hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4245.txt

Episode: 4245
Title: HPR4245: What's in my bag?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4245/hpr4245.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:58:36

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4245 for Friday the 8th of November 2024.
Today's show is entitled What's in My Bag.
It is part of the series What's in My Toolkit.
It is hosted by train and is about 21 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is an impromptu What's in My Bag episode from the Reserve Q.
You are listening to a show from the Reserve Q.
We are airing it now because we had free slots that were not filled.
This is a community project that needs listeners to contribute shows in order to survive.
Please consider recording a show for Hacker Public Radio.
Hello Hacker Public Radio listeners.
This is Trey.
The other day I was listening to Swift 110 record a What's in My Bag episode.
And I thought, well, that's kind of me to hear what other people have in their bags.
And later that day I had gone into my closet and thought, wow.
My backpack's been sitting there for a couple years undisturbed.
Maybe I could record a What's in My Bag episode.
And then today I found out that I need to do some traveling.
And as a result, I want to use my bag.
So I'm going to go ahead and record an impromptu episode.
This is very different than what I usually record.
I usually script it and work it out and try to figure out all the details.
And this is just going to be off tough impromptu recorded on my phone.
So try to get my old person body down onto the ground to look at this bag.
Now this bag, this bag is a Swiss gear bag that I got back in probably 2014.
And I used it a lot.
I carried it back and forth to work on a daily basis.
I would take it when I would travel and things like that.
But mainly I would take it back and forth to work.
And it would have many things in it that I would use that were work related.
So outside of the bag, it's a black bag.
Reinforce handles can carry a lot of heavy load.
On the outside of the bag, I have a little stuffed Mickey Mouse
that my daughter brought me from one of her trips to Disney World.
And he is wearing a silicone bracelet that you can get to have different messages on them.
This one happens to say leukemia awareness.
And that's in memory of my mother who passed from leukemia many, many years ago.
Also on the outside of the bag, I have a squeeze tube of hand sanitizer
that has probably expired.
I do not see a date on it.
I believe I got this one from a security conference several years ago.
That is going to be removed as much as I love having hand sanitizer
and use it on a regular basis.
I don't think that this is going to be effective.
So that is going to be removed and go in the trash.
Part of this adventure heading to the bag is going to be figuring out
what can be removed and what needs to stay.
So now we are going to go into the back of the bag.
In the back of the bag, I have an external laptop monitor.
I think that is going to stay right there.
Usually I would carry two laptops in this bag, my personal laptop and my work laptop.
And that is what I am going to do for this trip coming up here.
So I am going to keep that external monitor in the back there in that laptop pocket.
In the second laptop, laptop pocket.
It is just empty because none of my laptops are in there.
The work laptop that I used at the time when I was carrying this bag
has obviously been returned to work.
I don't have that job anymore.
And that was when I retired this bag to my closet as I was working from home
after that with my daily job.
So anyways, that is empty, but it will be populated with a laptop.
Okay, now we have got a small pocket on the top here, and I am going to open that.
And it has got a lot of lens cleaning wipes in it and a microfiber cloth and some ear buds
which have a USB-C connector on them so that I can use them with my phone
in the event that my Bluetooth earbuds decide not to work.
Many many lens cleaning wipes.
Probably more lens cleaning wipes than I generally would need.
That's where I would keep those.
And that pocket I keep my reading glasses in when I am traveling.
So we will leave that just the way it is and we will go to one of the side pockets here.
This side pocket has a paracord in it.
Wow, quite a bit of paracord.
Why is this?
This paracord came loose from the bundle I had it in.
Probably 20 feet of paracord.
You never know when having paracord might be helpful or advantageous because young
you might need it in and down for who knows what.
So I am going to quickly straighten this out and coil it back up again.
And tuck it back into that pocket.
Goodness, it took longer than I expected.
You all don't want to listen to me pretzel on and on and about paracord.
But it is fun and you can use it for a lot of different things.
All right, wrap it around twice, put it through there twice so that I can untie it,
but not have a tangled mess.
All right, that's going back into the pocket.
And there we go.
I'm going to flip over to the other side, large pocket on the other side.
I have amateur radio handheld transceiver.
Yeah, it's advantageous to keep that around as I'm going here and there and listening to things
to make sure that I can communicate in the event of an emergency.
And let's see, I've got a backup antenna for my handheld transceiver.
I have a backup antenna for my handheld CB radio transceiver, which is not in here.
That's for a citizen's band.
I've got a backup antenna for the, this is another CB radio antenna.
Okay.
Very good, then.
I'll just put that back in there and I'll back up battery for the CB radio.
Very good.
All right, well, I'm going to close that.
I'm going to take that back up battery.
Oh, there's more in here.
Oh, my employee ID's from the previous occupation that I probably don't need anymore.
Those should have been turned in.
I think I'm going to hang on to this one as a bit of a souvenir just because I worked there for many, many years.
And these will be thrown out.
All right.
Let's see what else we have.
I'm going to close up that pocket.
Now there's a little pocket on the outside there and I have a small technical flashlight that I keep in that pocket.
And I will hang on to that as well.
Make sure that stays in there.
Okay.
Now, one of the smaller front pockets will open that up here.
And let's see.
I've got, wow, a number of pens in here.
I've got a red Sharpie ink pen that, wow, still has ink in it.
It's not dried out.
That is surprising.
And another black Sharpie ink pen that also still has ink.
This is crazy.
And they were stored tip up, which is odd, usually the ink flows away.
A black ballpoint pen, which is dried out, that's going to go into the trash pile.
A blue ballpoint pen, which is also dried out.
Yep.
That's going into the trash pile.
And another black ballpoint pen, that still works.
All right.
That we're going to keep here.
Excellent.
What else do we have?
Some styluses.
Found some styluses for touch pads and touch phones and stuff.
I bought a package of five of those.
And the two, three are still in the package.
I've used two and moved them to different places where I could have them handy.
I still have the package of the styluses there.
I don't know why I kept that in my bag, but I did.
That is unusual.
And more hand sanitizer with an expiration date in 2010, expiration April of 2010.
That is also going in the trash pile.
That's good that I'm going through here.
I've got some hearing protection.
Hearing protection is always good to have.
Sometimes if I was in louder areas or around the backup generators,
then that hearing protection was helpful.
And I've got some black rubber gloves which were handy when working on some certain types of printers
that liked to leak toner all over the place so that I could work with those.
We've got some Tylenol and ibuprofen because I'm an old man.
My back hurts from time to time and having those is helpful.
And the dates, yes, those are still in date.
That is very good.
All right, well, we're going to keep those.
We're going to keep those because those are still in date.
Some scrap paper.
Oh, dear.
What is this?
This is my set of lock picks.
These are always handy.
You never know when you'll need these.
I'm used these in a two previous jobs ago.
Sometimes when I had to get into computer cabinets that had like networking equipment
and things after hours when the people who maintained the keys were not there
but the people who needed the network up and running were there
and they were complaining that you needed to get in here and get this router repaired or replaced
or what have you.
So yeah, started carrying those.
I don't know that I'm going to take those on my trip though.
So I think I will remove those for now.
Some states in the United States don't like it when you carry what they call burglary tools.
So that's going to be removed from there.
Okay, and here my passport, yes, I'll keep that even though I'm not going to be doing any type of travel
that will actually need the passport.
I'm going to go ahead and keep that in the bag.
All right.
And now, drama roll, please, the main pocket of this bag where everything goes to never be seen again.
All right.
At the very top of there, there's a little pouch.
In that pouch I have more hearing protection.
You know, you can never have too much hearing protection.
A little foam ear plugs, disposable ear plugs that you can put in your ears when you're having a lot of noise.
And I've got a little container of SD cards, two gig SD card.
I have to take a look at that.
That's probably got pictures from my camera on there.
That might be my backup card for the times when I go take pictures and forget my card.
I've got a set of disposable, probably cheap earbuds from a security company that was giving them out of swag at a security conference.
Those are going to go into the trash.
All right.
Let's see what else we've got here.
I've got a little container here.
What is this?
This has.
Oh, it's got silicone earpieces that fit my Bluetooth headphones.
So that when I lose the little silicone earpieces, I have these as backup.
I'm going to hang onto those because you never know when those little silicone pieces are going to pop off.
And then your earbuds don't fit in.
And then you can't listen to Hacker Public Radio.
All right.
Delving now into the depths of the pocket.
I have another larger zipper pouch.
And this zipper pouch contains USB cables.
USB A micro USB USB C.
Is that HDMI?
That's HDMI.
Wow.
So a collection of assorted cables and wallwarts.
Yes, the back part of this has various different USB chargers.
I never knew when I needed to charge different things.
I'm definitely going to be keeping that in the bag as I travel.
I want to make sure that I can charge all the things that need to be charged.
All right.
What else is in here?
There is a precision mini screwdriver set.
Husky 22 piece precision ratcheting screwdriver set.
Fairly inexpensive set that I got at Home Depot many years ago.
And the reason I bought it, it was less than $20.
But it had a lifetime warranty on the bits and on the driver handle itself.
And I've had to replace the bits that broke on occasion.
And I just call the number and they send me the replacement one.
And it goes right back in the pack.
Did that for many years.
And then I called in for one.
And they said, well, we don't make that size anymore.
We've changed the sizes to something completely different.
We'll send you a whole new set.
But this one's not under warranty anymore.
You kind of call for this one again.
So it served me for many, many years and still have it.
And all the bits that are in there are good.
So that will go back in there.
Because you never know when you need a small micro screwdriver set.
All right.
What else do we have here?
We have...
Oh, yes.
A USB solar wall charger.
You can set it out in the sun and it will charge.
Or you can plug it into a US mains electric and it will charge a little battery pack.
And then you can charge your devices off of it.
It's got two standard USB ports on it that you can charge from.
And then it's got a micro USB input port that you can also use.
You want to charge it from your computer.
So that's handy to have.
It's back up power.
In fact, let's go ahead before we put that back in there.
Let's take it out and look at...
Yeah, it's only half full.
So I'm going to plug that into mains power so that it is ready and charged.
All right.
We have...
We have the power system for that laptop monitor that I had in the back there.
Portable laptop monitor.
That would definitely want to keep in there.
What else do we have?
We've got a backup mouse, a real optical mouse.
Not a... not one with a ball in it.
Real optical USB mouse is a backup.
Not a fan of using the touchpad I can, but I have the backup mouse there.
Another pack of the silicone earpieces for my Bluetooth headphones.
I continue to get the same Bluetooth headphones.
They last me about a year or two, and I continue to buy the same ones over and over again.
And as a result, I collect the earpieces.
Because I know that they will continue to work for me.
All right.
That will go back in there, because you never know when I'm going to need those.
Oh!
A deck of cards.
Now, this is not any deck of cards.
This is a copy of Backdoors and Breaches by Black Hills Information Security.
And it is a deck of cards that you can use to help put together simulated security events or desktop.
Desktop exercises where you sit around and you pretend you're having a security event
and different things happen.
It adds an element of randomness to it and help people think through the processes of incident response.
If anybody is interested in having me go through Backdoors and Breaches as a...
as a Pack of Public Radio episode, let me know.
Let me know when I will do that.
I will go back into the bag.
Let's see.
We have the Charger for my personal laptop.
We have another power bank.
This one is not solar.
This is just a large 30,000 milliamp hour...
111 watt hour lithium battery pack.
And pushing the button, it says 99%.
It has held a charge quite well.
So that will go back in the bag.
I have a small section, small bundle of small, probably two gallon size, maybe three gallon size track bags.
I used to do some work with printers and having toner cartridges that were going all over the place.
So having the trash bags to be able to deal with toner and other things like that was exceedingly helpful on occasion.
All right.
Oh, there's the 20-sided die that I like to use with Backdoors and Breaches.
And the pouch I usually keep the Backdoors and Breaches game in.
So that's going to go back in the pouch, back in the bag with the die.
Excellent.
And finally, at the very bottom of the last thing in the bag, why is this?
Is a small set of very inexpensive binoculars.
Why are these in here?
I have no idea.
I think I might have taken these on an adventure with my son when he was young.
He's now graduated from college.
I have no idea where I have these in here.
I'm not a stalker.
I really am not.
I don't even play a stalker on TV or on Hacker Public Radio.
So these are cheap inexpensive plastic binoculars.
I think I'm going to remove them and donate them to the local thrift store.
So that some of the else can get some enjoyment out of them.
That is my episode of what's in my bag.
Now I have to go through and put all the things that are going to go back in the bag.
But I won't make you listen to that.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a comment.
If you have absolutely hated this episode, also please leave a comment.
And record your own episode with content that is more in liking with what you and other people of similar mindsets would enjoy.
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I think I'm going to go ahead and record this and stick it in the emergency queue or the reserve queue so that it's available whenever it's needed.
And it's not of specific timeliness, so have a fantastic day.
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