing the minutes for the meeting always
appreciates having a recording that they can refer to later.
So the Zoom is great.
I keep that in there along with all of these stuff from the accessory pack to the Zoom which
includes this windscreen which I don't use that much because I don't do much outside
recording.
It also includes a mic stand adapter which looks like the end of a standard microphone
that goes into a regular mic clip and I use that here on my desk.
I've got a regular desktop mic stand for my Shure SM58 mic that I use for other recording
tasks here at the office.
And this little mic adapter just screws into the back of the Zoom.
So I keep that in the bag.
So keep the Zoom's carrying case and the little fold up tripod that the Zoom can sit on.
And also one fresh AA battery which is the size battery that goes into the Zoom.
You only need one to power the Zoom so it's great in that respect also.
I keep a spare battery.
Let's see.
Well, this is not really tech stuff but it protects my tech stuff.
I always keep two or three small ziplock bags in my backpack just in case I have to ride
my bike home in the rain or something.
I want to make sure that my electronics stay in those zipped up tight to keep the moisture
out.
I keep one tool in the bag and it is a Stanley screwdriver.
Now this is really cool.
I'm going to try to find a picture of one of these to show on the show notes.
This one has four possibilities to it.
It's not quite a precision screwdriver set in one piece but it's pretty close.
It's got a large-ish Phillips head on one end and then if you take that bit out and flip
it around and shove it back in the thing, it looks kind of like an ink pin.
You could take this and put it in your shirt pocket and it's got that little clippy thing
like pins sometimes have to hold it on your shirt pocket.
You take the cap off and it exposes the screwdriver bit and you can turn it around to get either
Phillips or flat head.
And then if you go to the other end of the pin-like device and pull the cap off, you get a much
smaller Phillips head and then a flat head on the other end of the bit.
And I use this screwdriver all the time for removing parts of my laptop with the hard drives
and taking little screws out.
It's incredibly useful.
So I always keep one in my bag and incidentally I got one of these for every one of my family
at Christmas a couple of years ago.
It stuck them in their stockings and they really liked them.
They're only about two and a half bucks a piece and they're incredibly useful.
I have at least two of them myself and maybe three.
Keep one in my bag at all times and then I keep one just kind of near at hand at home
as well.
I've got a piece of sandpaper and I don't really know why this was in there.
It's very coarse sandpaper so that makes me wonder why I put it in there.
There must have been a reason but it's been in there probably for a long time and I'll
probably just leave it because it doesn't take up much space and who knows when you
might need a piece of sandpaper.
I also have an assortment of pins and pencils, which I imagine almost everyone has in
their bag.
I've got a fingernail kit which I used to use constantly when I was playing guitar a
lot.
Since I've had my carpal tunnel problems I don't play the guitar much anymore but I
still keep this nail care kit in my bag.
It's got little scissors and nail file, clippers and a bunch of pieces of 600 grit sandpaper
that I used to really smooth out my nails to make them sound good on the classical guitar.
Many a few things left here and one of them is a hankerchief which I don't know if I've
ever used but for some reason it's been in my bag for a really long time probably going
back to previous bags because I think I just transferred everything from my last bag
to the new one a few months ago.
Now there are medical things.
I've got a small container with ibuprofen tablets which I use with some frequency if my
wrists are flaring up or if I've got a headache or if a colleague needs some anti-inflammatories
I will give them some of those.
I've got an albuterol inhaler for times when my allergies are really flaring up.
Also during allergy season I tend to need cough drops and so I've got some cough drops
on my bag and finally the last thing here is a container of dental floss.
So I hope that's been entertaining, that's what's in my bag.
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